Tag: Merthyr Express

Memories of Old Merthyr

We continue our serialisation of the memories of Merthyr in the 1830’s by an un-named correspondent to the Merthyr Express, courtesy of Michael Donovan.

An extract from the 1851 Public Health Map showing a more detailed view of the area covered in this article.

We must now start from the Dynevor Arms towards the Iron Bridge. A curriery premises was erected and for some time carried on a little way down on the right hand by Messrs M. Davies and Wayne. This was one of the Davies’s of Pantyscallog and a Wayne of the Gadlys, but Mr Wayne migrated to the Carmarthen Tinplate Works, which he carried on for many years.

Anterior to the curriery there was in this very locality a nailmaker working by the name of Samuel Jones. At this time all nails were made by hand (cut and wire nails not yet known). They were all made of slit rods, a process that, as far as South Wales works are concerned, has entirely ceased, and the making of a nail was really a good specimen of the handicraft. There was a small bellows blowing upon the point of the nail, and the work was always carefully held so that the air current passed up the rod. The why and wherefore of this has many a time been thought over, and I acknowledge that no satisfactory solution has ever been found.

Lower down was the residence of of Mr Coffin, who, in addition to curriery, was, or had been, the clerk of the Small Debts Court, and thus became very obnoxious to some, so that at the time of the Merthyr Riots his house and furniture suffered damage at the hands of the mob. One of his daughters afterwards married Mr Thomas Wayne, and resided at Glancynon, near the Gadlys. The other married a Mr William Llewellyn, of Abercarn, the then mineral and other agent of the Llanover Estates. There was a jeu d’esprit in the Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian in or about the time of Mr Wayne’s marriage, showing how very careful he had been, for he not only obtained a wife, but a coffin also.

The British Schools followed Mr Coffin’s garden, and then the Three Horse Shoes Inn, kept by a Daniel Stephens. The next and adjoining was the premises of Mr John Bryant, whose curriery was (as Mr Coffin’s was also) across the road, and Mr Bryant also took Pride’s storehouse for his trade purposes after the railway had rendered canal traffic obsolete, or rather obsolete as far as shop goods were concerned, to Merthyr at that time.

The Three Horse Shoes Inn. Next door is the Kirkhouse, built on the site of the British School. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

Close to Mr Bryant’s house is a way to Aberdare, which joins the road up from the Dynevor Arms, close beyond Mr Jeffries’ house. On the opposite side of this opening was the Cyfarthfa Surgery. Mr Edward Davies was the head, and in physique always reminded me of the Emperor Nicholas of Russia. Years after, Dr Davies lived at the Court House, and practised after he had left Cyfarthfa. The Miners’ Arms was adjoining. The residences coming next were built by a Mr Teague subsequently.

Bridgefield Terrace with the Miners’ Arms at the centre. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

To be continued at a later date…….

A New Merthyr

The following article by the renowned Merthyr-born architect Arthur Trystan Edwards appeared in the Merthyr Express 70 years ago today…

Merthyr Express 10 February 1951

Memories of Old Merthyr

We continue our serialisation of the memories of Merthyr in the 1830’s by an un-named correspondent to the Merthyr Express, courtesy of Michael Donovan.

A map by John Wood of Georgetown in 1836 showing the area (George Street) covered in this article.

In a cottage in the row, say 6 or 8 doors up, there was an old blind man, Thomas Evans, who had been a hammerman at Cyfarthfa. He was of the scientific society at the ‘Dynevor’, and was pleased if anyone would sit and read to him (this said advisedly and from experience).

Two dwellings followed owned by Mr David Williams (known as Williams of Pontyrhun). He was a widower, and had a family of two sons and two daughters. One of the later kept a school, but became Mrs John Jones (druggist etc.) of Aberdare. One of the sons, John, was the editor of the Silurian paper, which started at Brecon in the Whig interest, to whom the late Mr Peter Williams, of the Merthyr Telegraph, was apprenticed. The other son emigrated to Australia.

At the top, not many doors from the gate house, Mr Thomas Shepherd, then the cashier at Cyfarthfa Works lived. He removed to Navigation House after the death of Mr George Forrest, and then became superintendent of the Glamorganshire Canal.

Restarting from the bridge and crossing the tramroad, some short distance up on the left, a Mr Walter Morgan resided. He had been brought up as a solicitor, but was then in the brewery business. The brewery was situated behind the house, and had entrance from a road at the back.

An extract from the 1851 Public Health Map showing a more detailed view of the area in question. Mr Morgan’s Brewery (by 1851 called the Ship Brewery) is marked.

Mr Morgan had two daughters and one son. The eldest married, but her painfully sudden death seemed to show that she was not happy. The youngest became Mrs Macnamara, wife of a barrister, who became judge of one of the East Indian courts. Her brother, who also was a barrister, became the same, but whether both were in Calcutta or elsewhere cannot be recalled.

The ascent was steep shortly after passing Mr Morgan’s residence. A Captain Oakey lived in residence on the left and overlooked the flat portion of Georgetown etc. He had been at sea for many years and then lived retired.

Upon Mr Crawshay – the grandfather of the present generation – buying a lot of old stores from Woolwich, they were sent to Cyfarthfa to be manufactured into bar iron, and there were some pieces of ordnance as well as round balls amongst the lot. Mr Robert Thompson Crawshay had one at least of the cannons taken to the tip above Nantygwenith and fired them (for I think there was more than one). The good old captain, who was enjoying his siesta upon the first firing and stretched upon his sofa, from association of his past life rolled himself off the sofa and on to the floor. So strange is habit.

Hill House – the home of Captain Oakey. Hill House was later the home of several generations of the Williams Family for many years. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Above Captain Oakey’s was the house occupied by Mr Jeffries, the blast furnace manager at Cyfarthfa. There were then no other houses except an isolated cottage or two until Penyrheolgerrig was come to.

To be continued at a later date……

Cefn Cemetery

by Carolyn Jacob

Cefn-Ffrwd is the largest Cemetery in the Borough covering approximately 40 acres.

Cefn Cemetery in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In the nineteenth century burial was a huge problem here. In a hundred years Merthyr Tydfil grew from a Parish of just over 500 persons to the only large town in Wales with a population of over 50,000 in 1850. During the 1849 cholera outbreak there were over 1,000 deaths in one month alone. Infant mortality was high and other diseases such as smallpox and TB were rife. Not all the chapels and churches had their own burial ground and the responsibility for burial lay with the Parish Authorities.

In 1850 there were three Merthyr Tydfil Parish Burial Grounds, the Graveyard around St. Tydfil’s Church, the Cemetery in Twynyrodyn and the new so called ‘cholera’ Cemetery in Thomastown. Dowlais had two Parish cemeteries, St John’s Church and a small cholera cemetery near the Works. This was a time when cremation was unheard of, and these soon became inadequate.

The Board of Health, founded in 1850, took advantage of a new Act of 1852, which empowered them to set up Cemeteries and leased land in Breconshire to set up a new Cemetery. The Cemetery was managed by the Burial Board. The first burial took place on 16 April 1859. The Ffrwd portion of the Cemetery was added in 1905, the first burial being on 20 November 1905.

The bridge connecting the old cemetery with the new Ffrwd section during construction in 1905. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Average burials in the nineteenth century were around 400 annually. In 1878 the son of one of the gravediggers set fire to the ‘dead-house’ of the Cefn Cemetery and a report of 21 of December 1878 described the ‘unseemly behaviour’ of children frequently climbing about the monuments of the Cemetery.  In 1902 when the road to Cardiff was widened a large section of the St Tydfil Graveyard was removed and the ‘remains’ were moved to Cefn Coed Cemetery. Those reburied included Charles Wood, who erected the first furnaces at Cyfarthfa.

Easter was a traditional time for ‘flowering the graves’ and a report in the Merthyr Express of 26 March 1916 records that:-  ‘at Cefn Cemetery on Friday and Saturday, relatives of the dead attended from long distances to clean stones and plant flowers’. 

Cefn Coed became a Municipal Cemetery for Merthyr Tydfil in 1905. Welsh Baptists were buried in unconsecrated ground and Roman Catholics in consecrated ground. There is a separate large Jewish Cemetery at Cefn Coed and there is an index to all the Jewish burials in Merthyr Tydfil Library.

There are many famous people buried in Cefn Coed Cemetery including:-

  • Enoch Morrell, first Mayor of Merthyr Tydfil and the Welsh Miners Leader who had to negotiate the return to work after the General Strike.
  • Redmond Coleman, the boxing champion of Wales at the beginning of the twentieth century.
  • Adrian Stephens, inventor of the steam whistle.
The old cemetery buildings at Cefn. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Fire at Merthyr

110 years ago today a serious fire occurred in Merthyr Town Centre. The report, transcribed below, appeared in the Merthyr Express on 24 December 1910.

FIRE AT MERTHYR

SERIOUS CONFLAGRATION NARROWLY AVERTED

On Friday evening last a fire broke out in one of the offices comprising part of the premises of Messrs. H. W. Southey & Sons and the offices of the Merthyr Express in Glebeland-street, Merthyr, which, but for its timely discovery, might have resulted in one of the most disastrous conflagrations in the history of the town.

It occurred in the front room of a suite occupied by Mr. H. Cowie, the local representative of the General Accident Assurance Co., and was first noticed almost simultaneously by P.S. Jones and a youth named Harris, who were passing in the street at 7.45 p.m. P.S. Jones rushed into the Western Mail office, which is almost opposite, and requested Mr. Williams to phone to the police station, which he did. Harris ran into the book shop and alarmed the assistant, and then dashed off to the police station, where, fortunately he met P.S. Hunter at the door, and assisted to bring up the hose and reel. So prompt was the action of the police that within one minute they were on the scene with hose and reel. Meanwhile P.S. Jones had warned them in the stationery shop. A singular thing had happened not a minute before. The gas-lights in the shop went out, and the assistants were investigating the cause when the sergeant came in.

Mr. Harry Southey was in his office at the time and he rushed upstairs to ascertain where the seat of the fire was.

By this time Mr. Cowie’s room was a glowing furnace. The fire was raging under the desk which ran along the front, and the flames were licking everything. He burst open the door ind with some of the office staff threw “Kylfire” compound into the room, which deadened the fire, and then contrived to smash two or three panes in the window which gave vent for the smoke and flames into the open air. The police had got ready for plying water through the windows, but Mr. Southey explained that they could not reach the seat of combustion from the Street. Another length of hose was then brought up, and the pipe taken through the passage and up the staircase on to the landing. The heat there was now so intense that three of the constables had to be taken out of it. Happily the nozzle was got to the door of the room, and once the powerful douche from the high pressure to the mains was brought to play upon the fire it was under control in a few minutes, and in less than a quarter of an hour was completely extinguished. The condition of the room then revealed what a providential escape the whole premises had had.

The front of the room was occupied by a long desk, and beneath this was a great mass of papers of one kind and another, loose and on files. It was thought at first that the fire was due to a short circuit in the electric wires, under the floor, but this was shown to have been impossible. The condition of the burnt wood and furniture indicated that this mass of papers was the seat of the origin of the fire. How the ignition took place no one can tell. The last person to leave was a young woman typist, at five o’clock, and she states that there was no sign of fire then. Yet there can be little or no doubt that the fire started amongst those papers, and for a couple of hours or more it must have smouldered slowly, steadily progressing in strength sufficient to char deeply all the adjacent wood furniture, until it burnt through the floor at a spot exactly over the gas pipe which supplies these rooms. This pipe was melted and then occurred the outrush of gas which extinguished the lights below and concurrently caused an outburst of flame in the room which simply filled it with fire and the bright blaze attracted attention in the street.

The discovery was made at a very critical moment. Had the fire been left unchecked much, longer it would have reached the pitch-pine ceiling of the shop and the consequences must have been disastrous indeed. As it was the damage by fire was considerable, but that by water to the new Christmas stock with which the windows were crowded, was far heavier. The shop had to be closed for business on Saturday. We cannot speak too highly of the admirable promptitude and conduct of the police, under Inspector Phillips and P.S. Hunter, in coping with the fire which they subdued so swiftly.

The premises and stock were covered by Insurance in the Legal Insurance Company, Ltd.. of which Messrs. J. M. Berry and Sons and Mr. W. J. Pritchard are the local agents. The district manager, Mr. H. O’Leary, Cardiff, was very prompt in attending to the notice of the occurrence sent him. The assessor was sent to Merthyr on Saturday morning, and, after carefully investigating the circumstances and the nature and extent of the damage sustained, he settled the amount of the claim before he left, and to our satisfaction. We had previously found the Company very prompt in meeting their obligations in a case of injury, to a workman, under the Employers’ Liability Act, and it gives us much pleasure to make this acknowledgment of their fair treatment of insurers who are unfortunate enough to have to present their claims.