Tag: Richard Crawshay

A Cyfarthfa Ghost Story

The following article is provided courtesy of ‘The Spooky Isles’ website.

140 years ago today in the August 17th 1881 edition of the Western Mail, the paper’s anonymous but “esteemed correspondent” sent in an “extraordinary narrative” which he “vouched for on the most unimpeachable authority.”

The story concerns the dormant ironworks at Cyfarthfa, Merthyr Tydfil and although the Mail declared its scepticism it published anyway because “the story is a good one.” And it is, very nicely told.

The Ironworks – A Little History

First opened in 1765 by a London merchant, by the 1790s the Cyfarthfa ironworks, under the direction of Richard Crawshay, became one of Britain’s most important iron producers – always handy for a nation almost perpetually at war somewhere in the world and in the midst of the industrial revolution.

The Crawshay family remained in charge, overseeing the works’ slow decline in the face of heavy foreign competition and rising costs. Still a hugely important local employer, profits from the ironworks were used to build William Crawshay II a grand home (Cyfarthfa Castle).

In 1875, the works closed, were re-opened and rebuilt to become a steelworks – a restructure that wasn’t completed until 1884, some time after the Western Mail’s story was published.

Cyfarthfa Works. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Ghosts of Cyfarthfa Iron Works

The tale’s unnamed narrator begins by mysteriously half-explaining that he and a friend visited the works although why “must remain unexplained” and it was “towards the gloomiest part of the night that we sallied forth, and made our way over tramroads and intricate paths to the scene.”

From here, it’s worth simply quoting the rest of the correspondent’s description in full, reading as it does, like a classic Victorian ghost story a novelist might have conjured up.

“Cyfarthfa Works had been familiar to me for many years, but they were associated with the fullest activity, with the glare of furnaces, the whirl of the rolls; and that picture was vividly in my imagination when we stood at length before the works that were slumbering in thick darkness, and as silent as the grave.

No change could have been greater, no stillness more profound. We were far enough from the town to lose its glare and its noise, and out of the way of the people journeying from one place to another. No place could thus be more isolated, even as no contrast from the wild dash of work to the utter quietude could be more intense.

We stood a while just within the dense shadow of one of the mills, just tracing the ponderous wheels and the dimly outlined rolls when suddenly the two huge wheels creaked and began to revolve, the rolls to move, and in a moment there was all the whirl of industry again, only needing the glare of light and forms of men to assure us that the works were in full action.

My companion, with an exclamation of profound astonishment, clasped me by the arm. Cool, iron man as he is, strong-minded and proof against the superstitions of the age, I felt his voice tremble as he said, ‘This is most strange. There are no men here; the works are stopped; no steam, no motive power.’

And the grip on my arm became severe.

I, too, felt alarmed, and am not ashamed to confess it. My imagination, livelier than that of his, conjured up misty shades, and I saw shapes flitting to and fro, and heard the cry of men and boys amidst the clanging iron. Involuntarily we stepped back into the air, and as suddenly as the medley arose, so it died away; not a wheel moved, all was hushed, and at rest.”

‘Cyfarthfa Ironworks Interior at Night’, by Penry Williams

The Old Man

“We walked away a little distance, our purpose unaccomplished, and talked to each other about this extraordinary incident. My friend, better able than I to afford a clue, was, like myself, utterly at sea, and could give no explanation. ‘But,’ said he, resolutely, ‘it must be fathomed, and we will find it out.’

With those words he hurried back to the works. I followed, and in a few minutes again stood looking into the silent mill. There was the same strange hush, the same weird gloom that appeared palpable did we but attempt to grasp it; but no sound.

‘Was it fancy?’ said my friend with his cheerful laugh. He had scarcely spoken when the great wheel again revolved, and machinery here and there, to the right, to the left, ponderous wheels and rolls, all sprang into motion, and the din of work was perfect in its fullness.

With this came the clanging of falling iron, the rattle of trams sounded strangely alike and again the impression was strong that puddlers and moulders flitted by, and ghostly labour went on. This was sufficient for us.

We hurriedly left the scene, and on our way home met one of the old ironworkers of Cyfarthfa to whom my friend related the circumstance. He knew the man as an old and respectable inhabitant, and made no secret of what we had heard.

‘Ha,’ said the veteran, stopping and leaning on his stick, ‘I have heard it too’: and, sinking his voice, he continued, ‘it always comes when the works are stopped.

It did one time before, many years ago, and when Mr Richard [Crawshay, died 1810] was living it came again. No one can say what is the reason, and perhaps it is best not to make any stir about it.’”

To read the original article, and also some other ghostly stories about Merthyr, please visit:

https://www.spookyisles.com/welsh-ghosts-western-mail/#A_Cyfarthfa_Ghost_Story_%E2%80%93_August_17th_1881

Merthyr’s Ironmasters: William Crawshay II

William Crawshay II. Photo courtesy of Cyfarthfa Museum and Art Gallery

William Crawshay II was the third generation of the Crawshay dynasty of Cyfarthfa Ironworks. Born on 27 March 1788, he was the second son of William Crawshay I, only son of Richard Crawshay, who took over ownership of the works from Anthony Bacon.

When Richard Crawshay died in 1810, owing to arguments between him and his son, William (senior), the latter only acquired a three-eighths share of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, despite being the only son and heir. Over the next decade, William Crawshay senior set about acquiring the remaining shares in the Works to make himself undisputed master of Cyfarthfa. He, preferred however to live away from Merthyr, overseeing the Crawshays’ London base at the wharves in George’s Yard, Upper Thames Street, so he appointed his son William (II) to manage the operation at Cyfarthfa.

When William Crawshay II assumed business responsibilities, Welsh iron was in its heyday and Cyfarthfa prospered under his charge: in 1810 the four blast furnaces producing approximately 11,000 tons of pig iron annually.

These early years were marked by a perennial battle with his father over the extent of his authority at the works. The elder Crawshay was determined to keep Cyfarthfa subordinate to the family’s merchant house at George Yard. This his son could not endure; he was intent on selling Cyfarthfa iron as he saw fit, without reference to his father and brothers in London. Yet despite the repeated tendering (and hasty withdrawals) of his resignation young William was unable to overcome his father. ‘My Dear Will, don’t play the fool,’ his father told him after one threatened resignation in 1820, ‘You are now Vice-Roy of Cyfarthfa and will be Sovereign early enough if you will be content to allow his present Majesty some shadow of Royalty’.

By 1823 the Cyfarthfa Ironworks was the largest in Britain, producing 24,200 tons of pig iron from eight blast furnaces, and William, who was at this time living at Gwaelodygarth House, decided that it was time to erect a new home befitting his status as Merthyr’s ‘Iron King’. He employed architect and engineer Robert Lugar, the same engineer who built many bridges and viaducts for the local railways, to design a huge neo-gothic ‘mock’ castle, complete with towers and turrets, standing in 158 acres of landscaped parkland, overlooking the Ironworks. Cyfarthfa Castle was completed in 1824, at a cost of £30,000.

William Crawshay I died in 1834, and William II became sole proprietor of the Cyfarthfa Works, and also inheriting a share in the London property. By the time Crawshay entered into his inheritance, however, the pre-eminence of Cyfarthfa was slipping. He could not prevent his works being overhauled by neighbouring Dowlais, where the Guests were more sensitively attuned to the crucial market for rails in the 1830s and 1840s. Indeed, the aloofness of the Crawshay dynasty was fast becoming an impediment to continued success: little notice was taken, for example, of the new steelmaking technology of the 1850s. In William Crawshay’s last years it was clear that the great days had passed.

As a young man Crawshay inclined to radicalism in politics. He was also a firm supporter of anti-truck legislation, sensing an opportunity to embarrass the Guests, who operated a truck system (the system of paying wages in goods instead of money) at Dowlais. During the Reform crisis he actively promoted the cause of parliamentary reform – while simultaneously introducing a programme of sudden wage cuts at depression-hit Cyfarthfa. This was a volatile course of action, and one to which contemporaries attributed the insurrectionary riots which swept Merthyr in June 1831, obliging Crawshay to write a hasty defence of his role in local affairs, “The Late Riots at Merthyr Tydfil” (1831).

During the later 1830s he swung abruptly into the Tory camp, although this was a plainly opportunistic manoeuvre to unseat Sir Josiah John Guest, who had been returned for the newly enfranchised borough of Merthyr in 1832 on a radical ticket.

William was married three times, each time to a bride with connections in the iron trade. He married first, in 1808, Elizabeth, the daughter of Francis Homfray (1725–1798) of Stourbridge, a member of the midland iron-making dynasty, and later proprietor of the Penydarren Ironworks. They had three sons, and Elizabeth died in 1813 giving birth to a daughter. Crawshay married second, in 1815, Isabel, the daughter of James Thompson of Grayrigg, Westmorland. Her uncle William Thompson (1793–1854), MP, lord mayor of London in 1828, was a partner in the Penydarren Ironworks, and her uncle Robert Thompson was the proprietor of the Tintern Abbey Ironworks in Monmouthshire. Isabel died in 1827, having given birth to two sons and seven daughters. Crawshay married third, in 1828, Isabella (d. 1885), the sister of Thomas Johnson, a partner in the Bute Ironworks in the Rhymney Valley, and they had a daughter.

William began spending an increasing amount of time at his estate at Caversham in Oxfordshire, which he bought in 1848, having previously leased it for many years, and it was at Caversham that he died on 4 August 1867. In his will, the Cyfarthfa Ironworks were passed on to his elder son from his second marriage – Robert Thompson Crawshay.

Caversham Park

Merthyr’s Ironmasters: Richard Crawshay

Courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

Richard Crawshay was born in 1739 in Normanton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the first child of William Crawshay (1713–1766), a farmer, and his wife, Elizabeth (1714–1774), née Nicholson. He had three sisters. According to family tradition a bitter quarrel with his father led to the sixteen-year-old Crawshay setting out for London.

Initially starting work aged 16, he was apprenticed to a Mr Bickleworth of York Yard, Thames Street, selling flat irons in an iron warehouse, he eventually became, on Bickleworth’s retirement in 1763, sole proprietor of the business, and by the 1770s he had established himself as one of London’s leading iron merchants.

He married Mary Bourne in 1763 and they had a son William and three daughters, Anne, Elizabeth and Charlotte. Charlotte married Benjamin Hall, and became the mother of Benjamin Hall, 1st Baron Llanover.

By 1775, he was acting as the agent for Anthony Bacon, owner of Cyfarthfa Ironworks, for supplying iron cannon to the Board of Ordnance, and in 1777 he became a partner in the business. In 1786, following the death of Anthony Bacon, he took over the whole Cyfarthfa Ironworks, in partnership with William Stevens (a London merchant) and James Cockshutt. In May 1787 he took out a licence from Henry Cort for his puddling process, but the rolling mill needed was not completed until 1789. He solved the problems of the puddling process by using an iron plate for the furnace ceiling and sea-washed sand for the floor. In 1791 he terminated the partnership, which had made little profit. He continued the business alone, and had two blast furnaces, eight puddling furnaces, three melting fineries, three balling furnaces, and a rolling mill in 1794. A blast furnace was built by 1796, and a fourth in 1796. There were six by 1810. He thus developed Cyfarthfa into one of the most important ironworks in South Wales.

The Cyfarthfa Ironworks in the late 1700’s by William Pamplin – Richard Crawshay’s gardener. Courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

Crawshay was very ambitious and imperious in manner, being called ‘The Tyrant’ by some, but was without social pretension. He was active in protecting the interests of the iron trade and was a major promoter of the Glamorganshire Canal which immensely improved transport of iron to Cardiff docks.

In 1804 Samuel Homfray the proprietor of the Penydarren Ironworks made a wager with Richard Crawshay of 500 guineas that Richard Trevithick’s steam locomotive could haul 10 tons of iron along the Merthyr Tramroad from Penydarren to Abercynon. Crawshay lost the bet when Trevithick’s became the first to haul wagons along a “smooth” iron road using adhesive weight alone.

At his death in 1810, Crawshay’s estate was worth £1.5 million. In his will he left three-eighths of the Ironworks to his son William Crawshay, three-eighths to his son-in-law Benjamin Hall and two-eighths to his nephew Joseph Bailey.

Merthyr’s Ironmasters: The Hill Family

Richard Hill I (died 1806), who had had experience in Anthony Bacon’s iron-works (at Cyfarthfa and Hirwaun), became Bacon’s trusted manager of the Plymouth Ironworks. He was elected a burgess or freeman of Cardiff in 1784. He married Mary, the sister of Mrs. Bacon, and named his youngest son (born in 1784) Anthony, after Anthony Bacon. On the death of Anthony Bacon, as all the natural children were minors, the estate was placed in Chancery, and the receiver, William Bacon, granted a lease of the Plymouth furnace for fifteen and a half years from Christmas Day 1786, to Richard Hill I, during the minority of Thomas Bacon; this was approved by the Court of Chancery. Hill entered into an arrangement with Richard Crawshay of Cyfarthfa, to supply the latter with pig-iron, and seeing the possibility of increasing his output and of enlarging his works, he secured several leases in order to extend the mineral property attached to the works. About 1794, Richard Hill I had very serious trouble with the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation, then recently opened, for improperly taking the water from the Taff river which he required for his Plymouth works. Richard Hill II (died 1844), his son, then aged twenty, closed the sluices between the canal and the mill-race, and had a desperate encounter with the canal lock-keeper, as a result of which the lock-keeper was awarded substantial damages at the Glamorgan Great Sessions. At the next Great Sessions, Richard Hill I obtained a verdict in his favour and was awarded £300 damages for injury to his works by the Glamorganshire Canal.

In 1799, Thomas Bacon, who had been granted the Plymouth works under his father’s will, became of age, and agreed to surrender to Richard Hill I all his interest in the Plymouth works, and this he confirmed in 1803 when he was 24 years of age. Being now in full possession of the Plymouth works, he with his sons, Richard II and John Hill, entered into an agreement with the Dowlais and Penydarren iron companies for the construction of a tram road for their joint use, from their works to join the Glamorganshire canal at Navigation (now Abercynon). In the same year, 1803, Richard Hill I, who was a practical engineer, agreed to construct a tram road for the joint use of the same three companies to convey limestone from the Morlais Castle quarries. It will thus be seen that Richard Hill was on very good terms with the neighbouring ironmasters, which was far from being the case between the Penydarren and Dowlais companies.

Richard Hill and son were anxious to improve their business by adding a forge and mills, but were very short of capital for such extension. Partners were sought, and A. Struttle advanced £15,000 and John Nathaniel Miers (son-in-law of Richard Hill I), £5,000 to form the Plymouth Forge Company with a capital of £20,000. Work now proceeded briskly at the Plymouth iron-works where Richard Hill I was ably assisted by his sons, Richard II and Anthony Hill (1784 – 1862). But on 20 April 1806, Richard Hill I passed away leaving all his estate to his widow, Mary, his three sons, Richard II, John Hill (of London), and Anthony Hill, and his two daughters, Elizabeth, and Mary, the wife of J. N. Miers (of Cadoxton Lodge). By 1813, Messrs. Struttle and Miers seceded, and the three brothers became partners. On account of the withdrawal of capital, the brothers had to obtain a loan on mortgage of £54,000 from Messrs. Wilkins of the Brecon Old Bank. Richard Hill II for a time lived at Llandaff and looked after the sales side of the business, while Anthony ably managed the productive side, but the burden of the huge loan was a great impediment for many years to the successful working of the concern.

In 1806, the three furnaces at Plymouth produced 3,952 tons of pig-iron, while in 1815 the same three turned out 7,800 tons. A fourth furnace was erected at Plymouth and in 1819 the first furnace was erected at Dyffryn and c. 1824 two others were erected; like all the others these were worked by water-power in which Anthony had great faith — he was very slow in adopting steam-power as the other iron-masters were doing. With Anthony Hill as managing-partner the works were carried on with great vigour and ability, and their brand of bar-iron had a special value and was known for its excellence throughout the world. The produce of the blast furnaces continued to increase year by year. In 1820, it was 7,941 tons, in 1830, over 12,000 tons, by 1846, it was over 35,000 tons.

In 1826 John Hill sold out his interest to his brothers, Richard II and Anthony. Later, No. 8 furnace was built, which was said by Mushet, the great authority on iron manufacture, to be the largest in the world. Richard and Anthony continued as sole managers until the death of Richard in 1844, after which Anthony continued as sole managing director until his own death at the age of seventy-eight on 2 August 1862. Anthony Hill was regarded as the most scientific iron-master of his district. He carried out many experiments for the improvement of iron-making, and was the patentee of many new methods. Gradually he succeeded in paying off the loan burden and attained great wealth. His death was keenly felt in the district, as he had been ‘associated with good deeds, with broad and enlightened measures for his people’s comfort, for their religious welfare, and their education.’ He established a new church at Pentre-bach, and endowed it with £200 per annum; he also founded the Pentre-bach National School and left a sum of money for the ‘Anthony Hill scholarship’ for secondary schools which is still in existence. After his death the works were sold to Messrs. Fothergill, Hankey and Bateman for £250,000; they came to an end c. 1880.

The remains of the Plymouth Ironworks. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Many thanks to the Dictionary of Welsh Biography for allowing me to reproduce this article. To view the original, please follow this link –  https://biography.wales/article/s-HILL-PLY-1786

Merthyr’s Ironmasters: Anthony Bacon

Following on from the last post, here is the latest article about Merthyr’s Ironmasters.

Anthony Bacon was born at St Bees near Whitehaven in Cumberland. His exact date of birth is not known, but records show that he was baptized at St Bees on 24 January 1717.

His father, William, and grandfather, Thomas, were ships’ captains in the coal trade between Whitehaven and Ireland, though his father also made several trading voyages to the Chesapeake. His mother died in 1725, when he was eight, and his father a few years later, and the boy was taken to Talbot county on the eastern shore of Maryland, where he was raised by his maternal uncles, Thomas and Anthony Richardson, who were merchants there. Young Anthony was trained by them as a merchant and as a mariner. He apparently made a good impression for, on coming of age, he was in 1738 made master of the York, a vessel in the Maryland tobacco trade owned by John Hanbury, the leading London tobacco importer.

After the death of his two uncles, Bacon moved to London, from where he operated as an itinerant merchant mariner during the period c.1742–1747 and as a resident merchant thereafter. In the 1740s he traded primarily with Maryland, but in the 1750s added Virginia and the Spanish wine trade. During the Seven Years’ War he entered government contracting in collaboration with John Biggin, a native of Whitehaven and a large London coal merchant (who had been a major navy victualling contractor in the 1740s). Bacon was recognized as a specialist in shipping, and he provided vessels and carrying services to the Royal Navy. He was a major transporter of victuals in the Quebec campaign of 1759. In the later stages of the war he also branched out into army contracts, undertaking to victual and pay the troops stationed on the African coast at Fort Louis, Senegal, and at Goree.

Between 1760 and 1766, Anthony Bacon was full or partial owner of five ships that completed a total of six Atlantic slave trade voyages. In 1764, Bacon withdrew from the tobacco trade, and concentrated on trade to, and contracting in, new British colonies in the West Indies and west Africa. At the same time to aid his business in government contracts, he was elected as Member of Parliament for the borough of Aylesbury, which he represented until 1784, by which time the participation of MPs in government contracting had been prohibited.

It was in 1765 that Bacon branched out and went into partnership with William Brownrigg of Whitehaven, taking out a lease on 4,000 acres of land in the Merthyr Valley. After obtaining the mineral-rich land very cheaply, they employed Charles Wood to build Cyfarthfa Forge using his patented potting and stamping process to make pig iron into bar iron. This was followed by a blast furnace at Cyfarthfa, 50 feet high and opened in 1767. In 1766, Bacon took over the Plymouth Ironworks to supply pig iron to his forge. Brownrigg partnership was dissolved in 1777.

Cyfarthfa Works and Cyfarthfa House (Anthony Bacon’s residence) in the 1790’s from a drawing by William Pamplin. Photo courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

Bacon’s government contracts included supplying ordnance. In 1773, after the Carron Company’s guns had been withdrawn from service as dangerous, Bacon offered to provide three cannon for a trial, made respectively with charcoal, coke, and mixed fuel. He also delivered a fourth with then ‘cast solid and bored’. This gun was reported to be ‘infinitely better than those cast in the ordinary way, because it makes the ordnance more compact and consequently more durable’, despite the greater expense. This led to a contract in 1774. These guns were apparently cast by John Wilkinson until Bacon’s contract with him ended in 1776. The next year, Bacon asked for Richard Crawshay’s name to be included in his warrants, and from this time the cannon were cast at Cyfarthfa. This continued until Bacon as a member of parliament was disabled from undertaking government contracts in 1782, when the forge and some of the gun foundry business were leased to Francis Homfray.

Anthony Bacon had married Elizabeth Richardson who had borne him a son, Anthony who sadly died at the age of 12. While Elizabeth remained at Cyfarthfa House – the residence he had built in about 1770, Bacon, as a member of parliament, spent much time in the capital, where he kept a mistress, Mary Bushby, during the years c.1770 to 1786. At his death, in Cyfarthfa on 21 January 1786, Mary was left with their daughter, Elizabeth, and four sons, Anthony, Thomas, Robert, and William, of whom only the first two reached adulthood. Bacon was buried in London, at St Bartholomew by the Exchange. He made generous provision in his will for Mary Bushby and for the education of her children. He left his ironworks to his sons, but the two survivors, Anthony and Thomas, when they came of age, first leased and then sold their inherited undertakings to Richard Crawshay.

Merthyr: Then and Now

CYFARTHFA

by Jason Meaker

Cyfarthfa Works in the 1870’s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

The first photograph, above, shows a view over the Cyfarthfa Ironworks towards Cyfarthfa Castle.

Opened in 1765 by Anthony Bacon, Cyfarthfa Ironworks was leased by Richard Crawshay in 1786, and by the beginning of the 19th Century was the biggest ironworks in the world.

The Cyfarthfa Works closed in 1910, but re-opened briefly during the First World War to produce steel for armaments. The works finally closed completely in 1919, and were dismantled beginning in 1928.

The second photograph, below, shows roughly the same view. All trace of the once mighty Cyfarthfa Works has gone, but Pandy Farm and Cyfarthfa Castle still remain.

Cyfarthfa 2018

Merthyr’s Lost Landmarks: Gwaelodygarth House

Although the ‘shell’ of Gwaelodygarth House remains, it is a far cry from the building it one was.

Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Originally built for the Crawshay family, Gwaelodygarth House dates from the early 19th century and was probably built by Richard Crawshay around 1809, possibly for his son-in-law Benjamin Hall. It was a classic mid Georgian building of generous proportions and balanced design.  William Crawshay II lived here before Cyfarthfa Castle was built and then it was sold to a local solicitor, William Meyrick for £2,500.

There is a rumour that Gwaelodygarth House is haunted by the ghost of one of Crawshay’s mistresses who was locked in the attic here to keep her away from his wife.

On the edge of the Cyfarthfa Estate, the house stood in its own grounds of parklands and ornamental gardens, surrounded by a great deal of farmland, The approach was by two driveways, from the east and from the west, one of which was adjacent to a period lodge.

Gwaelodygarth House as seen on a map dated 1875

The house was subsequently home to the Berry family and Henry Seymour Berry lived here from 1912, until he sold it to Guest Keen and Nettlefolds.

It became a domestic training institution and then a school for female evacuees during WWII. In September 1950 Gwaelodygarth House was opened as a Training School for Nurses by Dr Stuart Cresswell, and in June 1979 it became a Mental Health Day Unit.

The hallway at Gwaelodygarth House when it was a nurses’ training school. Photo courtesy of Ann Lewis

The house was in reasonably a good condition until a serious fire in August 2003 destroyed part of the building. Gutted and roofless following the fire upper floor of left-hand range collapsed.

Gwaelodygarth House in 2005. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Gwaelodygarth House has now been converted into townhouses, and several further properties have been built in the grounds of the former mansion.

Merthyr’s Ironmasters: Samuel Homfray

Following on from the previous article, here is a bit more about Samuel Homfray in the first instalment of another new (hopefully) regular feature.

Samuel Homfray with Penydarren Ironworks in the background

Samuel Homfray was born in 1762, the fifth son of Francis Homfray and his second wife Jane. Francis Homfray (1725-1798) had been born into a successful industrial family, his father (also called Francis) had made his fortune in the iron industry at Coalbrookdale in Staffordshire. In 1749 Francis Homfray and Richard Jordan, also of Staffordshire, leased a water corn grist mill called Velin Griffith and a forge in the parish of Whitchurch, and in September 1782, he approached Anthony Bacon, owner of Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and leased the cannon foundry at the works to manufacture weapons and ammunitions.

In 1784 Homfray complained that he was not receiving sufficient metal and tapped Bacon’s furnace at Cyfarthfa. Francis Homfray worked the forge and mill until March 1786. However, after a disagreement with Bacon over the supply of iron, he gave up the lease of the Cyfarthfa property.

Francis encouraged two of his sons – Samuel and his older brother Jeremiah to lease land at Penydarren, next to the Morlais Brook and build an ironworks. After years of fierce competition with the Dowlais and Cyfarthfa Ironworks, they began to prosper. Samuel took over as proprietor of the Penydarren works, while Jeremiah moved to Ebbw Vale.

Penydarren Ironworks

Samuel was one of the chief promoters of the Glamorganshire Canal, which opened in 1795 and cost £103,000, of which he subscribed £40,000 and which enabled the transporting of heavy manufactured iron to Cardiff docks. In 1804 Samuel won a 1000 guineas wager with Richard Crawshay as to which of them could first build a steam locomotive for use in their works. Homfray employed Richard Trevithick for this purpose and his locomotive won the bet, hauling five wagons, carrying ten tons of iron and seventy men, at a speed of five miles an hour.

In 1800, Samuel married Jane Morgan, daughter of Sir Charles Gould Morgan, 1st Baronet of Tredegar House, and thus obtained a favorable lease of mineral land at Tredegar, where he established the Tredegar Ironworks.

In 1813 he left the Penydarren Iron Company to concentrate his resources on developing the Tredegar Ironworks. Handicapped at Penydarren by a shortage of coal on the property, he faced no such problems when he built his new works. By 1823 Tredegar had five furnaces in blast, producing over 16,000 tons of iron each year.

Homfray’s connection with Penydarren was re-established in 1817 when his daughter Amelia married one of the works’ new owners, William Thompson.

In 1813 he was appointed High Sheriff of Monmouthshire and, having unsuccessfully standing as a candidate for a seat in Parliament for Brecknock in 1806, he was elected as Member of Parliament for the Borough of Stafford in 1818.

He relinquished his seat two years later, and he died on 22 May 1822 in London and was buried at Bassaleg.

The Aeolus Waterwheel – Merthyr’s Great Wonder

When Rev Sir Thomas Cullum (8th Baronet Cullum) visited Merthyr Tydfil in 1811, one of the sights he was most taken with was the mighty Aeolus Waterwheel at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and he even called it ‘the wonder of the place’. Some contemporary accounts actually refer to it as ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World‘. I wonder how many people in Merthyr have actually heard of it nowadays?

‘Cyfarthfa Works and Waterwheel’ by William Pamplin. The Aeolus Waterwheel can clearly be seen at the centre of the illustration. Photo courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

When Richard Crawshay became sole owner of the Cyfarthfa Works in 1791, he began making plans to extend the works and come up with innovative ways to increase iron production. In 1792, he made the engineer Watkin George a partner in the firm, and the latter began making significant progress in maximising the potential of the works.

His major contribution was the construction between 1793 and 1797 of a huge overshot waterwheel to provide the air for the four blast furnaces.

According to volume 5 of Rees’s Manufacturing Industry (1819-20):

“…..the water-wheel is 50 feet in diameter and six feet wide: it is chiefly made of cast iron, and has 156 buckets. The axle is a hollow tube, and is strengthened by twenty-four pieces of timber applied around it. On each end of the axis is a cog-wheel of twenty-three feet diameter, which turns a pinion. On the axis of these are two cranks, and fly-wheel twenty-two feet diameter, and twelve tons weight; each of the cranks gives motion to a lever, like that of a large steam-engine, and works the piston of a blowing cylinder or air-pump 52½ inches in diameter, and five feet stroke, which blows air into the furnace, both when the piston goes up and down. The work on the other side being the same, it actuates in the whole four of these double cylinders; the wheel makes about two and a half turns per minute, and each cylinder makes ten strokes.”

At the time, it was the largest waterwheel of its kind in the world and was named Aeolus after a character in Greek Mythology. Aeolus, as mentioned in the Odyssey and the Aeneid,  was the keeper of the winds and king of the island of Aeolia, one of the abrupt rocky Lipara islands close to Sicily. Later classical writers regarded him as a god.

The wheel was operated by water fed from streams across the river and transported by a massive iron and wood double aqueduct mounted on stone piers between 60 and 70 feet high. This was the famous Gwynne Aqueduct. Sir Charles Manby (later Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers) visited Merthyr and commented that the aqueduct:

“…..maintained an apparent lightness of the whole that contrasted with the massy [sic] boundary of the river, has not only a singular, but also a very interesting and pleasing appearance.”

Gwynne Aqueduct from a painting by Penry Williams

This is the same aqueduct that was mentioned in the previous post about the Pont-y-cafnau (http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=678)

The Aeolus Waterwheel continued to power the blast furnaces until the 1820’s when it was replaced by a steam powered engine, and was subsequently demolished.