Tag: Troedyrhiw

Memories of Old Merthyr

Whilst looking through back issues of the Merthyr Express, local historian Michael Donovan came across a remarkable feature which ran across several editions of the newspaper in 1901. The article concerns  reminiscences of Merthyr dating back to the 1830’s. Unfortunately, there is no indication who the person who wrote these memories is. Michael has passed copies of these articles on to me to feature on this blog. I will post extracts periodically, starting with the transcription below.

Merthyr Tydfil, erstwhile the metropolis of the iron manufacture, although that proud distinction no longer applies, is yet progressing and prosperous. Being able to recall it as was so many years ago, it is my intention to describe things that can be remembered, and to say in a gossiping garrulous manner what may instruct and amuse the present generation.

I think it was in 1834 I first saw Merthyr, coming by coach from Cardiff. The impression upon me was strange, for until then all ideas of existence had been gathered in a city, and the transition from such to a long, straggling village was very great. From Cardiff one set of horses ran to the Bridgewater Arms, and another on to Merthyr. The starting place in Cardiff was the Angel Hotel, which stood about the position of the Bute Estate Offices at the present, and the finish was at the Castle Hotel, or the booking office which was adjoining it on the Pontmorlais side. The coach stopped at the Bush Hotel to set down some passengers, and unless memory plays me false, the coachman’s name was Howells.

The Castle Hotel in Merthyr in the mid 1800’s

There was a great dearth of houses. Anything except workmen’s cottages were very few, and, as a rule, occupied by their owners. Just call to mind what Merthyr would be without Thomastown and Twynyrodyn, the site of the present Market-house and its surrounding streets a field, a field where the present station is (Cae Gwyn), a market garden where the lower part of the station yard is, no water except what could be had from a well here and there, no drainage, no police, and I almost think no gas works.

Further afield, Troedyrhiw had few houses, Pontyrhun was not, except a pumping engine and residence for the attendant. His name was Gibbons, and the engine supplied the Glamorganshire Canal from the river. Not above a dozen houses in Abercanaid; and as for Cefn, if you could find a cottage to spare, provided any means were used to come to Merthyr, no less than three turnpike gates would have to be passed through, to two of which a toll would be paid; and if, instead of turning round to enter the ‘village’, anyone went a short distance up the road to Penydarren, another toll would be demanded.

The old Penydarren Toll House (front) at the bottom of The Avenue. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

And yet with these conditions and surroundings –

“Content could spread a charm,
Redress the place, and all its faults disarm.”

To be continued at a later date…..

Sir Pendrill Charles Varrier-Jones

Today marks the anniversary of the birth, at Glyn Taff House, Troedyrhiw, of yet another medical giant from Merthyr – Sir Pendrill Varrier-Jones. To mark the occasion, and to learn some more about this great man, below is a transcription of his obituary which is reproduced with the kind permission of the Royal College of Physicians.

Pendrill Charles (Sir) Varrier-Jones

 b.24 February 1883 d.30 January 1941
Kt(1931) BA Cantab(1905) MA Cantab(1909) MRCS LRCP(1910) MRCP(1929) FRCP(1934)

Pendrill Charles Varrier-Jones was born at Troedyrhiw, Glamorgan. As the son of Dr Charles Morgan Jones, a general practitioner in a mining district, and of Margaret Jenkins whose family were in big business in the coal industry, he seems to have inherited characteristics exactly suited to that rare combination of an interest in medicine and a flair for dealing with unusual industrial problems, and so to his life’s work in the foundation and development of Papworth Village Settlement.

From Epsom College he went to Wycliffe College, Stonehouse, which still has the Margaret Varrier scholarship which he founded in memory of his mother. At nineteen he entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, as a foundation scholar, graduating with first class honours in the natural sciences tripos in 1905. His medical school was St. Bartholomew’s. After a junior house appointment there he held what his friends considered but a dead-end post as temporary assistant to Professor Sir German Sims-Woodhead at Cambridge, working on research into bovine tuberculosis. As he was unfit for military service he followed this with the stop-gap post of temporary tuberculosis officer to the Cambridgeshire Council’s Dispensary.

But Varrier-Jones had found the basis for his career. He was quick to see that treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in those days, when sixty-six per cent of patients admitted with disease beyond the early stage were dead within five years of discharge, was but a half-way house to death, and that advice on after-care was useless unless applied in sheltered conditions of home and work. With his characteristic enthusiasm he persuaded people of public spirit in Cambridge to support a Tuberculosis Colony at the village of Bourn, where his motto for his twelve patients was: ‘Work produces hope and hope produces vitality’.

Varrier-Jones saw that tuberculosis was then much more an individual social and economic problem than a medical one; security and pride in self-support from productive work were essential to the future welfare of every treated sufferer. He shocked his fellow-workers by saying that the positive-sputum patient could live with his family without infecting them if he was allowed to apply the lessons of sanatorium hygiene in a sheltered home. His critics were confounded; no child born in Papworth developed tuberculosis. Unfortunately he did not live to see that none of its sons returned from the Second World War with tuberculosis, although most of them suffered the horrors of the Death Railway in Siam.

His village settlement became the Mecca of tuberculosis workers from all over the world. Its success brought him requests to organise copies at Preston Hall for the British Legion, Enham Village Centre in Hampshire, and the Peamount Settlement in Dublin. In 1932 the International Union against Tuberculosis made him president of its sub-committee for occupational therapy and after-care. He received in 1931 the thoroughly deserved honour of a knighthood. He was Weber-Parkes prizeman in 1939 and Mitchell lecturer to the College in 1927.

No one who saw him only once in his beloved village could ever forget his massive figure, his dark eyes, his flowing black hair, his dynamic personality and his air of benevolent autocracy. There he was the fortunate personality who could leave a mass of detail to devoted workers whom he loved and who loved and admired him in return. His sudden death in 1941 was a loss not only to them but to multitudes of disciples. ‘V-J’, or ‘Pendragon’, as he was affectionately known to them all, wrote several papers on the administrative and economic problems of tuberculosis, on the value of Dreyer’s diaplyte vaccine, on clinical thermometry, and on the cellular content of milk. He did not marry.

Reproduced from Munk’s Roll ©Royal College of Physicians. To view the original, please use the following link – 
http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/4542

Patients at Papworth in the 1930’s
T.B. huts at Papworth in the 1930’s

Merthyr Memories: Afon Taf High School

by Josh Powell

Following on from the tribute to Josh Powell in the last post, his family have kindly given me permission to transcribe the following piece which appeared in the book ‘All Change’ which Josh published in 1983.

Afon Taf High School was officially opened on Friday 5 July 1968 by the Right Honourable Edward Short, M.P. Many people had been eagerly awaiting this day, and as we filed, two by two, into the packed hall and joined the dignitaries on the stage, one sensed the importance of the occasion.

We wore our best clothes but they were hidden by our long, voluminous gowns (it had been ordained that gowns should be worn in school at all times). Actually, comprehensive education had reached the Valley ten months earlier when the staff and pupils at Quakers Yard Grammar; Pantglas; Treharris and Troedyrhiw Secondary Modern Schools had entered the magnificent new building which had cost three quarters of a million pounds.

I still taught Mathematics and General Science to the lower streams, but on the brochure I was given the pompous title – Sports Host. It simply meant that it was my duty to welcome visiting teams. During that first year I arranged all fixtures in rugby, soccer and hockey, but the weather made it a futile exercise. It rained and rained and rained and the vast playing fields were submerged – Viv, Bill and Terry, the groundsmen, dug drains and deep sump holes in vain and most games were cancelled. When play was possible, the teams were given a hot meal in the canteen or sandwiches and tea in the pavilion.

Mathematics had always been my first love but now there were so many changes – Modern Maths; Decimalisation of Money; Metrication of Weights and Measures; and the use of pocket calculators was the last straw. I sympathised with those pupils who had a natural flair for figures and were now being denied the satisfaction of demonstrating their prowess.

The most enjoyable year I spent in Afon Taf was the one when Mr David Howells, our headmaster, suggested that the boys might enjoy gardening during their science lessons. I am no gardener but that proved no obstacle as the soil was very fertile and a new greenhouse was erected on the plot. However, I questioned his judgement when he entered the Troedyrhiw Chrysanthemum Show. Fortunately Mr Porter, a local expert, came to our rescue and we were able to put on a creditable display.

As a reward for their efforts in the garden, I arranged games for the boys against Greenfields Remedial School. Mr Weldon Davies, the headmaster of Greenfields, was a keen sportsman and he made these football matches seem like Internationals and the cricket games became Test Matches. It enabled me to observe qualities in my boys that were normally well concealed – although they were superior both physically and mentally, they never took advantage and invariably the weaker boys were victorious.

Afon Taf School in the late 1960’s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Influenza in Merthyr

Just as the First World War was coming to an end, Britain was gripped by a devastating worldwide ‘flu epidemic. Below is a transcription of a report about the ‘flu reaching Merthyr.

INFLUENZA – FATALITIES IN MERTHYR BOROUGH AND CEFN

Many people have been suffering from influenza in various parts of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil, which, up to about a fortnight ago, had been immune from fatal cases. During the intervening period influenza and pneumonia have produced baleful effects in a series of homes at Dowlais, Troedyrhiw, Treharris, and the outside village of Cefn Coed.

A stalwart Troedyrhiw miner, W. Evans, was seized with the malady only a day after his second marriage, and in a few days the bridge was left a widow. Soon afterwards his daughter was brought home ill from Cardiff. In one house at Treharris two children died, and a third was removed to a Merthyr hospital. At Cefn the death has occurred of Mr. Morris, a clerk at the Cyfarthfa offices, and at another house in that locality, Miss Morris, his niece, died subsequently. Her funeral took place on Tuesday. Mr. J. Hughes, who had been a well-known Merthyr bookmaker, member of the V.T.C., died from pneumonia last week and was interred at Cefn Cemetery on Monday, with military honours.

On account of the epidemic, Cefn Schools were again closed this week to 1,200 scholars. The Rev. Dyfuallt Owen, Congregational Minister, of Carmarthen, has been laid up at Merthyr. He was on Sunday week visiting preacher at Ebenezer, and was prevented by an attack of influenza from lecturing here on the following day. He was put to bed at the house of some of his friends, and was obliged to re- main there until the early days of this week.

(The Pioneer – 9 November 1918)

By the time the epidemic had run its course in 1919, a quarter of the population of Britain had been affected, and over 228,000 people died. This, however, is a drop in the ocean compared to the death-toll worldwide. Exact numbers of the dead are not known, but the total is reckoned to be in excess of 50 million.

Merthyr’s Chapels: Nazareth Chapel, Troedyrhiw

We continue our regular look at Merthyr’s chapels with Nazareth Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Chapel in Troedyrhiw.

Sometime during the middle years of the 1800’s, several members of Pontmorlais Chapel decided to start a Sunday School in Troedyrhiw.

The Sunday School was firstly held at the Harp Inn until these premises were given over to the Welsh Independent congregation. The Sunday School then moved to a house in Wyndham Street and finally to the long room of the Heath Conservative Club.

The local Methodists, however, had to travel to Graig Chapel in Abercanaid to worship, so it was decided to build a chapel in Troedyrhiw. Nazareth was built in 1858, the architect being Rev Evan Harris, minister of Pontmorlais Chapel, and the builder was Mr Rees Powell. At first, services were conducted by deacons from Pontmorlais Chapel, but by 1874 membership had grown sufficiently to warrant calling their own minister, and Mr D G Jones was appointed Nazareth’s first minister.

Major renovations were carried out in 1897 to a design by Dr Aaron Davies which gave the chapel its current appearance. The vestry was also built at this time. Further renovations were carried out in 1926 at a cost of £1,411.1s.7d.

The 1904 Religious Revival affected the fortunes of the chapel with dozens of people joining the congregation. By 1917 the chapel had 162 members, with 238 attending the Sunday School which had 27 teachers and 2 superintendents. By the 1960’s however, the congregation and Sunday School attendance had declined drastically, with the children’s Sunday School eventually closing in 1977, and the chapel closing in 2000.

Dr Merlin Pryce

Was it Fleming or Mr & Mrs Pryce’s boy from Troedyrhiw? 

by Irene Janes

Parents, Rachel and Richard Pryce owned a tavern in Troedyrhiw. Little did they think, in 1902, when their son was born, he could save millions of lives forever, but did he?

Their lad Daniel Merlin Pryce was a bright boy. He attended Merthyr County School, Pontypridd Grammar School, and at the age of seventeen, the Welsh National School of Medicine Cardiff. However, the call of a Junior Research Scholarship to study at St Mary’s Hospital, London, with Alexander Fleming lured him away from Merthyr Tydfil.

Aged twenty-five, and now known as Merlin Pryce, he worked alongside Alexander Fleming in his Bacteriology Department and it is here this fascinating story begins.

Apart from being hard working colleagues the two men became close friends. Fleming was at times a bit untidy and did not always clear away what he had been working on. In 1928 he was experimenting with the culture Staphylococci. In his eagerness to go on holiday for the summer a number of Petri dishes were overlooked.

Several weeks later, Merlin called in to St Marys Hospital see his old friend, who was due back from holiday. Alexander was late so Merlin pottered around tidying up Fleming’s laboratory. It was then he found the Petri dish, which had held the Staphylococci culture. His attention was immediately drawn to a fungus which had grown and how it had destroyed the Staphylococci.

Merlin Pryce

So who did discover penicillin? Was it Merlin for finding the dish and showing his friend the exciting possibilities of investigating the mould? All the accolades have fallen to Fleming. In my untrained medical mind, it seems to be a matter of luck. It all hangs on who picked up the Petri dish and became aware of the destroyed Staphylococci.

Luckily for us Merlin’s sister, Mrs Hilda Jarman, lived in London when this groundbreaking discovery occurred, and had no doubt it was her brother that drew it to Alexander’s attention. He praised Fleming for his re-culturing of the mould as seminal and crucial, and felt disqualified for any glory and praise. She told how Fleming wanted to include Merlin as a significant contributor but her brother ‘would not accept the suggestion’, Merlin’s children confirmed this.

Time moves on and Merlin is a Professor and Alexander a Knight of the realm. During World War Two when Fleming’s house was bombed his whole family stayed with the Pryce family.

Merlin’s wife Molly, in her career as a nurse, encountered many unmarried mothers. They often welcomed some of the girls into their home before and after their babies were born until, they were strong enough to leave.

In 1945, The Nobel Prize for ‘Physiology or Medicine’, was collectively awarded to Alexander Fleming, Sir Howard Florey and Earnest B Chain. Foley and Chain further investigated the possibilities for penicillin. The rules state only three names can be on the Nobel Prize medal.

Merlin was a shy modest man, a co-operator more than a competitor. He was loyal, warm, sincere, and tolerant and had a great a love for his fellow men. Is this why he was more than happy for Fleming to take the praise? Did he see his role as no more than an opportune moment rather that of discovery? We will never know any more than who first set foot on the top of Mount Everest, Hillary or Norgay.

Nevertheless, we know the two men remained close friends all their lives so obviously animosity was not cultured in or over that Petri dish.

Fleming’s papers are in the British Museum Library and not available for inspection. The Pryce diaries have been lost.

Where every the tribute should be laid Professor Merlin Pryce had an unblemished reputation as a Doctor and teacher and for that alone Merthyr should be proud of him.

**I have received the following e-mail in response to this article:-

I have read the article by Irene Janes and I think you should know of Merlin Pryce’s other Merthyr connections. His father’s sister married Enoch Morrell who was Mayor of Merthyr Tydfil from 1905 to 1906. Therefore Merlin was a cousin to Will Morrell, Enoch’s son. Merlin’s sister, Hilda, told me that Will Morrell had taught her mathematics at the Merthyr County School and that he later became the headmaster there. I think he retired about 1946. His daughter became a doctor and married a Swansea surgeon, Eric Morgan.
Vivian Thomas (son-in-law of Merlin’s sister)

Tydfil’s Siblings – part 1

One of the earliest posts on this blog was about St Tydfil. In that post it was stated that Brychan Brycheiniog, Tydfil’s father, had 24 sons and 25 daughters. As is usual with of this period of history, accounts vary, but  local historian Carl Llewellyn has provided a list of Brychan’s children based on the best sources available. We start with Brychan’s sons:

CYNOG. A saint of the Fifth Century, he was the reputed son of Brychan by Banadlwedd, the daughter of Banadle of Banadla Powis. Soon after his birth he was put in the care of a holy man named Gastayn. He was murdered by pagans on a mountain called the Van in Breconshire, where a church in memory of his martyrdom was erected over his grave and called Merthyr Cynog.

St Cynog. Courtesy of David Nash Ford. http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/cynog.html

CLEDWYN. He embraced a military life and distinguished himself by expelling the Scottish Picts who had taken possession of Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Cledwyn succeeded his father governing Breconshire.

DINGAD. He founded the churches of Llandingad in Carmerthenshire and Monmouthshire (where he is buried).

ARTHEN. There was once a church dedicated to him in Gwaenllwg, Monmouthshire which was demolished by the Saxons. The hill near Llandovery called Cefnarthen is named after him. He is buried in the Isle of Man.

CYFLEFYR. He is recognised as a son of Brychan, but some sources say he is actually the son of Dingad, and therefore Brychan’s grandson. He was murdered by the Saxons at a place called Merthyr Cyfefyr.

RHAIN. He became a soldier and took over the eastern part of his father’s lands. He was murdered by the Saxons and was buried at Llanfaelog Fach near Brecon.

DYFNAN. He founded the church at Llanddyfnan in Anglesey and was buried there.

GERWYN. He settled in Cornwall and was killed in the Isle of Gerwyn.

CADOG. Some sources say he was actually the grandson of Brychan. He was the founder of several churches and died in 490AD in France.

MATHAIRN. He was buried in Ceredigion.

PASGEN. Son of Brychan by Peresgri of Spain. Lived and died in Spain.

NEFAI. As above

PABIALI. As above

LLECHAU. He founded the church of Llanlechau in Ewyas in Herefordshire.

CYNBRYD. He founded the church of Llandulas near Abergele. He was murdered by the Saxons at Blwch Cynbryd.

CYNFRAN. He was the founder of the church of Llysfraen in Caernarfonshire.

HYCHAN. He founded the church of Llancychan in Clwyd.

DYFRIG. (Also known as Dubricious) He founded a college at Henllan on the River Wye. He was consecrated in 470AD, and became Archbishop of Caerleon in 490. He founded a college at Caerleon, and in 519 he crowned King Arthur. Upon retirement he moved to a monastery in Bardsey where he died in 522. In 1120, his body was moved from Bardsey and re-buried at Llandaff Cathedral.

St Dyfrig. Courtesy of David Nash Ford. http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/dyfrig.html

CYNIN. He founded the church of Llangynin near St Clears, Carmarthenshire.

DOGFAN. He was murdered by the Saxons at Merthyr Dogfan in Pembrokeshire, and achurch was erected in his memory. He is also the patron saint of Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant in Denbighshire.

RHAWIN. He settled in the Isle of Man where there was a church dedicated to him. He later returned to Wales and was murdered with his brother Rhun at Pontyrhun, Troedyrhiw by the group of Saxons who went on to murder Brychan and Tydfil.

RHUN. See above

St Rhun. Courtesy of David Nash Ford. http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/rheindbg.html

CLEDOG. He founded the church of Clodock in Herefordshire where he was buried.

CAIAN. He was the founder of the church of Tregaian in Anglesey.

To be continued…..