Tag: St David’s Church

Walter William Meredith – The Man Who Secured Penydarren Park for Sport

by Phil Sweet

History is full of individuals who accomplish notable deeds and then fade from memory. One such gentleman is Walter William Meredith. This short article will hopefully both bring his story to life and recognise his achievements.

Walter Meredith was born on New Year’s Day 1863 and was the second child of William and Harriet Meredith who resided at 125 High Street in Merthyr. Walter’s father was a successful jeweller and had the financial means to invest in his son’s education.

Meredith initially attended Lloyd’s School in Merthyr. It was at this school that he first participated in the code of football which existed at the time. When he was eleven Meredith attended Taunton School and, during the five years he spent there, represented the school at both rugby and cricket.

He then spent the next three years at Shrewsbury School and whilst a pupil at the school he became acquainted with Association Football. Meredith proved to be a quick learner and went on to represent the school at football, cricket and running. During this time his rugby skills weren’t forgotten as he occasionally turned out for Merthyr RFC whilst home on vacation.

Meredith’s talents were not just confined to the sports field and on leaving Shrewsbury School in 1882 he was articled to a firm of solicitors in the City of London. While he was in the Capital Walter’s sporting career continued to flourish. He joined the London Athletic Club and on Wednesdays played rugby for a team called the Anomolites which was a combination of members of the London Athletic Club and doctors from the various London hospitals.

He was also a member of the Hermits & Phoenix Football Clubs which later merged into the well-known Clapton club. Indeed whilst he was with Clapton Meredith played at right back in the Clapton team which won the London Association Junior Cup. A true sporting all-rounder Meredith also competed in cross-country competitions for the Clapton Beagles team and during the summer months was a regular and successful participant in athletic sports held within easy travelling distance of London.

In 1887 Walter passed his final law examination and qualified as a solicitor  This event saw him curtail his athletics career. However, his interest in sport was not extinguished completely as he served for a season as Secretary of London Welsh RFC.

In June 1891 Meredith returned to Merthyr to open his own solicitors practice in Market Square and resided with his parents and older sister Kate at 125 High Street. Back in his home town Walter wasted little time in throwing himself into the civic life of the area. As well as being President of Merthyr RFC and Secretary of Merthyr Athletic Club, in 1904 he was appointed High Constable of Caerphilly Higher.

Shortly after being appointed to the latter office Meredith made his lasting contribution to the sporting life of the town when he concluded the negotiations, on behalf of Merthyr Athletic Club, with the Bolgoed Estate for a 99 year lease on Penydarren Park which at the time was in great danger of being built on. This agreement secured for the people of Merthyr a central and well appointed venue for sporting activity which had previously been so lacking in the town.

Having secured the use of Penydarren Park for sport the twelve-strong syndicate of prominent townsmen who comprised Merthyr Athletic Club wasted little time in levelling the arena to create a playing field as well as athletics and cycling tracks. The ground was officially opened on Saturday 9th September 1905 when Swansea RFC took on Merthyr RFC and immediately became the home to Merthyr RFC, Merthyr Thursdays RFC and Merthyr Ladies Hockey Club.

These organisations were the first of many such clubs to take up residence at the ground. Although Penydarren Park has become synonymous with football in the town, having hosted both Football League and European Cup Winners Cup matches, the arena has also played host to touring international rugby teams and greyhound racing. Equally as significant is the fact that it has allowed countless thousands of children and adults in the Borough to engage in a variety of sporting pursuits.

Whilst securing the lease on Penydarren Park was undoubtedly Walter Meredith’s lasting civic legacy to Merthyr Tydfil his interests were not just confined to the sporting arena. As well as being an enthusiastic archaeologist and a recognised authority on the history of Merthyr Tydfil Meredith was the long-standing  Secretary of both the Merthyr & Aberdare Incorporated Law Society and Merthyr Chamber of Trade & Commerce.

Politically he was a strong supporter of the Conservative Party acting as party agent in the town for the first decade of the twentieth century.  Ten years earlier he had been one of the founder members of the Merthyr Constitutional Club eventually becoming the club’s president after holding the post of vice-president for eighteen years.

Walter Meredith was a bachelor who, following the death of his parents, moved with his spinster sister to 2, Courtland Terrace. He died on August 2nd 1932  whilst on holiday at Aberdw in Mid Wales where he was indulging in another of his life-long passions – angling. His funeral took place Friday August 12th at St David’s Church where he was life-long member. He is buried in Cefn Cemetery.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Evening Express
Merthyr Express
1871 Census
1881 Census
1891 Census
1901 Census
1911 Census 

Merthyr Memories: Memories of Christmas

by Laura Bray

Christmas is always a time of nostalgia, always tinted with that golden glow! So when Steve asked me to share my memories of Christmas, it was hard to think of a place or time, there were so many to chose from.

But in the end, I focused on the early 1980s and I hope this resonates with some of you.

For me, Christmas has always been predominantly a religious festival, wrapped round with music. We knew we were getting close, when St David’s Church choir, or the Cyfarthfa School Girls Choir, both under Derry Prothero’s capable leadership, dusted off the Christmas anthems, usually in about October! Also, rehearsals with the Cyfarthfa School Mixed Choir under the leadership of Ian Hopkins, were held at around the same time.

Cyfarthfa School Mixed Choir in the 1980s with Ian Hopkins (front). Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

In the case of the Girls Choir it was things like Britten’s “This Little Babe” difficult, but effective, cannoning round the church,  or Elgar’s “Snow” and the more traditional “Adam Lay a-Bounden” as well as three-part “Ding Dong Merrily”.  All practised in school and culminating in a half day rehearsal in the church itself and an early finish!

In the church choir – which then consisted of around 30 choristers-  there were endless rehearsals for The Nine Lessons service;  of “Once in Royal” for the procession, and the traditional anthems such as  “In the Bleak Mid Winter”, “The Sussex Carol” “Joy to the World’ or Rutter’s “Angel Carol”.  Derry was great at mixing the much loved oldies, with some newer works.

St David’s Church Choir with Derry Prothero (far right). Photo courtesy of Caroline Owen

By mid December we had sang for the school carol concert before the end of term, and, for those of us who were also in the church choir,  for the Nine Lessons and Carols on the 4th Sunday in Advent. I remember the descants we sang – always challenging and always high, and always “can belto”!

For a couple of years after the Nine Lessons, as if we hadn’t sung enough,  the church  choir then headed out to the streets around the church – Twyn Hill, and Thomastown mostly  – and belted out, from memory and in full 4 part harmony, all of the stalwarts “Hark the Herald”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, “Away in a Manger” and so on, to raise money for the church organ fund. We sang in the middle of the road while a couple of us knocked on doors with our rattling tins, taking requests and asking for contributions. Few people turned us down.  We sang till we were cold and hoarse. Not even Sandbrook House, then a nursing home, escaped the carol singing!

On Christmas Eve itself I would wait to hear the Salvation Army Band, playing carols round the streets, before heading down to the Vulcan with my friends for Christmas drinks. Not too many, mind, as we were back in church for the Midnight Mass at 11.30 and more carols, including one of my absolute favourites –  “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”. The service always began by candlelight, and the church lit up gradually until it was flooded with colour, light and sparkle, and you could see who was there. Sometimes old choristers came to join us, swelling the numbers of the choir even further.

The Vulcan (pre the 1980s). Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Midnight was always packed and was a great place to catch up with friends and acquaintances who had moved from Merthyr but come home for Christmas. The atmosphere was magical and lively!

We always finished with “Hark the Herald” – sometimes sung with more enthusiasm than accuracy at the end of weeks of singing and a touch of alcohol!

Then home to bed. Another Christmas celebrated. And the echo of music in the night.

Merthyr in the 1850’s

Below is a fantastic lithograph of Merthyr in approximately 1850. It is a view roughly from present-day Thomastown looking over the town. Some of the important landmarks have been labelled. It is remarkable how much the town has changed in the 170 years since this picture was drawn.

1.      St Tydfil’s Church
2.      Twynyrodyn Unitarian Chapel
3.      Tramroadside North
4.      Old Market Hall		 5.      Ynysfach Ironworks
6.      Adulam Chapel
7.      St David’s Church

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.

Memories crush upon me so rapidly with respect to the High Street, that one, at least, of those there in 1834 have slipped. It is the Printing, Bookselling and Stationery Establishment of Mr H W White. It was situated opposite to the the residence of Mr W James, just above the Globe Inn, on the same side. After his removal across the road to the corner, since occupied by Messrs Farrant and Frost, the business in those premises was in drapery. When first remembered by me it was the only one in town of note.

An advertisement from 1840 for H W White

Mr White’s brother, Isaac, was the assistant in the shop, but there was a staff of persons in the printing and book-binding branches, two of whom are well recollected, one, Mr Rees Lewis, who afterwards opened on his own account in the shop adjoining the Bush Hotel, which business is now being carried on by his son; the other Benjamin Davies, who went to Australia and became a member of the Legislative Assembly of Victoria.

The shop was not large, but fully fitted. Noticing a bar of wrought iron about 2 ¼ diameter recently fixed, and asking the reason, I received a reply there was so much stock in the room above he was fearful of the joists giving way and causing very considerable damage. Thinking of Mr H W White recalls that he married one of the Misses Williams, of Mill Street, and as the others all married from there lest it may slip, I may state that one married Mr Thomas Joseph, another the Rev T Davies (minister of High Street Chapel then, but subsequently principal of Haverfordwest College), and the other Rev Enoch Williams (father of the present recorder of Cardiff).

We now return to John Street, and keeping on the first shop on the corner was kept by a David Davies – it was a draper shop on one side and grocery on the other. Its scrupulous cleanliness is yet impressed upon me. A son of Mr & Mrs Davies was a doctor at Mountain Ash for many years, and the first medical officer of health of the local board of that town. It cannot be stated positively whether Mr Edward Morgan’s residence came next or a few more doors above, but a watch and clock business was carried on by William Williams exactly opposite the entrance to Glebeland Street. He had a small square turret, say four feet square or so, projecting above the roof, an observatory from which the necessary observations were taken, to keep all his works in order it was said.

There was another house then used as a residence, and then the premises of the Brecon Old Bank, of which Mr David Evans was managing partner. These premises have been altered and enlarged.

A photograph of the High Street taken in the 1800’s. The original Brecon Bank can be seen to the right of St David’s Church. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Immediately abutting on these bank premises is the road leading to Thomastown. It was then nothing like as wide as it is now, and being, perhaps, the only one now living who can evidence what brought about the change, I will tell the tale.

The road was then only used as a thoroughfare to Professional Row and the Tramroad. After the building of St David’s Church and Schools it became expedient to enclose them. I was asked to make necessary drawings and superintend the carrying of it out. Subscriptions for this were not enough to carry the railings all around, so it was determined to build a wall on the southern side, but even a wall required money, and Dr Thomas, of the Court, after whom the district is named, was approached, and upon the promise of the wall being set back far enough to make a good opening contributed £90 towards its building, but it must not be understood that this took the road up as far as the Tramroad, for it covered only as far as the church property near.

Then came a garden appertaining to the end house of the row, and for this small additional distance I then heard £200 had been paid. There is no deed of conveyance with respect to the land given up by the church. It was all well-known to the committee, and that most excellent man – Rev James Colquhoun Campbell, then rector. Time has now given an irreproachable title for it was done over half a century ago.

To be continued at a later date…..