Hello everyone. My name is Christine Trevett and I’m writing a history of the Educational Settlement in Dowlais from 1928, through the Depression to beyond the Second World War, for Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society. Some people in the Borough still have memories of it.
I am coming across names of people who were linked with that Dowlais Settlement work and with John Dennithorne the Settlement’s Warden, but there are limited details or no details about the people named. Were they perhaps members of your family? Have older family members heard of them and of activities linked to the Dowlais Settlement? I would love to know.
That Settlement’s work was centred around the Horse Street Club for unemployed men, The Armoury, Trewern House, Gwernllwyn House and The Hafod, Pant. Here are the people I would like to learn more about:
From the early 1930s onward
- Margaret Gardner (née Margaret Morgan Jones), social worker distributing relief in food vouchers and clothing, later a Councillor, lived in West Grove.
- Jeannie McConnell
- ‘Bill’ (no surname) who may have been the local unemployed miner who was put in charge of the gym from around 1929. Or Bill may have had different roles in the Horse Street Club (in which case who was the ex miner who ran the gym?).
- Beryl (née Evans). She and ‘Bill’ were helping at the Settlement at the same time.
- Celeste Davies – worked with young children at the Horse Street site
- James Sullivan, gym instructor (was he known as ‘Jim’?)
- Edward Bruten – who ran some classes at the Settlement
- Bard Bracey – similarly was a tutor – and what was his relation to F.A. Bracey who taught French and German and ‘Swedish drill for juniors’ at the Settlement?
- Mr Fuente, who taught Spanish.
Also
- Beryl Williams of Pant and
- Valerie Hargraves of Pant – these two may have had roles at The Armoury.
- Mary Horsfall of Gwernllwyn House, art patron and friend of the Settlement.
If you can shed any light on this I can be contacted by email: rctcasagroup@gmail.com
Thanks, Christine