Ursula Masson

Merthyr Central Library

by Carolyn Jacob

A ‘flourishing’ library existed in the Merthyr Tydfil Parish from 1846, although it consisted of only two dozen volumes collected by Thomas Stephens and Charles Wilkins. The books were originally for their ‘conversational club’ and believed to have been in the Temperance Room behind the Merthyr Market. Gradually a number of libraries developed in Merthyr Tydfil, Abercanaid, Aberfan, Dowlais, Penydarren, Thomastown, Treharris, Troedyrhiw and, outside the Parish, Cefn Coed. The ‘central’ library was located in the Town Hall from 1901 but transferred to two vacant shops in the Arcade by 1907. By 1918 The Arcade Library had a reference section and a sizeable number of books. In 1930 the Corporation had to find new premises for the Library and moved to 136 Lower High Street at an annual rental of £100. The Library was known as the Town Reading Room and both this library and the Thomastown Library closed in 1935 when the new Central Library opened.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Central Library, in a fine renaissance rectangular style, is a protected grade II historic building, it was purpose built and has always been a library. It was placed on vacant ground, given by the Council, which was once the site of the former St David’s School. The foundation stones were laid in 1935 and the building completed using money from the American Steel millionaire, Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie Trust donated £4500 on condition there was an adequate book fund and that a properly trained and competent Librarian be appointed.

The Library was designed by Councillor T. Edmund Rees (of Messrs Johnson, Richards & Rees, architects of Merthyr) and built by Messrs Enoch Williams and Sons, contractors of Dowlais at a cost of £8,500. The exterior is in an Arts and Crafts Modern style with Portland stone, hipped Cumbrian slate roof swept to wide eaves. An attractive feature is the large central doorway and Tudor arch in moulded surround to entrance. The interior has a panelled wooden entrance-hall, although sadly the original oak wood, which is a wonderful feature of this building, was painted during refurbishment in 2011. The stained glass as you enter the building commemorates the Urdd National Eisteddfod which was held in Merthyr Tydfil in 1987. The building was opened in 1936 by the Mayor, Lewis Jones who became the first borrower of a book from Merthyr’s new Library.

The first librarian, Mr E. R. Luke received a salary of £330 a year and not only spoke Welsh fluently but he also had a working knowledge of French, German and Latin. Merthyr Libraries have always provided a free library service for residents and visitors. The new library was a great success and the number of registered borrowers rose from 1400 in March 1936 to 10,765 by February 1940. As a child the historian Gwyn Alf Williams made ‘daring raids into alien territory in Merthyr Library’.

In 1946 Merthyr Tydfil became the first Authority in Wales to appoint a woman as Borough Librarian and an English woman at that – Margaret Stewart Taylor. She also became curator of the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and was a remarkable local historian. Miss Taylor wrote 23 books on a wide variety of topics, a classic work on library cataloguing and classification, biography, local history such as ‘The Crawshays of Cyfarthfa’, travel writings based on her own experiences and romantic fiction set in a fictional town which was a thinly disguised Merthyr Tydfil. She compiled and edited ‘Fifty Years a Borough, 1905-1955’ to commemorate the incorporation of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil. She set up a school library service and established local history as important in both the Library and the Museum. Margaret Stewart Taylor demanded high standards from her staff and would personally inspect the library shelves to make sure the books were all in strict order. A book incorrectly shelved would be left in the middle of the floor.

The Plaque on the exterior of Merthyr Tydfil Library by the doorway is dedicated to Richard Lewis, (Dic Penderyn). At the time of the 1831 Merthyr Rising he was a miner in Merthyr Tydfil. He was charged with feloniously wounding Donald Black of the 93^rd (Highland) Regiment. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Despite a petition of 11,000 names for his reprieve, he was hanged at Cardiff on 13 August 1831. His last words on the scaffold were reported to be ‘O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd’ – ‘O Lord, what injustice’. He is buried in Aberavon. Later in the century another man confessed to the crime for which Lewis had been hanged.

There is also a plaque on the front of the Central Library dedicated to Ursula Masson, who was born Ursula O’Connor in Dowlais, and became a leading Welsh academic and writer who worked closely with Jane Aaron and Honno Press/Gwasg Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press, on the imprint Welsh Women’s Classics – to bring back into print the works of forgotten Welsh women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Outside the Library, the Statue and Plinth to Henry Seymour Berry are Grade II Listed monuments. The statue stands at the centre of a semicircular forecourt in front of the Library, and it was designed by W. Goscombe John RA and erected in 1931. It consists of a bronze figure in full robes with a cocked hat in the crook of his left arm and a parchment grasped in left hand. The inscription:

Henry Seymour Berry, Baron Buckland of Bwlch, Hon. Freeman of the Co. Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.
Born 1877 – Died 1928.
Erected by public subscription.

There are recent plaques attached to the statue to mark the achievements of his two younger brothers. James Gomer Berry, Viscount Kemsley and William Ewert Berry, Viscount Camrose.

by Laura Bray

You may have seen Keith Lewis-Jones’ piece on this blog about Ursula Masson (https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=5547), who is cited in a purple plaque outside the library, and wondered who is. She was, in fact, one of those people who had a large, but quiet, effect on the prominence of Welsh women’s history in the 20th century, so I wanted to expand on Keith’s excellent but brief citation, as we should know more about Ursula and be rightly proud of this child of Merthyr.

Ursula was born into the Irish community of Merthyr in 1945, attending Cyfarthfa Grammar School and then Cardiff University. She went on to do her Master’s degree in Keele University, the subject of which was the history of the Irish in Merthyr.

Following her Master’s degree, Ursula worked as a journalist in South Wales and Australia, before returning to teach adults in Swansea. In 1994 she became a lecturer in history at the University of Glamorgan, and it was here that she became known for her pioneering work in the social and political history of women in Wales. She co-founded the Women’s Archive Wales (Archif Menywod Cymru) in 1998, was a committee member of the South-West Group of the Women’s History Network (later renamed South West and Wales Group), and co-edited Llafur, the journal of Llafur: The Welsh People’s History Society. She encouraged and and promoted a series of Wales Women’s History Roadshows, where people were invited to bring material relating to the social history of women’s lives; edited the Aberdare Women’s Liberal Association 1891–1910 papers, and became involved in Honno Welsh Women’s Press. Much of this material has been copied and saved for the nation in the People’s Collection Wales.

Janet Aaron, of Honno, remembers her fondly:

“Ursula edited and introduced 2 volumes in the Welsh Women’s Classics series, an autobiographical volume by the pioneering Welsh socialist Elizabeth Andrews, A Woman’s Work is Never Done, which was published in the series in 2006, and an anthology of Welsh women’s political writing, The Very Salt of life: Welsh Women’s Political Writings from Chartism to Suffrage, which she co-edited with myself, and which was published by Honno in 2007. I enclose above reproductions of the covers of the two books, and a photograph of Ursula at the launch of A Woman’s Work is Never Done which was held in what is now the Senedd building.

Ursula’s contribution to each volume was considerable: as well as writing introductions to both, she included in the Andrews’ volume a number of articles by Andrews as well as the autobiographical text itself, and nobody but her could have found all the material republished in The Very Salt of Life, particularly the suffragette material. Many previously forgotten political women, who contributed significantly to the advance of women in Wales, feature in that volume.”

Sadly, Ursula became very unwell during 2001, but not being one to give up she continued her research, completing a doctorate entitled For Women, for Wales and for Liberalism: Women in Liberal Politics in Wales, 1880–1914, which was published posthumously by the University of Wales Press. She died in 2008, but her legacy remains: the public Ursula Masson Memorial Lecture on the subject of gender studies is given annually at the Centre for Gender Studies in Wales at University of South Wales; as is the annual Ursula Masson Memorial Prize for the best undergraduate dissertation in women’s or gender history.

So next time you pass the library, stop and look at the plaque – and remember one of Merthyr’s forgotten heroines.

Merthyr’s Heritage Plaques: Ursula Masson

by Keith Lewis-Jones

Ursula Masson
Plaque sited at Merthyr Central Library CF47 8AF

Ursula Masson (1945–2008), née O’Connor was born into the Irish community of Merthyr Tydfil, whose history she researched for her master’s degree. After university she worked as a journalist, at home in South Wales and in Australia, before returning to teach adults in Swansea.

In 1994 she became a lecturer in history at the University of Glamorgan. She worked closely with Jane Aaron and Honno Press, the Welsh Women’s Press, on the imprint Welsh Women’s Classics – to bring back into print the works of forgotten Welsh women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.