The Peace-Building Bedlinog Boy

by Christine Trevett

We very easily forget people on our own patch who tried to make a difference and to make the world a better place. One of those was Gwilym Davies, who was born in Bedlinog – though in his day (he died in 1955) Bedlinog was not part of the Merthyr Tydfil region patch, as it is now.

After the carnage of the First World War there were those in Wales promoting ties and understanding between nations through membership of the Welsh League of Nations Union.  The Rev’d Gwilym Davies (a Welsh speaking Baptist minister) was at the forefront of that work in Wales, was its secretary and became the WLNU’s honorary director. He tried to promote international understanding in other ways too. This was the man who in 1922 created the annual message of peace and goodwill from the children of Wales to the children of the world. It is still sent out each year through Urdd Gobaith Cymru.

The League of Nations had been founded in January 1920, following the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. This was the first ever organisation working inter-governmentally for international peace, for the settlement of disputes and co-operative working between nations. It was a sort of predecessor for The United Nations.  Then in 1925, almost certainly for the first time ever in Wales, the major non-conformist churches (chapels) got together with the Church in Wales in a public act for a cause which seemed more important than the many things which separated them. That was to try to persuade America to join the League of Nations. American churches might be a way forward in achieving that. It was Gwilym Davies who carried and publicly delivered the document.

2025 sees the centenary of that first Welsh ecumenical action.  There will be various events to commemorate it during the coming year, at a time when our world feels all-too wracked by wars and need for negotiation.

You can read about Gwilym Davies in Merthyr Historian, the publication of Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society. He appears in its 50th anniversary volume (no. 32, 2022), titled Troedyrhiw Southward and Taff Bargoed. Glimpses of Histories and Communities. You can see a video from the Welsh Centre for International Affairs about what the commemoration in 2025 is all about and his part in what happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPyQZXwUBbs

and better still, you can go along to what is happening on January 26th 2025. See the poster below.

There you will hear a range of speakers on the times, the people a century ago, the implication for our own times and about the Bedlinog boy Gwilym Davies.  January 2025 will bring the 70th anniversary of his death. All are welcome.

If further information is needed nearer the date, contact Judith Jones of Gelligaer Historical Society (judithjones131@gmail.com) or
(second best) Christine Trevett (editormerthyrhistorian@gmail.com)

Happy New Year

I hope you are continuing to enjoy reading this blog. I certainly enjoy putting it together as I am learning so much about Merthyr’s varied history. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed articles over the last year – they have all been fascinating, and I hope that there will be many more contributions this year.

Anyone who has anything they would like to share with us, please do – I really appreciate all the help that I get from people submitting articles – it really keeps the blog fresh, and it also takes some of the blind panic off me trying to think of interesting pieces to keep the blog going. I’m sure you can come with far more interesting things than I can!!!

If anyone would like to contribute something to this blog – please get in touch. It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned historian or a first-timer – if you feel that you have something you would like to share, send me a message via the e-mail address to the right.

Give it a go – I would love to hear from you.

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.

The men were from the Atlas Works (Sharp, Roberts & Co). Richard Roberts had previously been at Dowlais, and Lady Charlotte, in showing him around, took him into the church, where he remarked what a splendid fitting shop it would be.

The No 5 blast engine was, at the time of its erection, the largest ever made, and it had two steam cylinders – after the Hornblower or Woolf type, and to get all the valves to work properly, was then thought difficult – in fact, they did not work as well as desirable. Amongst the persons had for consultation was Mr Brunton from Hornsley. He it was that first brought the application of a fan for the ventilation of collieries into notice, I can recall his models and explanation. It was not readily adopted. Furnaces were very simple, and there was not much thought of economy of coal, but the furnace was dangerous. This was palliated by means of a dumb drift, but as far as I know, no colliery of any size uses a furnace for its ventilation.

Simple and efficient as the arrangement was for letting persons know the boiler was short of water it was not quite as perfect as the following will show.

Mr John Evans, on looking at the boilers of the furnace at the Ivor works, when everything was in full work, noticed the whistles (that is the only thing visible thing in the arrangement for making a noise if feed was low) were all covered, and speaking to the attendant, found he had designedly wrapped some ‘gasket’ around to prevent noise. With some cause Mr Evans was in a passion, so he ordered the man off at a moment’s notice, and sent for the writer, telling him to get the feed right. There were four boilers, and every one was in low water. The engine was doing its full work, and therefore taking steam; the fireman was firing as hard as usual to supply the necessary steam, but no water was going into the boilers to form the steam.

On examination, I found the bottom valve of the feed pump was deranged, and the anxiety and fear I experienced can be recalled now. Mr Evans, as soon as he told me, went off to the old works to send an attendant thence, but was more than an hour before he came, and in the interim, having got the valve right, the boilers were being replenished. Even then, however, danger was not over, for cold water going upon hot plates is apt to get into the molecular condition, and instead of taking up heat quietly, and get into a kind of bubble then explode. Boutigny has since done much to exemplify it, and in his work on “Heat a mode of motion”, Tyndall has fully explained it, but at that time neither had been heard of. The fact was known, but ascribed to another cause.

However, to my great relief, everything passed off safely, and without derangement of working. More than once I inclined to stop the engine. This would naturally draw all the furnace men about me, when it was likely that the imminence of danger would have caused all to get as far away and as quickly as ever they could. The experience of that hour has, however, never been forgotten.

To be continued at a later date…..