Most people will have heard of Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the journalist and explorer who was famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. He is the person who is supposed to have uttered the famous phrase “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” upon finding him.
A few people may know he was Welsh, having been born John Rowlands in Denbigh on 28 January 1841, but how many people know that his great-grandfather is buried in Merthyr Tydfil?
The following article from the Western Mail 128 years ago today will tell you more….
Last month we highlighted the career of Harry Evans – the great Merthyr musician. No less remarkable is the career of his son Horace Evans.
Horace Evans was born in Dowlais on 1 January 1903, the eldest son of Harry Evans and his wife Edith. When his father was appointed conductor of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union that same year, the family moved to the city, and Horace was educated at Liverpool College. Following in his father’s footsteps, Horace originally decided on a musical career, and shortly after his father’s untimely death in 1914 he went to the Guildhall School of Music for four years and to the City of London School.
During his studies he realised that he wasn’t destined for a musical career, and decided his future lay in medicine. In 1921 Evans entered the London Hospital Medical College on a science scholarship. He qualified in 1925, graduated in medicine and surgery in 1928, and took his M.D. in 1930 when he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and a fellow in 1938. This work merited his appointment as an assistant director of the medical unit in 1933, assistant physician to the London Hospital at Whitechapel in 1936, and physician in 1947. He worked under Arthur Ellis, who instructed him in the traditional English clinical discipline, and who brought him into prominence by selecting him as house physician to the medical unit. Subsequently he held appointments in surgery, obstetrics, pathology and anaesthetics, which gave him a broad basis for a career as a general physician.
He specialised in the effects of high blood pressure and diseases of the kidneys, making a thorough study of Bright’s disease, on which he published papers in medical and scientific journals. In addition he was consultant physician to five other hospitals and to the Royal Navy. It was through his influence that the Royal College of Physicians was moved from Trafalgar Square, having attracted the financial support of the Wolfson Foundation towards the cost of erecting new buildings at Regent’s Park.
He served the royal family as physician to Queen Mary in 1946, to King George VI in 1949 and to Queen Elizabeth in 1952, all of whom received him as a friend. He was knighted in 1949, and created a baron in 1957. In 1955 he delivered the Croonian lectures and was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1961. The University of Wales conferred on him an honorary D.Sc. degree and he was made a freeman of Merthyr Tydfil in April 1962.
Sir Horace Evans. Photo courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery (ref NPG x167429)
He was regarded as the last of the great general physicians of his age, convinced of the need for personal physicians with a critical judgement based on broad general experience, and of the importance of treating patients as human beings. His presence in a patient’s room or hospital ward left an immediate impression on every one who came into contact with him. His sympathy and understanding stemmed largely from his own family experiences.
Horace Evans had married Helen Aldwyth Davies, daughter of a former high-sheriff of Glamorgan in 1929, and they had two daughters. His younger daughter died in tragic circumstances after accidentally electrocuting herself, and his wife suffered prolonged ill health.
Horace Evans died on 26 October 1963 at the age of 60. Following his death, the Royal College of Physycians published an obituary which contained the following accolade:
“The death of Lord Evans in October 1963 cast gloom over the College. No more would we see his tall, slightly stooping figure, and behind the lightly horn-rimmed glasses the alert but kindly eyes that inspired confidence in patients and assured a welcome to every colleague. Few men carried high honours so gracefully.”
143 years ago today, on the afternoon of Saturday 16 May 1874, a scheduled passenger train left Brecon for Merthyr at 1.50pm, and following a few unavoidable delays arrived just after 3.25pm, eight minutes late, at the Great Western Railway Station at Merthyr Tydfil. The train was just reaching the end of the inner platform when it was hit by great force from behind by twenty-one fully-laden coal trucks.
At approximately 3.00pm that afternoon, a coal train of twenty-four fully-laden trucks had left the same platform at the Station heading for Swansea. At that time it was the policy of the Great Western Railway Company to work mineral trains going up the incline to the Aberdare Tunnel with an extra engine at the rear or at the front of the train to help propel the train up the incline. On this day, the train that had left Merthyr station was in one of these latter configurations.
On such occasions, it was the duty of the guards to be at separate positions at each end of the train to help operate the brakes with the brake-man. For some reason, the guard on this particular train was travelling with his colleague in the engine at the front, leaving the brake-man alone in the rear van. Shortly after the train had entered the Aberdare Tunnel, a coupling somewhere near the front of the train broke. The guards were alerted to this by the fact that the front part of the train suddenly accelerated. Having brought the train to a standstill the guards ran back along the track to find that more than half the train – twenty-one trucks in all had become detached from the train and had run back along the line on which they had just travelled. Between the Great Western Station and the Aberdare Tunnel, the railway line rises over three-quarters of a mile in a series of inclines ranging between 1 in 45 and 1 in 70 gradients, so this, coupled with the weight of the loads being carried, meant that the runaway trucks were accelerating the whole time along the track. The train was travelling at such a speed that the signalman at the Cyfarthfa Crossing and another signalman at the Rhydycar Junction, just half a mile from the station, were powerless to do anything to stop the train’s progress or to warn those at the Great Western Station.
Within minutes the trucks hit the passenger train. It is estimated that they were, by this time, travelling in excess of 40 miles an hour. They hit the passenger train with a force of approximately 300 tons of deadweight travelling at a mile a minute, and the sound of the crash was heard over a 300 yard radius. The force of the impact smashed the passenger coaches and forced the locomotive engine ‘The Elephant’ through the buffers at the end of the track, across the platform at the end of it, through the front of the station and into the road beyond before finally crashing into the high retaining wall at John Street, penetrating the wall to a depth of about four feet and damaging the foundations of the Grosvenor Hotel in John Street.
The first carriage on the train, immediately behind the engine tender, took the main force of the concussion that travelled along the train, and it was reduced to splinters, the only portion left for identification being the framework which was embedded beneath the guard’s van. Fortunately there were no passengers in this carriage – it is obvious that if there had been anyone in the carriage they would have been killed outright. Next was a composite (a mixed first and second class) carriage which came to rest on top of the guard’s van, amazingly the only damage this carriage sustained was broken windows and doors, and passengers in this carriage sustained only minor injuries, two further third-class carriages followed this, but the final third-class carriage which took the main brunt of the collision was almost totally demolished. It was in this carriage that most of the injuries occurred.
In all 52 people were badly injured, most people suffering from fractures and cuts and bruises. A large number of people also suffered from the effects of shock. The most serious injuries were sustained by the recently married Mrs Stephens of Pontypridd who suffered serious fractures to both legs, resulting in them both being amputated below the knee.
Miss Sarah Davies of Coed-cae Court, Twynyrodyn, also sustained fractures to both legs and needed one of her legs amputated below the knee. Mrs Elizabeth Morgan, aged 30, of Cefn Coed, also had both legs fractured and needed one leg amputated below the knee. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the doctors, Mrs Morgan’s injuries were far worse than originally thought, and she died of her injuries a week after the accident. It is miraculous that this was the only fatality. The driver of the train, David Humphreys, along with the stoker and the guard, managed to jump from the engine just as it crashed through the end of the station and sustained only minor injuries.
An artist’s impression of the crash from 1874
If you want to find out more, a fuller account of the crash appears in Merthyr Historian volume 26.
Whilst reading in the News of Wales on December 12, 2002 I came across an article written by Tony Trainor. Civic officials wanted to add an outside toilet to Joseph Parry’s former cottage to add to its historical significance. Councillors in Merthyr Tydfil believed the great musician’s home at Chapel Row in Georgetown now a museum – would be improved by the addition of the “privy”. A suitable toilet block was even offered by a resident living in River Row, Abercanaid – a terrace of historic workers’ cottages similar to the one lived in by the writer of the famous tear-jerker – Myfanwy. The council also resolved to move it to Chapel Row, so that visitors to the Joseph Parry birthplace museum would be able to see how people went about their toilet in the 19th Century as part of their tour.
Chapel Row
Despite the council’s attempts to recreate the past, no research had been carried out to determine where Parry’s original outhouse would have been sited if indeed he ever had one. Mr Henry Jones, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for education, said the toilet building could have been moved at relatively little public expense to a site at Chapel Row, where it would have been seen by visitors. A conservation architect from Cadw, the body responsible for historic buildings, then criticised the council’s plan to dismantle the privy in Abercanaid, an original structure made of rubble and sandstone with a lime-washed finish. “The building is an interesting historical survival of a type once commonly associated with terraced houses of this type”, he said. “In the absence of any convincing argument for its demolition, I cannot support the proposal to remove it”.
Whatever would the composer of Wales’ love song Myfanwy made of it all?
Some time in the 1980s, a fresh faced, pleasant boy came to Cyfarthfa. He seemed to enjoy his French lessons and he loved illustrating his written work, when required, with neat, labelled drawings. When I saw his excellent work on the ‘Clothes’ chapter, I suggested he repeat it for the wall display for homework, if he felt like it. He arrived at the next lesson with a set of ten delightful sketches of the clothes, including a smart chapeau with a chic feather in it. He had drawn them, coloured them, cut them out and mounted each one separately on a large sheet of paper and labelled them with their French names.
The stylish result amazed me. I didn’t know then that I was looking at the early efforts of a future young fashion designer, who would work at the house of Chanel in Paris, city of my dreams! and who would later make his own name and label famous: Julien Macdonald had done a fine piece of homework. I was delighted, we pinned his work on the wall and I showed it off to each class and to some of the staff. I think it would have remained there until the end of my teaching career but for a sad and regrettable incident a couple of years later.
The painters and decorators were in and gradually each classroom was going to be spruced up. I was instructed that work was to start on my room after registration the following day and the room had to be cleared of all its stuff. After school I stayed behind and carefully unpinned the wall decorations, that had become part of the furniture. There was a problem – some were too big to store in my cupboard so I decided, as it was time I went home, to leave them on a front desk until the following morning; after registration I would get help to carry them to some corner in the staffroom.
The next day I entered the classroom, without looking towards the precious pile, settled the class down and began to call the register, before assembly. A smell of smoke wafted up from the boiler room, somewhere down below: Glyn, the caretaker, was burning yesterday’s rubbish. A lot of it was paper. I gave a sudden look of panic across to the desk, on which my stack of papers should have been; the penny dropped! I knew in that instant that they would not be there and worse still I knew that they were probably being incinerated at that very moment. The pupil, seated at that desk, noticed my silent anguish and soon she and the rest of the boys and girls were sharing in my sorrowful and not so silent laments. The cleaner had taken them for a pile of rubbish (how could they have been considered rubbish?) and we never saw them again.
The maps of France and of Paris, the Boulogne – trip photos, the French flags, the cheese and wine labels, our exclusive collection of sketches by Julien Macdonald (not yet famous, admittedly) and all the other bits and pieces had gone up in smoke. I fumed at my lack of foresight and and my regret never ended.
Twenty or so years later, when walking in Thomastown Park, I met Matthew Howells, an old pupil of the school and former school-friend of Julien’s. He introduced me to his wife and as he reminisced about Cyfarthfa, he told us that once, when making their GCSE subject choices, he and some friends had asked Julien why he had chosen Art. Apparently, his answer had been “Well, Mrs Owen made such a fuss of some drawings I did for her I thought I would do Art.” After A-level success – nothing to do with me – Julien went on to study Fashion Design in London and is now known for his glamorous creations. He is one of Merthyr Tydfil’s most famous exports.
The classroom where I taught in Cyfarthfa High School (Castle site) was at the back, looking on to an area, darkly shaded by old trees. They had been planted circa 1824 when the mock-Gothic edifice, Cyfarthfa Castle, was built by William Crawshay, the ironmaster of the Cyfarthfa works. Less than a century later the family and iron-making disappeared from Merthyr Tydfil and their magnificent, unwanted home became a grammar school.
In the 1970s, when I was appointed to teach French at Cyfarthfa, by then a comprehensive school, one of those old trees became a particular favourite of mine and I admired it often as I glanced, or even took some time to gaze, at the shady woodland scene, just outside the window of Room 15: it was a cedar of Lebanon, the tree that indicates that the landowner, who paid for it was seriously wealthy. In quiet moments in that room I would muse on the Mediterranean land, from which the tree had sprung and of the time when the millionaire owner had bought it and many other specimens of exotic trees and plants. These had been transported, at great expense, to Merthyr Tydfil, his ugly, industrial town, for the beautification of his estate. Thanks to those past extravagances we had the most wonderful – looking school, a grey stone turreted castle, with lawns and a lake in front of it and well- established trees and gardens all around.
Cyfarthfa Castle in 2013
My north-facing room was dark and the ceiling strip – lights were often switched on to lighten and brighten it. In the well-used fashion of making the classroom a pleasant place in which the pupils can learn and where the teacher can impart knowledge, I made sure that the walls of the dingy room were colourfully decorated with scenes relating to France: pictures of famous buildings and work that the pupils had spent time creating in class or at home. As time passed the walls of the room were pinned with a collage of memorabilia, which gave great delight to me and, I hope, to the children, entrusted to me. Some of my own postcards were there – of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Mona Lisa; a map of France was in the place of honour in the centre of the back wall and it was mounted by two crossed ‘Tricolore’ flags. These had been drawn, painted and cut out by some enthusiastic pupils in break times. They had tried not to forget that Mrs Owen had said “ the colours of the French flag are blue, white and red (bleu, blanc, rouge), in that order from the flagpole, not red, white and blue. You must get it right.” There were wine bottle – labels, cheese – box labels, Orangina advertisements, photographs of the annual 24- hour, autumn trip to Boulogne, with many pupils and several teachers and where, if my allotted group of eight pupils could order their drinks in good French at the first café stop up in the old quarter of the town, I paid the bill; there was Richard Probert’s print of the Sacré-Coeur, bought especially for our classroom, on his and his brother Michael’s family trip to Paris. They would not forget it in a hurry because their Aunty Norma’s handbag, with her money and passport in it, was stolen in that beautiful white basilica, overlooking the city.
Another aunty had been snapped colourfully for posterity by her eager nephew, Owain Rowlands, as she was eating her way through a huge dish of ‘moules’. She was in the restaurant of the Hôtel de la Plage in the harbour town of Dieppe. This town featured in the Longman’s textbook, which was the basis of French language learning in Mid-Glamorgan schools. Aunty Jean was not to know then that she would be up there on the wall in our classroom, eating those mussels for many years to come. She was a French teacher and she had entered into the spirit of the family trip with gusto. The photos were rushed to school at the end of the holiday and there in front of us were the hotel, the town hall, the church, the swimming pool, the harbour in Dieppe and Jean eating those mussels – more visual aids for learning the ten French words of vocabulary that were expected to be known at the end of each chapter. La plage, le port, l’hôtel, l’hôtel de ville, i.e. the town-hall, surmounted with two crossed French flags etc… And so it went on until the end of the book and there were always creative hands, ready to change the scene a bit and to add an item about France and the French language to our décor. There was a notice, written carefully in good, correct French, announcing to all that Mrs Owen’s favourite character in Coronation Street was Mike Baldwin and her favourite television programme was Only Fools and Horses.
One chapter was about clothes. The required new points of grammar were introduced and the ten words for articles of clothing were there, to be learned through looking, listening, saying, repeating, writing, drawing and even singing. And of course there were volunteers for drawings of shirts, trousers, blouses, skirts, dresses, shoes, socks, macs and hats. Teaching French, especially in the first years to children of eleven and twelve, some at the start of even becoming clever linguists is a delight. One amongst several of these, was Sharon Rogers, who found it so easy to master the tricky French ‘r’ sound as soon as she heard it. It usually took a great deal of practice.
In years gone by, the most important event for the chapels of Merthyr (and indeed all of Wales) was the annual Cymanfa (literally translated as assembly or festival). As well as the Cymanfa Bregethu (preaching festival) there was also, more significantly and more famously the annual Cymanfa Ganu or Cymanfa Gerddorol (singing or music festival).
The first ever Cymanfa Ganu was held in Aberdare in 1873, and was inaugurated by Rev John Roberts (Ieuan Gwyllt) formally of Bethlehem Chapel, Caepantywyll, and the first Cymanfa Ganu was held in Merthyr Tydfil by the Calvinistic Methodists in 1874 at Pontmorlais Chapel.
Rev John Roberts (Ieuan Gwyllt)
The Welsh Baptists held their first Cymanfa Ganu in 1886 at Zion Chapel, Twynyrodyn and the Welsh Independents followed two years later holding their first Cymanfa Ganu in 1888 at Zoar Chapel.
Traditionally, the Welsh Baptists held their Cymanfa on Easter Monday, alternating between Zion Chapel, Twynyrodyn and Tabernacle Chapel; the Independents held their Cymanfa on Easter Tuesday at Zoar Chapel (and later at Gellideg Chapel) and the Methodists held their Cymanfa on the first Monday in May at Pontmorlais Chapel until it closed and then at Zoar Chapel until 1984 and afterwards at Hope Chapel.
As well as this, the Dowlais Baptists and Independents held their own separate Cymanfa’s, with the Independents holding theirs on Easter Monday and the Baptists on Easter Tuesday – both Cymanfa’s being held at Bethania Chapel. This continued until the 1960’s when both denominations amalgamated their Cymanfa’s to hold a joint Cymanfa on Easter Tuesday.
The Treharris and district Baptists and Independents also held their own Cymanfa’s – respectively on Easter Monday at Brynhyfyd Chapel and Easter Tuesday at Tabernacle Chapel.
Below are copies of: the programme for the 1911 Cymanfa Ganu held by the Methodist Chapels of Merthyr at Pontmorlais Chapel 106 years ago today; a programme for the Merthyr Independent Cymanfa of 1918; a programme for the Merthyr Baptist Cymanfa of 1937 and a programme for the Dowlais Joint Cymanfa of 1972.
