by Barrie Jones
Chapter XV (continued). Henry recounts being duped by a ‘friendly’ warder and how his stomach ailment led to his transfer to Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 30th April 1910, page 11.
Chapter XV (continued)
Time went on, and I was doing a splendid trade with my toothpicks, when one day there came an individual to Portland as an assistant warder, and stuck on his breast were two medals which told that he had been engaged in the late row in South Africa. This man took me into his confidence, and one day asked me where I came from, and other questions which he knew, and I knew, was strictly against the rules. He told me that he hailed from Brecon, and our conversation drifted right into Merthyr Tydfil and from there right to Abercanaid over the mountain into Aberdare, until he mentioned all the villages and towns he knew all through the Rhondda Valley. Our conversation was then cut off, for the chief warder happened to come in at the time, and He left with the remark, “All right, Williams, I will see you again,” but I wish I had never seen him at all. A few days after, just before Christmas, 1903, this man happened to be on duty in my ward, He came up to me, and, says he, “Williams, I have heard you are very clever in carving articles out of bone. Just make me one so I can send it as a memento to my parents in Brecon.” “Certainly,” says I. Well, I made a pretty little article, taking great pains over it, and I wrapped it up in a piece of paper, together with a note, asking him to oblige me in return with half an ounce of twist tobacco.
On the following Monday morning, I put my name down for the doctor, not for physic, but in order to see the officer, as I knew perfectly well that he would be in charge of the doctor’s men. So just for a bit of swank, I asked the doctor if he would allow me to have my ears syringed, so that I could be taken to the infirmary. On the way I passed him the article and note. All went well until the parade, when I was marched right from the infirmary to the separate cells. “Hullo,” says I, to the officer in charge, “what am I brought here for?” “You are under report,” says the officer. “And what for?” says I. “For attempting to traffic with an officer,” says he. I have known some tricks played by officers and convicts, but never in all my experience have I known anything to come up to this. The following day I was brought before the Governor, and I was awarded ten days bread and water and forfeited ten weeks of my ticket of leave. It soon floated about the assistant warder had tried his hand for promotion, and he was hooted by convicts, and even some of the good officers threw him many a look of contempt. Thus his life in the convict service became a misery to him, and finally he was dismissed for trafficking, being caught “bang to rights,” as the “lags” call it.
Meanwhile I was undergoing my punishment but getting a bit daunted and my stomach getting a bit weak, I went beyond my food, for what I did eat did me no good whatever. One day the medical officer came to see me, and says he, “Why do you not eat your food, Williams?” “It is no use,” says I, “for I may as well snuff it now as any other time.” So, thinking me rather weak in my intellect, he ordered me to be taken to hospital, and to give him his due, he ordered me the best of diets, but no use, for my stomach was too weak to take it, and in reality, I knew that I was going off my head. One day the doctor again came to see me, and said, “look here, Williams, if you do not eat your food, I shall have to make use of the stomach pump.” “Pump away,” I replied, and sure enough pump away they did, for they placed me in the straight jacket, and strapped me to a chair, place a gag between my lips, and in this way they kept me alive with milk an brandy from the first of January to the 12th of July, 1904, when I was transferred to Parkhurst Convict Prison, Isle of Wight, as a weak-minded convict.
In my next chapter I will relate my experience at Parkhurst.
To be continued……
Ivan Dale Owen was born in Merthyr on 2 August 1924. He attended Whitchurch Grammar School and went on to the Welsh School of Architecture in 1941. War service between 1943 and 1946 – he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery – took him to the North-West Frontier of India.
There is a memorial window to Owen and to his son who died in infancy in All Saints Church, Penarth. The window includes a depiction of Owen’s design for the bell tower and Great Hall of Aberystwyth University, in which it signifies the Heavenly City (right).