On 27 February we saw a marvellous article from the Merthyr Telegraph, anticipating the imminent closure of the Penydarren Works. Transcribed below is yet another remarkable piece that appeared in the same newspaper 160 years ago today (11 June 1859), written in the aftermath of the closure of the works. Yet again it hard to believe that this is only a newspaper article, not an excerpt from a great literary masterpiece.
BREAKING UP!
Early and late, in plain garb and with downcast look, our working men may be seen trudging from their old homes at Penydarren, bearing their little all in a bundle, on the mandril or spade, that is to earn their meal in other scenes. The spectacle is a saddening one, look at it in whatever light we may. It is too late in life for the majority to begin the world again. In youth, wifeless, childless, free and light of heart as a German ‘prentice lad, a ramble through the hedge-mapped landscapes of England might have benefited the pocket and improved the mind, but now, unthinkingly and in utter ignorance of this calamity at Penydarren, a host have struck the roots deeply and ramified them extensively in the soil of their motherland. And this up- rooting, how it breaks “old ties;” how it sunders those whom God has knit together? “Tush,” says the prosy matter of fact man, “these common men and women look differently at these things, and feel little, and that little only through physical suffering.” A bad excuse – human affections and feelings are the same all over the world – hearts beat as strongly under homely flannel as fine linen – very often stronger; by accident the vagaries of that unstudied science – chance – and the tailor and dressmaker’s art, which give us our distinctions. There is more virtue in silk than calico – broad-cloth surpasseth corduroy.
Year after year time has cemented these working people together;- from childhood to age the tendrils of love or friendship, religion or home, have been wound round the objects of their affection, rendering the dissolution, when the parting hour comes, more severe and unfortunate. Banished as it were from their resorts and connections – sent adrift to seek bread – the majority now in life’s sober autumn, who dare say that the fate of many will be a happy one? Past incidents tell us that many will find a home in the village church-yards and town cemeteries of distant shires; that some will rest from their weary wanderings in the unfenced, unmonumental, burying grounds of the sea, while their families parade in the uniform of poverty, and their wives live upon our charity. Yet, in common with our friends, we pray for the success of these wanderers, and trust that though fortune may exhibit her caprices as of yore, the migration of the working band will be attended on the whole with prosperity.
Merthyr Telegraph – 11 June 1859