Tag: Dowlais

Merthyr’s Chapels: Penywern Chapel

The next chapel we are going to look at in our continuing series is Penywern Welsh Independent Chapel.

The cause at Penywern began in 1856 when Mr David Evans of Llanwrda and Rev Benjamin Williams of Gwernllwyn Chapel began holding meetings in Mr Evans’ house in Penywern. With the blessing of the congregation at Gwernllwyn, they also opened a Sunday School.

As there was no other room available, the Sunday School was held in the long room of The Ifor Arms, Penywern. The room was let by Mrs Nancy Rogers, the licensee, at a rental of 12 shillings a month. One rule was laid down by the officials of the Sunday School however, that “no intoxicants were to be consumed in the long room while the Sunday School was being held”.

As the congregation grew it was decided to build a chapel in Penywern. Land was leased from the Dowlais Iron Company for 5s per annum, and the chapel, designed by Rev Benjamin Owen, Zoar, opened on the first Sunday in March 1858, with Rev Benjamin Williams taking responsibility for the chapel in a joint ministry with Gwernllwyn Chapel until he left in 1861.

As the numbers grew the chapel was rebuilt in 1876-7 at a cost of £1000, and the new chapel opened on 19 August 1877. Rev Benjamin Williams was invited back to the chapel to take the opening services for the new chapel.

In 1910, a few of the young men at the chapel, encouraged by the minister Rev J H Hughes decided to start a small choir and elected Mr Evan Thomas to be their conductor. The choir quickly grew and evolved into the Penywern Male Voice Choir, which became famous throughout Wales. The choir, under the leadership of Evan Thomas, sang for King George V and Queen Mary when they visited Dowlais in 1912. They went on to win many auspicious prizes, culminating in 1927 when the choir won three Eisteddfodau, and Evan Thomas won the three Eisteddfod chairs which he donated to the chapel. Due to the depression in the 1930’s and the closing of the iron works, the choir membership dwindled and eventually disbanded.

Penywern Male Choir

In 1921 a large school room was added to the front of the chapel. As this was a difficult time financially at the chapel, the stone for the new school room was given by Messrs Guest, Keen and Nettlefold through the courtesy of the general manager Mr Howell R Jones. The school room was built by voluntary labour with horses and carts being used to transport the stone from the nearby quarry. The school room was completed and opened in 1922.

Volunteers beginning work on the new schoolroom

Like so many other chapels in Merthyr, the congregation dwindled over the years, and the chapel closed and was subsequently demolished.

Merthyr: Then and Now

Circa 1900

2012

Looking at these two photographs, it is encouraging to see that the Guest Memorial Hall hasn’t changed all that much in about a hundred or so years. A rare survivor of of Merthyr’s heritage.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of St Mair’s Church, seen standing behind the Guest Memorial Hall in the first photograph.

St Mair’s Church (or the Welsh Church as it was known), was the largest church in Dowlais, and built between 1871 and 1874 by the Dowlais Iron Company to accommodate the Welsh speaking members of St John’s Church.

The Church closed in 1962 and was demolished the following year.

St Mair’s Church during demolition

Pearson Robert Cresswell

by Laura Bray

You have probably never heard of Pearson Robert Cresswell, but had you lived in Dowlais in the late 19th Century, if you were lucky, he may have saved your life.

Dr Pearson Robert Cresswell

Pearson Cresswell was born on 24 July 1834, the second son of Charles and Ann Cresswell, a solicitor and his wife, then living in Henwick, near Worcester. It was in Worcester that Pearson grew up, although while he was still in school, the family emigrated to Australia. Indeed, it is in Melbourne, that his parents and siblings lived and died.

This was not to be Pearson’s destiny, however, as in the 1850s he returned to the UK to study medicine, training in Middlesex Hospital and the Medical Centre in London, qualifying in 1859 as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (he became a Fellow in 1873). But our interest in him dates from May 1860, when he secured the post of Chief Surgeon to the Dowlais Iron Company, an appointment he retained for the next 40 years, until his retirement and death on 22 Nov 1905 aged 71.

Pearson was a noted medic in Dowlais, running a private practice as well as working for the Dowlais Iron Company and running both the Dowlais Workman’s Hospital and the Merthyr and Dowlais General Hospital.

Dowlais Workman’s Hospital . Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

However, it was for his work on antiseptics, particularly for the treatment of gunshot wounds and fractures or other serious injury, that he was a pioneer. He published several papers on it, and influenced thinking and practice on surgical techniques, such as the use of gloves in operations. He also promoted vaccination, becoming both Public Vaccinator and Medical Officer of the First District of the Merthyr Tydfil Union and of the Pant Fever Hospital. He was a staunch advocate of First Aid, delivering lectures on the subject and encouraging ordinary people to understand the principles. As such, he became the president of the Merthyr Centre of the St John’s Ambulance Association from 1881, when it was founded in Merthyr, and indeed it is from this that he was awarded a special mark of distinction in 1897 as a honorary associate of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in England.

You would have thought that all these activities would have kept Pearson Cresswell busy, but no. He was a Justice of the Peace for Glamorgan, held a special commission as a Justice in Lunacy, was Chairman of the Income Tax Commission and High Constable of Caerphilly Higher. In addition, he was a Church Warden of St John’s Parish Church in Dowlais, president of the South Wales Branch of the English Church Union and Chairman of the Dowlais Constitutional Club.

Perhaps it is his connection with the Volunteer Force that is the most difficult for us to understand today. Just after his arrival in Dowlais, Pearson was gazetted as an associate surgeon in the Administrative Battalion 2nd  Glamorgan Rifle Volunteer Corps, founded the year before. By 1891 he had become the Lieutenant Colonel Commander of the Administrative Battalion for all the companies in the Taff Valleys, which by this point had been consolidated. He “professionalised” the Corps, turning it into first a territorial and then the Volunteer Battalion Welsh Regiment, standardising the uniform, creating a cycling corps and establishing an officers’ and non-commissioned officers’ mess, equipped the regiment with machine guns and cleared the debts. Thus it was that he was able to raise and send three companies from the Regiment to the South African War.

Glamorgan Rifle Volunteer Corps. Dr Cresswell is seated at the right

Pearson died after a short illness in November 1905, in Dowlais, leaving a wife, two sons and two daughters, both sons having followed him into the medical profession. He was buried in Malvern, next to his first wife and daughter.

A man of his time, he was part of a time of change in Dowlais, and it is recognition of the importance of Merthyr during the nineteenth century that a man such as Pearson Cresswell lived and influenced thinking and practise there and in the wider world, for 40 years.

Maggie Davies – Eos Fach

Today marks the 93rd anniversary of the death of one of Merthyr’s greatest musical talents – Maggie Davies. Nowadays, however, she is almost totally forgotten.

Maggie Davies

Maggie Davies was born in Broad Street, Dowlais in November 1865. Her father, Evan, was a puddler at the Dowlais Works, and both he and his wife, Mary, were staunch members of Bethania Chapel, where Evan was a deacon. It was at Bethania Chapel that the young Maggie got her first rudimentary musical training, and was soon considered to be a prodigy, and her musical talents were often called upon around Dowlais.

After performing for two years with Brogden’s Swiss Choir, a famous touring group, Maggie returned to Merthyr for formal musical training with Edward Lawrence, the organist at St David’s Church. Under Lawrence’s tutelage, Maggie won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music in London. Before, her departure, the people of Dowlais organised a grand concert held at the Oddfellows Hall in her honour to raise money to help with her expenses.

At the Royal College of Music, she studied with Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Walter Parratt, and she also spent a season in Paris, studying with the world-renowned soprano Pauline Viardot. Such was Maggie’s talent and promise that the scholarship, which had been for a period of three years, was extended for a further three years, an unprecedented occurrence in that period.

Although she appeared for a season with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, it was as a concert singer that she made her name. She appeared regularly all over Britain, and sang annually at the National Eisteddfod, and it was here that she was christened ‘Eos Fach’ – Little Nightingale.

In 1896, the prominent composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford asked Maggie to sing the lead role in the premiere of his new opera ‘Shamus O’Brien’, a role he had written specifically for her. At first she was reluctant to accept the offer, as she did not want to return to the operatic stage, much preferring her career as a concert and oratorio singer. She was finally persuaded to perform the role by the composer, and she received excellent reviews in most of the newspapers and periodicals of the time.

Although she occasionally performed in opera productions, notably in Joseph Parry’s operas ‘Blodwen’ and ‘Arianwen’ in Cardiff, she continued to confine her career mostly to the concert platform, and took part in concert tours to America and South Africa.

In 1903, she married George W Hutcheson, a Scottish solicitor residing in London, and retired from the concert stage.

By the 1920’s, ill-health had begun to take its toll on Maggie, and in 1925 she embarked on a voyage to the West Indies with a view to improving her health. Upon her return, however, her condition had worsened and she was admitted to a nursing home, where she died on 1 July 1925. In her funeral, the Rev H Elvet Lewis, in his prayer, referred to “the use the Creator had made of the gifts of her great art, which had brought joy to so many during her time”.

The Town that Died

Has anyone read R L Lee’s remarkable book ‘The Town that Died’? The town in question is Dowlais, and the book recounts his memories of growing up there.

Dowlais is not a bad place at all, but when you compare the town today to how it was – for a lot of people from cherished memories, for others, relying on photographs, you can see that the epithet is a just one.

Below is an excellent photograph of Dowlais taken in 1920’s from the mountain behind the Ironworks (the present day Goat Mill Road). You can see what a large and bustling it place it was. A lot of the more prominent buildings are numbered and identified beneath the photo.

1.      Gwernllwyn Chapel
2.      Hermon Chapel
3.      Shiloh Chapel
4.      Elizabeth Street Chapel
5.      Bryn Sion Chapel
6.      Dowlais Works		 7.      Temple Buildings
8.      Ivor Works
9.      Elim-Tabernacle Chapel
10.    Oddfellows Hall
11.     Bethania Chapel

Almost everything in the photograph has gone. Of the buildings numbered above, only Bethania Chapel still remains.

The Town that Died indeed.

There is snow and then there is SNOW!!!

A few weeks ago most of us were house bound due to the snow. However, the snow that fell then is nothing compared to the snow we had in 1947.

In 1947, snow began to fall on 22 January, and with very few breaks, blizzards continued until the middle of March. At the height of the bad weather, snow drifts of up to 15 foot were recorded in some parts of Merthyr.

Below is a small piece that appeared in the Merthyr Express 71 years ago today.

Merthyr Express – 15 March 1947

The weather deteriorated so severely and so quickly that between 30 and 40 people were trapped overnight when a train got stuck in a 10 foot snowdrift between Fochriw and Dowlais. Over a hundred soldiers from Brecon Barracks travelled to Merthyr to try and release the train.

The situation on the railways around Merthyr got so bad that the Great Western Railway drafted in the RAF who brought two jet engines to clear the snow. Unfortunately, even though they were successful at clearing the snow, they were also successful at dislodging the sleepers that the rails were resting on!

Jet engines clearing the snow at Dowlais

Even though the snow was pretty bad a few weeks ago…..it could have been a heck of a lot worse!!!!

Do you remember the snow in 1947? If anyone has any recollections, or any stories regarding the snow in 1947, please get in touch.

Russia still honours a Merthyr Tydfil immigrant

by Irene Janes

Dowlais 1814, baby John James Hughes pushes his way into the world and the Merthyr Tydfil air filled his lungs, and although he took his last breath 75 years later, and on a different continent, the story grows, even today.

Unlike many other babies born that day in Merthyr, John had a chance of a better life. The proud Dad was head engineer of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. Although John was semi literate, unable to write and only read capital letters he was a quick learner in the ironworks under the supervision of his father.

Full of innovations and ambition, in 1840, John joined the Uskside Foundary in Newport. Here he patented a number of inventions in armaments and armour plating. His fortune was set and by the age of twenty-eight, he owned a shipyard and eight years later a foundry, but like Merthyr Tydfil, Newport could not hold him for long.

His reputation was extended not only over the borders of his homeland but those of continents when as manager of the residual Millwall Iron Works Company in London he was credited  for the iron cladding of wooden warships for the British Admiralty. Along with this, he designed a gun carriage for heavy cannons, which were eagerly bought by our Navy and other European countries.

The Imperial Russian government wanted plating for a naval fortress being built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. Naturally enough they sought the services of John and the Millwall Iron Works. John was thrilled to accept a concession from the Imperial Russian government to develop metal works and acquired a piece of land, a steppe, north of the Azov Sea, Russia.

Just imagine the apprehension, excitement, fear and anticipation when a year later John Hughes  had acquired the services of over a hundred skilled labourers, iron workers and miners from Merthyr and the surrounding valleys, some with their families. What faith they must have had in this man to follow him to a country, two thousand miles away with freezing Russian winters, scorching hot summers, the forever-stalking cholera, and a language they did not know. Eight ships filled with people, but mostly equipment, set sail not knowing what difference they would make to a piece of wasteland. Nevertheless, John’s vision extended to beyond building a metal works. He personally provided a hospital, good quality housing, school, bath-houses, tearooms, a fire brigade and an Anglican Church. An established town quickly grew when the steel plant went into full production and the sinking of several coalmines. The town was named Hughesovka (Yuzovka).  Nevertheless, I doubt if even John Hughes even dreamt that in 2018 he is still being honoured there.

Hughesovka Blast Furnaces in 1888. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Sadly, while on a business trip at the Angleterre Hotel in St Petersburg on, 17 June 1889, John took his last breath. His wife arranged for his burial in West Norwood Cemetery, London.  Four of his six sons took over the management of the works. By 1913 the works in Hughesovka was the largest in the Russian Empire producing seventy five percent of all Russian iron.

In 1924, after the revolution and under soviet rule, in a bid to re write history, communist U.S.S.R leaders decided to rename Hugesovka to Stalino (Stalin).

The name of the town was changed again in 1961, to distance it from its former leader Stalin, to one, which is more familiar – Donetsk. Nevertheless, it’s good to know one of its areas is still called Hughesovka   (Yuzovka )

The United States of Soviet Russia is no more and Donetsk is now a city in the Ukraine. Its political landscape has changed many times. In May 2014 a referendum was held where it is said 90% of the voters wanted independence. A month later it was declared that the town was the self proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic.  The European Union and the United States said the referendum was legal although Ukraine does not recognise it. Sadly, this transition has not been bloodless and many battles have been fought in Donetsk this century.

However, the town remains a testimony for John Hughes and those Welsh workers and their families who shaped a piece of land into what is today a major metallurgical industries centre with a population of over two million.

In 2014 his statute was erected outside their engineering university. There were plans for a museum in John’s honour, but again the people of Donetsk have had political issues to deal with.

John Hughes’ statue in Donetsk. 

Many thanks to Irene for contributing this fascinating article.

Dowlais Stables

One of the oldest and most impressive buildings still standing in Merthyr is Dowlais Stables.

In the early part of the Nineteenth Century, despite Merthyr being at the forefront of the industrial revolution, and indeed pioneering the first steam-powered locomotive in 1804, Dowlais (and all the other) Ironworks were reliant on horses and ponies to bear the brunt of the heavy haulage work. In July 1819, it is recorded, Michael Faraday the eminent scientist visited the Dowlais Works, and walked with Josiah John Guest to the hay fields near the Works where the hay made there was used to feed the 150 or so horses which the Dowlais Iron Company used.

The following year, Josiah John Guest had stables built to house the horses. The architect of the building is unknown, but it was (and still is) a striking building. The complex is of symmetrical design, in the form of a rectangular plan of ranges set round a (formerly railway-served) central yard. The façade has two-storeys with centre and end pavilions separating 9-bay ranges and there is a tall central arch, through which the railway passed, with a circular clock face. This façade is roughly 450 feet long, and the central block rises to over 50 feet, with the central arch being roughly 30 feet high. This is topped with a decorative wooden cupola.

A plan of the layout of Dowlais Stables

It is said that when the stables was built, a number of contemporary newspaper cuttings, and several items of memorabilia were hidden behind one of the arch stones to be revealed “when the building falls down”.

The stables were well used; towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Dowlais Iron Company were employing “over a dozen blacksmiths, several stable lads and a score of other hands to tend the several hundred head of horses now owned by the Company and stabled in the very heart of Dowlais”.

As well as being used as for stabling horses, soldiers were stationed in the building for several years after the Merthyr Riots of 1831. Also, of course, Lady Charlotte Guest famously used the large first-floor rooms as a boys school until Dowlais Central Schools were opened in 1854-5.

The stables closed in the 1930’s and the complex became derelict; in the late 1970’s unauthorised demolition was started, but was brought to a halt. The site was subsequently bought by the Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Trust in 1981, and despite the façade partially collapsing in 1982, the building was eventually rebuilt as flats; the south east facade walls were also substantially rebuilt. Of the original structure, only the southeast range and Stables House on the north west range currently survive.

Dowlais Stables after the partial collapse in 1982

Merthyr’s Chapels: Elim Chapel, Penydarren

In our regular feature on the chapels of Merthyr, we next take a look at the history of Elim Baptist Chapel in Penydarren.

In 1841, Rev William Robert Davies, minister at Caersalem Chapel in Dowlais decided that a new Baptist cause should be started in Penydarren to cater for the ever growing population there. Land was leased from the Penydarren Iron Company and the chapel, named Elim was built in 1842.

In 1849, the infamous cholera epidemic struck Merthyr which caused the death of 1,682 in Merthyr and Dowlais alone (see previous entry – www.merthyr-history.com/?p=123). On 4 August, cholera struck Rev Davies’ household, when his daughter died of the disease. Despite his grief, Rev Davies continued to visit the sick and comforted their relatives. One of the results of the cholera was a sudden upsurge in chapel attendance, and on the last two Sundays of August alone Rev Davies baptised no less than 150 people.

By this time he had begun discussing with the deacons the possibility of appointing another minister to help him continue the work at Caersalem. However, before this could be acted upon, Davies was himself struck down by the cholera on 1 September. He became suddenly ill at nine o’clock in the morning, and by seven o’clock that same evening he was dead. He was buried in the same grave as his daughter at the graveyard at Elim Chapel. He was 51 years old.

Elim continued to be considered as a branch of Caersalem until it gained its independence in 1852. The congregation continued to grow however, and the chapel was rebuilt in 1858.

By the 1930’s it had become obvious to the members that the chapel needed a new schoolroom to accommodate the burgeoning Sunday School at Elim Chapel. The materials necessary to build the school room were offered to the chapel at a very reasonable price on the condition that the members of the chapel could collect them. As this was the time of the Great Depression, and the Dowlais Works having recently closed, most of the men at the chapel found themselves unemployed, so they collected the materials, and built the school room themselves. The women of the chapel organised many activities to raise money towards the building. The schoolroom was opened on 18 July 1933.

Elim Chapel, Penydarren in 1933 showing the recently built new schoolroom

On the night of 23 December 1977 Elim was severely damaged in a storm, the roof was blown off. The chapel was beyond repair and had to be demolished the following year. Services were subsequently held at Williams Memorial Chapel until that chapel closed, and the remaining members of the congregation rejoined their mother church at Caersalem.

Elim Chapel following the collapse of the front wall as a result of the storm

A development of flats for senior citizens has now been built on the site of the chapel and is called Hafan Elim.