Merthyr was always famous for its musical tradition, not only for the many talented musicians produced by the town, but for the internationally famous musicians that performed here.
Without doubt, the most celebrated musician to ever perform in Merthyr was the legendary Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, who gave a concert at the Theatre Royal 70 years ago today – 25 November 1951.
By 1951, Flagstad had already achieved ‘legend’ status in the operatic world, and was acclaimed as the greatest Wagnerian soprano of her day. Nowadays however, she is regarded by many as the greatest soprano of the 20th Century. What an accolade for an industrial town in the Valleys to secure her services for the only appearance she had made in Britain outside London at the time.
Merthyr Express – 24 November 1951
Below is a review of the concert by the music critic of the Merthyr Express.
The Theatre Royal in the early 20th Century. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.
The Theatre Royal was opened in May 1894 as the Theatre Royal and Opera House. It was designed by local Merthyr Tydfil architect T.C. Wakeling in a Neo-Classical style, and was equipped with a stage that was 28 feet wide and 22 feet deep, with six dressing rooms. It cost £8,000 and had a seating capacity of 1,800.
It was one of the premier theatres in Wales, and attracted many of the biggest stars who performed there. With the growing popularity of films in the 1920s, the theatre began to operate as a cinema, as well as presenting live performances.
The Theatre Royal closed in the late 1960s and was converted into a bingo club. The theatre closed as a bingo hall in 2006 and has been unused ever since. Plans for the site have been considered but never submitted. The building is now in a very poor state and on the “at risk” register.
The Theatre Royal in 2019
The future of the building looks very bleak – as are several other building in Merthyr. I will probably be demolished, as so much of the town’s heritage has been in the name of ‘progress’.
From here in pre-industrial times the brook continued in its efforts to cut deeply into the country rock, passing Cae Racca, the fields of the Hafod Farm and down into Cwm Rhyd y bedd. Unfortunately with the construction of the new Ivor Works in 1839, this area became the tipping ground of the thousands of tons of waste produced by the furnaces, forges and rolling mills. Over the next century the whole form of the land became radically altered with tip and railway embankment obscuring its course. It eventually emerged into ‘The Cwm’, as a poor remnant of its former self, passing in the mid-nineteenth century the Dowlais Old Brewery and Gellifaelog House on its way down to Gellifaelog Bridge. This had been built in the second half of the eighteenth century to carry the Abernant to Rhyd-y-blew turnpike Road and would eventually become the location which every local would know as ‘The Bont’.
The Nant Morlais flowing through ‘The Cwm’ in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.A map showing the Nant Morlais passing through the Bont and showing Gellifaelog House and Gellifaelog Bridge
A little below here, it had its junction with Nant Dowlais on the banks of which the first Dowlais furnace had been constructed in 1759. Two centuries later, in the 1960’s with the building of the Heads of the Valleys Road and the general landscaping of the 1980’s the stream’s way through the ‘Cwm’ was again changed quite comprehensively, although shrub and tree planting rendered the valley more aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately, it is only the archive map or faint ancient photographs which now help inform us of its rich and varied history.
Site of confluence of the Morlais and Dowlais Brooks. The old turnpike road went to the left, crossing the Morlais at Gellifaelog Bridge. The New Road was originally one of the railway inclines of the Dowlais Works. Photo Clive Thomas
Before being confined to its anonymous, culverted bed, the brook’s surface course from The Bont was once again encroached upon by massive tipping from the Dowlais Ironworks. On the opposite bank, once the fields of Gellifaelog and Gwaunfarren Farms, what was to become Penydarren High Street would be established. This ribbon development of dwellings, shops and places of worship was constructed above the steep valley side here and would eventually form a fundamental link between the growing settlements of Merthyr Tydfil and Dowlais. As early as 1811 though, I.G. Wood’ s print of the Penydarren Ironworks shows our mountain cataract to be already much altered, confined and despoiled by the growth of that iron manufactory. Today, the location is completely transformed from the area of desolation we knew in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. It is landscaped, green and partly wooded but it is a great pity the planners could not have given it a more inspirational name than Newlands Park.
The Morlais Brook flowing behind Penydarren High Street in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
Below the site of the works its course altered a little again and helped define that spur of high ground the Romans had chosen, probably in the early second century AD as the site for one of their forts. I am sure these ancient invaders would have had no inkling of the iniquities that men of later centuries would perpetrate on the stream and landscape hereabouts. Today, Nant Morlais reveals itself only briefly to the rear of the Theatre Royal and Trevithick memorial before disappearing at Pontmorlais, the location of another of those early turnpike bridges.
An 1851 map showing the course of the Morlais Brook through PontmorlaisThe Morlais Brook at Pontmorlais in the 1940s. Wesley Chapel is in the background. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
Hidden behind the buildings of the town’s Upper High Street there is one final reminder of the stream’s rural and unsullied past. Mill Lane, more recently the rather secret location of Mr. Fred Bray’s sweet factory, is the site of a water mill where our agricultural forefathers ground the corn grown in the fields of the local farms.
A map from the 1860s showing the old mill.
Whilst the old buildings and general dereliction which not so long ago framed the stream’s last few hundred metres have long disappeared and been replaced by car parking and civic buildings, a large portion of Abermorlais Tip remains to mark the point where the waters of Nant Morlais coalesce with those of the parent Taf. Although partly confined to a subterranean existence, through the more recent efforts of Man, ‘The Stinky’ has been able to rid itself of the foul and fetid mantle of its past.
Where it all ends. The confluence of the Morlais with the Taf. Photo Clive Thomas
Most of us have passed, or even visited the Temperance Hall (or the Scala to those of you who were born after the 1960’s), but how many of you realise that it was in fact Merthyr’s first purposely built public meeting place?
The Temperance Hall was built by the Merthyr Temperance Society as somewhere to provide “instruction and amusement for the masses of the people”. The Temperance Movement began in the 1830’s. At first temperance usually involved a promise not to drink spirits and members continued to consume wine and beer. However, by the 1840s temperance societies began advocating teetotalism. This was a much stronger position as it not only included a pledge to abstain from all alcohol for life but also a promise not to provide it to others.
The Temperance Hall was opened in September 1852 by Henry Bruce, the M.P. for Merthyr. The original building measured approximately 80 foot by 40 foot, with a 12 foot wide platform, with a capacity of between 100 – 150 people.
In 1873, the Hall underwent major enlargement, was said to hold up to 4,000 people. For the next 20 years the Hall was the main theatre in Merthyr, mostly seeing off competition that came and went, from the Drill Hall, the short-lived Park Theatre and the many visiting portable theatres. Performances at the Temperance Hall ranged from musicals like “Les Cloches de Corneville” and the marionette spectacular “Bluebeard”, to performances of plays by Shakespeare and other leading dramatists.
As well these, the Hall was also used to host lectures and also religious and political meetings. One of the most famous of these was the meeting held in 1872 by Rose Mary Crawshay, one of the leaders of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the late 1800’s, which led to a petition for Women’s Suffrage being sent to Westminster.
A picture entitled “Emigration Agent Lecturing at the Temperance Hall” that appeared in The Illustrated London News 6 March 1875
In 1885 the management was controlled by a group of four brothers: Charles, Joseph, George and Harry Poole who continued with the mixed policy, and encouraged local amateur groups to use the premises as their regular base. By the turn of the century, however, the Temperance Hall was gradually becoming a music-hall and variety theatre, with the touring productions of musicals and straight plays tending to go to the Theatre Royal.
Israel Price
By 1914, the Temperance Hall was listed in the Kinematograph Year Book, so it was clearly an early cinema conversion. The manager of the theatre by now was Mr Israel Price, who would become a legendary theatre manager of the South Wales area. From the outbreak of the War until the start of the “talkies” Israel Price provided variety performances and reviews as well as silent films. In 1927 he was able to advertise that the Temperance Hall was “now the only live theatre in the town”.
The Temperance Hall was renovated and re-seated in 1930 and re-opened in August of that year, promoting itself as “Now one of the most comfortable theatres in the provinces”.
In 1939, Israel Price’s son (also called Israel) took over the running of the Temperance Hall, and he also eventually took over the management of the Theatre Royal. The Hall seems to have been used almost exclusively as a cinema during the Second World War, but in the post-war years it resumed live theatre, and in 1948 ran a forty-week repertory season under the direction of Barney Lando.
An advert for the Temperance Hall from the Merthyr Express 5 June 1937
By the 1953 edition of the Kinematograph Year Book the proprietors were listed as Messrs Price and Williams, and there were 624 seats, and by 1980 the Theatre had ceased presenting live shows and was used exclusively as a cinema having been renamed the Scala Cinema. It was owned by Dene Cinema Enterprises Ltd. and had 480 seats.
The cinema closed in the early 1980’s and in 1985 the building was converted into a bar and snooker club.
The ground floor of my Grandparent’s house comprised of the traditional front parlour, a back room with window looking onto the garden and a back extension of kitchen/scullery. All three rooms were heated by coal fires, the one in the kitchen having the traditional Victorian cooking range. All three rooms were connected by a wide hallway, from which the staircase leads up to the three bedrooms. The bathroom was in the extension over the kitchen/scullery comprising of a bath and wash hand basin, although, quite spacious there was no toilet. The WC was outside at the far end of the garden, a novelty for me as I lived in a Council house on the Keir Hardie Estate which had two toilets! As a small child staying overnight at my grandparent’s house, use of the chamber pot kept under the bed took some getting used to.
My father’s comment on not knowing where he would be resting his head each evening had some resonance with me when studying the 1939 Census. On the Census night of the 29 September there were a total of 11 people residing in number twelve:
Caradog JONES
Margaret JONES
Jack Bailey JONES (my father)
Betty Bailey JONES (my aunt), and
Stanley HENDON, Journeyman baker, aged 20 years
Albert WHITLEY, Music hall artist, aged 28 years
Thomas BONNY, Music hall artist, aged 36 years
Eric RYAN, Music hall artist, aged 28 years
George WILDER, Music hall artist, aged 32 years
Thomas KEITH, Music hall artist, aged 28 years
Charles SMYTHE, Travelling stage manager, aged 29 years.
One of my grandparent’s boarders that night, Albert (Eric) WHITLEY, was the lead singer with the Teddy Joyce Orchestra. WHITLEY performed under the name of Tony LOMBARDO and was born in Wrexham in 1910; he died in his ‘home’ town in 1991.
For all that week from Monday 25 September to Saturday 30 September the Joyce Jamboree was appearing at the Theatre Royal. The ‘Jamboree’ comprised the Teddy Joyce Orchestra and a number of variety acts. Teddy JOYCE, real name Edmund CUTHBERTSON was born in Toronto Canada and came to Britain in the 1930s after a short career in the USA. Part of the pre-war ‘Big Band’ era, Joyce was known as “Hollywood’s Dancing Bachelor” and the “Stick of Dynamite”. However, his career was cut short, dying in Glasgow, February 1941, aged 36 years.
The Tommy Joyce Orchestra
One can only guess where all these men slept at night, both downstairs rooms must have been jam-packed and some must have slept on the floor. The census does give us some insight into the kind of life these young men spent, with late night performances, makeshift accommodation and constant travelling to contend with for weeks/months on end.
Today marks the 135th anniversary of the birth of one of Merthyr’s brightest musical stars – Florence Smithson.
Although born in Leicester, Florence spent most of her childhood and formative years in Merthyr. She was the daughter of Will Smithson, a well-known provincial theatre manager, who had settled in Merthyr to take over the running of the Theatre Royal. She made her stage debut at the age of three in pantomime. After leaving school she studied at the London College of Music. Various singing engagements followed, and while she was touring with a small opera company in Donizetti’s opera La Fille du Régiment, she was spotted by the impresario Robert Courtneidge. Under his management she toured in 1904–05 as Nanoya in The Cingalee and Chandra Nil in The Blue Moon.
In August 1905 she made her first appearance in the West End repeating her role in The Blue Moon and making an immediate success. From then until the First World War she made occasional variety appearances and played in a series of musical comedies, and created the role of Sombra in The Arcadians.
In July 1914, she sailed for Australia, but the outbreak of war curtailed her tour. Returning to England in 1915 she toured in variety theatres and played pantomime seasons in London. Australian and South African tours followed in the 1920s, and she returned to England in 1927.
Throughout this period, she never forgot her roots in Wales, and performed frequently throughout the country, and made regular appearances in Merthyr. One of her last engagements was in a national tour of The Gipsy Princess.
Florence Smithson died on 11 February 1951 in a nursing home in Cardiff after undergoing a serious operation.
She had a singing voice of great purity, and audiences waited expectantly for her trademark pianissimo high notes. The operatic star Adelina Patti dubbed her “the Nightingale of Wales”, and Dame Nellie Melba was quoted as saying of her “They say the birds taught her to sing; I think she taught the birds”.
Although born in Leicester, Florence spent most of her childhood and formative years in Merthyr. She was the daughter of Will Smithson, a well-known provincial theatre manager, who had settled in Merthyr to take over the running of the Theatre Royal. She made her stage debut at the age of three in pantomime. After leaving school she studied at the London College of Music. Various singing engagements followed, and while she was touring with a small opera company in Donizetti’s opera La Fille du Régiment, she was spotted by the impresario Robert Courtneidge. Under his management she toured in 1904–05 as Nanoya in The Cingalee and Chandra Nil in The Blue Moon.