80 years ago today….
Tag: Merthyr Express
200 years of history at Gwaunfarren – part 2
by Brian Jones
The next family to take up residence in the large house was Richard Harrap and his wife Mary with 5 children and just 3 servants. Richard was born in Yorkshire and prior to taking up residence in Gwaunfarren he lived on the Brecon Road. He was a brewer, and in 1871 he went into partnership with another brewer to form the growing company “Giles and Harrap’s”. They owned the “Merthyr Brewery” and marketed “Merthyr Ales” from their brewery on the Brecon Road, and grew the company to own 62 public houses.
Eventually they were bought out by William Hancock and Co. in 1936 and brewing ceased on the Brecon Road. In 2010 the brewery was demolished however the company name lives on etched in the glass windows of “Y Olde Royal Oak” public house in Ystrad Mynach (built 1914.). Richard died in 1895 with his wife remaining at Gwaunfarren House and she decided to give the house a personal name “Glenthorne”. She passed away in 1916 whilst her son James Thresher Harrap, resided there until 1921 when he moved to the Grove.
There is a gap in the historical record after the Harrap family vacated the house sometime in the early 1920s so I was unable to ascertain the use of the property until 1937. It is likely that the downturn in the economy of Merthyr and the dearth of very large wealthy families made the occupancy of this large house uneconomic.
The house, although apparently empty, seemed to have continued in a reasonable state and not vandalised in the inter-war years. There are numerous references to the future of the house considered by various committees of the Merthyr Borough Council during the years between 1921 and 1937. The house remained in the ownership of the freeholder with the Council making enquiries about its purchase for a variety of uses. For example, in 1934 the Education Committee thought it could be used as a training centre for unemployed boys and girls. They sought the approval of the Ministry of Labour for funding to purchase the property for £6,100 but were unsuccessful.
There was a suggestion that the house be used to accommodate children with Learning Difficulties but again nothing came of these proposals until the freehold, house, garden and lodge were acquired in 1937 by The Merthyr Tydfil Community Trust. This began life as the Merthyr Tydfil Educational Settlement and was formally opened in July 1938 by Earl Baldwin and Countess Baldwin. At that time there were many such Settlements providing education and welfare services to people during the Depression of the 1930s. The Settlement continued for four years at Gwaunfarren until the building was requisitioned by the government for use by the Emergency Medical Services in 1941. There were two possible wartime uses, either for the care of injured World War II servicemen and women or for expectant mothers.
Dr. Joseph Gross wrote an essay in Volume Two of the Merthyr Historian in 1978 on “Hospitals in Merthyr Tydfil”. He stated that injured service personnel were treated at Merthyr General Hospital, St. Mary’s Catholic Hall and the Kirkhouse Hall. Instead, the house was to provide 25 beds for pre- and post-natal maternity services when the Welsh Board of Health took responsibility for the house then renamed as “Gwaunfarren Nursing Home”. Babies continued to be born there for the next 30 years.
The ownership of the building was transferred to the Ministry of Health when the NHS was formed in 1948 and it was agreed to use the proceeds of the sale for charitable purposes. However, it took until 1954 to agree a price for the building. In 1948 Gwaunfarren Nursing Home became Gwaunfarren Maternity Hospital managed by the Merthyr and Aberdare Hospital Management Committee (HMC) The beds were increased to 30 beds with similar units at Aberdare General and St. Tydfil’s Hospital. Many adults alive today were born at Gwaunfarren often staying with their mother for a considerable number of days unlike current maternity practice of short hospital stays. The unit continued for some years until there were further improvements to the maternity unit at St. Tydfil’s Hospital, including a small Special Care Baby Unit. Gradually the number of births at Gwaunfarren decreased and confinements ceased at the end of the 1960s. Some post-natal transfers were continued for a short period of time until the hospital closed in the early 1970s.
Gwaunfarren Hospital then remained empty for some years although it was put to occasional and varied use to include a location for television filming. The land, together with the house and lodge was sold, the house demolished, and plots allocated to accommodate the present makeup of Gwaunfarren Grove. Gwaunfarren Lodge still remains today at the entrance to the original position of the drive.
Today the vast majority of the general public look at the way land is used very much in the here and now without giving much thought to its history over the ages. A review of the use of the land at post code CF47 9BJ allows us to peel away the pages of history. Now passers- by at the entrance to Gwaunfarren Grove will not know that the access road once served as the driveway to a substantial Victorian family home, educational centre, maternity hospital and that prior to all of those uses it had been a farmstead known as “The Dairy”, part of a farm of considerable antiquity.
Memories of Old Merthyr
We continue our serialisation of the memories of Merthyr in the 1830’s by an un-named correspondent to the Merthyr Express, courtesy of Michael Donovan.
A little way down was the Owain Glyndwr Inn, of which a Mr Thomas Williams was host. He was a brother to the David Williams, Angel. He had a son whom some of your readers may remember as a druggist; his name was John Teague Williams.
There were several roads and streets leading off from this, the High Street, to the road from the Dowlais Inn up to the church; one was called Horse Street from the fact that horses always went up that way; the one on the upper side of the Bush was Church or Chapel Street, I forget which, and would have been a nearer way, but it was exceedingly steep. One of the six shops mentioned was used as a reading room.
The caretaker or librarian was Mr Henry Murton, a remarkably clever man. To illustrate the character of the man let me give some anecdotes. He was engaged in the Works to carry the patterns to and from the moulders. He had a failing, and was told he had been appointed to a better position on condition that he give up the cup. Expressing his gratitude, of course, the promise to do so was made, but alas broken before the day passed. He was clever too. In Basil Hall’s voyages, reference is made to the earthquakes in South America. Murton designed and made a model of a house that would not be affected by them – this I well remember.
If I may interpolate a personal matter I would say it was in this reading room in the Athaneum the first account of sun pictures was read. It was Fox Talbot’s paper read on the subject before the British Association at the sitting just concluded.
Necessarily Murton’s occupation brought him into connection with master moulder, who, although a man of substance, peculiarly was not a man well informed, and interrogating Murton as to how vessels went across the Atlantic, obtained information as to the mariner’s compass. “Well” said the moulder, “I thought a big ship took boats, and then somehow the boat would guide the ship that way again”.
Passing the entrance to the Dowlais Works there were no cottages on the right hand. The small building with their back to the road were used for store houses for the necessaries of the works. The Police Station was not built, but there was a dwelling inside contiguous to the office. A David Phillips lived there, and two or three generally had lodgings there. George Cope Pearce was one, Edward Davies (we called him Ned) another; he was a brother of R P Davies, an old Dowlais man, but whose name can be seen on the base of the clock in the Circle at Tredegar. R P Davies was for a while the London agent of Messrs Guest, Lewis & Co.
Poor Ned! The last time I ever saw him was a chance meeting near the Tower of London. He had been down to one of the docks to see the ship in which he was going to California. There was no lack of substance in him for he was desirous of making a bet that he would go to any three persons that I pointed out, and persuade them he was known to them. Finding the cause for this, its necessity was avoided, and I parted from him as he went into the City Club to see his brother.
Two others sailed with him, one, Cox by name, and assistant doctor from Dowlais, and another, I think it was a Bramwell, from Penydarren, but they never reached their destination, the ship was wrecked.
To be continued at a later date…….
The Dark Side of Convict Life – part 12
by Barrie Jones
Chapter IX. Henry describes his experience of hard labour in Portland prison, and also examples of incidents between convicts and prison warders in the quarries.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 19th March 1910, page 11.
Chapter IX
On a Monday morning in the month of May 1899, I was told off on parade to join No. 27 party, and after going through the usual search drill, I was marched out to the stone cutters’ yard, situated near the free men’s quarry at Portland. The distance from the prison to the quarry is not very great, and as the last gang passed through the gates, a company of soldiers, armed with rifles and fixed bayonets, closed in and followed the convicts straight to the quarries, where they break off into sentries. There were civil guards there also. At the stone yard, I was supplied with a set of mason’s tools, and instructed in the art of masonry, which I took great interest in. I continued this work for nearly four years, and finally I was pronounced a first-class mason. I helped to build the new stone prison at Portland, and also made the circular stones for the air shafts of the same. I had several changes of labour during that time, for I got transferred to the quarry party; I was employed also in No. 7 party under a warder, who was a good old fatherly sort of man, and who did not believe in taking a poor convict’s dinner from him (reporting him) for the most trivial of offences.
In the year 1901, a young convict employed in No. 54 party, in the quarry at Portland, a very quiet chap, who had very little to say, to anyone, one Saturday morning, after sweating and nearly killing himself with hard work, forfeited his two days food by simply asking one comrade to give him a lift with a stone which was beyond his strength. The officer in charge of the gang reported him to the Governor, and he was awarded the dietary punishment mentioned. This was not the first time the that the officer had taken liberties with him, but the convict had made up his mind, after being driven to desperation, to have his revenge. On the following Monday morning, after suffering his punishment, he came out to the quarry as usual, and said not a single word to anyone, and just as they were taking the tools out of the box, the officer happened to turn his head aside, when with a dash and quite unexpected by anyone, the convict caught up an iron drill and brought it with terrific force down on the head of the officer until he was streaming with blood. The whistles were blowing all over the place, and several guards left their posts, and rushed with fixed bayonets to the rescue, but the convict caught up another drill, and broke several of their bayonets. At last, he was overpowered, and taken back to the prison. He was tried before the committee and sentenced to two dozen with the “cat.” As for the officer he received compensation and was dismissed from service. A similar assault was committed upon an assistant warder by a young “lifer.” This officer used his cutlass when he was not supposed to have used it; he also was reduced and was not allowed to wear side arms for twelve months.
Convicts sometimes met with serious accidents in the quarry. I can recollect a serious affair which happened in 1901, when one of the great stone-lifting cranes (or jibs) fell to the ground and caused serious internal injuries to two poor chaps. Stretchers were brought and they were conveyed to the prison infirmary, and their groans were pitiful in the extreme. Another case was that of a man who broke his leg, and the only compensation he received was six weeks deducted from his sentence of ten years. Sometimes convicts make terrible assaults upon their fellow convicts. I can well remember a case of a convict who was being called a one-eyed _____, took up a stone pick, and struck it right underneath the heart of a man. The former convict was taken out, and tried by civil power, and received the sentence of eighteen months. The leniency of his sentence was owing to the great provocation he had received. The chap whom he had assaulted was given up by two doctors for dead, but he got round after all, so that was an instance of small faith in medical aid. Sometimes mutinies are threatened among convicts, and a mutiny nearly happened in 1901, when about eighty convicts absolutely refused to go out to the quarries owing to receiving for their breakfast sour bread. The mutiny was checked by each man receiving a ten-ounce white loaf apiece.
To be continued…….
Thomas Jacob Thomas – Sarnicol
by Barrie Jones
Wales has provided a number of prominent twentieth-century poets with the surname Thomas, for example: Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), and Edward Thomas (1878-1917)[1]. However, all three poets wrote solely in the English language.
A prominent Welsh poet who wrote in both Welsh and English was Thomas Jacob Thomas (1873-1945). Born 13th April 1873 near Rhos-yr-hafod, Capel Cynon, Cardiganshire, he was the fourth of the five children of David Thomas (1841-1922) and Mary nee Jacob (1837-1919), David was an agricultural labourer and the family lived in Sarnicol farm cottage.[2]
After an early education attending Capel Cynon board school and later Talgarreg school, owing to his frail health it was advised that he attend New Quay grammar school. Here, he stayed for four years taking Department of Science and Art examinations. In 1891 he won a £20 scholarship for the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, reading for the University of London B.Sc. degree.[3]
At that time, it was normal for most well-educated working-class men and women to pursue teaching careers. So it was with Thomas, who halting his degree course, accepted a teaching post in mathematics at the Hartley Institution in Southampton in 1894. Returning to Wales in 1896 he obtained a post as science master at Abergele intermediate school, Denbighshire. Here, he completed his final B.Sc. examination. The following year he moved to teach science at schools in South Wales, Merthyr Tydfil County School, (1897-1901), and Abertillery Secondary School (1901-1913). In September 1913 he accepted the post as assistant master at the newly established Cyfarthfa Castle Municipal Secondary School, Merthyr Tydfil, teaching Chemistry and Welsh. In his final year at Cyfarthfa he took an external B.A. degree of the University of London. In 1922 he was appointed headmaster of the newly established Quakers Yard Grammar School, Treharris. What is unique is that Thomas was associated with the early years of Merthyr Tydfil’s three grammar schools: ‘The County,’ ‘Cyfarthfa Castle,’ and ‘Quaker’s Yard.’ In 1931, at the age of fifty-eight, owing to ill health he took early retirement and moved with his wife ‘Katie’ to live in ‘Llywel’, Laura Place, Aberystwyth, ‘where he found kindred spirits interested in literature and etymology with whom he could discuss the subjects which despite, his science training, were nearest to his heart’.[4]
Throughout his adult life Thomas wrote prose and verse contributing to numerous publications such as Ymofynydd, Cymru, Y Geninen, the Western Mail, the London Kelt, Y Lienor, Y Ford Gron, Y Beirniad, and Y Cymro. He also edited a Welsh column for the Merthyr Express newspaper for a number of years. His chief publications on collections of his poems were Ar lan y mor a chaneuon eraill, (1898), Odlau Mor a Mynydd, (1912), Blodau drain duon, (1935), Storiau ar gan, (1936), Catiau cwta, (1940), and Chwedlau cefn gwlad, (1944). Ready for publication at the time of his death in 1945 was Odlau’r aelwyd, which he considered to be his best poems. The manuscript is currently held at the National Library of Wales.
Thomas entered his odes (awdlau) to numerous National Eisteddfodau; London, (1909), Colwyn, (1910), Wrexham, (1912), Abergavenny, (1913), Birkenhead, (1917), and Bangor, (1931). At the Abergavenny Eisteddfod he was chaired Bard for his ode (awdl), ‘Aelwyd y Cymro,’ (The Welshman’s home) using the bardic title’ ‘Sarnicol,’ after the name of the cottage where he was born. He also judged the awdl at Llanelli, (1930), and Bangor, (1943). In addition to his odes, Thomas entered translations of verse to the National Eisteddfodau at home and in the United States of America. These covered Welsh into English, English into Welsh, and even French into Welsh. In 1915 he won a forty-dollar prize for a translation of verse from English into Welsh at the San Francisco Eisteddfod, California.[5] In July 1901 Thomas passed the National Eisteddfod examination for Gorsedd degree as a bard.[6]
Following his bardic achievement at Abergavenny in 1913 he was much in demand to give addresses to groups and societies throughout Wales. His favourite topic at that time was the Welshman and humour, (Y Cymru yn y cywair llon), drawing upon examples from Welsh literature both ancient and modern. ‘The suggestion that the Welshman was a sad, morose individual, devoid of all sense of humour, was contrary to facts, as revealed in Welsh literature and life.’[7]
Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Thomas demonstrated that he could be carried along with the war fervour that gripped Britain at that time. In typical jingoistic fashion in November 1914, he wrote the lyrics of ‘Men of Cambria’ to the tune of ‘Men of Harlech’, the song finishing with the following lines:[8]
Face the Teuton’s fire and thunder,
Rend the Kaiser’s hosts asunder;
Strike again the World with wonder,
Show that right is might!
His penchant for writing verse to popular tunes was most notable when while teaching at Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School he wrote the lyrics to the school song; Can y Castell (Song of the School),[9] to the tune of Captain Morgan’s March[10]: –
Can y Castell
Ienctyd y Castell, caer I ddysg a hedd,
Gloewn ein harfau I’r gad ddi-gledd;
Byddwn yn deilwng blant I enwog lu,
Dewrion wyr Morgannwg y dyddiau fu:
Byddwn yn deilwng blant I enwog lu,
Dewrion wyr Morgannwg y dyddiau fu.
Ienctyd y Castell, awn ymlaen o hyd,
Galw am ein gorau mae’r eangfyd;
Gorau gyda chwarae, gorau gyda Gwaith
Gluda glod ein Castell drwy’r ddaear faith;
Gorau gyda chwarae, gorau gyda Gwaith,
Gluda glod ein Castell drwy’r ddaear faith.
Song of the School
Youth of the Castle, fortress of learning and peace,
We burnish our weapons for the swordless battle;
As children we’ll be loyal to a host of famous people,
The heroes of Glamorgan in days past;
We’ll be loyal children to the famous hosts,
The heroes of Glamorgan in days past.
Youth of the castle going forward at all times,
The wide world is calling for our best;
Best at play and best at work
Carry the renown of our castle throughout the earth,
Best at play and best at work,
Carry the renown of our castle throughout the earth.
The song was sung regularly at school assemblies up until the 1970’s and surely is well remembered by many ex-pupils of the ‘Castle’ school, although I for one found learning the words so difficult in my first year at Cyfarthfa.
In April 1914 Thomas married Catherine Elizabeth Thomas (1876), (A.R.A.M.), at Frederick Street Presbyterian Chapel, Cardiff. ‘Katie’ was the daughter of Edwin Thomas (1853-1918) and Sarah Ann nee Owen (b. 1857). Edwin was headmaster of Aberfan Boy’s School, and Thomas and Katie lived at Katie’s parents’ house; ‘Llywelfa’, Aberfan Road, Aberfan.[11] Katie and Thomas knew each other from their time teaching at Merthyr Tydfil County School, both joining in 1897, barely a year after the County school had been established.[12] Thomas died 2nd December 1945, and following his death Katie returned to live in Merthyr Tydfil. Katie died 8th July 1960, and both are buried at Bwlch-y-groes (Congregational) chapel cemetery, Llandysul, Cardiganshire, the cemetery where Thomas’s parents are also buried.
[1] Although not born in Wales, Percy Edward Thomas was of Welsh parents.
[2] Evan David Jones, ‘Thomas Jacob Thomas (Sarnicol),’ Dictionary of Welsh Biography, 2001.
[3] Jones, Sarnicol, DWB.
[4] Jones, Sarnicol, DWB.
[5] Cambrian News, 21st September 1917, p.5.
[6] ‘Gorsedd Degrees,’ Evening Express, 2nd August 1901, p. 4.
[7] ‘Wales and Humour,’ The Amman Valley Chronicle, 26th February 1914, p. 5.
[8] ‘Men of Cambria,’ Aberdare Leader, 28th November 1914, p.6.
[9] Mansell Richards, A farewell to Cyfarthfa Castle School, Merthyr Tydfil Library Service, 2014, ps. 16 & 72.
[10] A traditional Welsh tune by an unknown composer, most probably written in the late eighteenth century.
[11] Cambria Daily Leader, 15th April 1914, p. 3.
[12] ‘Merthyr County School,’ Merthyr Times, 29th October 1897, p. 8.
The Dark Side of Convict Life – part 11
by Barrie Jones
Chapter VIII. Henry describes Portland Prison’s cells, the classes of convicts and their perquisites, and the standard diet a convict could receive there.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 12th March 1910, page 5.
Chapter VIII
The separate cell in a convict prison is what the reception cell is in a local prison, that is, a prison set apart for the receiving of convicts; but this also is a place of punishment known as the “refractory penal cell.” These cells are different to others, having the window in the roof instead of at the back of the wall. There are no tables, stools, bedding, etc., as in other cells, but only two gutta-percha utensils. The entrance to these cells is through a long winding passage, and the doors, which are double, have, in addition to a lock, a heavy iron bolt. After being made ready to be employed on public works I was taken to another part of the prison known as C hall, and I was located in a corrugated-iron cell, something, similar to those mentioned in a previous chapter at Dartmoor. These cells are very closely packed, and only a thin partition separates one man from the other. There are something like two hundred of them in each hall, and there used to be six halls in Portland, excluding the infirmary and penal cells, which are, of course, built of Portland limestone, namely A hall, B hall, C hall, D hall, F south hall and F north hall, the two latter being much lighter than the others. A, the foul-smelling dungeons have been condemned, and owing to the country having made an advance towards civilisation, the cells are now sweeter, and an ounce more of fresh air is allowed to travel into the lungs of a convict.
There is one thing in connection with these cells which pleases the convicts, and that is, it is possible to converse one with another without being overheard, as the iron partition having partly rotted away by age, there are holes which are often used as telephones. What drives a man out of his mind, and then to the lunatic asylum, quicker than the silent system? I can well remember talking to a poor wretch in one of those cells, in 1899. He was undergoing a term of fourteen years, and our conversation drifted towards the prison diet. He had only began his sentence, like myself, and it happened that I was allowed tea, instead of porridge, by orders of the medical officer, but no convict, properly speaking, was allowed tea under the rules until he had served two years’ of his term, that is, until he had attained, by good conduct, the distinction of a second-class convict. There are four classes, and each convict has to pass through as many as his sentence permits. He will begin in the probation class, and will remain in it one year, after which he will, by good conduct, be promoted to the third class, allowed to earn a gratuity of twelve shillings, and to write and receive a letter, also a visit of twenty minutes’ duration for each nine-hundred and sixty marks he earns in this stage. One year, from the third to the second stage, in the latter he will receive, instead of porridge, one pint of tea, half-ounce of margarine and two ounces of extra bread (ten ounces) each day in the week, and also be permitted to earn a gratuity of thirty shillings. After another year, again he will be promoted to the first class, and allowed to earn a gratuity of three pounds. Then, if undergoing a term of twelve years or upwards, after serving seven years and six months he will be entitled to earn an extra half-crown per month in order to purchase luxuries for himself, such as oranges, apples, marmalade, jam, biscuits, and so forth, except tobacco and beer, which are strictly prohibited. A convict in a special class will be entitled to six pounds on his release, but only on condition that he joins a Prisoners’ aid Society. Perhaps when he is discharged he finds work, but his employers may be informed that he is a ticket-of-leave man, and at once he is turned into the streets to either beg or thieve. He may have a wife and several little ones, who have been, for years, waiting his return, and they, too, of course, have to suffer. Is not this rather hard? Such is truly the case, without varnishing it in the least.
To come back to my conversation with this man undergoing fourteen years. He told me one day, when talking about the diet, that his stomach was so weak that it would not take the porridge, so, wishing to do him a good turn. I managed to devise a way in which to share my tea with him without being seen, and this is what I did. I took an old letter I had received from home, and I screwed it up into the shape of a tundish. I then placed the small end through a hole in the iron partition, and, holding the paper tundish with the left hand, I poured the tea into it with the right; the man in the next cell, at the same time, holding his tin cup ready to receive the liquid. Thus, in this small way, I befriended my fellow-convict.
Before concluding this chapter, I will give a list of the dietary for convicts of the present time:- Breakfast, 10 ounces of coarse bread, with one pint of tea, or porridge, and half-an-ounce of margarine. Dinner, Mondays, 16 ounces of beans, 16 ounces of potatoes, 8 ounces of bread, and two ounces of fat bacon; Tuesdays, 6 ounces of boiled mutton, 16 ounces of potatoes, and 8 ounces of bread; Wednesdays, 1 pint of pork soup, 16 ounces of potatoes, and 8 ounces of bread; Thursdays, 6 ounces of boiled beef, 16 ounces of potatoes, and 8 ounces of bread; Fridays, 1 pint of vegetable soup, 16 ounces of potatoes, 8 ounces of brad; Saturdays, 16 ounces of suet pudding (beef without bone, as the lags call it), 16 ounces of potatoes, and 8 ounces of bread. Sunday’s diet is considered the worst diet of the week; it consists of 6 ounces of tinned beef, 16 ounces of potatoes, and 8 ounces of bread. In addition to thus a convict on hard labour is allowed two ounces of cheese for supper twice weekly. To speak fairly, in quantity the diets are enough for an ordinary man, but sometimes the quality leaves much to be desired.
To be continued….
M.B.E. for Abercanaid Home Guard Officer
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today…..
Memories of Old Merthyr
We continue our serialisation of the memories of Merthyr in the 1830’s by an un-named correspondent to the Merthyr Express, courtesy of Michael Donovan.
We have now entered Dowlais – yes, to some extent, truly called dismal and dirty. No doubt it has redeeming traits, but from personal recollections I do not consider it had even the amenities that existed in Merthyr. It was, or seemed to be, more brusque, more aggrandising, but if Merthyr was truly a village in the early thirties, Dowlais was somewhat less. “Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice” shall be my guide.
Up the brook a short way there was a brewery, erected by a Mr Powell of Abergavenny, whose father was a church dignitary there. The hill before us is steep, and the first road is one that doubles back in front of the Dowlais Inn, and then turns up to the right to the Dowlais Church, stables and on to the Ivor Works. This was kept by a James Henry, who went thence to keep another public house in Rhymney.
Keeping the coach road, another public house on the other side was the Vulcan. There were steps alongside down to the tramroad, and the lowest entrance gates into the works stood just there. Some short distance further there was another public house, whose name has slipped. It was, however, some four steps (nearly three feet) lower than the road. Mr David Williams and his aunt, Miss Teague, kept it awhile after leaving the Angel in Merthyr, but it was taken as the station of the railway from the Taff Vale, and used as such at the time.
Following this on the same side was a row of workmen’s cottages having their back to, but the ground floor much lower than the road. About six of what were then the best shops in the place being passed, the main entrance into the works and office was come to.
The shop nearest the entrance gates was, or had been, the old Company shop. It had, however, ceased to be carried on upon the truck system as far as can be recalled. A Mr Parnell was the manager, but there is some hazy idea of Mr Williams, the father of Mr Joshua Williams, of Aberdylais (sic), being connected with it. Mr Jenkins, the druggist, had a branch shop in the row; also a Mr D Lewis kept another druggist’s shop, and Mr Lewis, draper, of the London Warehouse, also had a branch. Immediately opposite to the entrance gates was the Bush Hotel, kept by Mr Richard Henry who had been a contractor in the works some years before.
At the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, Merthyr was made a borough, and privileged to send one member to Parliament. Sir John (then Mrs) Guest was returned, but he had previously been member for Honiton, and upon one occasion ordered a large number of pairs of boots and shoes there. They were dispatched to Dowlais to the company’s shop there, but Mr Parnell decline having anything to do with them. “He had not ordered them”, and knew nothing whatever about them.
Richard Henry was sent for to the office, he being then a contractor and having a great number of persons under him. “Dick I want you to sell a lot of boots and shoes for me” was said by Mr Guest. “Well, but master, I don’t want them, and how am I to pay for them?” was replied. “Oh that shall not trouble: you can pay when you sell the last pair”, was the rejoinder, and ‘Dick’ took them all but never sold the last pair. It is not possible to vouch for the strict accuracy of it, but I can vouch for having the narrative from Mr Richard Henry’s own lips.
To be continued….
The Dark Side of Convict Life – part 10
by Barrie Jones
Chapter VII (continued) recounts Henry’s meeting with John Lee, the “Babbacombe Murderer.” Sentenced to hang for the murder of Miss Emma Keyes at Babbacombe, Devon, Lee had escaped execution by an “accident on the gallows “when the trap door had failed to open on three attempts. After having “undergone the pangs of imminent death,” the Home Secretary had obtained the consent of the Queen to a reprieve. Throughout, Lee had protested his innocence and writing to his sister he stated that “it was the Lord’s will that I should not die yesterday at the time appointed by man.”
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 5th March 1910, page 11.
Chapter VII (continued)
I am not going to worry my readers with an account of the journey from Exeter. On my arrival at Portland Prison I was hurried again to the place called the separate cells, and just as I was entering the gates I happened to turn my eyes aside when I sae a rather tall, slightly built convict, and upon his arm he wore the letter L, which, of course, indicated a life sentence.
Shortly after the very same man brought me another suit of khaki and pointing to the figure nine upon the sleeve of my jacket, he said, “I wish that was my sentence, sonny.” He then said, “You tried to escape on your last lagging (sentence), did you not?”- “Yes,” I replied, “but how did you get to know that?” He then told me everything he had heard passed between the officers of Exeter and the Portland officers. They, in turn, passed it from one to the other, and I was closely watched.
Now the life sentence man, who told me all this, was a man who had a great history, and when I first knew him he had served over fourteen years in his life sentence. Our conversation ripened into deep friendship, and before I had known him a month I had learned all his history from the first time he entered the service of Mrs Keyse, the murdered lady, to the first time I saw him at Portland, for I am speaking of none other than Jake Lee, the man they failed to hang, though they made three attempts, at Exeter Prison in the month of February, 1885.
Jack Lee was a typical convict, and quite a different chap in every respect to other convicts, and a man who was well liked by everyone he came in contact with. He as not like some of those who make it their business to inform against their fellows in misfortune in order to curry favour with an officer. During the whole time I was at Portland, and I was there over five years, not once did I hear a convict say that Jack Lee was a copper (informer). He was not a chap who had much to do or say with anyone, but if he could do no one any good he would do them no harm. This was a man who suffered over twenty-three years in prison, to say nothing of the sensation he must have gone through when placed upon the gallows face to face with death.
People may form their own opinion in regard to the case, but I firmly believe the man to be perfectly innocent of the crime, and the curious part of the case was that the day fixed for his execution he awoke and told the warders that he was not be hanged that day, and the very same gallows who failed to hang Lee had hanged many a man before him. Thus, I believe that the hand of God was in it all.
To be continued…..
Cefn Coed Rectory Fire
From the Merthyr Express 100 years ago today….
