William Ewart Berry

by Laura Bray

In the series looking at the Berry Brothers, we conclude with a profile of William Ewart Berry, the second and middle son of John and Mary Anne Berry, who was born on 23 June 1870 at 11 Church Street, Merthyr.

The tale is told that William’s journalistic career began after he entered, and won, an essay competition, which so impressed the judge, W.W. Hadley – editor of the “Merthyr Times” – that he gave William a post as a reporter.  William was just 14.  William clearly had ambition – by the age of 19 he had left Merthyr and had a short term post as a reporter on the “Investor’s Guardian”, for which he was paid 35s a week.  That, however, did not last long and William spent three months unemployed, walking the streets and trying freelance work before getting a job as a reporter for the Commercial Press Association. Then, in 1901, aged 22 and using £100 borrowed from his brother Seymour he launched a paper of his own, “Advertising World”.  William wrote every word of that first addition.  By the second edition he had been joined by his brother, Gomer, and the two were to forge a newspaper partnership that lasted for the next 35 years.

William and Gomer sold “Advertising World” in 1905 for a healthy profit and went onto found “Boxing” and other periodicals during the next few years, all of which they ran successfully.  The brothers clearly had an eye for an opportunity – as can be seen in the fact that a seemingly insatiable seven-day demand for news from the western front after the outbreak of the First World War convinced them that the moment was right to acquire the “Sunday Times”, which they bought for £80,000. At the time, sales of the paper had slumped to about 20,000 a week – less than a tenth of “The Observer’s” circulation. By 1937 the “Sunday Times” was outselling its historic rival by nearly 70,000 copies a week.

The purchase in 1919 of the St Clement’s Press, and its City flagship the “Financial Times”, further raised the William’s profile. Not surprisingly, therefore, he and Gomer were assiduously courted by the circle surrounding the then prime minister, David Lloyd-George. One consequence was that in 1921 William Berry became a baronet.

William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Gratitude to them for allowing me to use the photograph.

Over the next few years William and Gomer established a vast and diverse media conglomerate; and yet it was not until 1927 that they finally acquired a major London-based daily newspaper. The “Daily Telegraph” and it was with this paper that William’s name was to become most firmly associated.  The “Daily Telegraph”  had been a great Victorian success story, setting high standards in its news reporting and attracting suburban middle-class readers.A commitment to solid Conservative values, plus a reputation for extensive coverage of both major sporting events and salacious court cases, ensured daily sales of nearly 300,000 by the early 1890s. By the late 1920s, however, sales had slipped to about 84,000, and the “Daily Telegraph” was in urgent need of modernization. Reluctant to invest, the paper’s chief proprietor, Lord Burnham, suggested a quick sale to Allied Newspapers, then owned by the Berry brothers.

Thus on 1 January 1928 William Berry at last assumed editorial responsibility for a ‘quality’ national newspaper with enormous potential. While retaining the “Telegraph”‘s unequivocal centre-right politics, William made key editorial and personnel changes, as well as updating the paper’s type and format.  Sales slowly grew, and then doubled to 200,000 after the price was halved to 1d. on 1 December 1930. Within seven years circulation had reached 637,000, and on the eve of the Second World War it had increased to 750,000 by which time William had placed news items onto the front page – a radical, if not pioneering, step.

William Berry with Winston Churchill

William was a supporter of Churchill during the late 30s and 40s and for a few weeks after the outbreak of war worked in the Ministry of Information as Chief Assistant to Lord MacMillan, then Minister and Controller of Press Relations. In 1941 Churchill made him Viscount Camrose, named for Camrose in Pembrokeshire where William’s father had been born. Such was the regard between Churchill and William that he was the only non-member of Churchill’s family to dine with him on V.E. Day in 1945.  William was also instrumental in organising a “whip round” to buy Churchill his home, Chartwell, for £43,600 (well over a million today) and donated it to the National Trust with the provision that Churchill should live in it for the rest of his life.

In turn, it was Churchill who suggested that William should have a memorial in St Paul’s Cathedral and it was he who unveiled it in May 1956.

William died in 1954 in Royal South Hampshire Hospital, just short of his 75th birthday, from a heart attack.  He left a widow, Mary Agnes, his wife of nearly 50 years, and 8 children.

William Berry’s Memorial Plaque at St Paul’s Cathedral

Merthyr Memories: St Mary’s Roman Catholic School and Court Street

by Barrie Jones

The blog article of the 27th November 2019 (http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=3016) on the aerial view of Court Street in 1965 brought back memories of my school days in St Mary’s Catholic School and my recollection of Court Street during that time.  I attended the school in the four ‘school years’ from September 1956 to July 1960, so I recall features of the street that had already disappeared by 1965.

Living in Twynyrodyn my usual route to school was down Twyn Hill so the first landmark on the street I would pass by was the Glove and Shears situated on the left hand side and corner of where the Tramroad crossed the Twynyrodyn Road.

Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Opposite on the right hand side of the road the last house of Twynyrodyn Road was a corner shop.  I can’t recall ever going into the shop but I did spend many a time looking in the shop window.  There on display were a variety of items in what must have been ‘dummy’ packets; dusty boxes of popular products of their day, even chocolate bars presumably made of wood or cardboard wrapped in foil etc.  The shop’s display never seemed to change so the shelves and their goods were liberally sprinkled with dead flies and wasps.

Further down the street on the right hand side between Gospel Hall formally Twynyrodyn Unitarian Chapel and the railway bridge were a row of properties, some of which were shops.  The one shop I remember in detail was an electrical goods shop with a large window displaying a variety of modern electrical appliances.  Just inside the doorway of the shop were stacked lead acid batteries, the battery acid was held in thick glass containers with carrying handles.  The batteries were used to power radios in those properties where there was no mains electricity supply.  You could hire the battery and once the ‘charge’ had expired you returned the battery to the shop to be recharged and collected a newly charged battery in exchange.

After passing under the railway bridge by means of an archway on the right hand side of the road, you then passed by Jerusalem Chapel on the corner of Gillar Street.  In Gillar Street on the left hand side there was a small row of houses that backed onto our school yard.  The houses had no back gardens, just small courts that were separated from our playground by a low thick stone wall capped with flag stones.  Inevitably many a football or tennis ball landed in one of the courts much to the annoyance of their occupiers.

The school building was probably built in late 1870 or early 1871 for both infants and primary age children with a capacity for approximately 460 pupils.  On the 30th April 1870 the Aberdare Times reported that “the splendid schools now in the course of erection on the Maerdy Estate are proof of the success that has attended the Rev. Gentleman’s administrations”, (Father Martin Bruton). The ‘schools’ were built on the site of Maerdy House a large building with a sizable garden at its rear, which was now the school yard.

St Mary’s School. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In October 1869 the Local Board of Health gave approval for new school rooms and additions to the house which may explain why the first floor was accessed by an exterior staircase only.  The first floor may have been an addition or enlargement above the existing house’s structure.  At the rear of the building there were unusual features such as a small arched recess built into the building that seemed to have no function other than as den for us to climb into during playtime.

The School’s boundary wall on the northern side of the school yard separated the school from Conway’s Dairies.  This was formally the site of the Boot Inn, 22 High Street, Conway’s had acquired the premises in 1910 and its offices and plant were accessed from the High Street.

Conway’s Dairies. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

From our yard could be seen towering above the high stone wall the cylindrical metal chimneys of the Dairy’s pasteurisation and bottling plants.  The Dairy’s coal fired steam production must have taken its toll on the metal chimneys, as they were extremely rusty.  When we turned up for school one morning we were greeted by the sight of one of the chimneys lying in our school yard.  The chimney must have rusted through near its base and because of either the weight of metal or high wind it had collapsed during the night.  At this time household milk was delivered by horse and cart and the Dairy kept the horses and carts in stables built in the arches of the railway bridge.  The stables were accessed from the road leading off Court Street opposite the entrance to Gillar Street.  Conway’s Dairies moved its main production to a new plant at the Willows on the other side of the River Taff in 1960/61, but retained use of its High Street plant for many years after but on a much reduced scale.

A Conway’s Dairies milk cart outside the old Boot Inn in the early part of the 20th Century. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

As well as the Dairies’ chimneys, the other prominent features on the skyline were the clock tower of St Tydfil’s Church and the four storey high Angel Hotel.  The parish clock was a useful timepiece for us boys when playing in the streets and alleys near the school during the lunch hour.  Punishment for lateness for afternoon lessons could be a canning on the hand.  In 1957 the Angel hotel was demolished and during playtimes we had a grandstand view of its progress.  The walls of the hotel were very thick with over 400 windows that were deeply recessed with bench seats and the workmen could be seen walking along the top of the wall knocking away the brickwork at their feet with sledge hammers.  A working practice  that would making any health and safety officer wince, and of course it was not surprising that two men fell from the third storey when part of the wall they were standing on collapsed.  Sadly one died and the other was seriously injured.

Opposite the school was a row of terraced houses, formally Maerdy Row, in the front window of one of the houses I can recall seeing a display of boxing trophies, cups belts etc.  I don’t know whether they were for professional or amateur boxing or how long they were on display.  The occupier of the house must have had some pride in the achievement to display them in their front window.  The properties in and around Court Street were near their full life and in February 1960 number 2 Court Street and numbers 22 and 23 Gillar Street were issued with demolition orders.  In the following month the County Borough Council approved a compulsory purchase order (CPO) for Court Street.  The street was demolished together with the properties between the railway line and the High Street known as the Ball Court.  The aerial photograph shows that Jones Bros Garage occupied the site in 1965.

At the end of Court Street as it joins the High Street on the left hand corner and behind the Star Inn was a slaughter house.  We boys could climb the waste ground at the side of the building to look down through a window to watch the slaughter men working below.  The smell and sounds of the slaughter house is something I will never forget.

By 1960 plans were in place to relocate St Mary’s to an alternative site in Caedraw and today the school in Caedraw is scheduled for closure with a new school planned for the Bishop Hedley School site in Penydarren.

Arthur Horner – part 2

courtesy of John Simkin

It soon became clear that A. J. Cook and Horner would play an important role in the proposed strike. David Kirkwood remarked that: “Arthur Cook, who talked from a platform like a Salvation Army preacher, had swept over the industrial districts like a hurricane. He was an agitator, pure and simple. He had no ideas about legislation or administration. He was a flame. Ramsay MacDonald called him a guttersnipe.

That he certainly was not. He was utterly sincere, in deadly earnest, and burnt himself out in the agitation.”A Conference of Trade Union Congress met on 1st May 1926, and afterwards announced that a General Strike “in defence of miners’ wages and hours” was to begin two days later. The leaders of both the Trade Union Council and the Labour Party were unhappy about the proposed strike, and during the next two days frantic efforts were made to reach an agreement with the Conservative Government and the mine-owners.

The Trade Union Congress called the General Strike on the understanding that they would then take over the negotiations from the Miners’ Federation. The main figure involved in these negotiations was Jimmy Thomas. Talks went on until late on Sunday night, and according to Thomas, they were close to agreement when Stanley Baldwin broke off negotiations. The reason for his action was that printers at the Daily Mail had refused to print a leading article attacking the proposed strike. The TUC negotiators apologized for the printers’ behaviour, but Baldwin refused to continue with the talks. The General Strike began the next day.

The Trade Union Congress adopted the following plan of action. To begin with they would bring out workers in the key industries – railwaymen, transport workers, dockers, printers, builders, iron and steel workers – a total of 3 million men (a fifth of the adult male population). Only later would other trade unionists, like the engineers and shipyard workers, be called out on strike.

On 7 May, Sir Herbert Samuel, Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, approached the Trade Union Congress and offered to help bring the strike to an end. Without telling the miners, the TUC negotiating committee met Samuel and worked out a set of proposals to end the General Strike. These included: (1) a National Wages Board with an independent chairman; (2) a minimum wage for all colliery workers; (3) workers displaced by pit closures to be given alternative employment; (4) the wages subsidy to be renewed while negotiations continued. However, Samuel warned that subsequent negotiations would probably mean a reduction in wages. These terms were accepted by the TUC negotiating committee, but were rejected by the executive of the Miners’ Federation.

On 11 May, at a meeting of the Trade Union Congress General Committee, it was decided to accept the terms proposed by Herbert Samuel and to call off the General Strike. The following day, the TUC General Council visited 10 Downing Street to announce to the British Government that the General Strike was over. At the same meeting the TUC attempted to persuade the Government to support the Samuel proposals and to offer a guarantee that there would be no victimization of strikers. This the Government refused to do. As Lord Birkenhead, a member of the Government was to write later, the TUC’s surrender was “so humiliating that some instinctive breeding made one unwilling even to look at them.”

On 21 June 1926, the British Government introduced a Bill into the House of Commons that suspended the miners’ Seven Hours Act for five years – thus permitting a return to an 8 hour day for miners. In July the mine-owners announced new terms of employment for miners based on the 8 hour day. The miners were furious about what had happened although the General Strike was over, the miners’ strike continued.For several months the miners held out, but by October 1926 hardship forced men to begin to drift back to the mines. By the end of November most miners had reported back to work. However, many were victimized and remained unemployed for many years. Those that were employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages and district agreement. It was a terrible defeat for A. J. Cook and Horner. Horner remained a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and in 1933 he stood unsuccessfully as a Parliamentary candidate in the Rhondda East by-election.

Horner retained his popularity with union members and in 1936 he became President of the South Wales Miners’ Federation. According to Will Paynter: “It is my opinion that Arthur Horner was without question the ablest negotiator to come out of the British coalfields.”

On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Horner and the CPGB was involved in the creation of the International Brigades. Horner was a major critic of the British government policy of Non-Intervention. According to the author of The Spanish Civil War and the British Labour Movement (1991): “Arthur Horner moved the resolution which called on the government to abandon Non-Intervention and to give Spain the right to buy arms, and called on the TUC to convene a meeting of executive committees to examine how to achieve this.”

Horner became president of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1946. He retired from the post in 1959 and was replaced by Will Paynter.

Arthur Horner died in 1968.

To read more of John Simkin’s excellent essays, please visit:
http://spartacus-educational.com

Arthur Horner – part 1

courtesy of John Simkin

Arthur Horner was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1894. Poverty forced Horner to leave school at the age of eleven. He worked at a barber’s, as a grocer’s delivery boy and also at the local railway office.

Horner was deeply religious and at seventeen obtained a scholarship to attend the Baptist College in Birmingham. However, he left six months later and found work at Standard Collieries in the Rhondda Valley.

Horner also joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and also became an active member of the National Union of Mineworkers. He joined forces with other left-wing radicals such as A. J. Cook.

In 1914 Horner began is campaign against Britain’s involvement in the First World War and took part in the fight against conscription. A close friend of James Connolly, in 1916 he travelled to Dublin to join the Irish Citizen Army and took part in the Easter Rising.

On his return to Wales he became a checkweighman at Maerdy Colliery. He refused to be conscripted into the British Army and in 1917 he was arrested and charged with sedition, under the Defence of the Realm Act. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs.

Horner had been impressed with the achievements of the Bolsheviks following the Russian Revolution and in April 1920 he joined forces with Tom Bell, Willie Gallacher, Arthur McManus, Harry Pollitt, Helen Crawfurd, A. J. Cook, Rajani Palme Dutt, Albert Inkpin and Willie Paul to establish the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). McManus was elected as the party’s first chairman and Bell and Pollitt became the party’s first full-time workers.

After the war A. J. Cook became leader of the South Wales Miners’ Federation. Horner became his deputy. Cook left the Communist Party of Great Britain over disagreement over industrial policy and rejoined the Independent Labour Party (ILP). However, Horner remained a loyal party member. In 1924 Harry Pollitt was appointed General Secretary of the National Minority Movement, a Communist-led united front within the trade unions. Pollitt worked alongside Tom Mann and according to one document the plan was “not to organize independent revolutionary trade unions, or to split revolutionary elements away from existing organizations affiliated to the T.U.C. but to convert the revolutionary minority within each industry into a revolutionary majority.” Horner became one of the leader of the Miners’ Minority Movement.

Later that year Frank Hodges, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers was forced to resign following his appointment as Civil Lord of the Admiralty in the Labour Government. A. J. Cook went on to secure the official South Wales nomination and subsequently won the national ballot by 217,664 votes to 202,297. Fred Bramley, general secretary of the TUC, was appalled at Cook’s election. He commented to his assistant, Walter Citrine: “Have you seen who has been elected secretary of the Miners’ Federation? Cook, a raving, tearing Communist. Now the miners are in for a bad time.” However, his victory was welcomed by Horner who argued that Cook represented “a time for new ideas – an agitator, a man with a sense of adventure”.

In 1925 the mine-owners announced that they intended to reduce the miner’s wages. The General Council of the Trade Union Congress responded to this news by promising to support the miners in their dispute with their employers. The Conservative Government, decided to intervene, and supplied the necessary money to bring the miners’ wages back to their previous level. This event became known as Red Friday because it was seen as a victory for working class solidarity.

The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, stated that this subsidy to the miners’ wages would only last 9 months. In the meantime, the government set up a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel, to look into the problems of the Mining Industry. The Samuel Commission published its report in March 1926. It recognised that the industry needed to be reorganised but rejected the suggestion of nationalization. The report also recommended that the Government subsidy should be withdrawn and the miners’ wages should be reduced.The month in which the report was issued also saw the mine-owners publishing new terms of employment. These new procedures included an extension of the seven-hour working day, district wage-agreements, and a reduction in the wages of all miners. Depending on a variety of factors, the wages would be cut by between 10% and 25%. The mine-owners announced that if the miners did not accept their new terms of employment then from the first day of May they would be locked out of the pits.

To be continued…..

To read more of John Simkin’s excellent essays, please visit:
http://spartacus-educational.com