Welcome to another new regular feature – Did you know? In this feature I hope to highlight some of the important facts about Merthyr that you may or may not have known.
Did you know that the man who built the very first Dalek for Doctor Who was from Merthyr?
Bill Roberts was born in 1918 in Gwladys Street in Pant. He attended Cyfarthfa Grammar School, but moved to Uxbridge in 1936. He enjoyed a career as an aircraft engineer, working for Miles Aircraft, before setting up his own company – Shawcraft Models.
In 1963, when the Daleks were originally conceived by Terry Nation for the first series of Doctor Who, the BBC commissioned designer Raymond Cusick to design them, but the job of actually building them was given to Bill Roberts who worked from Cusick’s blueprints.
Bill Roberts with one of his creations
If anyone has any interesting items for the new ‘Did you know?’ feature, please get in touch.
I have received the following request via e-mail:-
I am researching information on the Cinderella Club of Merthyr Tydfil, which existed sometime from the 1880’s.
In the 19th Century (the great) Robert Blatchford, a Manchester Journalist and social reformer, campaigned for the formation of groups who would provide food and clothing for children condemned to live in appalling conditions in slums. They came to be known as Cinderella Clubs.
They sprang up all over the Country but gradually died out following the introduction of the Welfare State. Just one remains; Bradford. I have searched through old newspapers, and journals available on-line at the National Library, and found references to these clubs in Cardiff, Chester, Carmarthen, Newport and Wrexham, but not Merthyr. Indeed, I cannot find a single reference on-line.
My interest was piqued, following a FaceBook post from Tacy Chris Black, of Kansas, USA.
The post concerned a very fine mantle clock (pictures enclosed), with the inscription ‘presented to J Morgan Rees, Merthyr Cinderella Committee, 1895.
Mr. J Morgan Rees must have performed a great service for poor children, to warrant such a generous gift.
I wonder if you have any further information on the Merthyr Cinderella Club and J. Morgan Rees.
Best Regards
Roger Evans
If anyone has any information about this, please contact me at merthyr.history @gmail.com and I will pass it on.
In 1835, the major industrialists in Merthyr began considering building a railway line from Merthyr to the Bute Docks in Cardiff. To this end, Anthony Hill, owner of the Plymouth Ironworks, contacted Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to estimate the cost of building such a railway – Brunel replied quoting an estimate of £190,649. The industrialists subsequently held a meeting, chaired by Josiah John Guest, at the Castle Inn in Merthyr, to discuss the issue, and decided to request Parliamentary permission to form a company to build the railway. Permission was granted an the company was incorporated the following year.
On 21 June 1836 Royal Assent was given to The Taff Vale Railway Company’s Act, allowing for the creation of the Taff Vale Railway Company. The founding capital of the Company was fixed at £300,000, in £100 share units. The directors were Josiah John Guest, Walter Coffin, Edward Lee, Thomas Guest, Thomas Guppy, Thomas Powell, Christopher James, Thomas Carlisle, Henry Rudhall, William Wait, William Watson, and Peter Maze. Company profits were capped at 7% originally, with a clause allowing for an increase to 9% subject to a reduction in the rates and tolls charged for use of the line.
The Act also capped the speed of the trains on the line to 12 mph (19 km/h), with stiff penalties for any speeding.
Construction of the railway was started in 1836, and the stretch from Cardiff to Navigation House (later named Abercynon) was opened in a formal ceremony on 9 October 1840, with public services starting the next day. The stretch from Abercynon to Merthyr was opened on 12 April 1841. The railway was single-line for its entire length, with passing only possible at or near the stations. It was not until 1857 that it became a double line. Brunel, the chief engineer, had chosen a narrower gauge (4 feet 8.5 inches or 1.435 m) than the 7 foot (2.134 m) gauge he would later choose for his Great Western Railway in order to fit the railway into the narrow space allowed to him by the River Taff valley.
Construction of the main line was relatively straightforward. The line mostly followed the course of the valley, and therefore needed few bridges and no tunnels. Brunel designed an impressive skew stone arch viaduct at Pontypridd, which spanned 110 feet (34 m) over the River Rhondda; the viaduct is still in use today, although it has been supplanted by a second, parallel viaduct. A similar viaduct was built at Quakers Yard.
The TVR’s original station in Merthyr was at Plymouth Street and was opened on 12 April 1841.
This was joined in 1853 by the High Street station of the Vale of Neath Railway. A short joint line (TVR and GWR) was built to connect the TVR line to the new station in 1877. A year later, in August 1878, the Taff Vale transferred all of its passenger services to the High Street station, and used Plymouth Street as a goods depot instead. High Street station thus became the only passenger station in Merthyr, and was used by a total of six separate companies prior to the 1923 grouping. The TVR also opened stations at Merthyr Vale in 1883 and Pentrebach in 1886.
The main line of the TVR was 24 miles (39 km) long. However, no fewer than 23 branch lines took the full length of track to 124 miles and 42 chains (200.40 km). Many of those branch lines were smaller lines taken over by the TVR – in 1841 a branch line was opened in the Rhondda going as far as Dinas, and a second was opened to Llancaiach Colliery. The Rhondda line would subsequently be extended, and by 1856 it had been extended into two lines – one to Maerdy and the other to Treherbert.
The TVR proved its worth immediately. At its peak, two trains a minute passed through the busiest station, Pontypridd. By 1850, the TVR was carrying 600,000 tons (600,000 metric tons) of coal per annum, and was paying a 6% dividend.
The line was conceived as a goods line, carrying iron and coal. However, it also ran passenger services from the beginning. There were two passenger trains each way daily, including Sundays. This was extended to three weekday services in 1844. Single fares from Cardiff to Merthyr were 5 shillings for first class, 4s. for second class, and 3s. for third, and were each reduced by a shilling in 1845.
The Taff Vale Railway continued to operate as a company in its own right until it was incorporated into the Great Western Railway in 1923.
The current railway line between Cardiff and Merthyr now follows the route of the original Taff Vale Railway.
Robert Rees was born on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1841, in Dowlais, the son of Hugh and Margaret Rees. Both his parents hailed from Machynlleth, but they moved to Dowlais soon after they married where Hugh began working as a collier. His father died when young Robert was eight years old and his mother died soon afterwards.
Put in the charge of his uncle, William Ellis, at the age of nine he began working in the coal-mine.His uncle soon noticed that the boy had prodigious talent for singing and recitation, so William began to give him lessons in music. Robert supplemented these lessons by studying text books.
As an adult Robert joined the Libanus Chapel Temperance Choir under the leadership of David Rosser, and later, on Rosser’s retirement he became the choir’s conductor. He took the pseudonym Eos Morlais (Morlais Nightingale), in reference to the River Morlais, which ran near his home during his childhood. He won several prizes at local eisteddfodau as a vocalist and in 1867, at the age of 26, he won the tenor competition at the National Eisteddfod at Carmarthen.
In 1870, Rees moved to Swansea and became precentor at Soar Congregational Chapel. He took a course of instruction at the Swansea Training College and was successful enough to give up work to devoted his whole time to music. Rees served for three years as precentor of Walter Road Congregational Church in Swansea and he conducted in singing festivals and served as adjudicator.
Having heard him sing, the famous soprano Adelina Patti, as well as many other highly regarded musicians tried to persuade him to move to London to take formal musical training, and to pursue an operatic career. Robert refused, preferring to stay in Wales.
In 1874, at the National Eisteddfod, held in Bangor, Rees performed the song Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau and according to the Baner ac Amserau Cymru journal “had taken the Eisteddfod by storm”. Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau was subsequently adopted as the Eisteddfod song in 1880 and sung at every Gorsedd ceremony since. In 1887 Rees was invited to sing at the National Eisteddfod in London in front of the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward. Rees led the singing of God Bless the Prince of Wales and at the end of the meeting he also sang Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, to which the prince and his family rose, the first time royalty had stood to the Anthem of Wales.
Rees sang throughout Wales and England and in 1879 he performed a tour of North America, and he was considered to be Wales’ finest tenor at the time, despite his lack of formal training.
Robert had married in 1865, and the early death of his wife, Margaret, on 11 April 1889 at the age of 45, affected Robert deeply. By the early 1890’s he also began to suffer from ill-health, and he was diagnosed with diabetes. At the time, diabetes had only been ‘discovered’ as an ailment a few years before, so treatment was rudimentary to say the least, and Robert’s condition gradually worsened. Despite his failing health, he continued to perform, and on 18 April 1892, he sang at the Independent Cymanfa Ganu at Bethania Chapel in Dowlais.
This would prove to be his last public appearance. His condition worsened, and he went to Langland Bay in an effort to help improve his health. Unfortunately, he contracted tuberculosis, and he died at his home in Swansea on 5 June 1892.
His death was mourned throughout Wales, and the route of his funeral procession from Swansea to Aberdulais was lined by hundreds of mourners. He was buried at Aberdulais Methodist Chapel. During the funeral, one of the speakers commented that it was apt that his last performance was in Dowlais – the town of his birth.
Merthyr Tydfil had a long struggle to achieve a Charter of Incorporation.
As early as 1837 this was considered to be worth applying for, but there was opposition from the Ironmasters. During the failed Incorporation Inquiry of 1897, the Carmarthen Arms and the Bluebell Inn were satirically referred to as being a ‘Throttle Valve’, blocking the important flow of traffic to and from Cardiff into the centre of the town.
A map of the Caedraw area of Merthyr from 1875. The ‘Throttle Valve’ is the block of buildings in the middle of the road just below St Tydfil’s ChurchA photograph from 1897 showing the Carmarthen Arms and the Bluebell Inn
Before Merthyr Tydfil again applied for the Royal Charter it was felt that a number of crucial public improvements had to be made and that the ‘ThrottleValve’, was an obstruction which must be removed to improve traffic access to the town.
A more detailed view of the ‘Throttle Valve’
In 1903 the Merthyr Tydfil General Purposes Committee began negotiations with Mr Gomer Thomas for the proposed acquisition of the two large public houses at the lower part of the High Street. This block of buildings, known as the ‘ThrottleValve’ was acquired by the Urban District Council from Messrs. Thomas Brothers, for the purpose of widening the roadway at that spot.
The photograph below shows Carmarthen Arms and the Bluebell Inn actually in the process of being pulled down. There are so many people in the photograph because on the morning of the 21 May 1904, prior to the final stage in the demolition, a large number of townspeople assembled in the neighbourhood of the doomed pile to have their picture taken next to this local landmark.
The graveyard of the Old Parish Church of St Tydfil was also reduced in size to widen the road and many graves were disturbed for reburial in Cefn Coed Cemetery. These measures proved to be highly successful in the long term; after several abortive attempts, in 1905 the Town was at last successful in obtaining the important Royal Charter.
In 1906, the ‘Fountain’ (see http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=720) was erected on the site of the ‘Throttle Valve’, and in 1908 Merthyr Tydfil was granted County Borough Status.
Below is a newspaper cutting about the demolition of the ‘Throttle Valve’.
On 21 June 1836 Royal Assent was given to The Taff Vale Railway Company’s Act, allowing for the creation of the Taff Vale Railway Company. The founding capital of the Company was fixed at £300,000, in £100 share units. The directors were Josiah John Guest, Walter Coffin, Edward Lee, Thomas Guest, Thomas Guppy, Thomas Powell, Christopher James, Thomas Carlisle, Henry Rudhall, William Wait, William Watson, and Peter Maze. Company profits were capped at 7% originally, with a clause allowing for an increase to 9% subject to a reduction in the rates and tolls charged for use of the line.
Robert Rees was born on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1841, in Dowlais, the son of Hugh and Margaret Rees. Both his parents hailed from Machynlleth, but they moved to Dowlais soon after they married where Hugh began working as a collier. His father died when young Robert was eight years old and his mother died soon afterwards.
