Tag: Dowlais Library

Merthyr Central Library

by Carolyn Jacob

A ‘flourishing’ library existed in the Merthyr Tydfil Parish from 1846, although it consisted of only two dozen volumes collected by Thomas Stephens and Charles Wilkins. The books were originally for their ‘conversational club’ and believed to have been in the Temperance Room behind the Merthyr Market. Gradually a number of libraries developed in Merthyr Tydfil, Abercanaid, Aberfan, Dowlais, Penydarren, Thomastown, Treharris, Troedyrhiw and, outside the Parish, Cefn Coed. The ‘central’ library was located in the Town Hall from 1901 but transferred to two vacant shops in the Arcade by 1907. By 1918 The Arcade Library had a reference section and a sizeable number of books. In 1930 the Corporation had to find new premises for the Library and moved to 136 Lower High Street at an annual rental of £100. The Library was known as the Town Reading Room and both this library and the Thomastown Library closed in 1935 when the new Central Library opened.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Central Library, in a fine renaissance rectangular style, is a protected grade II historic building, it was purpose built and has always been a library. It was placed on vacant ground, given by the Council, which was once the site of the former St David’s School. The foundation stones were laid in 1935 and the building completed using money from the American Steel millionaire, Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie Trust donated £4500 on condition there was an adequate book fund and that a properly trained and competent Librarian be appointed.

The Library was designed by Councillor T. Edmund Rees (of Messrs Johnson, Richards & Rees, architects of Merthyr) and built by Messrs Enoch Williams and Sons, contractors of Dowlais at a cost of £8,500. The exterior is in an Arts and Crafts Modern style with Portland stone, hipped Cumbrian slate roof swept to wide eaves. An attractive feature is the large central doorway and Tudor arch in moulded surround to entrance. The interior has a panelled wooden entrance-hall, although sadly the original oak wood, which is a wonderful feature of this building, was painted during refurbishment in 2011. The stained glass as you enter the building commemorates the Urdd National Eisteddfod which was held in Merthyr Tydfil in 1987. The building was opened in 1936 by the Mayor, Lewis Jones who became the first borrower of a book from Merthyr’s new Library.

The first librarian, Mr E. R. Luke received a salary of £330 a year and not only spoke Welsh fluently but he also had a working knowledge of French, German and Latin.  Merthyr Libraries have always provided a free library service for residents and visitors. The new library was a great success and the number of registered borrowers rose from 1400 in March 1936 to 10,765 by February 1940. As a child the historian Gwyn Alf Williams made ‘daring raids into alien territory in Merthyr Library’.

In 1946 Merthyr Tydfil became the first Authority in Wales to appoint a woman as Borough Librarian and an English woman at that – Margaret Stewart Taylor. She also became curator of the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and was a remarkable local historian. Miss Taylor wrote 23 books on a wide variety of topics, a classic work on library cataloguing and classification, biography, local history such as ‘The Crawshays of Cyfarthfa’, travel writings based on her own experiences and romantic fiction set in a fictional town which was a thinly disguised Merthyr Tydfil. She compiled and edited ‘Fifty Years a Borough, 1905-1955’ to commemorate the incorporation of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil. She set up a school library service and established local history as important in both the Library and the Museum. Margaret Stewart Taylor demanded high standards from her staff and would personally inspect the library shelves to make sure the books were all in strict order. A book incorrectly shelved would be left in the middle of the floor.

Margaret Stewart Taylor

The Plaque on the exterior of Merthyr Tydfil Library by the doorway is dedicated to Richard Lewis, (Dic Penderyn). At the time of the 1831 Merthyr Rising he was a miner in Merthyr Tydfil. He was charged with feloniously wounding Donald Black of the 93rd (Highland) Regiment. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Despite a petition of 11,000 names for his reprieve, he was hanged at Cardiff on 13 August 1831. His last words on the scaffold were reported to be ‘O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd’ – ‘O Lord, what injustice’. He is buried in Aberavon. Later in the century another man confessed to the crime for which Lewis had been hanged.

There is also a plaque on the front of the Central Library dedicated to Ursula Masson, who was born Ursula O’Connor in Dowlais, and became a leading Welsh academic and writer who worked closely with Jane Aaron and Honno Press/Gwasg Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press, on the imprint Welsh Women’s Classics – to bring back into print the works of forgotten Welsh women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Outside the Library, the Statue and Plinth to Henry Seymour Berry are Grade II Listed monuments. The statue stands at the centre of a semicircular forecourt in front of the Library, and it was designed by W. Goscombe John RA and erected in 1931. It consists of a bronze figure in full robes with a cocked hat in the crook of his left arm and a parchment grasped in left hand.  The inscription:

Henry Seymour Berry, Baron Buckland of Bwlch, Hon. Freeman of the Co. Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.
Born 1877 – Died 1928.
Erected by public subscription.

There are recent plaques attached to the statue to mark the achievements of his two younger brothers. James Gomer Berry, Viscount Kemsley and William Ewert Berry, Viscount Camrose.

Harri Webb – Poet

by Malcolm Llywelyn

The poet Harri Webb was librarian at the Dowlais Library from 1954 until 1964 when he was appointed librarian at Mountain Ash. He was a prolific writer of poetry, prose and political commentary and he has been described as the ‘People’s Poet.’  He was active in politics with the local Labour Party when he became a friend of S.O. Davies. Disillusioned with the lack of support for the policy of self-government for Wales he left the Labour Party and rejoined Plaid Cymru in 1960.

Harri Webb was a radical Welsh Republican and a well-known colourful character, who took an interest in the local history of Merthyr Tydfil. He learned Welsh in his early adulthood and he adopted the Dowlais dialect of the language. He was one of the founders of the eisteddfod in Merthyr Tydfil and the chairman for three years. A ‘squat’ in Garthnewydd was the home of Harri Webb for some 12 years where he was joined by other patriots and the house became a centre for Nationalist activities in the town.

Merthyr Tydfil, its history and people feature in several of the poems written by Harri Webb. Written in 1959, the poem Big Night, describes ‘big nights out’  in the Church Tavern, Vaynor, illustrated by the last verse:

‘And homeward we were staggering
As the Pandy clock struck three
And the stars of the Plough went swaggering
From Vaynor to Pengarnddu’.

The poem, The Lamb was written in 1963, about the iconic public house frequented by Harri Webb and many other colourful characters of Merthyr Tydfil.

The Lamb Inn. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Old Parish Churchyard was composed in 1965 and describes the scene in St Tydfil’s Parish Church.

Cwm Tâf Bridge, written in 1968, is a poem dedicated to Penri Williams, a resident of Cefn Coed, who worked in the water industry.

Merthyr 1972, was written in 1972 and commemorates  the great  names in the history of Merthyr Tydfil:

‘And now, in kinder times, an old man dies
And the great names that blazed above the strife –
Hardie, Penderyn, Richard – are spoken anew…’

It was written at the time of the death of S.O. Davies and the poem To the Memory of a Friend is Harri Webbs’s tribute to his old friend S.O.

Born in Sketty, Swansea in 1920, a ‘Swansea Jack,’ Harri Webb in ill-health, moved to a nursing home in Swansea in 1994, where he died in 1995.

Colli Iaith

Colli iaith a cholli urddas
Colli awen, colli barddas
Colli coron aur cymdeithas
Ac yn eu lle cael bratiaith fas.

Colli’r hen alawon persain
Colli tannau’r delyn gywrain
Colli’r corau’n diaspedain
Ac yn eu lle cael cleber brain.

Colli crefydd, colli enaid
Colli ffydd yr hen wroniaid
Colli popeth glan a thelaid
Ac yn eu lle cael baw a llaid.

Colli tir a cholli tyddyn
Colli Elan a Thryweryn
Colli Claerwen a Llanwddyn
A’n gwlad i gyd dan ddŵr llyn.

Cael yn ôl o borth marwolaeth
Cân a ffydd a bri yr heniaith
Cael yn ôl yr hen dreftadaeth
A Chymru’n dechrau ar ei hymdaith.

Harri Webb

Colli Iaith

Losing language and losing dignity
Losing muse and losing bardism
Losing the golden crown of society
And in its place a shallow debased language.

Losing the old sweet-sounding strains
Losing the resounding choirs
Losing the harp’s skilful strings
And in its place the clamour of crows.

Losing creed, losing soul
Losing the faith of the old brave people
Losing everything pure and beautiful
And in its place dirt and mud.

Losing land and losing small-holdings
Losing Elan and Tryweryn
Losing Claerwen and Llanwddyn
And the whole country beneath a lake’s water.

Getting back from the door of death
A song and faith and respect for the old languge
Getting back the old heritage
And Wales begins her own journey.

Colli Iiaith was written  by Harri Webb in 1966 as his response to the by-election won by Gwynfor Evans in Carmarthen. It was the first parliamentary election won by Plaid Cymru by its president Gwynfor Evans. The tune for the song was composed by Meredydd  Evans, although it is usually sung unaccompanied and has been made popular by the well  known singer Heather Jones. It reflects the losses suffered by Wales under English rule, but ends with a defiant challenge to redeem the ancient language. The fourth verse of the song refers to the reservoirs  Elan and Tryweryn, valleys drowned  to supply water to Birmingham and Liverpool. Claerwen was the last dam built in Cwm Elan and the village of Llanwddyn was drowned  under Llyn Efyrnwy to supply water to Liverpool City.

The song featured in the Green Desert, a performance and album of the poet’s work in 1972.

John Alistair Owen: The Last Manager of the Dowlais Works

by Carolyn Jacob

John Alistair Owen, was a local man who was born in Tramroadside North, Merthyr Tydfil in 1936. There are pictures of him as a child taking part in a concert to raise money for the Merthyr Express ‘Spitfire Fund’.

The Tramroadside North children raising money for the Spitfire fund. John Owen is second from left in front row.

He attended the Quaker’s Yard Technical School and went on to an engineering apprenticeship in Walsall. Following a short period in England, he returned home and joined the former GKN Works (Ivor Works) in Dowlais as a design draughtsman in 1958 and remained there through the BSC years until closure in 1988. Although his high powered job took him to India, the USA and other countries, he was always anxious to return to his family and to Dowlais. He was devoted to his career and to the Dowlais Works. He fought hard to keep the Dowlais Works open but finally had to negotiate its closure; although he was proud of the fact that Dowlais always successfully made a profit throughout its long history.

From his school days, he developed a keen interest in old photographs. In the Dowlais drawing office surrounded by the records of the Dowlais Works, he came to develop a keen interest in its history. When his book ‘A Short History of the Dowlais Iron Works’ was first printed in 1973 Dowlais was still exporting iron all over the world. John Owen was co-founder of the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society and active supporters of the Heritage Trust and the Dowlais Male Voice Choir. He became the authority on the history of the Dowlais Works and the community which grew up around it.

John Owen in 1974. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

He built up a large personal collection of photographs on Dowlais; gathering together pictures loaned by local people and also the private collection of the Works and engineering institutes. He produced a number of picture books, these included ‘Dowlais Works and Town’, and four popular books of local pictures published by the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society. A number of exhibitions in Dowlais Library, containing around 300 photographs each, were financed from his own pocket and these pictures are now all held by the library. He felt that the Dowlais Works had been good to him and so he wanted to give something back to the people of Dowlais, showing them how their ancestors lived and how the environment had changed over the centuries.

When he started giving illustrated slide lectures in Dowlais Library, organised by the librarian David Watkins, there was always a full capacity audience with hardly ever even standing room at the back. Due to their popularity, these talks were extended to numerous locations and continued throughout his life. History and local photographs were his main interests but John still found the time to apply his business acumen in assisting the Merthyr Tydfil Institute for the Blind on a voluntary basis and, after joining the Board in 1991, he became its vice-chairman.

He was a good friend to Merthyr Tydfil Libraries, providing support and advice. John A. Owen, the last works manager of BSC Dowlais, was a keen rugby fan and he sadly died in 1998; only ten minutes into the International between Wales and Ireland in Dublin. He has been greatly missed but he left a large legacy of Dowlais photographs behind him which the late Alan George, with the blessing of John’s widow, Mair, made digital copies of future generations to enjoy and study.

The Guest Memorial Hall

One of the few remaining historical buildings in Dowlais is the Guest Memorial Hall, or the Guest Keen Club as it is more commonly know today. It has a fascinating, if troubled history.

When Josiah John Guest died in 1852, his widow, Lady Charlotte began thinking of projects to commemorate her husband. Her first project was to build a school for the children of the Dowlais area, and the Dowlais Central Schools were completed in 1855. Whilst the school was under construction, the work-men of the Dowlais Ironworks also wanted to contribute to another memorial to their former employer.

In March 1854, a public meeting was held, and it was proposed that a library and reading room should be built in memory of Josiah John Guest. A committee was set up, and subscription lists were issued – they even placed an advertisement in The Times newspaper. A sum of £2,200 was eventually raised, and Sir Charles Barry was commissioned to design the building.

The Times – 7 June 1854

Sir Charles Barry was one of the foremost architects of the day, his most famous work being the Houses of Parliament. A personal friend of Sir Josiah and Lady Charlotte Guest, he had been responsible for designing the Dowlais Central School.

Unfortunately, Barry’s plans proved too grandiose for the funds available. Work started in early 1855, but by the end of the year, over £5,000 had already been spent on the project. New trustees were appointed, and they were dismayed to discover that not only had a huge amount been spent in excess of the budget, but only the walls and roof timbers had been prepared.

The trustees, having paid for slating the roof and glazing the upper story, called an emergency public meeting. They offered two alternatives: firstly the subscribers could try to find the extra money required to complete the work; or secondly, they could hand over the project to the Dowlais Iron Company who would finish the work, and thus own the building. The subscribers decided on the latter course of action.

The Dowlais Iron Company took over the project, and the original subscriptions were returned to the trustees who used the money to provide annual scholarships for the children taught in the Dowlais schools.

A postcard of the Guest Memorial Hall from the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

The new library, which was a classical style cruciform two-storey building, the main rooms raised on a basement storey, built of massive stones with a Bath-stone balustraded pillared portico on the first floor, was finally opened in 1863. The total cost of the building was £7,000. The new library was equipped with an excellent collection of books in both Welsh and English, and newspapers and magazines were also available to the public. A part of the building was also set aside to be used as a museum, and fossils that had been discovered in local pits and quarries were displayed there.

The library closed in 1907 when the new Carnegie Free Library opened in Dowlais. The building subsequently became a social club and remains open to this day as a restaurant and as an events venue.

Merthyr Memories: The Last Days of Old Dowlais

Some of my fondest childhood memories are the frequent trips I would go on to Dowlais with my aunty.

This would have been in the 1970s when Dowlais was undergoing what was officially called ‘redevelopment’, but which most people would call total devastation. At the time, of course, I was too young to understand the full implications of what was going on – I was just too fascinated by the ‘tractors’ as I called them……I had a fascination with ‘tractors’, and I had quite a few Tonka toys of diggers, cranes etc. Little did I know then the havoc these were causing and the vast amount of history that was being casually swept away.

The ‘Redevelopment’ of Dowlais. The derelict shell of Lloyd’s Bank in Union Street in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

My aunty, who had lived most of her life in Penydarren, had visited Dowlais just as much as she would have visited Merthyr when the former was in its hey-day. Dowlais, then, had everything – cinemas, banks, shops of every description – everything anyone would need for everyday life. By the 1970s however, most of these had gone, and only a few buildings and businesses held on for dear life as the bulldozers slowly worked their way up Union Street. Yet, my aunty would still do what she could in Dowlais.

I remember that we would catch the bus up to Dowlais – we’d go regularly as my aunty would go to ‘pay the coal’ in a business, if I remember correctly, in Church Row. We’d walk up past the Co-op, never the other side of the road…..I didn’t like walking past the steeple of St John’s Church – it frightened me!!! I remember the adverts in the window for various things, and also the posters advertising ‘Co-op stamps’.

Dowlais Co-op in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Sometimes, after ‘paying the coal’, we would go around the corner to see the then derelict Dowlais Stables and my aunty would tell me all about Josiah John Guest and the Ironworks and about Lady Charlotte opening a school there. Other times we would call into Dowlais Library for her to change her books, and she would chat with David Watkins the marvellous librarian there whilst I looked at the books in the ‘Children’s Library’.

We would also call into one or two of the few shops that were remaining. I particularly remembering going to the shop of Mr Segar’s – the watch and clock repairer in North Street, and be fascinated by all the different clocks around the place. Another shop we would always visit was Crynogwyn’s – the dressmaker in Union Street. This was simply because Crynogwyn or ‘Aunty Cryn’ was an ‘honorary Aunty’. My father, had worked with Cryn’s husband Jack on the railway for many years, and they were very close friends. Cryn was a tiny, gentle, very quietly spoken lady with jet-black hair, and she was one of the finest seamstresses in Dowlais.

Crynogwyn’s Shop in Union Street not long before it was demolished. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

After we had finished all we had to do in Dowlais, we would catch the bus home from outside Ferrari’s Café. If I had been very good (and of course I always was), we would go into Ferrari’s and I would have a cup of hot chocolate as a special treat.

Ferrari’s Cafe in Dowlais. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Collection

These were simple things, but they still remain fresh in my memory. St John’s Church, Dowlais Stables and the Library are all still there, but everything else has gone – swept away in the name of progress. Redevelopment or vandalism? You decide.

Merthyr Memories: Memories of Dowlais – part 1

by “Sarnws”

If only I could sleep just for one night, in winter, in the front bedroom of the house which now stands where my grandfather’s did, in Church Row in Dowlais, nearly on the corner of Ivor Street, would I in that early morning reverie, half awake and half asleep, hear the frost hardened paving stones ringing with the footsteps of hundreds and hundreds of men making their way to the Ivor Works and the trains taking them over Dowlais Top to the mines and coke ovens beyond?

Are too, the ghosts of women scurrying from the Tip Station along Station  Road and Church Row, past the Bonevitch’s shop,  to Dowlais Market, with a basket of merchandise  in the crook of each elbow to be seen?

Dowlais Market in the 1960’s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In those days when times were hard, “Daddy Thorn”, as he was known to the local children would come out of retirement as a sugar puller, and make a walking stick of “rock” for a birthday present.  This fuelled our activities as roller skating was a popular pastime, and Church Row was surfaced and as smooth as silk.  I can now admit to stealing grease from the axle boxes of the goods wagons parked opposite the Stables by the market for my roller skate wheels, as the statute of limitations applies, hopefully.

You could buy spare roller skate wheels from Atkins the ironmonger down the hill from the Co-op, and I often went there to buy “carbide” for my grandfather’s flame lamp.

Dowlais Library was, still is I think, just by the site of the Co-op, and even though I did not appreciate it at the time, was told  later that the librarian was so addicted to snuff that every book was so scented.

Atkins Shop and Dowlais Library. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

I would go to the Co-op to fetch pipe tobacco for my grandfather, which came in a foil sealed tin.  I still remember the aroma as the foil was peeled back.  One of the staff on the provision counter was a  Mr. Sheen, always in immaculate whites.  To see him boning out a side of bacon was a demonstration of skill. In those days bacon was not laid out ready, but cut on demand.  If it ran out you would patiently wait and look on as the Provisions hand fetched and boned another side.

The Co-op in Dowlais. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

If the “American Cheese” came to an end the provision hand would appear embracing a barrel shaped cheese weighing  fifty-six pounds, and cut it up with the wire cheese cutter. Everyone waited, with no complaints.

At the end of Mary Ann Street there stood a bakery which in summer would be open to the world, where real bread was baked.

In Dowlais market the stall always doing a roaring trade was the faggots and peas stall.  Traditionally most people would add a sprinkling of vinegar, probably to cut the richness of the faggots.

One regular vendor was the man selling corn ointment, who, to demonstrate the effectiveness of his treatment would stamp his highly polished black boots on the flagstones.

I was told of one old lady, a self appointed arbiter of the quality of poultry sold in the market, who never bought a bird, but would go from stall to stall prodding the breasts of the chicken on show with a hatpin. She would then pronounce on the quality of the merchandise.

An older colleague could remember the matriarch of a rather rough and ready family who on pay day would take the husband’s pay, go down to the market,  and buy and don a new apron. She would then gather up the hem to form a shopping bag, and do the weekly shop .  When the family had consumed her purchases, they went hungry ‘till the next pay day.

If the term “Disposable Income” had been common parlance then it would have had no relevance for the majority who survived from pay day to pay day.

Dowlais in the 1930’s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

To be continued…….