Hughesovka – The Melting Pot

Gwyn Thomas and Merthyr Tydfil

by Daryl Leeworthy

In March 1955, on assignment with the Welsh Empire News, the novelist, playwright and television personality, Gwyn Thomas, turned his unique gaze to postwar Merthyr Tydfil. It was a rare outing for a writer more commonly associated with the Rhondda or with Barry, but Merthyr Tydfil had been the byword for poverty and neglect in the 1930s and so he was keen to see what, if anything, had changed. From the perspective of historians, the mid-1950s were a time of relative affluence, when the worst that could be said of Britain was that it was a bit damp, drab, and dismally grey. In place of mass unemployment, there were new factories – signature installations like Hoover at Pentrebach – and the population was rising again, albeit slowly, after three decades of decline. But, warned Gwyn, ‘South Wales is full of things that people forgot to sweep up’. Places, as well.

Gwyn Thomas in Pantywaun. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.

A few years after that Empire News article was published, Gwyn was called back to the area. This time the request came from the BBC, who wanted him to give a piece to camera about the impending demolition of Pantywaun. The experience in 1962 formed the basis of a memorable passage in A Welsh Eye, in which Gwyn described the ‘liquidation’ of the village, the transfer of the remaining residents to council houses closer to Merthyr town, and the belated installation of a public call box ‘just in time for the villagers to tell their friends that they were leaving’.

Pantywaun was being sacrificed for the expansion of the ‘Royal Arms’ open cast site. This, it was said, was progress. In the view of older generations, it was the likely fate of all pit villages once their economic root had gone. As the slogan of the 1984-5 miners’ strike put it, ‘close a pit, kill a community’.

These visits were all part and parcel of broadcasting, of being an eminent public voice. Gwyn’s relationship with Merthyr Tydfil was older still, of course. His most important novel, the acknowledged masterpiece All Things Betray Thee published by Michael Joseph in 1949, was set in a fictionalised Merthyr. Christened in fiction as Moonlea, this was the Merthyr of the 1830s; the Merthyr of the unrest focused on the Court of Requests, of Dic Penderyn and Lewis the Huntsman, of Chartism and the campaign for a democratic voice. It was a place in which artists could sit and talk through grand political ideas, through the very tenets of philosophy that ought to have governed society but did not. Similar themes would emerge from Gwyn’s more anarchic play, Jackie the Jumper, first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1963.

Raymond Williams, the eminent writer and scholar, believed All Things Betray Thee to be the most important novel of the Welsh industrial tradition, capable of standing tall alongside its English or American or European counterparts but distinctively Welsh at the same time. During the Cold War, the novel was widely translated, notably into Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and Romanian, bringing knowledge of Merthyr and its history to new audiences abroad. Those very same audiences, of course, who understood the old joke, apparently invented by Gwyn A. Williams, that had Anna Karenina looked down from the train she would have seen ‘Made in Dowlais’ marked on the rails; or who understood the lineage connecting Stalino (now Donetsk) in Ukraine with Hughesovka and, of course, with Merthyr Tydfil itself.

We may ask what Gwyn Thomas knew of the 1830s, and how that knowledge had been acquired. In the 1930s, having graduated from Oxford University and unable to find stable, permanent work, Gwyn taught classes in industrial history for the Workers’ Educational Association in the Rhondda. This was the period when working-class history – the history of the coal valleys of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire – was first being written down and taught; when it was turned into self-styled pageants with input from national figures like Benjamin Britten and Montagu Slater; when it was made into literature by A. J. Cronin and Rhys Davies, at one level, and Lewis Jones and Richard Llewellyn at another, or turned into drama for production by companies like the Aberdare Little Theatre. But this history was not yet in the form of professional historiography of the sort we have come to expect from university-trained boffins, it was still framed by a social and political purpose. Ness Edwards, the leading local historian of the period, later the Labour MP for Caerphilly, wrote his small books and pamphlets above all to ignite passions. The same was true of poet Islwyn ap Nicholas.

But Gwyn Thomas stands out from this crowd and from those mythologisers who came after him, men like Harri Webb, because he did not fall for the romantic illusions contained in terms like ‘Merthyr Rising’. Instead, Gwyn’s act of rebellion was one of ideas, of art, of a people conscious of themselves and aware of their capacity for creative invention. He was using literature to write history – as the novel’s working title My Root on Earth suggested – encouraging the use of culture to define who weare as a people, and the use of historical truth to lend weight and veracity to it all. You see, in Gwyn’s mind Merthyr Tydfil was the root of industrial experience, the origins of an ‘American Wales’, as it might legitimately be called, and the Rhondda its great flowering. The two were indelibly linked: the Cain and Abel of our unique story.

There is an epilogue to all this aspect of Gwyn’s career involving the screenwriter Alan Plater who found in the Welshman an ebullient model, the man placed at the top of the Hullensian’s fantasy league of writers. In gratitude, Plater set about bringing two of Gwyn’s works onto radio and television. The first was the memoir, A Few Selected Exits, which aired on BBC television in 1993 with Anthony Hopkins in the title role. It won a Welsh BAFTA. The second was All Things Betray Thee which went out on Radio 4 in the spring of 1996. Plater tried for years to translate Gwyn’s writing for a contemporary broadcast audience. He succeeded, if only briefly, in the mid-1990s. Writing in the Independent newspaper in 1994, he lamented ‘the neglect of Gwyn Thomas since his death in 1981’ adding that ‘perhaps rough justice will be done, if we hang around long enough’. Now is the time to bring Gwyn Thomas to the heart of Welsh literature, I suggest, to understand at last the Fury of Past Time. We have waited far too long.

If you want to find out more about Gwyn Thomas, Daryl’s new biography of him has just been published and is available in all good bookshops, direct from Parthian, or an independent such as Storyville in Pontypridd.

Escape from Russia, 1917: The Cartwrights’ Story – part 2

by Tony Peters, Glamorgan Archives Volunteer

However, all of this was to change in 1917. By 1914 the number of foreign nationals in Hughesovka had fallen considerably, although many were still employed by the New Russia Company in key technical and management positions. Following the outbreak of war a number of the young men had left to travel back to Britain to enlist, but life for many of those in Hughesovka continued although, increasingly, the factories were charged with the production of munitions and steel to fuel the Russian war effort. By 1917, however, after 3 years of heavy losses of men and territory, the war was going badly for the Russian Army with a morale rapidly disintegrating and the economy on the verge of collapse. Matters were brought to a head early in the year with disorder and riots in the capital Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg) fuelled by severe food shortages. The Tsar, appreciating that he could no longer rely on the Army, abdicated and power was passed to a Provisional Government of liberal Duma politicians led by Alexander Kerensky.

If, however, the families in Hughesovka thought that this might lead to an improvement in their situation they were sorely disappointed. Kerensky’s decision to continue the war was unpopular and increasingly the Provisional Government competed for power with the Petrograd Soviet. The flames of revolution were further fanned in April by the return to Russia of the Bolshevik leader Lenin.

Faced with the breakdown of government and, in many areas, law and order, the families in Hughesovka would have felt increasingly isolated and threatened. As relatively wealthy individuals and symbols of foreign ownership they were a target for both revolutionaries and brigands. The Cartwrights and many others began to consider their options. Leaving behind their lifestyle and most of their possessions would have been a difficult decision but, by the summer of 1917, their options were severely limited. Many families, including the Steels and Calderwoods, had already left or were hurriedly preparing to leave. Leah Steel, who returned with her parents to London in July 1917, recalled that, prior to leaving, …. in our area mobs of people roamed around claiming everything as their own, but they never took away or claimed anything from our home [DX664/1]. It may well have been the news of the first Bolshevik uprising that was the deciding factor in the Cartwright’s decision to quit Hughesovka. There was, however, an added complication. Gwladys was expecting their second child, Edward Morgan, who was born in the summer of 1917. In addition, Gwladys’ passport had been granted for a 2 year period in 1915 and was due to expire in the latter half of 1917. Even though she must have been heavily pregnant we can see from the documentation that she took the precaution of renewing her passport at the British Consulate in Odessa in June 1917 and only weeks after her son’s birth, Edward’s name was added to her passport on 7 August.

By August the die had been cast and the Cartwrights faced a lengthy and dangerous journey back to Britain soon after the baby’s birth. Those travelling from Britain to Hughesovka had used either the southern sea route through the Mediterranean and the Black Sea to Odessa or the overland route by train through Holland, Germany and Poland. Both routes were now closed by the fighting. The only option left was to travel north to Petrograd and from there through Finland, Sweden and Norway before crossing the North Sea back to Britain.

Leaving Hughesovka, probably on the last day of August, the first leg of the journey would have been by train to Petrograd, a journey of some 900 miles. Transport had largely been requisitioned for the military and this would have been, at best, an uncomfortable journey of many days, with the family snatching whatever space they could find in train corridors and carriages. The Cartwrights would have had no option but to travel light with little by way of clothes and possessions and carrying as much food as possible. Travelling by train across a war torn country they would have faced interminable delays and the constant threat of arrest and robbery. Mary Ann Steel, who made the same journey several weeks later, with her mother and three sons, insisted on taking her mother’s samovar on the journey. As the family recalled she was determined that they would be able to … boil their own water and brew tea on all the railway platforms upon which they were turned out along the way [D431]. From Gwladys’ passport we know that they were in Petrograd by the second week of September. At this point they must have been exhausted but, to add to their troubles, the city was now the centre of the revolution. Although Kerensky had resisted a coup by the Army, control of the city was slipping away increasingly to the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolsheviks. It was only weeks before the Bolshevik revolution and the Cartwrights would have seen the chaos in the streets with skirmishes between armed factions. In addition, food was at a premium and they would have had to queue each day to secure bread and the bare essentials.

Fortunately for the Cartwrights, by 12 September, the British Consulate was able to arrange passage for the family across the nearby border into Finland and from there onward across Sweden to Norway. The Swedish consul in Petrograd granted the family a travel visa, on 11 September, at a cost of one US dollar or 4 shillings and 5 pence. The destination on their passport was given as “home” and the length of stay as “indefinite”. The visas were valid for only 10 days and it is little surprise that the Cartwrights left Petrograd immediately on receiving the necessary travel documents. There must have been immense relief at reaching neutral territory and, in particular, for Gwladys and her young baby and daughter. Their journey was, however, far from over. The family would have travelled through Finland by train to Tornio and, two days after securing their visas in Petrograd, on September 14, they crossed the border, at Haparanda, into Sweden. Crossing Sweden they finally arrived in Norway. The Cartwright papers contain a postcard of a hotel by a lake in Vossvangen where the families waited, at last in relative comfort, for a ship, with Royal Naval protection, to take them from Bergen to Aberdeen. The family arrived in Aberdeen on the 7 October, many weeks after starting their journey from Hughesovka. Like most of those who left Hughesovka in 1917 they were never to return to Russia. The Bolshevik revolution, only weeks later, effectively meant the end for the New Russia Company with Hughesovka renamed Stalino in 1924.

The Cartwrights returned to South Wales. Like many of those who had prospered in Hughesovka, Percy found it difficult in the post era, with rising unemployment, to find similar work. However, from letters held in the Hughesovka Research Archive, Percy did resume his career working for the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company [DX727/4] while living in Bargoed. No doubt he carried his love of amateur dramatics with him throughout his life. It is difficult to see, however, how any play could be any more dramatic than the tale that the family from Dowlais could tell of life on the Russian steppe and their flight from revolutionary Russia.

This article is reproduced here with the kind permission of Glamorgan Archives. To view the original article, please follow the link below.

Escape from Russia, 1917: The Cartwrights’ Story

Escape from Russia, 1917: The Cartwrights’ Story – part 1

by Tony Peters, Glamorgan Archives Volunteer

Glamorgan Archives holds a copy of a passport issued by the British Consul-General in Odessa to Gwladys Cartwright from Dowlais.

DX726/22/1: British passport issued to Mrs Gwladys Ann Cartwright at Odessa, Nov 1915, and renewed, Jun 1917

The passport, like most official documents, is very plain and requests and requires that:

… in the Name of His Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow Mrs Gwladys Anne Cartwright, a British Subject, accompanied by her daughter Ella Cecil and son Edward Morgan to pass without let or hindrance and to afford her every assistance and protection to which she may stand in need. [DX726/22]

On closer inspection, however, it is clear that the passport tells the story of the Cartwright family’s dramatic escape in 1917 from war-torn Russia, almost exactly 100 years ago, as the country was engulfed by revolution.

The passport is held within the Hughesovka Research Archive. The Archive details the lives and fortunes of the men and families who left south Wales, in the latter years of the 19^th century and the first decade of the 20^th century, to work in the coal, iron and steel industries at what was known, at the time, as Hughesovka and now Donetsk in the Ukraine. The core of the collection surrounds the story of John Hughes from Merthyr Tydfil who was invited by the Russian Government in 1869 to set up an iron foundry in southern Russia. Hughes was an experienced engineer and iron master and the Russian Government appreciated that it needed his expertise and management skills to capitalise on the raw materials – iron ore, coal and water power – to be found in the Donbass region of Russia. For his part, Hughes saw the opportunity to build a business empire in the form of the New Russia Company, established with his four sons. He also recognised that he needed skilled men, well versed in the coal, iron and newly emerging steel industries. He therefore recruited extensively from across south Wales. Contracts were issued, initially, for a three year term and many took up his offer to work at Hughesovka, the town at the centre of the New Russia Company’s operations and named after John Hughes. With their passage paid to Hughesovka many men were lured by the money and the prospect of adventure. Although conditions were harsh, with freezing winters and hot arid summers, the men were well paid and looked after by the Company. As the business became established whole families moved and settled in Hughesovka. In 1896 a census of Welsh settlers in Hughesovka confirmed that there were some 22 families in the area [D433/6/1]. The Research Archive tells their stories through photographs, letters, business papers and official documents. It is supplemented in many areas by reminiscences provided by family members, often many years later and collated at the time the Archive was established.

The Cartwrights were one of the many families that travelled from south Wales to work for the New Russia Company in Hughesovka. Percy Cartwright was the son of a printer from Dowlais. A talented scholar, his name appeared frequently in local newspapers as a prize winner in exams and competitions run by the local Sunday School at the Elizabeth Street Methodist Chapel in Dowlais. He was a keen sportsman and a committee man at both the Dowlais cricket club, the Lilywhites and the local football club. Rather than follow his father into the printing trade Percy had a talent for science. By 1901, at the age of 22, he was the scientific adviser at the local steel works. Young, ambitious and with skills in steel making, Percy was exactly the sort of man that the New Russia Company required in Hughesovka. Percy left for Hughesovka in 1903 and worked for the New Russia Company as a Metallurgical Chemist, initially as the Company’s Assistant Chemist and subsequently as Chief Chemist.

HRA/DX726/2: Percy Cartwright standing in his laboratory, c.1912

He was to live in Hughesovka for the next 14 years, returning to south Wales in 1911 to marry Gwladys Morgan a 26 year old school teacher.

HRA/DX726/5: Gwladys Ann Cartwright in the window of her house holding the family dog, Midge, Sep 1912

Gwladys, also from Dowlais, lived close to the Cartwright family. Her father, Tom, was the local grocer and the family attended the Elizabeth Street Chapel. Their first child, a daughter named Ella, was born in Hughesovka two years later in 1913.

HRA/DX726/13: Ella Cecil Cartwright in garden at Hughesovka during winter, c.1916

The Hughesovka Research Archive holds an excellent set of photographs that provide an insight into the manufacturing facilities in the region, the town of Hughesovka itself, built to house the workforce and the lives of those that travelled from south Wales to work for the New Russia Company. The Company was, in many respects, an exemplary employer for its time, with provision made for housing, hospitals and schools. However, life for many of the local workforce was still primitive and the town suffered from disease and regular epidemics. Although not immune to all of this, the photographs show that the Cartwrights and other families from Wales would have enjoyed a very privileged lifestyle with the provision of a large company house with an extensive garden, servants and horse drawn carriages for the summer and sleighs for the winter [DX726/1-17, 19-21].

HRA/DX726/20/1: Percy and Gwladys Cartwright in horse and carriage with driver, Oct 1913

In a note attached to a photograph of the carriage Gwladys comments that she is disappointed that Andre, her driver, has not yet acquired his leather apron and, as a result, …he does not look quite tidy. In the summer months Gwladys and Ella escaped the town with many other families for holidays by the seaside. There was a thriving social life with the community coming together for frequent sporting and social events. They also retained close ties with family and friends in Wales with reports from Hughesovka often appearing in the Welsh newspapers. For example, Percy had a talent for amateur dramatics and there are accounts in the Western Mail, in 1914, of plays staged in Hughesovka with Percy in the lead role. In May 1914 the paper reported:

Whilst the Welsh national drama is “holding the boards” at the New Theatre, Cardiff it is interesting to note that at Hughesoffka in South Russia where the great iron and steel works funded by the late Mr John Hughes still exist, a number of British plays have been presented within the last few weeks by, amongst others, several players who hail from Wales and are now resident on Russian soil. One of these, The Parent’s Progress, an amusing comedy went exceedingly well, and the chief part “Samuel Hoskins” was admirably sustained by Mr Percy Cartwright of Dowlais.… [Western Mail, 11 May 1914]

To be continued…….

This article is reproduced here with the kind permission of Glamorgan Archives. To view the original article, please follow the link below.

Escape from Russia, 1917: The Cartwrights’ Story

Hughesovka: A Welsh Enterprise in Imperial Russia

In light of the terrible situation in Ukraine, the following article is transcribed with the kind permission of Glamorgan Archives:-

HRA/DX627/1: Portrait of John Hughes, founder of Hughesovka

John Hughes, an engineer from Merthyr Tydfil, went to Imperial Russia in the 1870s. On the wide empty plains – the steppes – of the southern Ukraine, he set up an ironworks which developed into a huge industrial complex. Around the works grew up a town: Hughesovka.

John Hughes was born in Merthyr Tydfil about 1815. He was the son of an engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and started his own career at Cyfarthfa before moving to the Ebbw Vale works, and then on to the Uskside Engineering Works in Newport. By the mid-1860s, John Hughes was a member of the Board of Millwall Engineering and Shipbuilding Company in London, with a world-wide reputation as an engineer.

Hughes came to the attention of the Imperial Russian government, which was anxious to develop its railways and heavy engineering industries. In 1868, he took up a concession from the government and bought land and mineral rights in the Donbass (then southern Russia, now the Ukraine). To finance his project, in 1869 Hughes set up the New Russia Company Ltd., with a capital of £300,000. In 1870 he travelled to the Ukraine to set up the works on the empty steppe.

John Hughes had married Elizabeth Lewis of Newport in 1844, and they had eight children. Four of Hughes’ sons – John James, Arthur David, Ivor Edward and Albert Llewellyn – were closely involved in the running of the works. When John Hughes died in St. Petersburg in 1889, they took over, sharing the responsibilities between them.

HRA/DXGC239/3: John Hughes with family and Russian friends

John Hughes set up his works on the wide empty steppes of what is now southern Ukraine, but was then part of the Russian Empire. The area was rich in coal and iron ore deposits, but isolated and not industrially developed. Hughes had to start from scratch in 1870, but by the beginning of 1872 the first blast furnace was in production producing iron, and by September 1873 iron rails were being produced. More blast furnaces followed as the works developed, and open hearth furnaces were built in the 1880s to produce steel. By the end of the 1890s, the works was the largest in the Russian Empire, employing 8,000 workers in 1896 and 12,000 in 1904.

Hughes established the works as a self-contained industrial complex. The raw materials for the iron and steel production came from the company’s coal and iron ore mines and limestone quarries; brickworks were set up to supply building materials; repair shops and chemical laboratories serviced the enterprise. In 1919, the works was taken over by the state; it continued in operation and the area remained a major industrial centre.

HRA/DX878/1: New Russia Company works, blast furnaces and workmen, post-1892

When Hughes was establishing the works he needed skilled workers, and he recruited many of these in Wales. Some stayed only for a few years, but others settled in Hughesovka, bringing out their wives and families. Over the years, although a Russian workforce was trained by the Company, it continued to employ skilled workers from the United Kingdom. A thriving expatriate community was established, with a school for the British children, an Anglican church, and an English club.

HRA/DX628/10/4/1: Teachers and pupils at the English school, 1911. Leeza Wiskin, who taught English at the school, stands left back.

The town of Hughesovka grew up beside the works, with housing provided by the Company to house the British and some of the local workers. The British workers lived in a separate sector, some in substantial houses. By the first decade of the 20th century, the population of Hughesovka was around 50,000, most of them working for or dependent on the works.

HRA/DX587/21: David Waters, originally from Swansea, and his children, all born in Hughesovka, c.1900

Some families stayed in Hughesovka for several generations, their children marrying there and bringing up their own families in the close-knit community. Life could be difficult, with very cold winters and hot summers, and public health problems such as cholera and typhus, but the British families generally enjoyed a good standard of living. In 1896, there were 22 Welsh families living in Hughesovka.

HRA/DX694/12/1: Photograph of the wedding of Elizabeth Mary James and Charles Henry Perry, in Odessa, 1894. The bride was born in Hughesovka to Welsh parents, and the bridegroom came to Russia as a child with his family. Elizabeth and Charles went on to have 10 children, all born in the Ukraine.

Then in 1917 came the Russian revolution. Most of the British families left Hughesovka and returned home. The works was taken over by the state and Hughesovka was renamed Stalino, and later on Donetsk.

Glamorgan Archives has collected together a large number of records relating to Hughesovka in the Hughesovka Research Archive (HRA). The HRA is a collection of material brought together from a number of different sources, all relating to one theme. It contains papers and photographs deposited by descendents of Hughesovka families, copies of material acquired by the Archives, and material concerning the Hugheosvka-related activities of the Archives. The collection illustrates the achievements of one group of the highly skilled Welsh emigrants who founded and developed industries around the world. It is a useful comparator to other Welsh enterprises abroad – the Welsh colony in Patagonia for example – and an indication of the strength of Welsh industrial enterprise.

The main strength of the collection lies in the light it throws on the members of the expatriate community in Hughesovka, but it also contains material relating to the career of John Hughes, to the New Russia Company and to the works, including some technical information. It is particularly strong in photographic material, including numerous photographs of the town and works, and of the British families.

HRA/DX726/20/1: Photograph of Percy and Gwladys Cartwright in their carriage, 1913. On the back, Gwladys wrote ‘André has not had the leather apron for himself yet, so does not look quite tidy. Our next conveyance will have to be a new sledge.’

You can see the Table of Contents of the catalogue of the Hughesovka Research Archive on the Glamorgan Archives website. Note that the table shows main headings only. A complete catalogue can be consulted on the Glamorgan Archives catalogue Canfod.

To view the original article please follow the following link:-
https://glamarchives.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/hughesovka-a-welsh-enterprise-in-imperial-russia/

Merthyr’s Heritage Plaques: John Hughes

by Keith Lewis-Jones

Plaque sited at the entrance to the Merthyr Tydfil Civic Centre, CF47 8AN

John Hughes (1814-1899) trained as an engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks in his native Merthyr Tydfil. He acquired an international reputation in marine engineering and armament production.

He was invited by the Tsar to help in the development of Russian railways and heavy industry.

He moved to the Ukraine in 1870 and established a steelworks at Hughesovka (Yuzovka) which was first renamed Stalino & then Donetsk.

Russia still honours a Merthyr Tydfil immigrant

by Irene Janes

Dowlais 1814, baby John James Hughes pushes his way into the world and the Merthyr Tydfil air filled his lungs, and although he took his last breath 75 years later, and on a different continent, the story grows, even today.

Unlike many other babies born that day in Merthyr, John had a chance of a better life. The proud Dad was head engineer of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. Although John was semi literate, unable to write and only read capital letters he was a quick learner in the ironworks under the supervision of his father.

Full of innovations and ambition, in 1840, John joined the Uskside Foundary in Newport. Here he patented a number of inventions in armaments and armour plating. His fortune was set and by the age of twenty-eight, he owned a shipyard and eight years later a foundry, but like Merthyr Tydfil, Newport could not hold him for long.

His reputation was extended not only over the borders of his homeland but those of continents when as manager of the residual Millwall Iron Works Company in London he was credited for the iron cladding of wooden warships for the British Admiralty. Along with this, he designed a gun carriage for heavy cannons, which were eagerly bought by our Navy and other European countries.

The Imperial Russian government wanted plating for a naval fortress being built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. Naturally enough they sought the services of John and the Millwall Iron Works. John was thrilled to accept a concession from the Imperial Russian government to develop metal works and acquired a piece of land, a steppe, north of the Azov Sea, Russia.

Just imagine the apprehension, excitement, fear and anticipation when a year later John Hughes had acquired the services of over a hundred skilled labourers, iron workers and miners from Merthyr and the surrounding valleys, some with their families. What faith they must have had in this man to follow him to a country, two thousand miles away with freezing Russian winters, scorching hot summers, the forever-stalking cholera, and a language they did not know. Eight ships filled with people, but mostly equipment, set sail not knowing what difference they would make to a piece of wasteland. Nevertheless, John’s vision extended to beyond building a metal works. He personally provided a hospital, good quality housing, school, bath-houses, tearooms, a fire brigade and an Anglican Church. An established town quickly grew when the steel plant went into full production and the sinking of several coalmines. The town was named Hughesovka (Yuzovka). Nevertheless, I doubt if even John Hughes even dreamt that in 2018 he is still being honoured there.

Hughesovka Blast Furnaces in 1888. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Sadly, while on a business trip at the Angleterre Hotel in St Petersburg on, 17 June 1889, John took his last breath. His wife arranged for his burial in West Norwood Cemetery, London. Four of his six sons took over the management of the works. By 1913 the works in Hughesovka was the largest in the Russian Empire producing seventy five percent of all Russian iron.

In 1924, after the revolution and under soviet rule, in a bid to re write history, communist U.S.S.R leaders decided to rename Hugesovka to Stalino (Stalin).

The name of the town was changed again in 1961, to distance it from its former leader Stalin, to one, which is more familiar – Donetsk. Nevertheless, it’s good to know one of its areas is still called Hughesovka (Yuzovka )

The United States of Soviet Russia is no more and Donetsk is now a city in the Ukraine. Its political landscape has changed many times. In May 2014 a referendum was held where it is said 90% of the voters wanted independence. A month later it was declared that the town was the self proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic. The European Union and the United States said the referendum was legal although Ukraine does not recognise it. Sadly, this transition has not been bloodless and many battles have been fought in Donetsk this century.

However, the town remains a testimony for John Hughes and those Welsh workers and their families who shaped a piece of land into what is today a major metallurgical industries centre with a population of over two million.

In 2014 his statute was erected outside their engineering university. There were plans for a museum in John’s honour, but again the people of Donetsk have had political issues to deal with.

Many thanks to Irene for contributing this fascinating article.