Tag: Perrott Street (Treharris)

The Dark Side of Convict Life – part 9

by Barrie Jones

Chapter VII recounts Henry’s second long term imprisonment in Portland Prison, Dorset. He was tried at the Glamorgan Assizes, Swansea on the 14th November 1898 for the “Great Jewellery Robbery” at Treharris, again with David Davies. They had burgled the premises of John Edwards, Jeweller, Perrot Street, Treharris, stealing watches, chains, rings, and various other articles valued at two-hundred and fifty pounds. Superintendent Thornley commented to Justice Day that both prisoners were habitual thieves and burglars, and both had just been liberated on “ticket-of-leave.”

The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 5th March 1910, page 11.

Chapter VII

I suppose many of my readers can well remember the great miners’ strike in 1898, when men, women, and little children were carried to their graves dying every day of starvation; a crime committed in those days was certainly excusable. It was for taking part in a jewellery robbery that I was tried and sentenced to penal servitude for nine years. I was afterwards transferred to Exeter Prison to serve six months’ probation. I made no attempt to escape this time, as I was too carefully watched, for the authorities had not forgotten the last event. I had no trouble there this time, but my troubles were to come. After serving my probation I was transferred to Portland Convict Prison, this being a first-class labour station, and it was here that I composed the “Convict’s Reflections,” which I will give for the benefit of my readers of the “Merthyr Express”:

The Convict’s Reflections

One eve as I sat in my cell, sad and lonely
The prison all quiet, and the warders away
I thought of the parents I had left far behind me
And prayed that again I might see them some day,
When all of a sudden, outside my cell window,
I heard a bird chirping – it seemed full of glee.
So just pay attention, old friends, while I mention
What that little bird told through the bars unto me.

It brought to my mind the bright home of my childhood.
It spoke of the grief and the many sad tears.
That my own darling sister had shed in the wild wood.
When she heard I was sentenced to nine long years.
It said that at night-time when that fair one was sleeping
She would dream of the time when her brother was free,
And even in her slumbers o’er me she would be weeping
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.

It spoke of two honest, hardworking brothers
It is here, hardened nature, succumbed and tears flowed.
I had seen them, their children, like all jealous lovers,
Remove from the taint of their own flesh and blood.
Oh, sin, thou alluring, and fair faced deceiver,
When, when, shall frail man thy unmasked features see?
When your mates from the tomb hesitate to receive you
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.

It told me of one who had died broken-hearted
When she heard of the sentence they passed on her lad
Oh, how she did weep on the day that we parted
When I think of my mother it makes my heart sad
How little she thought, on the day that she bore me
That the pride of her breast a poor convict would be
For she prayed that the angels above would watch o’er me
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.

It spoke of my father, whose days were fast closing,
That the battle of life he himself had to brave,
And it said that he longed to be calmly reposing
By the side of his love in the peace of the grave.
Oh, how well I remember the way he would caress me
And tell me fine tales as I sat on his knee.
But no more in this world shall those fond parents bless me
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.

And lastly it told me of one I loved dearly
It cost me a pang when from her I’d to part
For it said that she oft-times wished she was near me;
Though a convict, I had still the first place in her heart.
The little bird chirped a good-night, and departed,
But told me to hope for bright days yet to see
And often I think when I’m feeling down-hearted
What that little bird told through the bars unto me.

To be continued….

Professor Herbert Nicholas

Today marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of  Professor Herbert Nicholas – yet another Merthyr boy who worked hard to make it to the top of his profession.

Herbert George Nicholas was born on 8 June 1911 in Treharris. He was the youngest of seven children born to Rev William D Nicholas, minister of Bethel Chapel, and his wife Mary (née Warren), daughter of Samuel Warren, one of the foremost businessmen in Treharris, who opened Warren’s Drapery in Perrott Street.

At an early age, Herbert contracted rheumatic fever, which prevented him from attending school until he was 11. During this time he was educated at home by his eldest sister Evelyn, who had become a teacher. When he became well enough to attend school, Evelyn arranged for him to attend a small school in Cardiff run by a remarkable deaf lady, Miss Maud Humphries. Having travelled back and forth to Cardiff daily for three years, Herbert won a scholarship to the prestigious Mill Hill School in London. Mill Hill School was set up in 1807 by merchants and ministers from non-conformist backgrounds in order to provide a place of learning for the boys from their communities, as the “ancient” public schools at this time required all their pupils to belong to the Church of England.

Following his, not altogether happy, days at Mill Hill, Herbert won a place at New College, Oxford to read Greats. For the whole of his time at Oxford, his sisters supported him financially. The sums spent on him were carefully noted by Herbert however, and his sisters were duly repaid later. He graduated in 1934 with first-class degree.

The following year, Herbert acquired a Commonwealth Scholarship to travel to America to study history at Yale University. Originally concentrating on 17th Century history, he became more and more fascinated by contemporary American history, and he developed a huge admiration for the policies of President Franklin D Roosevelt. Upon his return to Britain in 1937, having managed to live off earnings for occasional articles he wrote as a freelance journalist for several months, he accepted a job lecturing in 19th Century History at Exeter College in Oxford.

Having spent two very happy years at Exeter College, the idyll was cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War. Classified as unfit for military service due to his bout of rheumatic fever as a child, Herbert joined the American Division of the Ministry of Information, where he had, as he later wrote: ‘…an indecently enjoyable war. I vastly enjoyed the work which was a natural extension of my academic interests, I had the company of singularly agreeable colleagues….’

In 1944, Herbert was elected as a fellow of Exeter College, and in 1946, following the cessation of hostilities, he returned to his post at the college. In 1948 he published his first book ‘The American Union. A short history of the USA’. In 1951 he published his only book about a British topic ‘The British General Election of 1950’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That same year, he was invited back to New College to take over the position of tutorial fellow in politics. Although holding fellowships in other colleges (Exeter and Nuffield), New College would remain his base. In 1959 he published ‘The United Nations as a Political Institution’, which would eventually be published in five separate editions. In 1969 he was elected Rhodes Professor of American History and Institutions at Oxford, and in the same year he was elected to the British Academy, becoming vice-president in 1975-6.

Soon after his election as Rhodes Professor, he moved to Headington to look after his elderly sisters Evelyn and Doris, devoting nearly all of his time to their welfare. During these years he did find the time however, to write two more books – ‘The Nature of American Politics’ (1980) and ‘Washington Despatches, 1941-45 (1981). The first of these books is still used prominently in University courses on both side of the Atlantic.

When Evelyn died in 1987 (Doris having died previously), Herbert returned to college life, delighting friends, colleagues and ex-pupils with his sharp wit, punning one-liners and gifts as a raconteur. His favourite story being of how, in 1950, he, slight and bespectacled, together with his middle-aged schoolmistress sister, went with his pupil, Stansfield Turner, later a US admiral and head of the CIA, to hear a speech by the general secretary of the Communist Party, Harry Pollitt, who was fighting for a seat in South Wales. For their parts they found themselves denounced in the Daily Worker as ‘a bunch of American rowdies with their gangster’s moll trying to wreck the meeting.’ Most importantly, though, he never forgot his roots in Treharris, and spoke fondly of his youth there.

Herbert’s activities were curtailed when he suffered a stroke in 1991, but he recovered sufficiently to still be a major part of New College until his death on 3 July 1998 at the age of 87.

Andrew Wilson J.P. Freeman of the Borough – part 2

Below is the conclusion of the article about Andrew Wilson which is taken from the marvellous website http://www.treharrisdistrict.co.uk and is transcribed here with the kind permission of the webmaster, Paul Corkrey.

War Pensions

During the First World War 1914-18 Andrew Wilson became very involved in war pension work and he became secretary of the local war pensions committee for the Treharris Ward. Until two whole years after the armistice the men of Treharris Colliery contributed through the colliery office 3d a week, this raised over£6,000 for the dependents of those serving in the war. Everyone in the district gave their services for free and many benefited from the fund, Andrew was a member of the North East Glamorgan War pensions committee for 31 years.

First Chairman of the Water board

Before the First World War Andrew became interested in the question of water supplies in South Wales and supported the Merthyr Parliamentary Bill for the construction of the Taf Fechan Reservoir near Merthyr.

The Taf Fechan Water Supply Board was formed, and at its first meeting in April 1922 Mr Wilson was made the first chairman of the board; at the end of his first year of office he was appointed chairman of the finance committee, a position he held ever since.

He also had the honour of laying the last granite set of the overflow shaft on behalf of the board during its construction. In view of the valuable work that he did since its inception it was decided that a portrait of the first chairman be placed in the board room.

Members of the Taf Fechan Water Supply Board. Andrew Wilson is seated at the far right in the front row

Justice of the peace and proud miner

Andrew Wilson was made a Justice of the Peace in 1918; he was also the chairman of the Labour Party for many years. Apart from serving on many committees Andrew worked at the Deep Navigation Colliery for 55 years, of which 37 years were underground, and 18 years on the surface as a checkweigher. He finally retired in 1946. Andrew also completed 50 years service as a member of the Merthyr Tydfil Council, and to mark that achievement he received a cheque from the Borough trades council and the Labour Party.

A family man

It is very obvious that Andrew Wilson was a great man and a wonderful servant of the people who kept voting him into office. He was so well respected and often chaired the organisations he was involved with but he was also a family man and he and his wife Maria were parents to nine children, one son and eight daughters, one of which was my grandmother Gladys Wilson. They were married for 57 years and lived a full and happy life.

Both Andrew and Maria were members of the Trinity Forward Movement Church in Perrott Street (now demolished), and Mr Wilson was an elder there for over 40 years.

Trinity Forward Movement Chapel in Treharris

In April 1953 the borough was shocked to hear of the death of Andrew Wilson at the age of 78, hundreds of tributes poured into the family home from some very important people of the time that would have been a comfort to the family in Treharris. Further sadness followed just two days later though when his wife Maria also passed away at the family home in Brynteg Place, they were both buried in a huge funeral at Beechgrove Cemetery, Edwardsville, right behind the graveyard church. I have paid a couple of visits to the cemetery to pay my own respects to a remarkable man of Treharris.

Merthyr Memories: Discovering Tabernacle Orchestra, Treharris

by Christine Trevett

When I was at school at the start of the 1960s one of the books we had to study for the English literature exam was Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree. Our English teacher said it was a gentle masterpiece. I hated it – it was all ‘rural’ and about Victorians regretting a lost age. Yet I did quite like the plot line about abolishing the church’s string orchestra. There was a plan to replace it with a mechanical organ. I’d never heard of a church orchestra and I’d certainly never seen one. I played in the Merthyr Borough youth orchestra at the time, though, so I felt some sympathy about losing a music group.

It was in that English class that one of my friends said there was an orchestra in her own chapel in Treharris, where I lived too, and it had had one for longer than anyone could remember. She played in it. Then one summer she asked if I’d go along one Sunday instead of her, as she was going on holiday. I was used to chapels and curious, so I said yes, though all I knew of it was that this chapel had had a minister referred to locally as ‘Thomas Tab’ and that the building was one of two chapels facing each other on Perrott Street, each side of the main street just below ‘The Square’, which was the hub of Treharris town.

Tabernacle Chapel, Treharris

The language of the chapel was Welsh. I had no idea when I turned up at Tabernacle Chapel that for them this was the tail end of a very lively orchestral tradition indeed. It was more than half a century later that I came across the photograph on the Internet headed Tabernacle Orchestral Society, Treharris: winners orchestral competition, Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, Barry, 1920. It showed just two female players among over thirty musicians, with an age range from schoolboys to the very mature.

The chapel, built in 1883, was bigger than my own, which was two years older and far from small itself. Tabernacle had hosted great congregations in the 1905 religious revival. It was rich in panelled pews, balustrade, mouldings and an impressive pulpit front (the building would be Grade 2 listed in due course). The part of the chapel I remember best, though, from the two occasions (I think) when I joined the string players, was the spot on the balcony from which the music came.

Tabernacle Chapel pulpit from the balcony

There were just a few players accompanying hymns. I was on the ’cello. The galleries raked steeply and the floor felt slightly sloping where we sat, just a few chairs and some music stands. This teenager’s imagination was working overtime in the unfamiliar setting, sitting alongside others who knew all the ropes and knew exactly what they were doing. The whole building was ‘weighty’ and this youngster was nervous. What if the spike of the ’cello slid and slipped into one of those small gaps between floorboards, and got wedged? It would be like some animated cartoon – the player using knees to wrestle with the thing while still keeping the bass part going using both hands. I tried not to move much.  It didn’t happen of course.

I knew at the time that I was experiencing something being kept alive by the skin of its teeth. Chapels had organs and probably a piano in the vestry as well. Yet many nonconformists in the 19th century hadn’t been entirely at ease as organs and harmoniums were being installed. It had seemed ‘popish’ to some. Tabernacle, in decades past, had encouraged and built an orchestral fellowship that went beyond anything needed to accompany hymns and now it didn’t want even that to be ended.

Nowadays instrumental ensembles are common in churches and chapels again – a fiddle, a flute and piano/keyboard perhaps, in a modern ‘worship group’, or some people looking like a rock group in another. Some very successful churches have much more variety than this, to take account of all tastes at different services. So the tradition’s far from dead. You could say it’s been resurrected.

Tabernacle Chapel Orchestra in 1920