Johnny Owen Statue & plaque sited at St Tydfil’s Shopping Centre, CF47 8EL
Johnny Owen, 1956-1980, began boxing at the age of eight.
By the time he was 24, he was the British, Commonwealth and European Bantamweight Champion.
He was shy, kind and unassuming outside of the ring which was the only place where he was ‘comfortable’. He became known as ‘The Matchstick Man’ owing to his skeletal frame .
In 1980 he was knocked unconscious in a World Title fight in Los Angeles. He went into a coma and died six weeks later.
One of the most iconic buildings in Merthyr Tydfil’s High Street is Milbourne Chambers. Situated on the corner of High Street and Glebeland Street, presently the shop premises is empty but was formerly an established hairdresser’s named “Ladybirds”. For a majority of the towns-people though, they still refer to the premises by the name of the previous establishment, “H. Samuel” – jeweller, watchmaker and goldsmith, but what of the shop history and its association with the jewellery trade?
In this particular case the “H. Samuel” premises were formally rented by J.D. Williams’s jewellery business. The formation of J.D. Williams’s business began in 1856, when James David Williams returned to Merthyr Tydfil; he was the son of the Rev Benjamin Williams who was minister of Tabernacle Baptist Chapel, Merthyr.
After leaving school he was apprenticed to Job James, ironmonger, of Merthyr. When his apprenticeship was completed he moved to Soham, Cambridgeshire, to take up the management of an ironmongery establishment there, before moving to the city of Cork, where he obtained an introduction to the watch and jewellery business. It was not long before he secured an advancement from the position of an assistant to that of the buyer.
In 1856 he returned to Merthyr, where his family was well known and remembered, and commenced a business in November 1856 as a watchmaker and jeweller at premises in Market Square, which adjoined the old Merthyr Telegraph, and General Advertiser For the Iron Districts of South Wales.
Due to his admirable aptitude, both as a buyer and seller, he quickly extended the business which he commenced in a smaller shop. He searched for more commodious premises, and finally, by April 1858 he purchased new business accommodation at No 129 High Street, which he continued to occupy to the end of his days when he died on 24 February 1890 aged 62 years old. After his death the business was taken over by his only son Frederick Carlyle Williams, who continued the business under his father’s name.
J. D. Williams shop at 129 High Street. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
In 1903 the Post office officials decided to build and relocate the Merthyr Post Office. Merthyr’s first postmaster was William Milbourne Davies, whose descendants were the owners of Post Office building and its land.
Due to the dilapidated state of the Post Office and the adjoining buildings, one of Davies’ descendants, Miss Mary Davies, decided to build a new block of buildings on the site, with the upper part of the building being used for living accommodation and offices. The building was to be named Milbourne Chambers in memory of William Milbourne Davies. Part of the building design included a shop premises, so as it was the intention of Frederick Williams to expand and relocate his business, the opportunity manifested itself him to negotiate with the owners of Milbourne Chambers and he began a shop underneath the building and adjoining workshops.
The Merthyr Express dated 16 July 1904 recorded the pending opening opening of J.D. Williams & Co:-
There was a heavy copper name plate above the shop which gave a grand spectacle. There were handsomely appointed offices at the rear, and still further back, on Post Office lane, were elaborately equipped workshops, used for manufacturing, repairing and reconstructing items in the jewellery and watch making trade.
A word must be said about the clock. It was manufactured in the work shop, and it is a full sized one so far as the hands and dial are concerned, but no trace of the works can be seen. The clock is situated on top of the building, which faces Lower High Street, and proved over the years to be an impressive acquisition. The dial is five feet in diameter, and illuminated all through the night. The name of J.D Williams stood boldly on a handsome scroll with wrought iron sides – this was also illumined all through the night.
J. D. Williams new shop on the corner of the High Street and Glebeland Street.
On the day J.D Williams & Son, Jewellers opened at the new premises, Mr Walter West joined Mr F.C. Williams as a partner in the business.
By 1907 J.D Williams & Son, Jewellers had been sold to the H. Samuel chain of jewellery shops. The Samuel’s jewellery business was owned by Walter Samuel (1829-63). He married Harriet Wolfe in 1852, and after Walter’s death Harriet took over the family clock and watch business in Liverpool started by her father-in-law Moses Samuel. The first of the H. Samuel Stores (“H” for Harriet) were opened in Preston in 1890, before long there were branches throughout Wales and England.
In 1907 the Merthyr Express dated 6 July 1907, advertised the new Samuel’s store:
The H. Samuel sign above the shop consisted of three panels, with lettering on each board, GOLDSMITH, H.SAMUEL & JEWELLER, but by the 1960’s the signs were replaced by florescent lettering highlighting the name H. Samuel. For approximately 90 years H. Samuel served the town as one of the foremost jewellers, but in 1999 the business was finally transferred to 6 Graham Way in the St Tydfil’s Shopping Centre. Since H. Samuel moved, the premises in the High Street became a second hand furniture store, before becoming “Ladybirds”.
In the start of what I hope to be a new series, I have made a list of five things….places, occasions, feelings etc. in Merthyr that I remember from my childhood (I have mentioned several other memories such as hot chocolate in Ferrari’s Café in Dowlais – undoubtedly the best memory elsewhere).
The strange multicoloured polygonal playing frame in the precinct. Whatever happened to that?
St Tydfil’s Shopping Centre in the 1970s. The climbing frame is towards the top centre.
Queuing as far as Burtons to go and see the first Star Wars film at the Scala (Temperance Hall)…..I was only 8 at the time, and I made my aunty take me to see it six times – I don’t think she ever forgave me.
In connection to the above, collecting the plastic Star Wars figures. I remember buying them from a shop in the High Street called ‘Cards and Gifts’ (or something like that) – if I remember correctly one of the few places you could get them, and then being totally bereft when the building burnt down. My cousin and I would play for hours with the figures, re-arranging all of my parents’ house plants into various jungle ‘scenes’.
Spending hours playing on the old coal-tips in Abercanaid (by this time grass-covered), and being traumatised when the powers that be took them away (not to mention my grandfather’s garden – a fact he bemoaned until his dying day), to build the extension to the Hoover Factory, and new road into Abercanaid.
Being told never to use the subway under the road in Caedraw…..but being daring, and doing it anyway with the other local children, and being scared to death.
Caedraw in the 1970s. The subway can be seen at the bottom of the picture at the end of the bridge.
Now it’s your turn. What do you remember from your childhood?
Let’s try to make this a successful feature – send me an e-mail at merthyr.history@gmail.com and share your five Merthyr-related childhood memories.
Johnny Owen, 1956-1980, began boxing at the age of eight.
