Annual report of the county archivist 2014 2015

Annual Report of the County Archivist

Adroddiad Blynyddol Archifydd y Sir

2014-2015 A joint Service for the Councils of the City and County of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Gwasanaeth ar y cyd ar gyfer Cynghorau Dinas a Sir Abertawe a Bwrdeistref Sirol Castell-nedd Port Talbot

West Glamorgan Archive Service West Glamorgan Archive Service collects documents, maps, photographs, film and sound recordings relating to all aspects of the history of West Glamorgan. It is a joint service for the Councils of the City and County of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot County Borough.

Our mission is the preservation and development of our archive collections, to safeguard our documentary heritage and to enable research in order to further our collective knowledge. We are committed to providing information and the opportunity to engage with archives to everybody.

West Glamorgan Archive Service Civic Centre Oystermouth Road Swansea SA1 3SN

01792 636589 westglam.archives@swansea.gov.uk

Front cover: The Swansea Natural Shell Factory Women’s Football Team 1918, from the Ursula Masson Collection, courtesy Women’s Archive of Wales (WAW 4/16)

@westglamarchive

www.swansea.gov.uk/westglamorganarchives

Connecting People and History

Jamie Owen speaking at the launch of the ‘Explore Your Archive’ campaign in Wales in Swansea, 10 November (courtesy ARCW all-Wales marketing team) The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War was a major commemorative event across many parts of Europe and the world and one in which archives were particularly well-placed to assist. The four-year long commemoration of the War is taking place through the digitisation and online publication of records, through volunteer and community engagement projects and through exhibitions and events. In 2014, West Glamorgan Archives created a two-part exhibition which was displayed in various venues in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot during the summer and autumn, before being displayed in Swansea Civic Centre in October and November. We organised an afternoon of public talks and displays on 10 November to coincide with the exhibition being in the Civic Centre foyer and with the launch of the ‘Explore Your Archive’ campaign in Wales.

The Archives and Records Association, The National Archives and Welsh Government have in recent times come together annually in a week-long publicity campaign for archives called ‘Explore Your Archive’, which this year took as its main theme the First World War. The campaign in Wales was launched on the morning of 10 November in West Glamorgan Archives

with a talk by BBC news presenter Jamie Owen on his grandfather’s involvement in the First World War, building submarines in Pembroke Naval Dockyard. Throughout the day, World War One-related archives were on display and the launch event included a new Archives Wales film on the value of archives in researching the First World War.

Pictures from the launch of the ‘Explore Your Archive’ campaign in Wales at West Glamorgan Archives, 10 November (courtesy ARCW all-Wales marketing team) The Archives exhibition in Swansea Civic Centre foyer included a panel for the public to place their own poppies to commemorate members of their family who saw service in the First World War, or to just place one in general remembrance.

Here is a selection of the handwritten inscriptions on some of the poppies.

John Brustad Nielsen, Merchant Navy, off Flamborough Head 9 March 1915 William John Notman Carruthers and Sidney Joseph Rees ‘Never Forgotten’ William Lake at the Somme August 1916

UNESCO inscription for the Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection

In June, it was announced that West Glamorgan Archive Service had been successful in its application to the UNESCO Memory of the World programme for inscription of the Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection on the UK Register. The inscription recognises the rare, if not unique, survival of engineering drawings in this quantity from any part of the UK during the height of the Industrial Revolution.

The Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection consists of over 8,000 engineering drawings dating from 1792-1892 which include designs for mine pumping engines, railway locomotives, marine engines and iron ships, all of which were manufactured in the foundry attached to the blast furnace at Neath Abbey Ironworks. While the foundry’s customer base was drawn mostly from South Wales, it included clients from elsewhere in the United Kingdom, from France and Germany, with some orders placed from British entrepreneurs developing mining operations as far away as Mexico and Australia.

The first inscriptions to the UK Memory of the World Register were announced in July 2010 to highlight documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK. Countrylevel Memory of the World Registers exist around the globe, helping to promote documentary heritage of local significance. The UK Register helps raise awareness of some of the UK’s exceptional, but lesser-known documentary riches by awarding them with the globallyrecognised Memory of the World status. As of 2014, there are 50 items and collections on the UK Register, now including four from Wales. The Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection is the first collection held in a Welsh local authority archive to be inscribed on the UK Register: the other three inscribed Welsh collections are in the National Library of Wales.

Inscribed simultaneously with the Hepworth Cinema Interviews from 1916 held by the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, the Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection was the first UNESCO-inscribed Welsh archive collection which is held outside the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

The formal inscription ceremony took place on 19 June in Edinburgh at a reception in the Bryce Hall in the Scottish Headquarters of the Lloyds Banking Group. It was hosted

by Lady Susan Rice, Managing Director of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland, with special guest Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government. A second award ceremony took place at the Pump Room in Bath on 31 October, hosted by the Chairman of Bath and North East Somerset Council with special guest Mr Getachew Engida, UNESCO Deputy Director-General.

Pictures: Welcome packs for the guests The hosts and organisers, from left to right: Lady Susan Rice, Managing Director of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland; Fiona Hyslop MSP Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government; Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan, Chair, UK Committee, UNESCO Memory of the World Programme; Rachel Hart, Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Scottish Council on Archives County Archivist Kim Collis receives the award for the Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection from Lady Susan Rice The reception in the Bryce Hall in Edinburgh’s Old Town. The building was historically the home of the Bank of Scotland Group photograph of all UNESCO inscription award recipients with the hosts

All pictures courtesy Lesley Ann Ercolano on behalf of the Scottish Council on Archives and the UNESCO Memory of the World UK Committee

Our Education Service

We piloted a session for Key Stage 3 pupils about the First World War at Cefn Hengoed School Swansea in May. Our Education Service continues to be an integral and growing part of what we do, a reassuring counterbalance to the budget cuts and declining numbers of individual visitors which we (like other archives across the UK) have faced over the last few years. We offer free archive education sessions for schools in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. Pupils and teachers can either visit the archives in Swansea or alternatively we can run the same sessions in schools using facsimile documents. Either option allows pupils the experience of using primary sources; letting them explore information contained in interesting and unusual formats and conduct their own research.

This last year has been notable on several accounts, one of which is our new module aimed at Key Stage 3 pupils dealing with the subject of the First World War. It was piloted with Cefn Hengoed School Swansea over several sessions in May. In their school grounds after the education sessions, the pupils sowed packets of poppy seeds which had been distributed by Swansea Council as part of the centenary commemoration.

The main Key Stage 2 topics covered this year have been ‘Rich and Poor Victorians’, ‘The Three Nights Blitz’ and ‘Edgar Evans’. A new topic called ‘Tudors at Work’ has also proved to be very popular. Pupils get the chance to study original Tudor documents as well as find out about the pros and cons of being an apprentice during the reign of Henry VIII. The session ends with pupils making their own apprenticeship indentures and setting their own seals in plasticine.

Pupils of Mayals School making their ‘Tudor’ apprenticeship indentures, April

2014/15 ARCHIVE EDUCATION STATISTICS Total number of teachers and pupils attending archive education sessions

1,147

comprising

Sessions held in the Archives Sessions held in schools

8 21

Marketing Innovation Awards 2014 Archives throughout Wales run innovative activities designed to attract new audiences, often in the face of little resource to do this. To recognise their achievement and encourage good practice, in 2013 Welsh Government extended its set of awards for libraries to the archives sector. The awards give library and archive staff at all levels the chance to win national recognition for their work in promoting the service. West Glamorgan Archive Service won the Archives award in 2014 for a second year running for its project Creating Resources for the Foundation Phase.

Archivist Katie Millien, who supervised the project, is seen here with the award during a visit by Penclawdd Primary School.

Wow! What surprises me is that schools are not beating a path to your door! This is really intelligent execution – more a new product development than a marketing campaign but that does not detract from some top level marketing strategy and creative thinking clearly illustrated here (from the judge’s comments).

Engaging new audiences

In the autumn of 2014, a new education and community engagement project entitled Sandfields: A Community Based on Steel started with a set of sessions for Year 9 pupils from Sandfields Comprehensive School Port Talbot at the National Waterfront Museum Swansea. The goal of the sessions was to learn about some of the hidden history of the large estate surrounding the School and then create an exhibition about it. There were several types of archival resources used in class, including oral histories from former steelworkers collected by Swansea University PhD student Bleddyn Penny. These accounts were reinforced by interviews conducted by the pupils with older members of the Sandfields community. The panels were decorated with artwork produced later in class and some fine photographs supplied by the Port Talbot Historical Society.

The project was run jointly with Richard Burton Archives Swansea University, National Waterfront Museum Swansea and Swansea University’s Department of History and Classics.

The funding came from Welsh Government’s ‘Changing Cultures’ programme, a grant scheme targeted at addressing issues around child poverty and inequalities of access to cultural provision. Displayed so far at the School, at Port Talbot and Sandfields Libraries and at a special event in Sandfields Community Centre, a selection from the exhibition is currently on display in the National Waterfront Museum from April to June.

Selections from the exhibition panels

Archives and Art As part of Locws International’s annual Art across the City, artist Colin Priest used copies of material researched in the archives to create a silent documentary about Swansea’s Slip Bridge. The material featured images of the Bridge, Victoria Park, the Floral Clock and the Mumbles train as well as more obscure items from the archives.

The resulting artwork ‘Bay Watch,’ in the words of the artist, celebrates the vast sky and heritage along Swansea Bay. Priest has created an archive, made a silent film and commissioned a limited edition Swansea Slip Bridge Summer Sundae with Joe’s Ice Cream, on sale in their Mumbles and Swansea parlours.

West Glamorgan Archives has continued to provide support to the Josef Herman Art Foundation Cymru in its project Mining Josef Herman which was reported on last year. With our support, the project has provided a traineeship which has facilitated the cataloguing of the JHAFC’s collection and the development of a digital archive of resources and documentation. The project formed part of a major HLF-funded programme of digitisation and access centred on the Tate Gallery Archive in London.

Archives and the Environment Spring 2015 has seen a concerted volunteer effort to record the health and ecological diversity of ancient woodland on Gower, in a novel and innovative project linking West Glamorgan Archives and Swansea Council’s Nature Conservation Team.

Study of recently-digitised historic tithe maps of the area confirms or disputes existing inventories of ancient woodland on the peninsula: volunteers then go out to record its flora and help establish whether it does indeed have the ancient woodland indicator species that are generally recognised to be present in woodland of this type in Wales. The data will be processed by UWTSD students at the Swansea Metropolitan campus.

The project, Exploring Gower’s Ancient Woodland, is part of a much larger project to digitise the tithe maps of Wales, Cynefin: Mapping Wales’ Sense of Place, which was reported on last year. Six local projects are taking place simultaneously across Wales, each taking as their starting point an aspect of the tithe maps which is of relevance and interest to local communities.

Who is using our service?

The pie chart to the left shows the distribution by postcode of those of our service users who have obtained an Archives Wales reader ticket from us since the scheme started. Only users of original documents need a ticket and hence the figures underrepresent people using the Neath service point. Increasingly, people have already registered at one of the other participating offices, which also biases the data.

Further information about who is using our service comes from a diversity monitoring form given out whenever a new researcher applies for an Archives Wales reader’s ticket. Below are the key points about our newly-registered users in 2014/15. Not all boxes on each form are ticked by every respondent, so the figures do not make a round 100%.

56% of our newly registered users were male and 42% female 65% were over 55 years in age, 37% over 65 and 8% over 75.

10% considered that they had a disability.

85% put English and 3% Welsh as their first language.

In June 2014, the Archive Service once again took part in the PSQG National Survey of Users to British Archives. Archives from across the UK have been collectively seeking feedback from their users since 1996 and the accumulation of comparable data is useful both to assess our performance over a timespan of nearly two decades and to benchmark with other services across the UK. The results were as follows: Percentage of correspondents who rated the service as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ Website Opening hours Physical access to and in the building Visitor facilities Catalogues (online and printed) Other printed resources Document delivery Microfilm and fiche viewing facilities Copy services On site computer facilities Quality and appropriateness of the staff’s advice Helpfulness and friendliness of the staff Enjoyed the visit The archive’s service overall

Swansea score 93% 84% 98% 94% 98.5% 97% 100% 87% 100% 97% 94% 96% 100% 91%

Neath score 94% 95% 100% 94% 96% 100% 100% 93% 82% 95% 99% 99% 100% 96%

UK average 88% 89% 95% 91% 90% 94% 95% 89% 90% 96% 97% 97% 99% 92%

How we performed in 2014/15 The number of visits by individuals and groups recorded by West Glamorgan Archive Service at its Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot service points in 2014/15 was 7,452, which was a significant reduction of just under 22% on the previous year (9,531). Only about one third of this decline is attributable to reductions in service, and measures are in place to try to recoup some of this steep fall in numbers affecting equally our two service points in Swansea and Neath.

Total members of the public visiting the Archive Service during 20142015: 7,452

2014/15 IN NUMBERS

45 231 314 320 1,147 7,010 9,059 9,075 11,122

talks or learning sessions delivered reader’s tickets issued to new users family history starter sessions given people visited our stalls at external events school pupils attended our learning sessions individual visits to the archives people reached during the year on and off-site documents issued in our Swansea searchroom records catalogued

Including: Swansea 4,871 Neath 2,074 Port Talbot 65 Group visits 442

Figures for usage of the Service are submitted annually to CIPFA, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. The figures which are published annually by CIPFA relate to use of local authority archives in the UK in the previous year, in this case 2013/14.

Analysis of these statistics shows that, based on the number of individual visits to use the archives for research, West Glamorgan Archive Service was the 12th busiest local authority archive service in the UK in that year (up from 14th in the previous year). Using this measure, which excludes school and group visits, we came between Leicestershire and Hertfordshire in the table.

Within Wales, we were once again by far the busiest service for individual visits, with figures 78% higher than second-placed Gwynedd Archives and our 8,546 total accounting for 28% of the 30,216 visits to eleven local archives in Wales in 2012/13 (two of the thirteen Welsh local authority archive services did not supply figures to CIPFA for 2013/14).

Building and preserving our collections

Map of Briton Ferry prior to conservation work at Gwynedd Archives, June The primary role of the Archive Service is to preserve our documentary heritage for the benefit of future generations, receiving additional gifts and deposits of archive material while maintaining and developing the greatest degree of access to the collections in our care.

Because it is intrinsic to this role to plan for the future, informal talks have been proceeding for some time with Swansea University about possible collaboration to, in the words of the UK Government policy on archives, ‘develop bigger and better services in partnership – working towards increased sustainability within the sector’. (‘Archives for the 21st Century’, CM 7744, 2009 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/archives-21-century.htm) These talks were given increased momentum by Swansea Council’s announcement in December that it intended to market Swansea Civic Centre and its adjoining car park sites following its Strategic Framework Review of the City Centre. The goal of the Strategic Framework Review is to create a vibrant mix of leisure, cultural, retail, office and residential uses in Swansea City Centre. A practical solution to the need to relocate the Archive Service is therefore a key part of both the Archive Service’s and Swansea Council’s thinking. While talks on this issue progress, it is not fair to the contributing partners to give here detail of the discussion, other than to reassure readers that a positive vision is developing which aims to

maintain our quality of service within the context of improved shared facilities with other partners.

During the year, we have continued our programme of boxing all loose volumes and other items such as small rolled maps in acid-free packaging, with the aim of having no loose unboxed or unwrapped items within our strongroom complex. This packaging both provides support to the items and protects against the build-up of dust and surface dirt. Thanks to a recent Welsh Government grant, we are now able to barcode all our packaged material and it is envisaged that this barcoding will be integral to future repository management, offering increased intellectual control in an environment where our collections may be stored alongside those of partner institutions.

Intrusive conservation work on our documents is outsourced externally, the primary provider being Gwynedd Archives in Caernarfon, with whom we have a long-standing relationship which allows the latter to fix a planned programme of work for the year. Documents for conservation are assessed on a matrix correlating the need for repair with frequency of use of the item. Despite our falling numbers of individual visits, statistics for the use of original documents have remained buoyant over the years. This is because our online catalogue provides increased opportunities for discovery within the collections and consequently the archives are being more intensively used. A welcome outcome, but one which ensures that conservation and repair of the collections is a continuous process.

Conservation work carried out in 2014/15: • 19 volumes • 1 plan • 431 volumes individually boxed Marriage register of Canaan Chapel, Foxhole, Swansea, after conservation at Gwynedd Archives, June

Staff changes Senior Archivist Rosemary Davies left us at the end of June 2014, an appreciation of Rosemary’s contribution to the work of the Archive Service being contained in last year’s annual report.

The Archive Trainee for 2014/15 is Rachel Brown from Birmingham. Rachel is a graduate of Hull University from where she holds a BA in English and History and has previously worked as a volunteer at the new record office in Worcester.

Volunteers during the year have included Thomas Anderson, Barbara Collis, John Curtis, Steffan Dennis, Christine Febbraro, Alan Gardiner, Gemma Goodbourn, Dan Jackson, Peter Kavanagh, Jordan McElvey and Alun Smith.

Acknowledgements Nowadays, volunteers are playing increasing supporting roles and our most long-standing arrangement is with the Neath Antiquarian Society. I would like to thank the Society’s volunteers, with whose regular contribution we are able to continue to provide a service in Neath: Christine Davies, Robert Davies, Martyn Griffiths, Philip Havard, Josie Henrywood, Annette Jones, Olive Newton, Hywel Rogers, Gloria Rowles, Ray Savage, Irene Thomas and Janet Watkins.

Thanks are due to Neil Peebles and Jeffrey Griffiths for contributing their local history articles which are published below.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the chair and members of the West Glamorgan Archives Committee for their interest and support during the year. Particular thanks are due to the Rector of Neath, Canon S. J. Ryan, who has stepped down after twelve years serving as a non-voting additional member representing the Diocese of Llandaff. His ever good-humoured and positive contribution to the discussion has been much appreciated by members of the Committee over the years. He will be replaced by the honorary Diocesan Archivist for Llandaff, Mrs Charlotte Hodgson. …………………………………………..

Kim Collis West Glamorgan County Archivist May 2015 …………………………………………..

West Glamorgan Archives Committee As at 31 March 2015 Chairman HM Lord Lieutenant of West Glamorgan D. Byron Lewis Esq. CStJ, FCA Vice-Chairmen City and County of Swansea Councillor R. V. Smith County Borough of Neath Port Talbot Councillor D. W. Davies Representing the City and County of Swansea Councillor K. E. Marsh Councillor J. Newbury Councillor C. Thomas JP Councillor T. M. White Representing the County Borough of Neath Port Talbot Councillor J. Dudley Councillor M. L. James Councillor P. A. Rees Councillor A. Wingrave Representing the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon A. Dulley MA, MSc Representing the Diocese of Llandaff The Reverend Canon S. J. Ryan SBStJ, MA, FRGS, Rector of Neath Representing Swansea University Prof. L. Miskell FRHistS Representing the Neath Antiquarian Society Mrs J. L. Watkins City and County of Swansea Head of Cultural Services Ms T. McNulty Neath Port Talbot County Borough Director of Finance and Corporate Services H. Jenkins IPFA

West Glamorgan Archive Service

STAFF As at 31 March 2015 West Glamorgan Archives Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road, Swansea SA1 3SN Tel. (01792) 636589 Fax (01792) 637130 Email: westglam.archives@swansea.gov.uk Website: www.swansea.gov.uk/westglamorganarchives

County Archivist ...........................................................................................Kim Collis MA, DAS Assistant County Archivist ........................................................ Andrew Dulley MA, MSc(Econ) Archivist........................................................................................ David Morris PhD, MSc(Econ) Archivist........................................................................................... Katie Millien BA, MSc(Econ) Archive Trainee ................................................................................................ Rachel Brown BA Production Assistant ............................................................... Anne-Marie Gay MA, MSc(Econ) Family History Centre Supervisor .......................................................................... Lorna Crook Archives Reception Assistant ....................................................................Rebecca Shields BA Office Manager ......................................................................................Don Rodgers MA, PGCE

Neath Antiquarian Society Archives Neath Mechanics Institute, 4 Church Place, Neath SA11 3LL Tel. (01639) 620139

Archivist.............................................................................................. Michael Phelps BA, DPAA Supervisor ............................................................................................................... Liza Osborne

Records Management Service (City & County of Swansea) Records Officer .................................................................................. Andrew Brown MSc(Econ) Records Assistant .................................................................................................... Linda Jones

How to record the past: the Port Talbot Historical Society and Arthur Rees’ photographic record

During the year, West Glamorgan Archive Service received a collection of slides. There is nothing unusual in that: plenty of photographic collections are received as a matter of course.

Some are records made during a particular piece of business, such as a construction project.

Some have been collected over a matter of years as a hobby, while others may have adorned the walls of a school or chapel showing former pupils or members. This collection was different: it was the result of a concerted effort to record an area at a time of great change.

Many historical societies in the West Glamorgan area have taken steps to record the past as well as studying it. In several cases, this has resulted in a tape recording programme to record reminiscences about the past – we could mention the work of J. Mansel Thomas in the 1970s, the Swansea Canal Society and Oystermouth Historical Association in the 1980s and the Gower Society either side of the Millennium. Several new projects are underway as I write.

This sort of study is most relevant where the way of life (and in some cases the accent, dialect or language) is changing. In the case of post-war Port Talbot, it was all about the built environment: the very look of the town was changing out of all recognition. Between 1979 and 1993, Port Talbot Historical Society published four volumes of Old Port Talbot and District in photographs. A quick glance at these shows a place that is radically different from the Port Talbot we know today: for example, there were plenty of thatched cottages, even in the centre of the town. Reading the captions, we are struck by the frequent use of the word ‘demolished’.

For much of its history, Aberavon was not a place of great wealth or population. Founded as a borough by Leisan ap Morgan in around 1304, it did not have enough of the good agricultural land needed to support a large population and fuel a thriving economy. The hinterland, with its steep hillsides and deep valleys, was even less productive. The major location of note was Margam Abbey, which owned great swathes of land to the south of the river and became the country seat of the Mansel family after the dissolution. The few descriptions we have of Aberavon are not

Twll-yn-y-wal Cottage, Taibach

uniformly complimentary: John Leland, the King’s Antiquary, described it in the 1540s as ‘a poor village’, adding that the land about it was barren and sour. We know that the port was seriously damaged in the Bristol Channel tsunami of 1607, because financial assistance was given by the burgesses of Swansea for the repair of the sea defences. The naturalist Edward Donovan also described it as ‘a poor little village’ when he visited in 1804. Thirty years later again, the author Thomas Roscoe was less charitable: ‘I hastened my steps as rapidly as possible through the dirty village of Aberavon,’ he writes, ‘choosing not even to stop and examine the scant remains of its castle.’ But these were outsiders’ views: in contrast, the Glamorgan-born poet Meurig Dafydd, writing at around the same time as Leland, paints a more positive picture: Glân yw’r dref mal glain ar draeth, Glyn tirion glan naturiaeth.1 (Clean is the town, a bright jewel on the shore, a fair valley, of nature pure).

Despite its borough status, its population was not great; indeed, with a mere 573 inhabitants in 1831, it was more of a village than a town.

Fast-forward to the 1950s and Aberavon has been transformed: Taibach has grown into a large suburb; the Abbey Works, Europe’s largest steelworks, broods over the town and provides employment, either directly or indirectly, to the majority of its inhabitants, while the port, flanked by a lattice of railway lines, provides trade links to the rest of the world. The borough boundaries have been expanded to take in Cwmafan, Margam and Baglan, and even its Port Talbot in 1947. The town as it appeared on the 1876 name has changed to Port Talbot, version of the map is superimposed in green to show although Aberavon is still used to how the town had spread in 70 years. refer to the town centre. It was the growth of industry and the development of the port that changed everything. Kelly’s Directory of 1926 describes it as ‘a rising district which includes harbour works and docks.’ In fact, in the years from 1870 to 1970, the town doubled in area every generation. The smelting works were replaced by larger works and the port became crucial for the import of raw materials.

Meanwhile at the centre of the town were the cramped little streets that had once been the village lanes of old Aberavon. These became notorious for their traffic congestion and delays: all it took was one lorry making a delivery to the shops to hold up the traffic for ages. We should remember that the main road through the town was, until the 1960s, part of the main route-way from London to Fishguard, taking in many of the boroughs and county towns of South Wales on the way. It was sufficient in an era of horses and carts; it may have been superseded by the railways in Victorian times; but in an age when motor car ownership and road use was overtaking other modes of transport, the old High Street would no longer do. In response to this, plans were drawn up for a major road by-pass. Constructed during the mid1960s, it was initially designated as the A48(M), but later became part of the M4 that we know today. This would bring much-needed relief to traffic heading through the town and reduce

congestion in the centre, and, as with the construction of Fabian Way in Swansea, it was a crucial part of the effort to link the towns of South Wales to the rest of the UK. However, with the sea and docks on one side of the town and steep hillsides on the other, this could best be achieved by building a raised section to take the road across the town above the level of most of the houses, with the inevitable effect of its dominating the skyline.

Nobody would deny that the brave new world brought many good things with it. There was a brand new road on the way promising greater convenience of travel; bigger works were bringing prosperity and employment for the town, and new housing developments were going up, complete with all the modern conveniences. Nonetheless, the history and character of the place were in danger of being overtaken by the march of progress. Even Margam Castle, which had been the home of the descendants of Sir Rhys Mansel who had bought the abbey some four hundred years earlier, was standing empty after its sale in 1941.

The Port Talbot Historical Society was founded in 1954, largely through the efforts of Leslie Evans, who served as its chairman from 1958 to 1996. This was no flash in the pan: there was a long and learned tradition of historical research in the area. The Aberafan, Margam and District Historical Society had flourished briefly between the wars. After the Second World War, there was The same view at different dates showing The Causeway, clearly the will for the work of Aberavon, across the road from the Civic Centre today preserving Port Talbot’s history to continue, and with all the changes taking place in the town, a certain sense of urgency too.

During their lifetime, the older society members had seen the town change out of all recognition. Albert Thomas, who died in 1965 at the age of 90, was alive, albeit still a baby, when they were putting the finishing touches to the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map, which still showed the remains of Aberavon Castle. That was in 1876. They would all have seen the demolition of some of the thatched cottages since then, and watched the old works knocked down and new and larger ones put up in their place, while new housing developments spread across farmland and encroached upon the hillsides. As the first roads began to appear on the Sandfields estate and new families began to arrive, it was clear that the pace of change was accelerating, not slowing down.

So it was that, while some other societies turned to oral history recording, Port Talbot Historical Society concentrated on collecting and copying photographs. That this was an early priority is

demonstrated both by the appointment of Ivor Locke, later succeeded by Arthur Rees, as photographic secretary, and by this editorial in the Transactions: One innovation which has been made in this present number is the section of old photographs of the district, and it will, no doubt, evoke considerable interest. In this connection, I am happy to report that a great many more old views of the area have been acquired or lent to the Society for reproduction by our photographic secretary.

Others, we hope, will come our way through the co-operation of our readers. We are fully aware of the rapid changes which are constantly being made to the face of Port Talbot, and members of our photographic section have rendered a great service by presenting us with a comprehensive series of coloured transparencies of varied scenes which have recently disappeared.2

Sandfields estate under development beyond the Rhondda and Swansea Bay railway line It is these coloured transparencies, and the copies of the original photographs lent to the Port Talbot Historical Society, that have been carefully digitised and transferred to the Archive Service for safe keeping. The transparencies referred to are 35mm slides, which were photographs taken by Arthur Rees himself. They are a remarkable record of the town and capture it in the midst of the profound changes that were underway. Many of the views are familiar to us today; most are not. There is the Cradock Arms, all boarded up; there are steam locomotives at Dyffryn Yard, and time-lapse shots that show the slow but inexorable march of the bypass road. There are photographs of some notable buildings, including Baglan Hall, long since demolished, and Blaen-Baglan Farm, now in ruins. There are also many photographs of Cwmafan, still showing the scars of its industrial past. As an employee at the steelworks, Arthur Rees had access to some of the best vantage points in the town and many of the panoramic views were taken from the top of the cooling towers at the works, while for others he climbed up Mynydd Emroch and Mynydd Ddinas. His panoramas show the progress of the construction of the motorway, and also the development and growth of the Sandfields estate.

The majority of the collection consists of copies of the photographs lent for the purpose by members of the Society. Here the variety is too great to do them justice in a relatively short article. They include buildings and streets, docks, works, people of importance within the town, ships, wrecks, the seafront, a man selling six snapshots for sixpence from a sort of gypsy caravan studio; there is the foundation ceremony of St Theodore’s church and Margam Urban District Council offices in Taibach. Throughout are reminders of Aberavon’s semi-rural past: the thatched houses in the centre of town and others further out, such as the well-known Twllyn-y-wal Cottage, with its distinctive stepped chimney, forlornly surrounded by comfortable yet bland inter-war suburbia. There are local landmarks like the Port Talbot toll gate and Stac-y-foel in Cwmafan. There are shots of the farm houses in the area to the south of the town. Bleak views across industrial Cwmafan contrast with lush, rural scenes around Baglan.

Many of the photographs in the collection were published in the society’s Transactions, and still more made an appearance in the society’s four-volume Old Port Talbot and District in Photographs. The construction of the dual carriageway was not the end of things: more changes were to come. During the 1970s, virtually the entire centre of Aberavon was cleared for development, being replaced by the Aberafan shopping centre and later the civic centre.

The photographs taken by Arthur Rees became an important record of Port Talbot, because today only a handful of the town-centre streets and buildings that are marked on the 1876 Ordnance Survey map are there for us to see.

Time-lapse photography showing the demolition of houses in Ynys Street, Port Talbot, making way for the construction of the town by-pass.

The Society’s emphasis on the preservation of old photographs had a wider effect than the compilation of the Society’s own collection: it also provided a stimulus to its members to take their own photographs of the changing town. The photographic collections of David Rees and Peter Stevens have been bequeathed to the Archive Service in recent years and, through these and collections of other members of the Society, we now have a comprehensive and wellpreserved record of how Port Talbot, Baglan, Cwmafan and Margam used to look. Nor is this a process that has finished: through the work of Damian Owen the Society continues to collect and preserve photographs. The digitisation and transfer of this collection of slides to the Archive Service is a testament to their continued commitment to recording the built heritage of Port Talbot. …………………………………………..

Andrew Dulley Assistant County Archivist West Glamorgan Archive Service …………………………………………..

Archives Records held at West Glamorgan Archives, Swansea: Port Talbot Historical Society photographs (D/D PTH) References 1. Included in Lewis Davies, Outlines of the History of the Afan District (Aberavon, 1914). The original is in Llanover MS B 5 in the National Library of Wales.

2. Transactions of the Port Talbot Historical Society No. 2 Vol. 1 (1965) p5, editorial notes by chairman A. Leslie Evans

Reviving a lost Swansea connection

The town of Chañaral in 1872, reproduced from Chañaral, Imágenes del Pasado, by Nelson Olave Farias and Omar Monroy Lopez (courtesy the Municipality of Chañaral) In September, we were delighted to receive a visit from Neil Peebles, a Chilean historical researcher, who was carrying out research on British emigration in the nineteenth century to the Department of Chañaral the Atacama region of Chile. The connection between Swansea and Chile through the trade in copper ore is relatively well documented by maritime historians but perhaps less well understood and researched by family and social historians.

The exchange of information which resulted from the contact forms the basis of the following article. Firstly, curator at the National Waterfront Museum Swansea Robert Protheroe-Jones sets the context for emigration from Swansea and surrounding area to Chile, then Neil Peebles describes what Welsh immigrants to Chañaral would have found on arrival. Finally archivist David Morris write about online resources and some individuals from this area which we have been able to link with Chañaral and Chile.

The main period of Welsh smelter emigration to Chile seems to have been the 1840s and 1850s, with numbers greatly declining thereafter. In these decades, the main departure port for emigrant Welshmen and their families was probably Swansea, the emigration initially mainly on cargo vessels sailing directly from the port. These vessels generally went round Cape Horn rather than via Panama, the latter route although shorter involving expensive transhipment onto the Panama Railway opened in 1855. The small numbers of emigrants who travelled on cargo vessels were often listed from 1835 onwards in crew lists and agreements, which were introduced following the Merchant Shipping Act of that year and are to be found in The National Archives at Kew for the period 1835-1860 and (for the port of Swansea) at West Glamorgan Archives thereafter.

The scale of port facilities at the destination in Chile influenced the trade – small sailing vessels retained a major role because at many Chilean ports there was little in the way of facilities.

Ships were anchored off-shore and loaded by lighter. While it was not economic for steam vessels to sit around for the weeks that it might take to secure and load a cargo in Chile, the much lower standing costs of a sailing vessel made it economic for them to participate in this trade. As a result, some sailing vessels in the Chilean copper ore trade continued to sail direct to and from Swansea long after steam had generally replaced sail.

Chilean copper exports made a rapid transition in the 1830s and 1840s from raw copper ore to mostly regulus (an intermediate product formed during initial smelting) by the mid nineteenth century and later in the century to mostly rough copper with a proportion of regulus. Whilst copper ore had generally been imported direct to Swansea, there was a growing tenancy for regulus, and especially rough copper, to be imported through Liverpool. Thus, as the second half of the nineteenth century progressed, there were fewer ships sailing from Swansea to Chile and more sailing from Liverpool to Chile. Thus whilst some Welsh smelter-men undoubtedly would have continued to emigrate from Swansea, as the second half of the century progressed, they would have been much more likely to depart from Liverpool.

It is worth noting that general British emigration to Chile was always much larger than the quite small component of Welsh smelter-men. These more general emigrants would have mainly sailed from Liverpool as well as from other ports which were despatching cargoes to Chile – for example a Glasgow machinery or locomotive manufacturer would usually despatch a shipload of machinery direct from Glasgow to Chile.

The Chilean copper mining industry declined greatly later in the nineteenth century before being revived in a completely new form by American interests around 1900, by which time ‘classic’ Welsh emigration to Chile had long ended. Many of the Welsh smelter-men who emigrated to Chile in the mid nineteenth century turn up in Australia a decade or two later.

-0The great boom of Chañaral began in 1860 when Agustin Edwards re-opened a copper smelter originally built and operated by Edward Miller. Chañaral was laid out in what Chileans refer to as the ‘English style’, in a gridiron pattern measuring 12 blocks from north to south and four blocks from west to east.

In 1871, transport of the ore was much improved by the inauguration of a railway line from the mines of Las Animas and El Salado to Chañaral. The railway ran from Las Animas to Chañaral, through the main street of the town to the quay and smelters. The first quay was built in 1864 and through it were exported ores from both of the mines. As the water depth at the quay was low, the cargo had to be carried out by barges or lighters to the ships moored offshore.

The development of Chañaral was increased with the arrival of foreigners skilled in mining copper and smelting it, mostly men from Cornwall but a few from Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom. They would have arrived to find a town not too dissimilar at first sight from the British industrial towns which they had left behind, but in a setting sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the arid lands bordering the Atacama desert.

The British presence in Chañaral was important: while many British moved across Chile looking for new business opportunities, some also settled in the town and contributed to its commercial growth. As well as the smelter referred to above, there was an English Hotel, run by the Collins family; a carriage company and shipping agency run by Alexander Kennedy; another shipping agency owned by James Sheriff; an Anglican church and an English cemetery.

The town was much affected by a tsunami following an offshore earthquake in 1922. Today the principal industry of Chañaral is still mining although the export of minerals is now through a private port at Barquitos.

-0Until recently, little documentation was easily accessible recording the close family links between people living in Swansea and coastal towns and cities in Chile such as Chañaral, Valparaiso, and Coquimbo. This is no longer the case following the launch the Welsh Newspapers Online website in 2013.

Using the website Welsh Newspapers Online it is now possible for family historians to search a digital archive of historic Welsh newspapers for the period 1804-1919. Besides giving us valuable contextual information about trade and shipping movements between the two regions, historical newspapers also allow researchers access to a large collection of birth, marriage and death notices For instance in the Cardiff Times on 18 July 1885 there is a marriage notice for the wedding of Agnes McAuliffe, the only daughter of William McAuliffe (formerly of Swansea) to Don Ruperto Alvarez, the Governor of Chañaral, held two months earlier. Similarly, in the Cambrian newspaper on 10 July 1891, it was reported that John Williams, late of Chañaral, died at Swansea aged 57. In the 1881 census, John Williams is recorded as living in Philips Parade with his wife and five children. The place of birth of both John and his wife Martha was Swansea, but their son Edward was born in Caldera and their four daughters Mary, Annie, Elizabeth and Ruth were all born in Chañaral.

Clearly what these notices show us is that there was a degree of chain migration between Swansea and Chile.

What made this pattern of migration possible were the Swansea barques which sailed back and forth carrying copper ore and coal between the two ports during the second half of the nineteenth century: they could also carry passengers.

Amongst those migrants who left Swansea for Chañaral never to return was Thomas Lewis and his daughter Fanny. Thomas was a mason who travelled to Chile to help build a copper furnace at Coquimbo. His Swansea-born daughter Fanny, married Maximo Villaflor in Chile and the couple had five children together.

Today, researchers in Chile who are trying to trace their roots back to Wales face the same difficulties encountered by all family historians here, namely the ubiquity of Welsh surnames such as Lewis, Owens and Williams. However with the launch of the Welsh Newspapers Online website, and access to the 1841-1911 censuses through the Ancestry website, this task has become much easier.

This article was compiled from contributions supplied by Robert Protheroe-Jones, Curator, National Waterfront Museum Swansea; Neil Peebles, researcher in Santiago, Chile for the Municipality of Chañaral and David Morris, Archivist, West Glamorgan Archive Service.

As this report is prepared for publication, news has reached us from Chile of a devastating flash flood which engulfed the town of Chañaral, flooding the library and damaging its collection of historic books and archives. Our sympathies are with the people of Chañaral and the curator of the historic collections, Mr Omar Monroy Lopez.

Fabian Way: the building of Swansea’s eastern gateway

Detail from the Swansea tithe map, 1845 In June 2014 the South Wales Evening Post reported that nine months of road-works on Fabian Way were due to start, as contractors began to build the main entrance to Swansea University's new Bay Campus. But what was the eastern gateway to Swansea like before Fabian Way was built? A recent deposit in West Glamorgan Archives gives us an insight into the construction of the dual carriageway, and older records show us what the area was like before the road was built.

Fabian’s Bay (and more recently Fabian Way) got its name in the seventeenth century.

According to W. H. Jones in ‘History of the Port of Swansea’, the name Fabian frequently appears as that of ‘a family holding premises in the lordship of Kilvey from the seventeenth century onwards’. Fabian’s house stood, until the nineteenth century on the east side of the river roughly on the site where Fabian Bay Congregational Chapel now stands. The 1845 Swansea tithe map shows Fabian's Bay as a natural tidal basin, which was exposed as a mud bank at low tide. The suburb of St Thomas grew due to the building of Port Tennant (a port owned by the Tennant family), following the enclosure of Fabian Bay and its connection by canal and later by railway. The New Cut and the opening of the North Dock in 1845 and 1851 respectively, further hastened the development of St Thomas and Port Tennant as a dockside community.

Before Fabian Way, or the East Side Road as it was first called, was built, the main route in and out of Swansea from the east was via Llansamlet and Skewen. Early maps and engravings show the Tennant Canal, with its tow-path, and the railway were dominant along the eastern gateway. This engraving was drawn in 1867 and shows Crymlyn Burrows looking west towards Swansea (The Towers can be seen clearly in the centre right of the engraving). There is no obvious road between the two and it shows that the two main modes of transport were the railway and the canal.

Illustrated London News, 10 August 1867

In 1951 only around 15% of households in the UK owned cars. The boom in car ownership occurred in the late 1950s and 1960s. By the 1966 sample census, 43% of households in the then County Borough of Swansea had a car. New roads were built to accommodate the growth in car travel, while the rail network started to see a decline in journeys and passenger numbers.

Following the construction of the Briton Ferry Bridge in the early 1950s, traffic heading east from Swansea no longer had to detour via Neath. On 8 December 1955, View looking east showing a traffic jam at Kings the Borough Engineer and Surveyor Dock Level Crossing, 1956 (BE40/2/7) reported that the opening of the new bridge had caused a considerable increase in the volume of traffic on the East Side Approach Road amounting to approximately 56% increase.

The new road at Briton Ferry represented the age of modernity, seeing South Wales as a new centre of production. The proposal to build the Severn Bridge and construct the South Wales Motorway, with feeder roads linking it with industrial areas was aimed at helping new industries to prosper by boosting modern transport communications. The A483 was one of these new feeder roads. Beginning at Earlswood and extending 7km west to the Tawe crossing at Swansea, it follows parts of the old B4290 along Fabian Street as far as its junction with Maes Street. The original B4290 ran from the eastern bank of the River Tawe towards Neath Abbey.

At a meeting of the Roads and Bridges Committee of Glamorgan County Council on 11 April 1946, the County Surveyor reported that a grant had been received from the Ministry of War Transport in respect of the Briton Ferry-Swansea Section and the Jersey Marine Road Improvement, and requested that construction work should be started at the earliest possible date. The general terms for the acquisition of the land required from the Jersey Estate had been agreed, and the Surveyor reported that he was in a position to commence work within the next few weeks.

The work on this first part of the East Side Road was carried out between May 1946 and September 1950, and covered the area starting at the Glamorgan County boundary at Swansea continuing alongside the sand dunes on the north side of Swansea bay to Earlswood. It consisted of dual carriageways, each 22 foot wide, and divided by a central strip 16 foot wide, cycle tracks 9 foot wide and 6 foot footpaths. In 1948 its construction was the most modern in design: concrete slabs 8 inches thick with one layer of reinforcement placed 2 inches below the surface and with expansion joints and dummy joints.

View of the A483 looking west towards Swansea, c.1948 (WGCC EH 12/8)

On 2 March 1950 the Glamorgan County Surveyor reported on detailed plans and estimates received from the Swansea Borough Council for the construction of the extension within the County area of the new road at Jersey Marine to link up with the length of new road to be constructed within Swansea Borough. The scheme included a bridge to be constructed over two level crossings on the Swansea-Glamorgan boundary. The cost of the work to the County Council was estimated at ÂŁ38,081.

Map of Fabian Way, 1950 This 1950 map shows the progress of Glamorgan County Council on their side of the boundary.

The dashed line just south of Elba Crescent shows where Fabian Way would eventually lie.

The site of the Swansea Bay Campus is further south still.

At a Highways Committee Meeting on 8 November 1951, it was noted that the Minister of Transport had approved in principle the estimated cost of the scheme to be ÂŁ1,272,000. He also submitted a suggested programme dividing the work into sections over a constructional period of seven years.

This section of the road was more complex than the Glamorgan Section, in that prior to the East Side Road the area was mainly covered in railway tracks, bridges and canals. Before work could begin on the road, work had to be carried out on diverting the railways and canals first.

Many buildings and houses were also demolished to make way for the new road.

Various properties were offered for sale by their owners before work began. Others were bought via compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) by the Corporation. Between 1954 and 1955 the Borough Engineer and Surveyor reported that houses 11-12, the Chile Arms, 14-16 and 18 Fabian Street would be required for the East Side Approach Road Scheme and the Borough Estate Agent was authorised to negotiate the purchase.

In 1957, Burrows Inn on Vale of Neath Road was bought and in the following year the Corporation produced CPOs on a number of properties in Fabian Street as well as the corner properties on Miers Street, Inkerman Street, Balaclava Street, Lewis Street, Maes Street, 1 Morriston Terrace as well as part of the forecourt of 2 Morriston Terrace for the construction of the East Side Approach Road.

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View looking east and west showing junction with Glamorgan County Council section of the East Side Road, 1954

The photographs The photographs were taken as part of the business of the Swansea Borough Engineer’s Department, between 1949 and 1969. They record the major road works and development of the A483 East Side Access Road which is now known as Fabian Way. The collection of photographs is divided into sections reflecting the order the work was carried out in. Each section is described in more detail below.

It is the incidentals within the photographs that are of particular interest. Police boxes turn up as though Doctor Who was visiting Swansea and billboard adverts on the old Strand Arches give an insight into popular products of the day. Buildings that were demolished for road construction are brought back to life. The old road across the Burrows is unrecognisable from nowadays. The original road was overshadowed by railway lines and canals. The skyline is littered with cranes and chimneys. And the only traffic jam along the route was at the Kings Dock Level Crossing. Various significant buildings along the route still stand such as the Vale of Neath Inn, Elba Crescent and Baldwins Crescent. However a number of pubs were demolished in the process, including Burrows Inn, Red House Inn, Station Inn, Ivy Bush Inn and Bridge Inn, along with the end houses on most of the terraces in St Thomas: Lewis Street, Sebastopol Street, Balaclava Street, Inkerman Street and Miers Street.

Sections 1a, 1b and 2 Section 1a covered the area from the County Boundary to the King’s Dock Level Crossing. The estimated cost of this section was £87,072. Work on the Swansea side of the road began in 1951 and was completed by 5 February 1953. It was then officially declared a dual carriageway.

Sections 1b and 2 covered 800 yards from the Kings Dock Level Crossing to the bridge over the Tennant Canal near the Vale of Neath Public House. The estimated cost of this section was £208, 667. Work on Section 1b started in September 1953, with work on the Kings Dock Level Crossing postponed until Views looking west showing the old September 1955. and new road at the Kings Dock Level Crossing, 1952 and 1960 (BE40/2/1 It was originally estimated that the Kings Dock Level and BE40/2/10) Crossing Bridge would be complete by September 1957 and the new Vale of Neath Railway Bridge by November 1958, but it was not until January 1958 that the southern carriageway over the Kings Dock Level Crossing Bridge was open to traffic. The Borough Engineer and Surveyor expected the scheme to be completed early in the New Year and that His Worship the Mayor be invited to open the bridge; that a ceremonial scissors, suitably inscribed, be purchased; and that a sound track of the ceremony be added to the film.

Section 3 Section 3 covered the area from the Vale of Neath Public House to Danygraig Bridge. This section involved considerable alteration to the British Railway sidings, the abandonment of two steel bridges and the rearrangement of sewers. The estimated cost of this section was £373,000. On 6 February 1958 it was reported that a length of the dual carriageway road would shortly be completed from the Borough boundary to the junction with Wern Terrace at the Vale of Neath Public House.

View looking east along the old Vale of Neath Road, 1957 (BE40/4/2) Section 4 Section 4 covered the area from Danygraig Bridge to the entrance of the East Dock Station on Fabian Street. The estimated cost of this section was £110,000. This section included the construction of the new road over land belonging to the British Transport Commission at the rear of Port Tennant Road.

Section 5 Section 5 covered the area from Maes Street to the western side of the low level crossing at the entrance to the New Cut Bridge. The estimated cost of this section was £437,000.

CPOs continued to be issued on properties along Fabian Street, Quay Parade and Thomas Street (including the Ivy Bush Inn) in the early 1960s. An area at Pinkey Street was prepared for any displaced traders wishing to erect their own temporary shops in June 1960. At a meeting of the Highways Committee on 7 January 1960 the Borough Estate Agent reported that two licensed premises should be erected on the Fabian Views looking east along Fabian Street, 1961 Street frontage to replace the five licensed premises that formerly existed. This included and 1964 (BE40/5/8 and BE40/5/11) The Cape Horner.

Section 6 Section 6 covered the area from Thomas Street to Wind Street. It had an estimated total cost of £678,000. This section included the construction of a new 200 foot span bridge over the River Tawe. The Sailors’ Home was demolished by September 1961 and work on the New Cut Bridge started the same year. A number of railway bridges had to be demolished, including the Cuba Bridge, the brick arch bridge at the Strand and the docks entrance bridge. The Cuba Public House was demolished in 1965. In 1965 it was agreed that the Secretary of State for Wales would visit Swansea to officially open the New Cut Bridge. It was this work that saw the pedestrian subway put in at the bottom of Wind Street.

Access to the collection The photographs have been listed and are available to view in the archive searchroom. Please refer to the more detailed catalogue there for individual reference numbers. …………………………………………….

Katie Millien Archivist West Glamorgan Archive Service …………………………………………….

Archives Records held at West Glamorgan Archives, Swansea Swansea Borough Engineer’s photographs from the construction of East Side Road, 19501969 (BE 40) References W. H. Jones, History of the Port of Swansea Glanmor Williams, Swansea: An illustrated history Office for National Statistics, Transport Social Trends 40, 2010 Sample Census, 1966 www.sabre-roads.org.uk The Cement and Concrete Association, Industrial Development in South Wales: The new road at Briton Ferry, 1948 (WGCC EH 12/1a)

View looking west from St Thomas showing one half of the New Cut Bridge open to traffic and the old bridge closed, c. 1964

‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’: the village of Bryncoch during the First World War

A hand-written set of reminiscences about village life in Bryncoch at the time of the First World War came to light in 2014, the year when the centenary of the war’s outbreak was commemorated. Situated on the northern outskirts of Neath, Bryncoch was then a small, rural community whose main employer was the Main Colliery Company. The author of the memoir is believed to be Charles Gunthorpe Reynolds born in 1910 who, in writing of his schooldays from 1914 -1924, incidentally provides an insight into life on the Home Front. Found by Huw Pudner amongst family papers and transcribed by Neath Antiquarian Society Honorary Librarian Virginia Jones, the following edited extracts have been compiled for this annual report by Jeffrey Griffiths.

Horse power at this time really meant horse power and, except for the railways and a few steam-driven wagons, horses were used for almost all forms of transport. All the horses at the Plough and Harrow farm and from other local farms were commandeered by the Army. Up to a dozen or more horses could be seen on the road on their way to Neath with a mounted officer behind and foot soldiers in front walking to control the animals.

In 1914 an aeroplane appeared in the sky at Bryncoch and landed in a field, stopping there for a week or so. This caused much excitement - no doubt this was the first time that most villagers had ever seen a plane in flight and they flocked to see this new wonder machine.

I recall when the wooden pit head structure at the ‘Old Pit’ went on fire in 1914. The weather had been very hot and dry and the massive wooden structure which supported the winding gear went up in flames. The woodwork had been well tarred for many decades and this fuelled the flames providing the biggest bonfire ever seen at Bryncoch, much to the delight of the children.

The first half of my nine years at Tynyrheol [now called Blaenhonddan] school were spent during the First World War and we children suffered many privations. Food was desperately in short supply and what little was available was of a very poor quality. Our basic food was boiled swedes and potatoes. Swedes were plentiful but potatoes were very scarce as most of them went to France for the British Army. The bread was practically inedible, brownish/black in colour and thoroughly unpalatable. No butter was readily available except for a few ounces.

One had to go to Neath and queue up at the Maypole [a popular grocery chain store of the time]. The allowance would be 2 ounces and often, after queuing for an hour, by the time you reached the shop door, a notice would go up ‘Sold Out!’ To make the bread somewhat more palatable we had ‘Tickler’s Jam’ which we believed was made of plum and apple with some sawdust thrown in to appear like raspberry seeds. Sugar was almost unobtainable and the only sweetener available was saccharin tablets - awful stuff! Our diet consisted of porridge oats which had to be boiled for many hours in a double saucepan and sufficient was prepared to last a week. The porridge would be left on the kitchen range hobs and portions eaten every day, usually for breakfast. Salt or treacle would be added - it was mostly salt or a little milk as treacle was very scarce. Very little milk was drunk in my young days although it was only 2 pence a pint. Tuberculosis was rampant in the villages and milk - untreated in those days - was considered to be the main cause of the disease.

Cooked dinner was a once a week meal on Sundays. For the rest of the week the fare would be very meagre indeed toasted bread or fried bread with margarine looking like axle grease and tasting awful. A popular Welsh dish which went by the name of ‘Shyncyn’ [siencyn?] was on the menu very often consisting of pieces of bread cut up and put into a basin with hot water with some sugar plus a spoonful of skimmed, condensed milk. Any kind of nourishing food at this time was almost unavailable but there was a Black Market for those who had the money.

But, since most families were on the poverty line, we all literally starved. Calling at the house of one of my school mates one day I saw the family, consisting of 5 or 6 children, having a meal at a bare table of just bread covered with ‘Alli Sloper’s Sauce’, a flagon of which could be bought for a few pence. We boys at Tynyrheol School were a hungry lot and if one boy brought an apple to school to be eaten at playtime we would crowd around him all shouting ‘Stump!’. This meant that, after the boy had devoured the apple down to the stump, the boy who shouted ‘stump’ first would then be the possessor and it would be eaten with relish until only the seeds would remain.

Children’s ailments were very common, especially at winter time. Whooping cough was common, mostly with the younger girls. The boys would suffer from ringworm, boils, carbuncles and the common head cold was almost a perpetual ailment in winter time and continuous sniffling would be heard in the classrooms, much to the annoyance of the teachers.

Handkerchiefs to blow our noses were almost unknown and the general practice was to wipe one’s nose in the sleeves of our jerseys, which was the usual garment worn by boys. The nearest doctor to the village lived in Skewen but, apart from serious accidents or ailments, his

services were rarely called upon. The villagers would doctor themselves by means of all sorts of salves, herbs etc., mostly gathered in the fields or hedgerows, used either raw or boiled into concoctions or brews. 1918-1919 saw the coming of a new plague, the ‘Spanish Flu’. Adults and children were all struck down and there were many deaths in the villages. It was not uncommon for two persons from the same household to be buried on the same day. The fever struck suddenly and many schoolchildren were affected.

In August 1918 the Welsh National Eisteddfod was held at Neath and the schoolchildren went to see Lloyd George arriving at Neath Railway Station. The Station yard was crowded with people and Lloyd George was put standing on the roof of a taxi cab delivering a speech. It was still war time and he urged the people to work harder because the Germans had just launched a massive attack. He said he would make the country a land fit for heroes to live in. After the war was over there was much discontent and the returning soldiers could not get work. The cynics would say that one had to be a hero to live in the country, such was the state of affairs at the time. I can still see Lloyd George with his long, flowing mane of white hair and black cloak draped over his shoulders and hear his powerful voice. …………………………………………….

Jeffrey L Griffiths Neath …………………………………………….

The author would like to place on record his thanks to Huw Pudner and Mrs Virginia Jones.

Sugar ration coupon dating from the period of the First World War (private collection: courtesy Mike Davies)

Remembering the Mumbles Train

A remarkable survival reached the archives during the last year as a result of a house clearance in Cardiff. The collection consisted of a special photograph album recording the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Mumbles train on 29 June 1954. Other papers in the collection suggested the originator of the small collection was Mr W T James, a former manager of South Wales Transport, who is remembered locally by many as the man responsible for the closure of the Mumbles Railway. Further investigation suggested that Mr James had during his retirement in Cardiff given various items of historical interest to his gardener, and it was on the death of the latter that the records were rescued for the archives via the good offices of the National Waterfront Museum, to whom they were first offered. Here we delve into the history of W T James and recount his stated reasons for closing the railway, which are contained in his speech notes for the special dinner in the Guildhall marking the event, also part of the collection.

Mr William Thomas James was a notable figure in the bus industry in south Wales in the interwar and post-war years. Born in 1892, he was one of the founders of Lewis and James Ltd which began operations with three buses in June 1921. From 1929 to 1933, the company operated over forty buses in conjunction with the Western Welsh Omnibus Co. Ltd, when it was

absorbed by the latter. Mr James was traffic manager of Western Welsh from 1932 to 1938, at which point he succeeded to the general managership. In 1943, he was appointed to the executive staff of British Electric Traction group and in this capacity he served as director, managing director or chairman of a very large number of bus and other companies at home and overseas. He was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours of 1945. It fell to him to both celebrate the 150th anniversary in 1954 of the world’s oldest passenger railway and to decree its abandonment less than six years later.

Two items from the collection are poignant reminders of these two events. A carefully crafted photograph album from 1954 captures some of the 150th anniversary celebrations in Mumbles, with participants in fancy dress and replicas recalling the eras of horse and steam traction on the line (incidentally the replica horse carriage used in 1954 is now in the Swansea Museum collection in the Tramshed). There are some quaint period touches drawn from local practice and tradition: the steam engine has a man sitting on the front of the engine ringing a bell to warn off pedestrians. In one picture, a woman in shawl and bonnet is seen collecting hot water from the boiler of the steam engine as it was drawn off - presumably this had to be staged since it was in fact a diesel engine under the cladding. Another picture shows a man advertising Dick Barton’s fish and chips, still a West Cross speciality.

Another item of interest is the typewritten speech of Mr James at the Guildhall dinner to mark the closure of the line. A product of an age which was more certain that it was building a bright future for us all, both the speech and Mr James’ post-war career should be seen in the context of a society led by people for the most part determined to sweep away elements of our public transport infrastructure . We are, at least sometimes, the wiser for this experience.

Mr W.T. James’ speech at the Guildhall dinner, 5 January 1960 This is an occasion when very mixed feelings are bound to prevail, and I share with you a very sincere regret that it has been necessary to close what was the oldest passenger railway in the world.

It is a sad and a sobering thought that the journey we made this morning was a valediction to the Mumbles Railway and marked the end of the only inland transport enterprise which can claim a service to the public that has extended for more than a century and a half.

But the wheels of progress cannot be stopped and just as we had a change from horse-drawn to steam and from steam to electricity, so now we are witnessing a further change from rails to the more modern and flexible use of buses.

The Mumbles Railway is known throughout the world. We get letters from many countries asking for information about it. Only the other day a man wrote from Japan. He sent us some tickets from Japanese railways and asked if we would send him a sleeper ticket from the Mumbles Railway.

We have also recently received a request from the Columbia Broadcasting Company to take a number of television shots of the Mumbles Railway for showing in Canada.

The souvenir brochure which is on your table gives a brief but interesting history of the Railway so I do not propose to take up your time in dwelling on the Company’s past history, as I feel it would be more appropriate if I gave some reasons why the Mumbles Railway has been abandoned.

Some time ago, it became plain that the time had come when a decision had to be taken on the future pattern of public transport in the Mumbles area. No-one could have foreseen the tremendous development that was to take place in the internal combustion engine, and its effect on road transport; nor the effect the Second World War was to have on the Railway. It was impossible during the War, and indeed for some time after the War, to obtain replacement of rolling stock, track and other equipment It was estimated that the cost of renewing the rail cars, track and other equipment would be of the order of some £300,000 to £350,000. The servicing of that capital must inevitably have been reflected in the fares charged to passengers which would have meant a substantial increase in existing fares, and so the Directors decided to substitute services of diesel buses at a much lower capital cost.

Another important reason has been the gradual decline in the number of passengers carried on the railway in recent years – a loss that was likely to continue. Last year more than a million fewer passengers were carried than ten years ago.

Also since the War substantial housing development has taken place in the Mumbles area and additional bus services have had to be provided between parts of Mumbles, West Cross and Swansea. These services are more convenient to the public and are better patronised by them, and this has led to a further loss of traffic to the Railway.

Now the Railway has been abandoned, the whole of the public transport between Swansea and Mumbles is being reorganised to provide better facilities more in keeping with present-day needs.

In a scheme of this importance, differences of view were bound to arise; and having overcome these differences, perhaps after a little hard bargaining, I would like to thank the Corporation and its officials for their support and assistance in getting the new scheme under way.

The scheme involved our having to obtain Parliamentary powers, and a Bill was promoted to this end. During its passage through the House of Lords – we are privileged to have with us some Members of Parliament as our guests, so I will not refer to the Lower House – more than one noble Lord recalled vividly nostalgic memories of riding on the Railway in their childhood; whether they had t

travelled on the Railway since they did not say, and spoke against the Bill. However, they must have realised that not even the Mumbles Railway could live on in sentiment, because finally the way was cleared, and an Act to provide for the closing of the Railway was passed.

Whereas the Mumbles Railway has been governed by various Acts of Parliament, the substituted bus services will come under the jurisdiction of the Traffic Commissioners. Mr Owen, the Chairman, and his colleagues, are the gentlemen who will be responsible for safeguarding the interest of the public to ensure that an adequate and efficient service of buses is provided at fares which are not unreasonable. The significance of those two words “not unreasonable” is often lost sight of by some local authorities in relation to fares.

There has been established for many years a Transport Advisory Committee, comprising members of the Corporation and the Company. This Committee renders valuable services, and meets regularly to discuss matters affecting the bus services in and around Swansea, and I would like to thank the members of the Corporation who serve on this Committee.

It would take too much of your time to mention all who have worked to produce this scheme, but I would like to mention our General Manager, Mr Weedy and his staff, Mr Herington, and the personnel of the Railway. Some of our men have given a lifetime of service to the Railway; no fewer than eight have served over 40 years or more, and three of them have half a century of service to their credit.

No employee will suffer as a result of the Railway’s closure. Every employee has either been absorbed in the South Wales Transport Company or will be paid compensation in accordance with the new Act. Now what of the future? Some apprehension has been expressed at the changeover, and our ability satisfactorily to carry this into effect. I do not share this apprehension! Already from St Helen’s to Blackpill there is a fine 35ft wide road and the Company has vested in the Corporation, free of cost, the land on which the Mumbles Railway ran, together with other small pieces of land such as the gardens at Blackpill, excepting only a short stretch of line near Mumbles Pier, which the Company requires as a private road for its buses.

I have no doubt that Swansea Corporation, with its progressive outlook, will utilise whatever land has become available for further developments. To mention two obvious examples … It should be an easy matter to widen the Oystermouth Road from Rutland Street to St Helen’s, should the need arise, and there is immense scope for development in Mumbles.

You, Mr Mayor, have given a hint of the shape of things to come. You visualise “a Kingsway right through the town to Mumbles”. Indeed, you said recently that for years the Railway had been a stumbling block to the development of Swansea foreshore. The time has now arrived when the Corporation are able to carry out your ambition, Mr Mayor, and to prepare plans to make Mumbles one of the most delightful resorts in the Country. Knowing the Corporation as I do, I do not doubt that they will grasp this opportunity to use the railway land to the best advantage of the residents and visitors to Mumbles.

I venture to think that the Company has never deserved more goodwill than by the action it has taken in making possible the development of the Mumbles front for the benefit of the Townspeople.

…………………………………………….

Kim Collis County Archivist West Glamorgan Archive Service …………………………………………….

Archives Records held at West Glamorgan Archives, Swansea Papers of Lewis Williams of Cardiff (D/D Z 953)

The 1852 Local Board of Health map of Swansea

The 1852 Local Board of Health map of Swansea has been (but not for much longer) one of the better kept secrets at West Glamorgan Archives. It is a large volume, measuring a little over three feet by two, containing a detailed map of the town on twenty-two sheets. It is drawn at the hefty scale of 1:528. This works out at ten feet to the mile, and the map shows the streets, houses and gardens of Swansea in amazing detail. The sheets are hand-coloured: pink for houses, brown for sheds, buff for roads and blue for water.

Swansea Local Board of Health was formed in 1850 to regulate sanitation in a town whose population was increasing rapidly. To help them plan the necessary improvements, one of their first actions was to appoint London surveyor Samuel Gant to map the town. His work was so painstakingly slow that the Board began to lose patience, but when he finally revealed his map two years later, the result was well worth the wait. From downpipes to doghouses, stables to sundials and pumps to piggeries, it shows the streets of Swansea in a way that is quite unique.

The houses are all numbered, even down to the smallest slum dwellings. Larger public buildings, such as the Guildhall and parish church, even include a seating plan. Never had Swansea been surveyed in such a depth of detail; but despite this, the map remains elegant, clear and uncluttered.

The map has much to tell us. With this map we can learn an enormous amount, not just about individual properties, but about the town as a whole and what it was like to live there. Bennet Court for example sounds quite grand, but a glimpse at the map shows us that it was anything but: through a narrow opening opposite York Street Baptist Chapel was a row of four tiny one-up-one-down houses, the front doors opening onto a narrow alleyway where two people could barely pass without bumping shoulders. As for sanitation, all four houses shared a single toilet. Twenty yards away was all the clatter and bustle of a coachmaker's workshop, while behind the far end was the peaceful garden of a gentleman's town house. Today people go up the escalator to the Vue Cinema unaware that they have just passed through the roof-line of the old court.

By contrast, towards the western edge of the town stood Picton Place. Nowadays it would be at the western end of the Kingsway. Here the houses were built in pairs, each with a sizeable front garden and drive, and a larger garden at the back.

Bennet Court: on the map and in a photograph of 1929

In between the extremes, much of the town consisted of terraced houses. Some had gutters and downpipes while others had none. Some streets were gas-lit, others were not. There are pumps for drinking water, dustbins and dungheaps, all within a stone's throw of each other.

Some terraces have an oven or bakehouse at the end of the row. This was not uncommon: most houses would have had a cooking range, but large-scale baking was done at the communal oven. It was a town of bustle and variety: chapels, stables, pubs, shops and houses of all shapes and sizes jostle for space. The air must have been thick with different smells – the sickly-sweet scent of malting barley from the breweries, animal smells from the stables and cattle market, and the acrid stench of the tan-pits.

The 1852 map does not stand on its own: we can use it in conjunction with another source to build up a fuller picture. In 1849 George Thomas Clark wrote a report for the General Board of Health, which includes a detailed, street-by-street inspection of the town. We learn, for example, that Ellery Court is ‘especially close, crowded, and ill paved. The houses are old and dirty; there are but few privies, and the people are very poor’, whereas Bennet Court ‘is particularly clean and well paved, though very narrow. The privy has a cesspool, but is in good order and kept clean.’ The map shows us what exactly was meant by ‘very narrow’ and ‘but few privies’.

Central Swansea has altered many times since the 1850s, gentrified in late Victorian times, devastated by bombing in the Second World War and modernised several times by later planning schemes. The map captures the town just as it was in 1852, right in the middle of a whole raft of changes. New housing developments which had begun at the western edge of the town would soon spread to the Borough boundary. The lower part of the town (now part of the Maritime Quarter) had been developed a generation or so earlier with the Assembly Rooms and the fashionable streets around. The infrastructure of the later Victorian town was just beginning to appear as well: the railway station had newly opened; the North Dock had just been completed, and even as Samuel Gant was putting the finishing touches to his maps, the first holes were being dug for the South Dock. While the map shows these things, it also shows much older features that were to vanish as the town grew. There is the Town Ditch, the old town hall and market, and the debtors’ gaol. We can trace the outline of the walled medieval town and the castle bailey. While the properties along High Street and Wind Street have been demolished, rebuilt, amalgamated and altered out of all recognition over the years, the situation in 1852 was much closer to the ancient layout of the town. It may be possible to use the map alongside rate books and manorial surveys to reconstruct the medieval burgage plots.

This document presents a wealth of information in a very accessible way. It is elegantly and beautifully drawn, firing the imagination, whilst providing sufficient data for a learned study. It gives a unique view of Wales' second city, and we are making it available to a wider audience.

At time of writing, we are putting the finishing touches to project to digitise the map and make it available to researchers on an interactive CD. It has been indexed to make the streets and buildings easy to locate. There is a function to zoom in and out and to pan left, right, up and down. There are explanatory notes about the map and how it came to be created. Finally, a copy of George Thomas Clark's 1849 survey completes the work. …………………………………………..

Andrew Dulley Assistant County Archivist West Glamorgan Archive Service …………………………………………..

The 1852 Local Board of Health map of Swansea on interactive CD will soon be available in the Archives shop and by post, price £14.95 (p+p free). Please contact us to place your order.

Appendix 1: Depositors and Donors The Archive Service is grateful to the following individuals and organisations who have placed local and historical records in its care during the period 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015.

W Arnold; J Ashley; G Atkins; R Barber; Mrs J Booth; N Bowen-Morris; Ms C Brettle; R Brown; R Cooper; Lord R Crichton Stuart; Ms S Croall; I ap Dafydd; C Dagger; D Davies; G Davies; J Davies; Revd J Davies; Mrs M de Gatacre; J Downing; H Dunthorne; A Evans; Mrs B Evans; G Evans; H Evans; J Evans; Ms M Evans; G Gabb; H Gibbon; Mrs N Glass; S Graham; H Griffiths; Ms J Griffiths; V Griffiths; P Grove; P Gwilliam; P Hall; E Harris; Ms H Hopkins; Miss E Howell; M James; Ms N James; Miss E Jarvis; Mrs P Jenkins; M John; D Jones; Mrs E Jones; Mrs M Jones; Ms A Jordan; D B Lewis; P Llewellyn; Mrs M MacDougall; Mrs M MacLeod; H Mascetti; Ms C Matchett; C McGonagle; D Michael; Ms E Morgan; Mrs J Morgan; Dr L Morgan; M Morgan; Miss J Morris; Revd J Morris; L Morris; N Morris; Ms H Murray; Mrs O Newton; T O’Brien; Ms J Ogborne; D Owen; J Parkhouse; G Parr; S Parry; Ms G Pike; Canon D Price; Mrs L Pritchard; C Reed; H Rees; T Rees; J Rich; I Richard; R Rimmer; W Rix; J Roach; B Roblin; P Rogers; D Rowley; Ms E Rowley; Ms H Rowley; Ms Iris Russell; Mrs J Sabine; P Shopland; Dr M Siddons; Dr K Smith; Ms C Stephens; Mrs J Taylor; K Thomas; P Treseder; Revd Canon J Walters; Miss G Watkins; Ms L Wells; Ms F White; Mrs B Williams; C Williams; J Williams; M Williams; N Williams; Mrs C Wyn Parri

Alderman Davies School; Archif Menywod Cymru/Women’s Archive of Wales; Bethel Independent Church, Penclawdd; Breaking Barriers Community Arts; Bruce Castle Museum; Cardiff Castle; Carmel Welsh Independent Church, Gwauncaegurwen; Charity Commission; City and County of Swansea; Dyffryn Clydach Community Council; Friends of Clydach Heritage Centre; Friends of White Rock; Glan Afan Comprehensive School; Gower Festival; Gowerton Primary School; Gowerton Secondary School; Hill United Reformed Church, Swansea; Institution of Civil Engineers; Liddell & Associates; Llanrhidian Higher Community Council; Morgannwg Chapter no. 70; Moriah Welsh Baptist Church, Ynystawe; Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council; Orchard Place Baptist Church, Neath; Parish of Gowerton; Parish of Llandeilo Talybont; Parish of Llangyfelach; Parish of St Mary’s, Swansea; Parishes of Manselton and Swansea, St Luke; Penllergare Trust; Pontardawe Civic Society; Port Talbot Historical Society; Resolven Community Council; Salem Welsh Baptist Church, Briton Ferry; Salisbury Conservative Club, Swansea; Skewen & District Industrial Heritage Association; Skewen and District Historical Society; Soar Welsh Independent Church, Blaendulais; Soroptimist International, Neath; Swansea Bay Port Health Authority; Swansea Hebrew Congregation; Swansea Valley History Society; Undeb Bedyddwyr Cymru/Baptist Union of Wales

Appendix 2: Accessions of Archives, 2014-2015 The archives listed below have been received by gift, deposit, transfer or purchase during the period 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015. Not all items are available for consultation immediately and certain items are held on restricted access.

PUBLIC RECORDS Charity Commission: Horeb Welsh Congregational Church assignment, 1844; Seven Sisters Recreation Ground, 1944, (D/D PRO/Ch 71/2 and 82/30)

RECORDS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND PREDECESSOR AUTHORITIES UNITARY AUTHORITIES City and County of Swansea City and County of Swansea committee minutes, 2012-2013 (CC/S CC 21/1-31); minutes, 2013-2014 (CC/S CC 22/1-32) Lord Mayor's Secretary: DVDs of inauguration ceremonies of Lord Mayors of Swansea, and other promotional material, 2003-2010 (CC/S CE 10/1-6) Economic Regeneration and Planning: City Centre Management Partnership Board and Steering Group correspondence, minutes and reports, 2001-2002 (CC/S E Dev 10/1-2) Lord Mayor’s Office: programmes for mayor-making events, 2003-2005; programme for the ceremony to mark the affiliation between HMS Scott and the City and County of Swansea, 1998 (CC/S CE 11-12) OS 1:10,000 maps of West Glamorgan; boundary map of the Swansea (Communities) Order 1983 and map of Fairwood and Clyne Commons, 1960s-1980s (CC/S Co 1/1-3) Programme for the visit of the Prince of Wales and the 1st Queen's Dragoons Guards to Swansea, 12th December 2014 Register of electors for Swansea East, Swansea West and Gower constituencies, 2014 Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council Register of electors for Neath and Aberavon constituencies, 2014 (CB/NPT RE 38)

COUNTY COUNCILS West Glamorgan County Council Design documents for Phase 1 and 2 of County Hall, Swansea including 12 photographs of the newly-completed building, 1976-1984 (WGCC/C 1/3)

Swansea County Borough Council Plans of Swansea Guildhall heating systyem, 1933 (BA 5/1-14) Vehicle Licensing Division: Registers of registration and licences for road vehicles, 1921-1922 (D/D PRO/VL/S 5/1-6)

CIVIL PARISH/COMMUNITY COUNCILS Dyffryn Clydach Community Council: Ymlaen newsletters (P/242/12) Llanrhidian Higher Community Council: agenda and minutes, April, May 2014 (P/111/45); Theirs not to reason why: The communities of Penclawdd, Gwernffrwd, Llanmorlais, Crofty and Penuel in the Great War, 1914-1918 by Anne Roberts; order of service for the unveiling of a memorial stone at Memorial Gardens, Penclawdd, 2014 (P/111) Resolven Community Council: minutes, 2004-2007 (P/214/20-21) Ystalyfera Community Council: minutes, 2003-2012 (P/329/1-11)

BOROUGHS AND DISTRICT COUNCILS Pontardawe Rural District Council: photograph of members and officers of Pontardawe Rural District Council, 1931 (RD/Pd 171) Copies of the offical description of the armorial bearings of Neath Rural District and Borough Councils, 1962-1983 (RD/N 67 and DC/N X 3)

OTHER PUBLIC BODIES Swansea Bay Port Health Authority: annual report, 2014 (PH 1/1/108)

EDUCATION RECORDS Alderman Davies School, Neath: log books, admission registers, photograph, minutes of staff meetings and scheme for regulation of the school, 1911-1990 (E/N 15) Glan Afan Comprehensive School: photographs; school programmes and booklets, 1950s2000 (E/GAC) Gowerton Primary School: photographs of school premises, pupils and staff, 1950s-1980s Gowerton School: memorial book containing names of Old Gowertonians who gave their lived during the Second World War, 1952; Information sheet with photographs of a commemorative visit to Belgium and France in memory of G. Penry Guy of Penclawdd on the seventieth anniversary of his death, 2014, 1952-2014 (E/Gow Sec 54-55) Resolven School: admission registers, 1878-1921; punishment book, 1901; photograph, c.

1910. Also includes two class photographs of Cymmer School, 1914, 1878-1921 (E/N 23/3/2-3; E/N 23/4/1; E/N 23/5/1; E/Gl 3/2/1-2)

Swansea Education Committee: plans of Manselton and Plasmarl Schools, early 20th century (B/S E 60-61) Testimonials for the application of William Hugh Gibbon for the post of headmaster of the Port Talbot County Schools, c. 1920 (D/D Z 942/1)

ECCLESIASTICAL PARISH RECORDS Clydach, St Mary: marriage register (P/302/CW/93) Gowerton: PCC and Easter Vestry minutes, records relating to the premises, and parish magazines, 1980-2012 (P/306/CW/74-86) Llandeilo Talybont: marriage registers, service and confirmation registers, PCC minutes, churchwardens' accounts, orders of service and parish magazines, 1922-2014 (P/108/CW/4791); parish magazines, order of service, picture of the church and records relating to the acquisition of extra land, 1903-1994 (P/108/CW/92-98) Llangyfelach: marriage registers, 1990-2008 (P/58/CW/72-73) Manselton: parish registers, churchwardens' records, PCC and Easter Vestry minutes, Sunday School minutes and registers and records relating to church life, 1920s-2007 (P/311/CW/76-92) Swansea St Luke, Cwmbwrla: parish registers, churchwardens' records, PCC and Easter Vestry minutes, records relating to church life and photographs of church members and the church, 1890s-2014 (P/321/CW/41-71) Swansea St. Mary: fascimiles of Swansea Parish Messenger, the parish magazine, 1889-1900 (P/123/CW/1345-1346) Swansea St Matthew: marriage register (P/323/CW/25)

NONCONFORMIST RECORDS Baptist Babell, Pontarddulais: marriage register (D/D W/Bap 37/1/4) Brynhyfryd Baptist Church: marriage registers (D/D W/Bap 36/9/1-6) Gendros Baptist Church: marriage register (D/D Bap 57/2) Moriah, Ynystawe: membership records, photographs, annual reports and ephemera relating to the chapel, 19th-21st century (D/D Bap 48/14-20) Noddfa, Garnswllt: marriage register (D/D W/Bap 39/1) Orchard Place Baptist Church, Neath: church records, including photographs, posters, membership records, minutes, financial records, correspondence and plans, 1855-1994 (D/D Bap 69); financial records, minutes and other operational records, 1959-1980s (D/D Bap 69/11/1-5)

Salem Baptist church, Briton Ferry: minutes, cash books, note books record books and other records relating to Salem Baptist Church, Briton Ferry, 1875-2013 (D/D W/Bap 38/1/1-38/7/3) Undeb Bedyddwyr Cymru: minutes and accounts; also some records from Welsh Baptist chapels in West Glamorgan, including Calfaria, Ravenhill and Capel Gomer, Swansea; also collection of printed chapel histories for chapels in West Glamorgan, 19th-21st century Welsh Independent Bethel, Penclawdd: Sunday School registers, annual reports, programmes and photographs, 19th-20th cent. (D/D Ind 46/1-7) Bethel and Capel Isaac, Penclawdd: baptism and death registers, accounts, plans and Sunday School records, 1849-2012 (D/D Ind 46/7/3-46/10/5; D/D Ind 47/1/1-47/2/2) Carmel, Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen: annual reports, membership records and other records relating to Carmel Chapel, 19th century-2013 Danygraig, Alltwen: plan of the chapel, 1909 (D/D Ind 43/8/1) Ebenezer, Gorseinon; financial and membership records, 20th cent. (D/D Ind 25/124-131); Sunday School records, records relating to members' contributions and miscellaneous records, 1901-2013 (D/D Ind 25/132-166) Siloh Newydd, Landore: photographs of ministers and chapel members; annual reports; papers relating to musical events and other ephemera, 19th-21st century (D/D Ind 21) Soar, Blaendulais: adroddiad blynyddol (annual report), 2010 (D/D Ind 26/190/6a); registers of members, list of Cymanfaoedd Canu and letters about the closure of the chapel, 1937-2014 (D/D Ind 26/192-194); account book 1970s-1980s and photograph of the interior and exterior of the chapel 2014; (loaned for copying) two volumes comprising lists of owners of graves, and burial register 1890-2005 (D/D Ind 26/195-199); DVD showing the interior of the chapel, 2014 (D/D Ind 26/200); final annual report for Soar Independent Church, Blaendulais, 2013 English Congregational and United Reformed Canaan Congregational Church, Foxhole: centenary booklet, 1940 Hill United Reformed Church, Swansea: DVD of the church organ being played, with notes on its history and the company that built it, 2014 (D/D E/Cong 10/3) Brethren Ebenezer Gospel Hall, Heol y Gors, Cockett: marriage registers, 1972-1998 (D/D FC 2) Seventh Day Adventist Swansea Seventh Day Adventist Church: building survey prior to redevelopment, 2014 (D/D SDA/S)

JEWISH RECORDS Swansea Hebrew Congregation: copy of photographs of Swansea Talmud Torah Cheder classes; copy of photograph of Harry Glass and Mr Barer in motorcar at Parkmill, 1908-1920s CD-ROM containing notes on the decendants of David Michael, founder of the Swansea Hebrew Congregation, 2014

ESTATE AND LEGAL RECORDS Pre-registration title deeds of premises in Salubrious Passage, Swansea, formerly known as ‘The Shades’, 1901-1950 (D/D EH 83) Bundle of legal papers and receipts connected with George Davies of Earl Street, Hafod, Swansea, 1880s-1960s Legal correspondence and documents relating to the sale of the Clyne and Parc le Breos estates, Swansea, the estates of Norman and Beryl Heneage-Williams and other Vivian family papers including trusts, c. 1950-2000; photocopy diary of Lieutenant Algernon Walker Heneage RN in the South Pacific, 1898-1900; file of doctor's bills, Dr J. Gwynne Morgan, 1930s (D/D HM 1/1-8/1) Abstract of title of Messrs Hoare & Co, Swansea Brewers, c. 1864 Survey of Parcel Mawr in the parish of Llangyfelach, 1689 (D/D Z 960/1) Deeds relating to The Ship public house, Mumbles, and The Horse and Groom public house, Swansea, 1848-1863 (D/D Z 951/1-2) Records relating to Amman Valley Cottage Hospital, Glanamman, 3 Richmond Villas, Swansea, and Salubrious Passage, Swansea, mid 20th century

BUSINESS, INDUSTRIAL AND TRANSPORT RECORDS Minutes of a case in the House of Lords regarding a mineral rights dispute, 1892 (D/D Z 218/4) Records relating to Baglan pumping station, Neath Valley Drainage Scheme, Baglan by-pass, late 20th century (D/D Z 943/1-3) Records relating to the Alexandra Towing Co., Swansea, c. 1920-2000 Records relating to the Mumbles Railway closure, 1960 (D/D Z 953/1-6) Notes relating to the ship the Donna Maria; a copy of a painting of the Donna Maria and a copy photograph of the ship’s first captain, 1860s (D/D Z 950/1-3) Business and personal papers of Thomas Scott-King of Penarth and Swansea and his son Alexander, 1910-1960 (D/D Z 963) Blaenant Colliery, Crynant: business records including correspondence, accounts and plans, 19th-20th century; maps and certificates relating to Blaenant Colliery, Crynant, 20th century Family and business papers of William Davies of Plasyfelin, Glynneath, 19th-20th centuries

Cwmbwrla Works, Swansea: price list, 1911 (D/D Z 961/1) Correspondence of Frank C. Strick & Co, shipbrokers, Swansea, with some additional personal correspondence, c. 1890-1910 (D/D Z 958/1)

SOCIETIES, ASSOCIATIONS, SPORTS AND THE ARTS Federation of Grocer's Associations, Swansea: records,1911 Gower Festival: financial records, programmes and general files, 1974-2013 (D62) Morganwg Chapter no. 70: minutes, attendance registers, petitions registers and other records, 1876-2011 (D/D FM/MC) Pennard Pantomime: photograph album, 1978-1983 (D/D Z 952/1) Pontardawe Civic Society: administrative records, including correspondence and accounts, 1983-1990s (D/D PCC 1-3) Port Talbot Historical Society: slides of Aberavon, Port Talbot, Margam, Baglan, Cwmavon and area, including original slides and copies of original photographs; photograph albums of the Margam Coke Ovens, 19th-20th centuries (D/D PTH CNA; D/D PTH 2/1-3/2); newspaper from time capsule dating from the building of the old Aberavon Borough Civic Centre, 1913 Royal Institution of South Wales: accounts 2006-2013; summaries of accounts, newsletters; St Marys church plans 1953, (RISW X) Salisbury Conservative Club, Swansea: records of the Swansea Salisbury Conservative Club, 1913-2014 (D/D SSCC) Skewen and District Historical Society: minutes and newsletters, 2013-2015 (D/D SHS 1/13 and 2/9-21) Skewen and District Industrial Heritage Association: DVD by the depositor entitled ‘Looking back: Neath Abbey and Skewen’, 2014 (D/D SIH 1/6) Soroptimist International Neath: minute books and other administrative records, 1960-2010 (D/D SIN 1/24-28, 2/8-10, 3/2, 4/1-5/2) Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts: programme, 2014 Swansea Little Theatre: additional records of Swansea Little Theatre, including a letter from Sir Anthony Hopkins, 1949-1995; miscellaneous certificates and letters of recommendation for Stanley Griffiths of Swansea, 1918-1927 (D 102/16/1-2 and D/D Z 959/1-4) Swansea Valley History Society: draft copies of "Around Pontardawe, Vol 3"; Official guide to Pontardawe RDC, 1965; Pontardawe RDC Byelaws, 1949; Electrical Scheme for Pontardawe RDC, 1925; "Ein Cygnor" Pontardawe RDC Magazine, 1950-1964 (D/D HSV 102/1-5); tape recordings; newspapers; photographs; Pontardawe Cricket Club Minute book; coal mining plan and programmes relating to Trebanos Choir, 1903-2010 Ty Olwen: list of Vice Presidents, appeal committee and donations, 1979

Programme for National Eisteddfod 1934 (Neath); 4 contact prints showing scouting-related events in Pontardawe, c. 1920, 1934 Posters for dances held at the Welfare Hall, Waunarlwydd, 1938-1939 (D/D Z 946/1-4)

WOMEN’S ARCHIVE OF WALES Merched y Wawr, Cangen Gorseinon: llyfrau cyfrifon ac aelodaeth, 1972 ymlaen (WAW 34/2) Merched y Wawr, Cangen Treboeth: Llyfr cofnodion ac enwau aelodau, 1970-1977 (WAW 40/1) Records of the Minority Ethnic Women's Network (MEWN) Swansea, 1996-2013 Notebook containing hand written recipes and 2 newspaper cuttings of wartime recipes.

Inscribed G. Hughes (Gertrude Hughes), 1940s (WAW 41/1) Correspondence relating to personal campaign by Mrs Margaret Morgan (now MacLeod) to save the site of the Gorwydd Colliery, Gowerton, from development. File includes brief correspondence on the history of Drummau-isaf, Skewen, c. 1984-2000 (WAW 42/1)

PERSONAL PAPERS Various records relating to Pontardawe and the Upper Swansea Valley, including photographs and press cuttings, 1869-1995 Hilda Conibear’s autograph book from Parc Wern Hospital containing soldiers’ signatures, copy of photograph and copy of certificate of service, 1916 (D/D Z 941) Diaries of Dorothy Jones of Morriston, 1930-1932; Letters between Iris Jones and Emlyn Jones, 1930s; Ystalyfera School photograph, 1951, 1930s-1950s (D/D Z 576/146-148) Scanned copies of photographs, letters, medals and ephemera relating to Sergeant David John Lewis, Royal Welch Fusiliers, killed in action in France, August 1916, 1914-1916 (D/D Z 945) Papers of Iorwerth Thomas (d. 2014), formerly chief assistant to the City Estate Agent, Swansea City Council, and later West Glamorgan County Council County Valuer. Includes school photographs (Clark's College, Swansea and Swansea Gramar School); brochure for unveiling of a plaque, Bishop Gore School; plan of Ystrad Uchaf Farm, Swansea; map of Swansea town centre with valuations for compensation; surveyor's notebook showing plot sizes and land values for town centre properties, 1938-1969 (D/D Z 947/1-7) Lecture notes of D. M. M. Davies from West Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, 1960s1990s Further records relating to John Oliver Watkins, including declaration of the signing of the Armistice, 1914-1920s (D/D Z 429/6, 19-21) Miscellaneous documents relating to the King George VI Memorial Club, Taibach, c. 1930s1996

Miscellaneous documents relating to Revd Hugh Owen Jones (formerly of Morriston), c. 1920s1979 (D/D Z 576/149) Copy of the Swansea tithe map; sales catalogues, 1963; other miscellaneous pamphlets, 20th century (D/D Z 956/1-14) Scrap books relating to the political career of Huw G. Evans, who was the first Plaid Cymru councillor for Neath, and who also stood for election as an MP, 1970s (D/D HGE 1-8) Plans, notes and illustrations relating to the history of Swansea collected by Bernard Morris, 20th-21st century Academic papers of the late Mrs Nansi Hugh Mascetti, mid 20th century

SOUND, FILM AND DVD Disc package comprising DVD, audio CD and data CD, entitled ‘Memories of Old Clydach: what do you remember of World War 2 and the 1950s?’, 2014 (T 33/1-3) DVD interview with the late Myer Joseph, former member of the Swansea Hebrew Congregation, late 20th century (T 34) DVD entitled ‘Voices of Conscience - Lleisiau Cydwybod’- short films of personal experiences of war, conscientious objection and peacemaking, including material on John Oliver Watkins of Swansea, 2014 DVD of the Swansea Festival of Transport in Swansea City Centre, Sunday 15 June 2014 (D/D Z 717/30) Digital copy of a cassette recording of a BBC programme ‘That’s how it was’, recorded at Penuel Chapel, Cwmafan, consisting of recordings of reminiscences of local residents, 1985 (T 36/1a-b) DVD interview with Hubert Thomas recalling the events of the Three Nights' Blitz. Hubert Thomas was a 12 year old Civil Defence Messenger at the time of the Blitz, 2014 (D/D Z 717/32/1-2) Oral histories relating to White Rock. Includes a transcription of the Olive Clarke recording (part of the TH collection), 2014 (D/D FWR 1) DVD entitled ‘A policeman's lot’ by Peter Hall, featuring the memories of Hubert Thomas, 2014 (D/D Z 717/31) DVD entitled ‘Images of the past’ with Angharad Thomas looking at light industry, manufacturing and the social environment in Skewen, Neath Abbey, Llandarcy and Jersey Marine, 2014 (D/D SIH 7/1) ‘Spilling the Ink’: Dylan’s return by David Marchant, 2014 (a film commissioned for the Dylan Thomas centenary)

PICTORIAL AND MAPS Photographs taken during the fitting-out of the Velindre Tinplate Works, near Swansea, 1955 Festival of Britain brochure for Wales 1951, engraving of the Crypt, Neath Abbey, by H. Gastineau c. 1836, and geological and economic map of Glamorgan, early 20th cent, c. 18361951 (D/D Z 939/15-16) Maps of administrative boundaries in South Wales OS 25" maps of Waunarlwydd and Morriston, Shipping chart entitled 'England West Coast Sheet III: Bristol Channel outer part', 1832 Photographs of Ynystawe School 1908, miscellaneous postcards of Swansea and Bishopston, and a guide book to St David's Priory Church, Swansea, 20th century Photograph of guests and dignitaries at the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Mond Nickel Works, Clydach, 1925 (D/D Z 954/1) Scanned copies of two photographs of Nicholaston House, one showing it being built, one shortly after completion, and two of Nicholaston Church, one before and one after rebuilding, 1880s-c. 1930 (D/D Z 957/1-5) Postcard view of two horses pulling Santa's sleigh along Oystermouth Road, advertising Ben Evans’ Xmas Bazaar, c. 1914 (P/PR) Photograph of the Executive Committee of the West Wales Association of Brass Bands, includes names, n.d, c. 1920 (D/D Z 962/1) A collection of photographs relating to the East Side Road and other various loose photographs, 1950-1960 (BE 40 and BE 41) Photographs of members of the Leyshon family of St Thomas. Also a photograph of the pastor and deacons of Canaan Chapel, Foxhole, 1900-1940 (D/D Z 964) Two photographs of Ynyscedwyn House, Ystradgynlais, 1974 Photograph of Swansea Town Tramways car no. 22 outside the Albert Hall, Cradock Street, c.

1930 (P/PR/86/4) Copies of images of Miss Ada Fish, munitions worker at Pembrey, 1917 Photograph of a charabanc outside the Star Inn, Llansamlet, c. 1910 (D/D Z 955/1) Copy photograph of pupils at Cadle Primary School, 1940 and a copy photograph of topping out at Lower Lliw Reservoir, 1983, 1940-1983 (P/PR) Two photographs of Penllergaer gardens, 1919; 1 unidentified photograph, c. 1910 Digitised copies of photographs of Gelli-galed Farm, Creunant, taken in the 1970s and 2013 British Reliance docking at Swansea, c. 1971 (DDZ 949) Images of Gower tithe maps transposed onto the 1884 6'' OS maps with field names and colour coding for land use, 2014 (D/D Z 586/2-3)

Bacon's map of Swansea, 1897; cloth copy of Swansea tithe map, 1843; listing of RISW papers

by R.L. Bowen, 19th cent.-c. 1965

PUBLISHED/PRINTED MATERIAL Illustrated London News - bound volumes, 1848-1876 (N/ILN 54-70) Archaeologia Cambrensis, 2000-2013 Bound volume of the Cambrian, 1805-1808 (N/Cam 67)

Gwasanaeth Archifau Gorllewin Morgannwg Mae Gwasanaeth Archifau Gorllewin Morgannwg yn casglu dogfennau, mapiau, ffotograffau, recordiadau ffilm a sain sy'n ymwneud â phob agwedd ar hanes Gorllewin Morgannwg.Mae’n wasanaeth ar y cyd ar gyfer Cynghorau Dinas a Sir Abertawe a Bwrdeistref Sirol Castell-nedd Port Talbot.

Ein cenhadaeth yw cadw a datblygu ein casgliadau o archifau, diogelu ein treftadaeth ddogfennol a chaniatáu ymchwil er mwyn datblygu ein casgliad. Rydym yn ymroddedig i ddarparu gwybodaeth a’r cyfle i gyflwyno’r archifau i bawb.

Gwasanaeth Archifau Gorllewin Morgannwg Canolfan Ddinesig Heol Ystumllwynarth Abertawe SA1 3SN 01792 636589 westglam.archives@swansea.gov.uk

Back cover VE day celebrations at Cwmgwyn, Swansea, May 1945 (D/D Z 524/74)

@westglamarchive

www.abertawe.gov.uk/westglamorganarchives

A joint Service for the Councils of the City and County of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Gwasanaeth ar y cyd ar gyfer Cynghorau Dinas a Sir Abertawe a Bwrdeistref Sirol Castell-nedd Port Talbot