The Entrepreneurial Society of the Rhondda Valleys, 1840-1920

Richard Griffiths

Description

This is the first book to examine in a systematic way the entrepreneurial society of the Welsh Valleys. Until now, almost everything written about the society created by the Welsh coal industry has been about the workers and the unions, and there has been a significant gap, which needed to be filled if a rounded picture of life in the south Wales valleys during the coal boom was to be achieved. The book looks at the various sources of wealth in the area - coal owning, railway building, possession of land in crucial areas, contracting, building, property development, shopkeeping - and at the various origins from which the first-generation entrepreneurs came. It then examines closely the networks of power and influence that built up among the second-generation entrepreneurs in the close and claustrophobic middle-class society of the Porth-Pontypridd area. Its method is to take one extended family central to that society, together with its vast network of friends and collaborators, and to examine in great detail, from original sources, the often hair-raising business methods of these people, as well as their conflicts of interest at times of industrial unrest. At the same time, the changes in Valleys life are mirrored in the history of this group: the original 'rags-to-riches' stories of so many of the first generation; the self-sufficient confidence of so many of the second generation, for whom the coal boom seemed bound to last for ever; and the gradual move, thereafter, out of the coal industry and down to the towns on the coast, just in time to avoid the decline of the industry.

Sujets

• Histoire
• South Wales
• 20th century
• Great Britain
• History
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 30 juillet 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780708322918
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Entrepreneurial Society of
the Rhondda Valleys
1840-1920
Power and infuence
in the Porth-Pontypridd region
Richard Griffths
University of Wales PressEntrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page i
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY OF
THE RHONDDAVALLEYS, 1840–1920Entrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page iiEntrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page iii
The Entrepreneurial Society of
the RhonddaValleys,
1840–1920
Power and Influence in the
Porth–Pontypridd Region
Richard Griffiths
UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS
CARDIFFEntrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page iv
© Richard Griffiths, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by
electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some
other use of this publication) without the written permission of the
copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.Applications for the copyright
owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication
should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk,
Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library CIP Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-7083-2290-1
e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2291-8
The right of Richard Griffiths to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham,Wiltshire.Entrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page v
CONTENTS
Preface vii
List of Illustrations xiii
Abbreviations xv
Note on surnames xvii
Introduction
1 The South Wales Coal Industry 3
Dramatis Personae
2 ‘A dogged will, a fixity of purpose, a tenacity of
spirit’: Siamps Thomas (1817–1901) 15
3 ‘A blunt, straightforward, and from head to feet an
honest man’: Richard Mathias (1814–1890) 37
4 The Rhondda Second Generation:
William Henry Mathias (1845–1922), a Rhondda Notable 45
5 The Rhondda Second Generation:
Some Other Major Figures 69
Aspects of Business and Political Life
6 W. H. Mathias and Local Government, 1886–1919 97
7 ‘The history of the undertaking is rather peculiar’:
The Cowbridge–Aberthaw Railway and the
Rhondda Connection, 1886–1892 113
8 Further peculiar undertakings:Windsor Colliery,
Abertridwr and the Parc Newydd Estate 127Entrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page vi
Two Disasters
9 Heroism or Negligence? Siamps Thomas and
the Tynewydd Disaster, 1877 149
10 The Albion Disaster, 1894 179
Two Strikes
11 The 1893 Hauliers’ Strike 211
12 The 1898 Strike 223
Sir William James Thomas and the New Century
13 ‘One of the greatest of the Welsh coalowners’:
William James Thomas’s business interests, 1900–1925 243
14 ‘Ynyshir’s most noted citizen, the Principality’s most
noble benefactor’:William James Thomas’s many
benefactions, and his later years 259
Conclusion 277
Notes 285
Bibliography 321
Index 333Entrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page vii
Preface
With very minor exceptions, almost all that has been written about the
society created by the coal industry of Wales has been about the workers
and the unions, and there is a significant gap as regards the entrepreneurs
of the Valleys. It is hardly surprising that so little work has been done
in this area, given the reputation accorded in modern times to the
nineteenth-century mineowners and their successors. Yet this gap is
nevertheless a seriously worrying one, if a rounded picture of life in
the south Wales valleys in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is
to be achieved.
This book is an attempt at social history; it has no claim to be the kind
of all-embracing economic history of Welsh entrepreneurism desired by
the leadingWelsh historian ChrisWilliams when he declared the pressing
need for ‘an even-handed approach to the entrepreneurial and business
1history of the coalfield’. It is,rather,an attempt (hopefully an even-handed
one) to enter the enclosed world of the entrepreneurial society of the
Valleys, and to consider the collective existence of a restricted portion of
society in the Porth-Pontypridd area via the details of the lives of
individuals, as found in contemporary documentation. For this approach,
I owe much to the late Richard Cobb (‘Ancient Richard’),who taught me
how much historical truth could be found by an examination of the
individual experiences of people within a social system.The geographical
area that will be dealt with is a narrow one, centred around Pontypridd,
Porth and the Rhondda valleys, and the Taff valley from Pontypridd to
Abercynon and Nelson.
1 Chris Williams, Capitalism, Community and Conflict:The South Wales Coalfield,
1898–1947 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), p. 2.
viiEntrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page viii
Preface
The way into the close and almost claustrophobic middle-class society
of this area of the Valleys has been facilitated by concentration on one
extended family central to that society; in particular on the coal pioneer
James (‘Siamps’) Thomas, his son-in-law William Henry Mathias, and his
grandson Sir William James Thomas.These three men were intimately
connected with most of the events and developments in this area of
industrial south Wales between 1840 and 1914, and were an integral part
of the society we will be examining.
Thus it is that Siamps Thomas, the founder of the clan, gives us a
rags-to-riches story (graduating as he did from six-year-old doorboy to
coalowner), and illustrates the attitudes of the early coalowners to the
workers within their mines.His mixed experience of theTynewydd disaster
in 1877 (praised for bravery, sued for negligence) tells us much about
relationships down the mines at that period, and about the Government’s
problems in bringing coalowners to book for negligence.Later,in the years
of his great success as owner of one of the most successful steam coalmines
in the Rhondda (the Standard Collieries,Ynyshir), amid the general trend
towards limited liability companies and more distant management, he was
one of the last outposts of the old methods.
The activities of Siamps Thomas’s son-in-law,William Henry Mathias,
and his father Richard Mathias, tell us much about the entrepreneurial
activities of railway contractors in this period of rail expansion; andW. H.
Mathias’s later career as a mineowner shows us much that had changed in
the coalfields over 25 years (while the disaster at his Albion mine, while
highlighting those changes, also shows how difficult it was, still, to touch
negligent owners). Mathias’s activities during the 1893 and 1898 strikes,
as magistrate and as owner, highlight the clashes of interest (in particular
when the magistrates brought in the military) which seemed to matter so
little in such circles. We shall also see some of the more questionable
business practices undertaken by people like Mathias (two of the best
examples being the backgrounds to the creation of the
CowbridgeAberthaw Railway, and to the sinking of Windsor Colliery, Abertridwr
and the development of workers’ housing nearby). Mathias was in many
ways a typical second-generation entrepreneur, surrounded by similar
people to himself; his position was safeguarded by the mutual support
given by the members of this ‘acquisitive society’, some of whom (e.g.
Thomas Griffiths Maesgwyn,William JenkinsYstradfechan, J. D.Williams
Clydach Court,Walter Morgan Forest House,Walter Nicholas, the North
viiiEntrepreneurial-Rhondda (UWP):Entrepreneurial/Rhondda (UWP) 14/6/10 18:12 Page ix
Preface
Lewis brothers, James Hurman and Henry Oakden Fisher) were close
associates of his over many years. Mathias’s prominent position in local
government is also examined for evidence of some of the practices that
existed in that area.
Sir William James Thomas, Bart (Siamps Thomas’s grandson and
Mathias’s nephew) epitomizes a new generation of entrepreneurs.He built,
via new mining ventures, on the fortune left to him by his grandfather.
Having made this money, he, like many others, then withdrew from the
mining industry, thus avoiding in time the economic difficulties of the
inter-war period, and became part of the ‘escape to the coast’. He also
shows us the way in which some of the beneficiaries of the coal industry
used their money in good works, such as supporting hospitals; and how
charitable munificence could reap its rewards. Made a baronet by Lloyd
George in the 1919 New Year Honours, he became part of the
Cardiffbased aristocracy of the new rich.
These men act merely as the foredrop to the close-knit and mutually
supportive society formed by the new middle classes within the townships
of theValleys.The acquisition of wealth, within this society, had not been
achieved only by entrepreneurial ability; some of the most prominent
people we shall be seeing were, for example, brought to their prominence
by their families’possession of land,usually farms,at the point where mines
were to be sunk or townships built.Wealth was also to be made, in the
Valleys, from ventures other than mines or railways.There was a whole
substructure which thrived on the new society: contractors and builders;
property developers; grocers (ranging from the vastly successful William
Evans of Thomas and Evans, creators of Corona mineral waters, to the
prosperous owners of corner shops) and so on.
The success of such people as the Thomas/Mathias clan was facilitated
by the networks of local worthies by which local society was ruled.The
magistracy, the local councils, the County Council, the Boards of Health,
the Boards of Guardians, the entrepreneurs, were all p