Category Archives: History

Where’s my Gunn?

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I hadn’t previously come across the Gunn brothers, John and Marcus, which is somewhat surprising considering they appear to have been prominent in Cardiff life in the late 1800s. 

They hailed from Halkirk, Caithness, in Scotland, just about as far north east as you can go on mainland Scotland without falling off the edge.

Both Gunn brothers lived in Roath at different times so fear not, there is a Roath connection.

John Gunn

John Gunn, born 1837, was the first to come to Cardiff.  His father, Donald, educated him with a view to him entering the legal profession but John was determined to seek his fortune in commercial pursuits and left home at 17.  He appears in the 1871 census living with his sister Helen in Charles Street, Cardiff and working as a travelling draper.

Later that year he married Sarah Jane Hill, daughter of Thomas Hill, who ran a glazing and plumbing business.  In 1872 they had a son together, John Donald Gunn, when living at Dyffryn Villa, Roath Road (later renamed Newport Road).  Poor John tragically died in infancy, an all too common occurrence at the time.  They had two more sons together before Sarah Jane herself died at the young age of 27.  She, together with her infant child and her mother, are buried together in Cathays Cemetery.  Their grave has a grand and distinctive granite headstone topped with an octagonal obelisk and a cross.  It is also unusual in that the inscription uses her maiden name (the first instance, though somewhat contrived, of me not being able to ‘find my Gunn’):

In Affectionate Remembrance of
Sarah Jane Hill
Wife of John Gunn, Shipbuilder Cardiff.
Who died January 9th 1875, aged 27 years.

And
John Donald, their son
Who died August 9th 1872, aged 11 weeks

Even the inscription for the mother uses Hill as a surname even though she had remarried James Walker when previously widowed. It makes me think that the Hill family had paid for the headstone:

In Affectionate Remembrance of
Sarah Ann Hill
Wife of James Walker
Duffryn Villa, Cardiff
Who died Nov 19th 1875, aged 60 years

Grave of Sarah Jane Gunn nee Hill at Cathays Cenetery (plot M1221).

John Gunn remarried on 30 Aug 1877 to Harriette Boyle from Antrim, Ireland.  They married at Hollywood, County Down which explains why their house in Newport Road at the time of the 1881 census was called Hollywood House.  The census also records that things had moved on apace for John Gunn.  No longer is he a travelling draper but he is now a ship builder and engineer employing 306 people.

Harriett Gunn has seven children with John Gunn, six girls and a boy.  In the 1891 and 1901 census they are living at Llandaff House, which is on the corner of Cardiff Road and Fairwater Road.

Llandaff House on Fairwater Road, former home of John Gunn

His business interests became very broad and spanned coal mining, transportation, shipping and insurance as we can see from the following list:-

  • Shipbuilder and Shipowner.
  • Owner of the Mount Stuart Dry Docks.
  • Chair of John Bland, Timber Merchants.
  • Director of Cardiff Railways Company (owner of the Bute Docks)
  • Director of Cardiff Collieries Ltd
  • Chair of Bristol and West of England Bank (which became amalgamated with Lloyds Bank.)
  • Director of Weston-Super-Mare Grand Pier Ltd
  • North British and Mercantile Insurance Ltd
  • President of Cardiff Chamber of Commerce.
  • Member of Cardiff Town Council.

John Gunn was also an active member of the Presbyterian Church.  He was a founder member of the Presbyterian Church in Windsor Place (now City URC church) which cost £10,000 to build but which opened free of debt in 1866, largely it is thought to John Gunn’s financial contributions.

In 1898 he was knighted by Queen Victoria at Osborne Palace, Isle of Wight, after being transported from Portsmouth on board a specially chartered steamer.

The following year he was elected President of the Institute of Marine Engineers.

He stood for Parliament in the Unionist interest, campaigning against the idea of home-rule for Ireland but lost.

In 1902 he purchased Ty-To-Maen in St Mellons for £14,500 (£1.5 million today’s money) in an auction held at the Angel Hotel.  It was advertised as having more than 30 rooms plus stables.  The mansion had been built in 1885–9 by the Cardiff architect E. Bruce Vaughan for Richard Allen of Spillers flour mills.  John Gunn lived there for 16 years until his death in 1918.

In 1903 the Gunn family entertained Right Honorable Joseph Chamberlain who was on his tour of South Wales drumming up support for his opposition to home rule.  He arrived at Cardiff railway sation and drove off through barricaded streets lined with enthusiastic supporters to Ty-To-Maen, St Mellons.

I looked at the 1911 census for Ty-To-Maen in St Mellons expecting to find John and Henriette Gunn there but there were on holiday in The Empire Hotel, Bath at the time.  The census does however record six of the Gunn children (aged 22-37) at home in Ty-To-Maen along with 11 servants.

Ty To Maen, St Mellons

Henriette died in 1914.  The newspaper reports that the funeral took place in St Mellon’s Church and she was buried in a grave ‘close to the porch in the shadow of a clump of yew trees’.  John died in January 1918. 

So here’s my second instance of ‘Where’s my Gunn?’  I haven’t been able to find their headstone in two visits to the St Mellon’s church graveyard.  I have however found a booklet of monumental inscriptions from St Mellon’s Church made in 1940-47 and the Gunn headstone is listed.   So we know it was legible in the 1940s.  If anyone spots it in the churchyard perhaps they could let me know please.

St Mellons Parish Church (pic credit: Jaggery on Geograph)

After the death of John Gunn, Ty-To-Maen was sold to Sir William Edgar Nicholls, the manager of Spillers, who gave the house and its estate to the Cardiff Royal Infirmary, when it became the William Nicholls Convalescent Home.

 It is certainly good to see that the building has survived and today it is St John’s College, a Catholic independent school, sat neatly in the middle of new housing in Old St Mellons.  Quite how that would have sat with the politics of Sir John Gunn I don’t know.

St John’s College, St Mellons

John Gunn had ten children in total, nine living into adulthood. Quite a number remained unmarried or had few children themselves.  One of the daughters, Annie Gunn married Sir George Penny, 1st Viscount Marchwood.  He must have had a good head for numbers as he was both treasurer of the Conservative party and treasurer of the royal household.

Marcus Gunn

Marcus was born in 1842, five years after his brother John, also in Halkirk, Caithness.  Early on in life he had looked to the ministry as a possible career but ended up heading south to Cardiff, nine years after his brother.

He married Mary Elizabeth Yeandle, in Cheltenham in 1877 who went on to have seven children, five sons and two daughters.  In 1881 they were living at 22 St Andrews Crescent.  A few years later in 1887 they lived at Duffryn Villa, Halswell Terrace, Newport Road.  In the 1890s the Gunn family lived at Preswylfa, Clive Road before moving again to the very grand 22 Cathedral Road, a house which they named St Albans.

As well as being a co-director in the family shipbuilding firm with his brother he became most admired for his public work in particular to the Free Library. The Free library was the precursor to today’s Public Libraries. He was a very well-read individual and personally assisted in selecting books to go into the Free Library. Newspaper reports say that there had been times when the Free Library Committee could not do what it desired on account of the low state of funds and on many such occasions Marcus Gunn had come forward and given the money required.

He was also a member of the Windsor Place Presbyterian church but unlike his brother he took no active part in politics.

Marcus Gunn was a reserved man who expressed his thoughts in few words.  And yet, gifted with a beautiful voice, and mind richly stored with a liberal education in early life, and wide reading, he was capable of great eloquence but very rarely exercised his gifts as a speaker.

22 Cathedral Road, the Marcus Gunn household

He died at age just 54 at his home in Cathedral Road in July 1899.  He is buried at Cathays Cemetery. But here’s another case of ‘Where’s my Gunn?’. His wife’s name os on the grave and two of his sons are also remembered on it but not Marcus himself. The top of the headstone is missing so I’m guessing that part contained his name at one stage.

After he died his friends and colleagues on the Free Library Committee paid for a bronze bust of him to be made by the renowned sculptor Goscombe John.  The bust of Marcus Gunn was unveiled at the Free Library and it sat of a plinth on the staircase, overlooking the main corridor.  I imagine Goscombe John must have been pleased to see his work on display in the very building in which he had trained to become a sculptor. 

That brings me on to my last and most mysterious case of ‘Where’s my Gunn?’  The last mention of the bronze bust I can find is the unveiling. There seems to be no mention of it in any itinerary of Goscombe John works.  Has he been consigned to a storeroom somewhere or did the temptation of a lump of valuable bronze on a public staircase prove too much for someone one day?

Missing Marcus Gunn bust by Goscombe John

After the death of her husband, Mary Gunn moved to London with a number of her children.  She died in 1913 and is also buried at Cathays Cemetery in the family grave along with son Ernest Gunn who died in 1916.  Two of his younger siblings were killed the same year in WWI.  Their entries on our Roath Virtual War Memorial appear below.

KENNETH GUNN

Lieutenant, 2nd Battalion (attached to 1st Battalion), Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).

Kenneth Gunn was born in Cardiff on 8 Jun 1885 to Marcus Gunn, a shipowner and director of the Mount Stuart Dry Locks Ltd, originally from Halkirk, Caithness, Scotland and Mary Elizabeth Gunn nèe Yeandle, originally from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Kenneth attended Llandaff Cathedral School and later Repton Pubic School, Derbyshire.  In the 1890s the Gunn family lived at Preswylfa, Clive Rd, Canton before moving to 22 Cathedral Road.  Kenneth became a marine engineer and in 1911 was living at 25 North Gate, Marylebone, London with his widowed mother and siblings.  In WWI he enlisted in the London Scottish Regiment before he and his brother, Marcus Sinclair Gunn, obtained commissions in the Black Watch.  He was thrice wounded, once in Oct 1915 when in charge of a bombing party.  Kenneth was killed in action on 4 Apr 1916 on the western front in France, aged 27.  He is buried at Noeux-les-Mines Communal Cemetery (plot I.K.30).  The address given in his probate was 16 Windsor Esplanade, Cardiff and his obituary states he worked for Messrs John Shearman & Co, Barry.  He is remembered on his parents grave in Cathays Cemetery and the City URC WWI Memorial, Llandaff Cathedral School Memorial, Repton School Memorial, Thames Rowing Club Memorial at Putney.  Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.  His brother Marcus Sinclair Gunn also died in WWI.

Kenneth Gunn (pic credit: Imperial War Museums) and his inscription on his parents grave at Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff.

MARCUS SINCLAIR GUNN

Lieutenant, 1st Battalion, Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).

Marcus Sinclair Gunn was born in Cardiff on 29 May 1890 to Marcus Gunn, a shipowner and director of the Mount Stuart Dry Locks Ltd, originally from Halkirk, Caithness, Scotland and Mary Elizabeth Gunn nèe Yeandle, originally from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. In the 1890s the Gunn family lived at Preswylfa, Clive Rd, Canton before moving to 22 Cathedral Road.  He was educated at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, Devon from Jan 1902 to Apr 1906 where he was a member of the Officer Training Corps.  After leaving school Marcus worked as an insurance broker for C.T. Bowring (Insurance) Ltd, Lloyd’s brokers and lived at 26 North Gate, Regent’s Park in London with his widowed mother and brother. When in London he rowed for the Thames Rowing Club and boxed for the Belsize Boxing Club.  On the 4 Aug 1914 he applied for a commission and expressed a preference for the South Staffordshire Regiment in his application. Unable to wait for a response, he re-enlisted at 59 Buckingham Gate on the 5 Aug 1914 as a Private for a four-year term of service in his old battalion the 1/14th Battalion London Regiment (London Scottish).  At his medical examination it was recorded that Marcus was 5 ft 11¾” tall and that he weighed 13 stone 4 pounds. After five weeks of training at St Albans he embarked for France with his battalion from Southampton on the 15 Sep 1914, landing at Le Havre the following morning. They became the first Territorial Army unit to see action on the Western Front during the Great War.  He was wounded twice and then awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry near Hulluch from 25 to 27 Sep 1915 when he brought his machine-guns into action on two occasions under very heavy rifle and shell fire, in order to support attacks.  He also rescued many wounded men, who were lying under fire between the lines.  He was injured again at the Battle of the Somme on 2 Sep 1916 amd died of his wounds four days later on 6 Sep 1916, aged 26.  Marcus is buried at Heilly Station Cemetery (Plot III, Row E, Grave 22).  He is remembered on his parents grave in Cathays Cemetery and the City URC WWI Memorial, Blundell’s School War Memorial, Thames Rowing Club Memorial at Putney and the Lloyds of London War Memorial.  Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.  His brother Kenneth also died in WWI.

Marcus Sinclair Gunn (pic crdit: Imperial War Museums) and his inscription on his parents grave at Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff.
Thames Rowing Club war memorial at Putney includes the names of the two Gunn brothers.
City URC Church, Windsor Place, Cardiff – WWI memorial including the names of the Gunn brothers.

The Life of Welsh Boxing Champion John O’Brien

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John O’Brien was a tough character, there’s no doubting that. A Welsh Boxing Champion, with potential to go further. He lived through the era where boxing transitioned from being an illegal bare-knuckle sport to being fought in the gentleman clubs of London through to larger sporting venues.

Newspaper reports hailed him a ‘The Roath Boxer’ or ‘The Milton Street Boxer’.  The O’Brien family moved to Roath from Cardiff’s other Irish stronghold, Newtown, soon after John was born in 1867.

The ‘Poet Streets’ of Roath; Shakespeare Street, Milton Street and Byron Street, were at the heart of Roath’s Irish community in the late nineteenth century.  New streets such as Shelly Walk and Dylan Place have since been added.  The original terraced housing of Milton Street has all now gone.  Milton Street has all but disappeared but the name remains in a street perpendicular to the original Milton Street.

John O’Brien’s Boxing Career

In May 1889 a bare-knuckle fight between John O’Brien and Jack Jones, known as Shoni Engineer, with a prize of £100 took place at Marshfield, between Newport and Cardiff.  The fight was for the ‘Championship of Wales’.  Twenty rounds were fought in about as many minutes.  Shoni was virtually beaten after the first knock down blow from O’Brien and frequently afterwards went down to avoid blows from O’Brien.  In the twentieth round Shoni’s second threw in the sponge. According to the paper, neither of the men were much injured.  The Newport police arrived when the fight was over after the principles and seconds had left the ground. The boxers were later arrested and bound over to keep the peace.

In Liverpool in Feb 1990 O’Brien fought Felix Scott. He broke his arm in the first round but hid he fact and still managed to win in three rounds.

John O’Brien then moved to London, fighting against Ted Bryant in Nov 1990, but losing in 47 seconds, including the count.  Undeterred O’Brien next fought favourite Ted White at the Soho Pelican Club, beating him without the use of gloves and obtaining the ‘English’ belt.

1894 sketch

In Dec 1891, at the National Sporting Club, he met another boxer from Cardiff and a former Guardsman, Alf Mitchell, again winning.  The National Sporting Club became the principal centre for elite professional boxing in Britain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  In the fifth round O’Brien floored Mitchell no fewer than five times. He was knocked down twice more the seventh round ending the fight. The purse was £300, equivalent to over £30,000 in today’s money.  O’Brien beating Mitchell gained him the recognition as being the best boxer in Britain.

Next he was scheduled to challenge world champion Bob Fitzimmons in New Orleans.  O’Brien was however struck down with sciatica, an illness to last two years.  A similar match with Ted Pritchard, a Merthyr-born boxer, in London was also missed.

In 1894 the Welsh Heavy Championship was fought against Dai St John at the National Sporting Club, London for £150.  O’Brien won in the fifth round despite injuring his hand.  St John was later to be killed in the Boer War.  

John O’Brien however met his match in American champion Frank Craig, the ‘Harlem Coffee Cooler’, in 1894.  O’Brien was knocked down in the first round.  A famous incident is said to have happened here when Criag ordered a telegram to his landlady after the first round requesting that she start baking his favourite apple dumplings for supper as ‘he wouldn’t be long’.  He disposed of O’Brien in the second round.  The ‘Cooler’ on the termination of the fight returned to his dressing room and indulged in his favourite pastime of producing a sweet lullaby on his harmonica.

Newspaper sketch of the John O’Brien versus Frank Craig, the ‘Harlem Coffee Cooler’ fight in 1894

In 1895 he was involved in an unplanned rematch.  Craig’s scheduled opponent, Pritchard, was taken ill so John O’Brien stepped in but was in no fair condition having been drinking.  The fight only lasted one round. A newspaper report of the time makes sad reading:

The facts as we gathered them were that on Good Friday the Welshman received a wire inviting him to take Pritchard’s place in the advertised contest.  Known to be utterly unfit for the task set out for him, and advised to stay at home, the big fellow would come south, and instantly packing his bag, and presumably providing himself with a wee drop of stingo, of which he didn’t spill much when the cork was drawn during the journey up, he arrived at the London terminus in very jolly condition. How it came about that the poor’ fellow was allowed to mount the stage passes comprehension, for he was manifestly as drunk as the proverbial fiddler… he stumbled through the ropes into the ring, reaching his seat in safety by holding on to a friendly rope, and seated on his chair, with dropped jaw and glazed eye, he looked, as he was, in hopeless condition.

John O’Brien’s boxing career was all but over.  He returned to living in Cardiff, reputedly losing his crown to Ted James.

Some Misdemeanours

John O’Brien was no angel.  The newspapers report a number of incidents:

In May 1890 ‘John O’Brien, champion pugilist, appeared at Cardiff police court, and was sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour for assaulting two foreigners, Antonio Prestonivitch and John Leho and one month for assaulting the police.  The assault was of a very violent character’.

In 1892 John O’Brien was cleared of assaulting Henry Miller with an iron bar at 42 Peel Street, Cardiff.  A witness claimed that the complainant had an open knife in his hand at the time of the assault and it was a case of self-defence.

In June 1895 a police constable encountered a crowd of rough-looking young men in the vicinity of Sophia Gardens Field wending their way rather boisterously in the direction of the field and in their mist was the Welsh pugilistic champion Jonny O’Brien.  The policeman suspected a pugilistic encounter and ordered them away though the crowd was much incensed by this unforeseen interruption to their afternoon sport.

In April 1911 the Western Mail in an article headlined ‘The Pugilist’s Trouble’ described how he was charged with selling beer without a licence at 3 Duffryn Street having thus succumbed to the temptations of the Sunday Closing Act.  On the arrival of the police O’Brien threatened them with a poker.

The Genealogy bit

Rarely have I had such a tough genealogy nut to crack.  I must admit I am still not 100% convinced I have it right but let me share with you my thoughts and if anyone can add anything then I’d be keen to hear.

This isn’t the first Roath O’Brien family I’ve studied.  I researched Billy Brian – the trick cyclist.  It was whilst researching him did I discover the difficulty of O’Brien research. The O’ is sometimes dropped and the spelling regularly changes, so it can be Brien, Brian or Bryan etc.

Birthplace

I believe John O’Brien was born on 27 Nov 1867 at 15 Thomas Street in the Newtown district of Cardiff.  His birth is registered under the name John Brian.  His parents are registered as being John Brian, general labourer and Catherine Brian formerly Donovan.  His birth certificate took a bit of finding as I had been looking for O’Brien and not Brian.  His parents were both originally from Cork, Ireland. 

Birth Certificate

Discovering he was born in Thomas Street in agreement with Gareth Jones in his book The Boxers of Wales Vol 1 (2009). 

John O’Brien’s elder brother, Michael O’Brien, was also born at 15 Thomas Street, on 5th Aug 1865, but interestingly registered under the surname O’Brien.

John O’Brien’s birth place, Thomas Street, and death place, Duffryn Street.

By 1871 the O’Brien family had moved to Roath and were living at 15 Milton Street.  Ten years later they were still in Milton Street but living at No.52 (where Shelley Gardens now is).

Milton Street, Roath as it was in the 1880s and now

At the time of the 1891 Census John O’Brien, Pugilist (boxer) is a visitor at 11 Rigault Road, Fulham, London.

In 1901 he was back in Cardiff living at 3 Duffryn Street, Newtown working as a labourer in the steel works.  It shows him as being married to Bridget O’Brien from Ireland.  I haven’t been able to find any records of this marriage.

His younger sister Ellen O’Brien was born on 22 Apr 1874 at 15 Milton Street.  She lived with her parents at 52 Milton Street in 1881 and 1891 and married William Leahy in 1898, living at 19 Milton Street (1901) and 18 Milton Street (1911).

The O’Brien family seem to move to different houses in Milton Street occupying No 13 (1871), No 15 (1874), No 52 (1881 & 1891).  As the children grow up some marry and stay in Milton Street.

Michael O’Brien (brother) married Catherine O’Neil and they initially shared a house with his parents (1891) and then moved to 63 Milton Street (1901 & 1911).  He died in 1914 and is buried at Cathays Cemetery (Grave R3882)

His younger sister Ellen O’Brien was born on 22 Apr 1874 at 15 Milton Street.  She lived with her parents at 52 Milton Street in 1881 and 1891 and married William Leahy in 1898, living at 19 Milton Street (1901) and 18 Milton Street (1911).

There are at least four other O’Brien siblings who I haven’t researched: Mary, James, Patrick and Honora.                                                                                                           

There are a couple of anomalies regarding the birth details of John O’Brien.  

In the South Wales Echo on 22 Dec 1891, reporting on a match between John O’Brien and Alf Mitchell, it stated ‘Like Mitchell, O’Brien has also served in the Guards, though with less distinction. He was born at John Street, or, as it is known now Nora Street, Roath some 22 years ago’.  

Another anomaly is much more recent, from a couple of letters in the South Wales Echo (28 Oct 1989), which state O’Brien was ‘born in Roath on 20 Dec 1867’.

Death

John O’Brien died in the Infirmary on 25 Mar 1911, aged 43, from chronic nephritis and cardiac failure.  The newspaper noted that he had been suffering from rheumatism for a number of years.  On his death certificate he was described as a dock labourer living at 1 Dyffryn Street.  His sister, Ellen Leahy, was in attendance. The paperwork is somewhat confusing with his death certificate stating he was 39 and his burial recoding him as 44.

Death Certificate

He is buried in an unmarked grave (R4412) at Cathays Cemetery.  The newspaper records that his sister Ellen thanks people, in particular champion boxer Morgan Crowther, for ‘defraying the cost of the late John O’Brien’s funeral’.

John O’Brien grave at Cathays Cemetery plot R4412

Cardiff Street Ballad

In a letter published by the South Wales Echo on 28 Oct 1989, Bill Barnett wrote: He is mentioned in the Cardiff Street ballad “I met John O’Brien outside the Cambrian and we all got drunk at Steve O’Donnell’s wake”.  I wonder if the words and tune of this Cardiff ballad still survive.

How did I get here?

By complete accident as is often the case.  I wasn’t researching Welsh boxers.  I researching a fallen solider Michael O’Brien.  His records stated his father was John and wife Catherine and some more research showed his sister was Ellen O’Brien.  A lot seemed to fit with the O’Brien family of Milton Street, Roath, but not everything.  It was during that research that I tripped over the fact that John O’Brien of Milton Street was a boxer and that he is buried in Cathays Cemetery and from that moment I was hooked.  That’s the beauty of local history research.

Crumbs!  I never knew that.

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When I first read that the man I was researching was born in Union Buildings I wrongly assumed it was the Cardiff Workhouse. I was only after I got his birth certificate and read No.12 Union Buildings did I realise it was the name of a street and began to look elsewhere.

I then read somewhere that Union Buildings had become the Morgan Arcade. I put out a plea on the ‘Cardiff Now & Then’ Facebook group asking if anyone had a map with Unions Buildings marked on it.  The good amateur historians of Cardiff came up trumps once again.  Kim Judd pointed me towards some old and incredibly well detailed fire insurance maps of central Cardiff which has 12 Union Buildings marked on it. 

Not only that, a while later a picture of Union Buildings was kindly posted by Kim.

Looking at the picture it appears that there is a group of people outside No.12 having a chat and drying a sheet.  Is this the family I am researching I wonder?

Using the excellent National Library of Scotland side-by-side mapping facility I think I am able to tell that No.12 Union Buildings stood where the lovely Crumbs Kitchen now stands in the Morgan Arcade.

Crumbs Cafe, Morgan Arcade

I had read that there were some ‘courts’ in central Cardiff; areas of dense small houses, but hadn’t realized that today’s gentrified arcades have replaced much of that Victorian housing.

How did I end up here? I was busy researching a fallen soldier ahead of putting him on the Roath Virtual War Memorial.  Unlike many of the soldiers I research I had a lot of information to go on with Michael O’Brien but I just could not track down any addresses for where he had lived nor his genealogy.

From his Commonwealth War Graves Commission record I knew he was 37 when killed in 1917, and he was son of John O’Brien, of Cardiff; husband of Catherine O’Brien.  A newspaper cutting told me he was a well-known Cardiff and District Rugby Union player and played in the league for Roath and Mackintosh clubs.  Plus when he enlisted he was in the employment of Mr Wisbey, builder and contractor of Grangetown. Another war record told me that his sister was Ellen Alderman of Madras Street, Grangetown.  How could I fail to find him with all that information?  Try as I might however I just could not find any trace of him.

South Wales Daily News 13 April 1917 (picture credit: FindMyPast)

I kept homing in on an O’Brien family living in Milton Street, Roath.  The names looked right but the ages did not.  In looking at that family however I did find something very interesting!  More of that in a separate blog.

The breakthrough to finding my Michael O’Brien finally came when I sketched out a family tree for him in Ancestry. Among the hints Ancestry offered me was that Michael O’Brien possibly appeared in someone else’s family tree though they had their tree set to ‘private’.  I had nothing to lose so I contacted them and asked if ‘their’ Michael O’Brien was the same as the one I am researching.  Turns out he was and they kindly provided me with some key bits of information.

It turned out that Michael’s father John had died when Michael was an infant and his mother Catherine had remarried to John Donovan.  My Michael O’Brien therefore appeared as a step-son living with John and Catherine Donovan. The added confussion was that Donovan was Catherine’s maiden name before she had married John O’Brien.

The Birth Certificate of Michael O’Brien

You just wouldn’t believe how difficult it can be to research the name O’Brian and all the different ways it can be spelt.  There is O’Brien, Brien and Brian, Byran with and without the O’. I’d already had experience of researching the surname when I looked at Billy Brian, the trick cyclist from Roath.

I still can’t locate him on the 1881 or 1901 census but he is probably there somewhere.

Piecing together all the bits of information I have been able to compile the following summary for Michael O’Brien in the Roath Virtual War Memorial.

MICHAEL O’BRIEN

Private, 6th Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (Service Number: 25506)

Michael O’Brien was born at 12 Union Buildings, Cardiff on 18 Aug 1880 to John O’Brien, a coal trimmer and Catherine O’Brien nèe Donovan, originally from Cardiff.  He was baptized at the St David’s Roman Catholic church on 22 Aug 1880.  Michael lost his father when he was an infant and his mother remarried to John Donovan in 1886.  At the time of the 1891 census the family were living at 43 Mary Ann Street.  In 1911, , aged 30, Michael was living with his mother and step-father at 190 Penarth Road and working as a mason’s labourer, employed by Wisbey builders and contractors.  Michael was a well-known Cardiff District rugby union forward who played in the league for Mackintosh and Roath clubs (whether the family ever lived in the Roath area has yet to be established).  During WWI he was a Private in the 6th Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The battalion landed at Boulogne in May 1915.  He was injured on 7 Sep 1916 and after that entitled to wear a wound stripe.  Michael was killed in action on 12 Mar 1917, aged 37, in the Arras area, France.  He is buried at the Beaurains Road British Cemetery just south of Arras (grave C24). Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.  His next of kin was his sister Ellen Alderman.

What I still haven’t been able to find however is a link for him with Roath.  Why was he playing his rugby in the Roath area I wonder? More research needed!

The Cardiff Mackintosh rugby team of 1910-11 that includes Michael O’Brien. But where was this picture taken I wonder?

Memories of a Steelworks Electrician

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In February 2024 we had a lecture on East Moors and the South Wales Steel Industry from Professor Louise Miskell.  It was well attended, not just by our members but also by people who had connections with the steelworks including ex-workers themselves. The audience shared their recollections and a discussion ensued about how best to capture those memories. People were encouraged to write down their experiences and recollections.  Geoff Harris took up that challenge and has been busy recording his memories of working as a Steelworks Electrician.  Even better, he has agreed to share his memories with us in the form of an evocative document entitled ‘Memories of a Steelworks Electrician’.  Evocative may seem a strange word to use in connection with a steelworks but Geoff has certainly captured not just the history but the feeling for what it was like working there, the heat, noise and dusty environment. 

Geoff began life in Grangetown.  His father was in the merchant navy before he suffered an accident.  On recovering he got a job in the steelworks .  Geoff followed him into the steel works in 1961 began his career as a humble mail boy.  It wasn’t long before he commenced a 5 year electrical apprenticeship attending college at the same time, which finished at the age of 21. 

After training he declined a job in the drawing office preferring to be an electrician on the steel manufacturing plant itself.  Geoff became shift foreman, the youngest foreman they had ever had in the Engineering Department.

As an electrician Geoff worked throughout the steelworks, visiting every stage of the steel manufacturing process as equipment needed maintaining and repairing.  Geoff has a good clear memory.  We are taken on a virtual tour of the East Moors works from unloading of raw materials at the wharf through to the finished product via such stages as the coke ovens, blast furnaces, melting shop, various steel milling operations. We learn about the various pieces of electrical equipment including giant motors that need repairing or replacing in areas hard to access with hostile working environments.  Safety, or lack of it, is a concurrent theme as are environmental conditions.

Geoff’s memoirs begin with his memories of attending Ninian Park School before work and then a very successful career after leaving the steelworks in 1974 when the steel works closure was imminent.

Thank you Geoff for sharing your memories with us. We hope people get as much enjoyment out of reading them as we did.  Just click the link below.

Link to Memories of a Steelworks Electrician by Geoffrey Harris

Confessions, Opinions and Autographs of my Friends: The Story of an Autograph Album owned by Alice Tovey

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It was in the latter part of the wet winter in 1903 that Alice May Tovey may have been given the autograph book, most probably for her nineteenth birthday. No birthday cake nor ‘Happy Birthday’ would have been sung as these customs had yet to be established. We don’t know if she had a special afternoon tea in the parlour of 15 Partiridge Road, Roath, Cardiff but we do know she was quick to ask family and friends to write in her book, ‘Confessions, Opinions and Autographs Of My Friends’.

Autograph Book owned by Alice Tovey

This type of book had been popular since the 1860s but the fashion was beginning to decline by the time Alice received hers. The giver may have purchased it for a few shillings from The Park Newsagency, Stationery and Fancy Repository, on the corner of Wellfield Road and Albany Road. Alice asked thirty three people to answer the thirty eight questions; her siblings were the first, on Monday 9th March 1903.

  1. What characteristics do you admire most in a man? 
  2. What characteristics do you admire most in a woman?
  3. What would be your ideal life ?                                 
  4. What do you consider your best quality?       
  5. What do you consider your forte to be?                                
  6. If necessary to work for a living, what calling would you pursue?
  7. What do you consider your greatest failing?              
  8. What is your favourite pastime?        
  9. What gives you most annoyance?                             
  10. Are you a linguist and what is your favourite language?
  11. In what country would you prefer to live?                              
  12. What foreign land would you best like to visit?          
  13. Who do you consider has the greatest brain power, man or woman?
  14. Do you think women should take part in public life?  
  15. Do you believe in women’s suffrage?                        
  16. What colour do you think is most becoming to you?             
  17. Do you think dress influences character?      
  18. Describe the girl of the period                        
  19. Describe the young man of the day                           
  20. What is your favourite motto?                                    
  21. What is your favorite flower and what is  its meaning?
  22. Who do you consider is the best sovereign in Europe?
  23. What nation exercises most influence in the world?  
  24. Who do you consider the greatest politician in Great Britain
  25. Who do you consider the greatest artist of the present age?
  26. Who do you consider the greatest musician of the present age?      
  27. Who do you consider the greatest man of science of the present age?                       
  28. Who do you consider the greatest orator of the present age?
  29. Who do you consider the greatest author of the present age?          
  30. Who do you consider the greatest poet of the present age?
  31. Which is your favourite reading prose or poetry?      
  32. Name two poems that have given you great pleasure
  33. Name two books of fiction that have given you the most profit
  34. Who is your hero in life?                                            
  35. Who is your hero in fiction?                                       
  36. Who is your heroine in life?                                       
  37. Who is your heroine in fiction?                                   
  38. Name the composer whose music you most enjoy

Over the next few years the book was filled in by Alice’s friends and acquaintances. It can be surmised that some of the contributors were also friends of Alice’s siblings, such as the school mistresses and office clerks. Others may have been work colleagues of Alice when she was a grocer’s assistant. She may have had visitors as some entries were labelled, Port Talbot and Fishguard.


By 1911 Alice was a domestic servant to retired tobacconist William Bowles and his wife, Anna, at 140 Cathedral Road, Cardiff where two of their young nephews signed the book; two of their nieces had signed it in 1906, suggesting Alice was the Bowles’ servant by this time. The young priest at St Martin Church, Roath and his future wife, is an obvious connection but two brothers who lived in Newport and became meat traders along with an Italian born refrigeration engineer who lived in Lancashire, it’s harder to conclude what the links were; they are yet to be found.


After years of apparent abandonment the book was resurrected for the last time in 1923, when Alice was living at 118 Richmond Road, Cardiff, with her mother & sisters. In spite of WWI having been fought and some women gaining the vote in 1918 the answers were much the same as in 1903.

Here’s a broad summary of the most popular answers.

  1. What characteristics do you admire most in a man / woman? Stereotypical such as bravery & love respectively
  2. What would be your  ideal life?  Money                             
  3. What do you consider your best quality?  Many were too modest to answer     
  4. What do you consider your forte  to be?  Many were too modest to answer                             
  5. If necessary to work for a living, what calling would you pursue? Various
  6. What do you consider your greatest failing?    Temper, impatience          
  7. What is your favourite pastime?     Cycling & walking   
  8. What gives you most annoyance?    Other people                         
  9. Are you a linguist and what is your favourite language? English
  10. In what country would you prefer to live? England                             
  11. What foreign land would you best like to visit?    Switzerland      
  12. Who do you consider has the greatest brain power, man or woman? Man
  13. Do you think women should take part in public life?  No
  14. Do you believe in women’s suffrage?   No                     
  15. What colour do you think is most becoming to you? Various             
  16. Do you think dress influences character?   Yes   
  17. Describe the girl of the period  Various                      
  18. Describe the young man of the day   a toff                        
  19. What is your favourite motto?  Various                              
  20. What is your favorite flower and what is  its meaning? Various
  21. Who do you consider is the best sovereign in Europe? King Edward VII (almost unanimously)
  22. What nation exercises most influence in the world?  England, Great Britain (almost unanimously)
  23. Who do you consider the greatest politician in Great Britain? Joseph Chamberlain (almost unanimously)    
  24. Who do you consider the greatest artist of the present age? Various
  25. Who do you consider the greatest musician of the present age?  Paderewski    
  26. Who do you consider the greatest man of science of the present age?  Edison                     
  27. Who do you consider the greatest orator of the present age? Various
  28. Who do you consider the greatest author of the present age?  Various        
  29. Who do you consider the greatest poet of the present age? Tennyson

The rest of the answers were individual.

To conclude, as Alice and her siblings didn’t have any children there was no one to hand the book on to. It’s not known how the book came into the possession of its owner, Richard Adair;  he suggested  it was from a house clearance as his parents were antique dealers.  Richard is the author of ‘Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage in Early Modern England’ which may be of interest to some readers. Thank you Richard  for sending the images of the entries and collating the answers.

A full analysis and more details of the contributors can be found by clicking here.

Thanks to members of Roath Local History Society Research Group who have contributed to this.

Dorcas Frazer

Military Trunk found in Coffee #1, Wellfield Road

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We recently received an enquiry from someone who had visited Coffee#1 on Wellfield Road a few years ago and noticed an old military trunk on display.  They wondered if we knew anything about it.  Well, I didn’t but it certainly piqued my interest.

Captain B M Dunn trunk pictured by the enquirer a few years ago in Coffee#1 Wellfield Road.

I spend quite a bit of time researching people from the area who lost their lives in WWI and WWII and adding them to our Roath Virtual War Memorial.  I wondered if the war trunk had belonged to one of Roath’s fallen.

One of the first things I did was to suggest to my wife that we go out for a coffee and investigate if the trunk is still there.  She didn’t take much persuading.  Sure enough, there at the top of the stairs on the first floor we found the military trunk, two in fact, seemingly used for storing Christmas decorations.

The trunks pictured July 2025

The chest trunk in question was marked as belonging to ‘Capt B M Dunn MC, 2nd Bn, the Welch Regt’.  And no, that’s not a typo.  The Welsh Regiment used to be called the Welch Regiment around the time of WWI.

The first thing I did when I got home was to see if he had survived the war by looking to see if he had a Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.  I found none indicating he had survived.   

I search the newspaper archives and was soon able to identify him.  He was Captain Brian M Dunn from Groes-faen, near Llantrisant, who sadly passed away in Oct 1926. 

I had initially thought that if I discovered he wasn’t from the Roath area I would leave the enquiry there, but having read the interesting newspaper clipping I decided to keep going.  Here was a man who won a number of awards for gallantry and had had a Welsh Rugby trial.

It was time to call in some reinforcements.  I copied members of our Society’s research group.  I also contacted my friends Gwyn Prescott (military and rugby historian) and Ceri Stennett (military historian and all round good egg) who were a great help.  Between us all and our other contacts we managed to piece together the following:

Brian Morgan Dunn was born on 23rd March 1895, one of five children born to Phillip Dunn, a Justice of the Peace and Estate Agent, originally from Carmarthen and Anne Margaret Dunn nèe Morgan from Llantrisant.  The family lived at a large house called Crofta, on the outskirts of Groes-faen village.

Crofta on the outskirts of Groes-faen village

At the time of the 1911 census Brian is 16 years old and attending Uppingham School in Rutland.

Piecing together the military history of Brian Dunn has been difficult as is often the case with those of officer rank.   It appears he enlisted early in WWI and joined the 2nd Battalion, Welsh Regiment, was made a 2nd Lieutenant on 11 Nov 1914, temp Captain on 9 Jun 1915 and Adjutant on 1 Jul 1916. 

The war diary of the regiment records that on 17 Aug 1916 at Becourt Wood during reconnaissance of a new divisional front he was wounded and left the regiment for hospital.   On 28 Oct 1916 Capt B M Dunn led a review of a Company of 200 men from the 2nd Welch regiment which had taken part in the Battle of Loos, in front of the King.

The MC after his name on his military trunk is an abbreviation for Military Cross, awarded for acts of gallantry.  It is often possible to find a citation to the specific act for which a MC has been awarded but in the case of Capt Brian Dunn he was awarded it in the New Years Honours list (mentioned in the Edinburgh Gazette, 17 Jan 1916), probably for multiple acts of bravery.  He was also awarded the Croix de Guerre (Ref – London Gazette 14th July 1917), a French military award for acts of heroism.  

Capt Dunn survived the war and continued in the military afterwards.  At the time of the 1921 Census we find him at Richmond Barracks in Dublin.

He was evidently a gifted sportsman and well-liked.  Between the end of the war and his early death in 1926 we find references to him playing rugby at a high level.  He was the recognised hooker for the Army team and appeared in Welsh International trials but was never capped.  

B M Dunn wearing No.9 jersey Army v Navy 13.3.26

Here are some of his rugby highlights:

  • He was selected for Hampshire against Yorkshire in the final of the county championship in April 1926 but he did not play. Yorkshire won 15-14 and one report says his hooking was badly missed.
  • He was a member of the 2nd Welch (Pembroke Dock) team which won the Army Cup in 1919-20. He kicked a penalty in their 9-0 win over 2nd Life Guards.  Also played for United Services Portsmouth at one point.
  •  He played in a Welsh rugby trial for an Anglo-Welsh XV v the Probables in December 1925.
  • H played regularly for the Army for several seasons and was in the Army XV which won the Inter Services Championship for the first time in 1925-6 when they beat both Royal Navy and RAF at Twickenham in front of the King.
B M Dunn (2nd row third from left) Army v Navy 1926

He was still in the army when he died at Tidworth Barracks Hospital in Hampshire on 6 Oct 1926 aged just 31.  He was buried in the family grave at St David’s church, Groes-faen.  The papers report that it was a military funeral with warrant officers of the regiment acting as bearers with a firing party present too.

I visited St David’s, Groesfaen and found the grave.  It is the largest plot in the cemetery.  It appears that the wealthy Dunn family may well have been benefactors to the church at the time it was constructed in the early 1890s.

Dunn family headstone, St David’s, Groes-faen
Brian Morgan Dunn headstone, St David’s church, Groed-faen

Brian was one of five children, four boys and one girl, born to Philip and Anne Dunn.  All four brothers served in WWI and two were killed.  

The eldest brother, Captain Philip Morgan Dunn (b.1888) attended Clare College, Cambridge and then served with the 8th Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.  He was killed in action during the advance on Kut, Mesopotamia on 3 Feb 1917, aged 28. He is commemorated  at the Amara War Cemetery, Iraq.  This was of personal interest to me as my grandfather served with the same battalion in Mesopotamia.

Another brother, 2nd Lieutenant Gwynne Morgan Dunn (b.1893), served in the 9th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment).  He died of wounds on 23 Feb 1917 at the Somme, France, aged 23, just 20 days after his elder brother died.  He is buried at Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, France.

The two brothers are remembered on an attractive plaque in the chancel at St David’s Church, Groes-faen, was well as on their parents grave.

The other brother, Rupert Morgan Dunn (b.1890) served as a 2nd Lieutenant in with the Royal Fusiliers and the Machine Gun Corps.  He survived the war, married in 1924 and worked as a safe deposit manager in London.  There don’t appear to be any offspring from that marriage. He died in London in 1953, aged 62.

The sister, Eileen Victoria Dunn (b.1897), never married and died in London, aged 85, in 1983.

Rupert and Eileen Dunn remembered on Dunn family headstone at St David’s church, Groes-faen

Having found the Dunn family grave and the resting place of Capt Brian Morgan Dunn, owner of the military chest in the coffee house, I was left wondering what had killed a seeming very fit young rugby player.  I ordered his death certificate which led to another surprise.  He died of gonococcal septicemia, a rare but serious complication of gonorrhea. That in itself isn’t a surprise given it was before the days of widespread use of barrier contraception and pre-antibiotics.  The surprise is more the reference to 1 month, 5 days, 10¾ hours.  Given the seriousness of this condition that is more likely to be the time since infection rather than the time since diagnosis.  It appears he shared some close personal information with the medical team at the military hospital.

Brian Morgan Dunn Death Certificate

I’m always surprised where some of the enquiries we receive via our website lead.  If ever you find yourself on the A4119 road from Cardiff to Llantrisant may I suggest you drop into see St David’s church in Groes-faen and have a wander around the cemetery.  The Dunn family grave is at the back (west side) of the church.   

How the trunk got to end up in Coffee #1 on Wellfield Road I don’t know. My guess would be that it was part of a house clearance sale at some stage.

My thanks goes to Jon Roberts and Jon Lloyd at Roath Local History Society, Gwyn Prescott, (military and rugby historian) and Ceri Stennett, (military historian and broadcaster)  as well as others for help with this research. And also of course Alex for making us aware of the military trunk in the first place.

Lord David Owen and his Cardiff connections

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Lord David Owen – Official portrait, 2018 (souce: Wikipedia)

There’s little sign that 86 year old David Owen is winding down. The man who was Foreign Secretary in James Callaghan’s Labour government and who then went on to be a founder of the SDP party will be 87 in a few weeks time.  Yes, he retired from a House of Lords last year but is still a prolific writer and gives regular radio interviews offering his opinions on modern politics.  

It wasn’t my intention to research David Owen and his Cardiff connections.  It was rather an accident. My attention had drawn recently to an unusual grave headstone at Cathays Cemetery.  It is unusual in it’s design.  Cathays Cemetery, the third largest Victorian in the country, still contains many examples of elaborate headstones despite a harsh clearance scheme that took place in the 1960/70s aiming to make cemetery maintenance easier.  There are still examples of Celtic crosses, obelisks, pedestals with urns, angels, broken columns signifying a life cut short and a couple of polished granite globes.  There is however only one example of a sword and belt draped around a cross.  It is the headstone of Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen.

Even this elaborately carved headstone may have suffered as a result of the clearance scheme.  Comparing the present headstone with a historical picture shows the kerbing is no longer present and the headstone itself is lower than it originally was.  Maybe this was as a result of the clearance scheme or just sinkage into the ground.  The elaborate sword and belt carving and cross too has suffered some damage over time.  The sword’s hilt is sadly no longer present.

Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen it turns out was Lord David Owen’s grandfather.  Not that David Owen ever knew his grandfather sadly.  Lieutenant Owen died during WWI as a result of an accident.

Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen headstone at Cathays Cemetery.

Having found that connection I did some research and ordered David Owen’s biography ‘Time to Declare’ (1991).  David Owen was born in Devon in 1938 but has a lot of Welsh blood in him.  His biography details how he spent time in South Wales when his father was away involved in WWII.  My intention here isn’t to repeat all his South Wales family history but to tease out his interesting connections to us here in Cardiff, starting with his grandfather. 

Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen (1876-1917) – Grandfather

John Aubrey Owen was born on 12 Jun 1878 at at 14 Park Street, Temperance Town, Cardiff to William Frank Owen, a coal merchant, originally from Cardiff and Selina Maud Owen nèe Rees originally from Bridgend, Glamorgan.  By 1881 the family were living at 9 Crwys Road, Cathays, which is now a hairdressers.  He was baptized on 18 Mar 1885 at St Augustine, Panarth and in 1891 the Owen family were living at 24 Pembroke Terrace, Penarth.  John joined the merchant navy as a boy sailor at the age of 16, working on the four masted ships sailing out of Cardiff docks.  In the 1891 census he is recorded as living at 10 Belle View Terrace, Penarth, aged 22, and a sailor. 

9 Crwys Road, Cathays where John Aubrey Owen was living as a child in 1881.

On 8 Nov 1905 John married Gwendoline Mary Morris, the daughter of a Congregational minister.  They may well have met each other as teenagers when they both lived on Pembroke Terrace, Penarth.  After getting married they settled in Cwmgwrach, in the upper Neath Valley and had two sons.

John’s career soon progressed in the merchant navy, gaining his First Mate’s certificate in 1905 and then his Master’s certificate in 1907.  John was employed by Messrs Evan Thomas Radcliffe and Co, Cardiff, one of the more prosperous and better-known of Cardiff-based shipowning companies.   John had had been in command of three of their steamers by the time the First World War arrived where he served in the Royal Naval Reserve and was made a temporary lieutenant in February 1917.  He served on H.M. Trawler ‘John Pollard’.  He however sadly died from a fractured skull on 27 Oct 1917, after falling from the upper deck of his vessel into the stoke hold, while the ship was docked in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.  He was aged 39.  He is buried in Cathays Cemetery (grave S 509A).  Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.

Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen and old image of his headstone at Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff..

David Lewis (1797-1860)  G-G-G-Grandfather – Mayor of Cardiff

Researching the Owen family history is made a lot easier, not only by David Owen’s autobiography, but by there being a very comprehensive family tree on Ancestry put together by another Owen family member.   In that family tree it details the life of David Lewis (1797-1860).  He married Margaret Aubrey, which is where the Aubrey name passed down through the family comes from.  In 1841 he lived on Quay Street, Cardiff.

His lengthy obituary in the newspaper in 1860 details how he was a victualler, landlord of the Ship and Dolphin in Church Street, and afterwards became Master of the Ship on Launch, in Quay Street which was the favorite resort of the Cardiganshire seamen when they visited Cardiff.  He also speculated in coal and had a rope making business and donated money to the Wesleyan Chapel in Charles Street.  In 1854 he was Mayor of Cardiff.  He is buried at Llandaff Cathedral.

Wesleyan Chapel, Charles Street, Cardiff, opened 1850. The chapel was destroyed by fire in 1895 and then rebuilt. The rebuilt chapel was demolished in 1984.
The plaque to David Lewis (described below) could well be one of those in the sketch under the eaves of the balcony.
A plaque to David Lewis was erected in Charles Street Wesleyan Chapel after his death.

Alderman William Llewellyn (1850- 1923) – Maternal G-Grandfather

William Llewellyn was both a liberal politician and shopkeeper.  David Owen writes that ‘Alderman William Llewellyn, was chairman of Glamorgan County Council and chairman of the Bridgend Bench of Magistrates.  A staunch Liberal, he was a moving spirit in first the Mid-Glamorgan then the Ogmore Divisional Liberal and Labour Party, of which he also became chairman.  He had started life as a grocer and provision merchant in Ogmore, having moved there from Llantrisant. Over the years The Gwalia, as his shop was called, grew until it was described as `a mecca of the valley and neighbourhood’.  The shop used to be in Ogmore Vale but has been moved and many of you will have been there.  Gwalia Stores closed in Ogmore Vale in 1973 but was then moved and rebuilt at St Fagans National Museum of History in 1991.  The ground floor is set up as it would have been during the 1920s.

Gwalia Stores originally in Ogmore Vale now at St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff.

Dr Edgar Llewellyn (1890-1964) – G-uncle

Alderman William Llewellyn had eight children, or more accurately his wife Mary did.  One was George ‘Gear’ Morgan Llewellyn (1877-1951), David Owen’s maternal grandfather.  He was a blind church minister and lived at Llandow in the Vale of Glamorgan and a big influence on David Owen’s life.  David spent time living there as a child when his father was away in WWII.

Another son of Alderman William Llewellyn was Dr Edgar Llewellyn and it is he that has connections with our area.  He became a GP in Splott and had his surgery on Splott Road. He was Cardiff Commissioner of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade and the works’ doctor at Guest Keen steel works, and also became a Cardiff Councillor. 

In his autobiography David Owen recalls the following:

The brother whose career most closely paralleled my own was Edgar. He was a family doctor in Splott which is an area of Cardiff dominated by the steel-works.  He was a great character and adored by his patients His unique way of sorting out their ailments was, according to my mother, to go into his surgery and announce, “Those buggers who are ill can move to the right-hand side of the room and be seen now: those who are not can wait on the left and see me later or chance their luck tomorrow.’  After the war he became infuriated by the politicians on the City Council and so decided to join his wife who was already a Ratepayer Councillor. He was elected in 1951. A photograph of him in a pony and trap, bedecked in a massive rosette, electioneering shows the first combination of doctor-politician in the family’s history. His wife Jenny, who had first stood and won as a Ratepayer in 1946, was a strikingly good looking woman and a considerable character.  She was the first person in eighteen years to beat the Labour candidate in her Ward. She stood again in 1949 and won and then lost her seat three years later. The wish to be an independent in local government and to stand against party politics was later mirrored by my mother and, some will say, by me too.

‘

Dr Edgar Llewellyn, Ratepayers Candidate in the Cardiff 1951 Local Government elections (picture credit: Cardiff Yesterday Vol XVI)
Dr Edgar Llewellyn of the Ratepayers Part campaigning in 1951 (Picture credit: David Owen’s biography ‘Time to Declare’ (1991))

What started as a bit of research into the grave of John Aubrey Owen at Cathays Cemetery turned up many interesting stories about the history of Cardiff. Fascinating stuff is histoy.

Red Cross Hospital, Newport Road – photographs from the David family photograph album

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It’s great when people offer to share old photographs with us and with scanners and smart phones being able to take such good copies of old photos these days it’s never been easier.  If you have photos of Roath and surrounding areas you would be willing to make available to us just click or scan away and send them to us at roathhistorywebsite@gmail.com

A while ago we were sent this batch of copies of historic pictures from the David family album.  We are hoping that someone may be able to help identify some of those in the pictures.

I had looked at the David family a number of years ago when I discovered Captain Thomas William David was killed on the Western Front in WWI.  His story copied below is now captured on the Roath Virtual War Memorial:

THOMAS WILLIAM DAVID

Captain, 4th Battalion, Welsh Regiment

Thomas ‘Tom’ William David was born in Cardiff on 6 Aug 1891 to George David, a solicitor and the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy for Cardiff, originally from Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire and Annie Florence David née Jordon, originally from Newport, Monmouthshire. Thomas was baptised at St German church on 27 Aug 1891 and the David family lived at 126 Newport Road. Tom went to school at Arnold House, Knutsford, Cheshire before going on to study law at Keble College, Oxford.  He was a good sportsman, playing rugby and cricket for his college and also cricket for both Cardiff and for Glamorgan Cricket Club. He obtained a commission as 2nd Lieutenant on 3 Nov 1914, was promoted Lieutenant on 3 Nov 1916 and Captain on 19 Jul 1917.  He undertook training of recruits at Pontypridd and served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 22 Feb 1917, being attached to the 15th Battalion, Welsh Regiment.  Tom was killed in action on the Yser Canal, north of Ypres on 27 Jul 1917 aged 26. He is buried in Bard Cot Cemetery, Canal Bank, north of Ypres, Belgium (Grave III.G.31).  His Commanding Officer wrote: ‘A German aeroplane with British colours dropped very close over the trench, lit a signal, and directed the German shell fire into the trench in which your brother was killed. He will always linger in our memories, and none of us will ever forget a good officer and a brave gentleman.’  He is remembered on the war memorials at St German church and Keble College, Oxford and Glamorgan Cricket Club Roll of Honour.  Commonwealth War Grave Commission record.

 

I’ve also recently learnt that there was a connection between Captain Tom David, Reverend Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton and Talbot House, Poperinge.  A signed photo of Tom and a note from him are in the Talbot House Museum.

There is also a link between one of our previous blogs and the David family.  In our blog Viscount John Sankey, Lord Chancellor – Roath’s top Brief we learnt how John Sankey grew up on City Road and then lived on Newport Road, attending St Margaret’s church. He went on to become the Lord Chancellor, the top legal man in the UK government. Another solicitor who lived nearby on Newport Road at the time was George David, father of the aforementioned Captain Thomas David.  In fact John Sankey ‘had been a bar pup’ in George David’s office and George David gave him his first brief.

Here’s an obit of George David:

George David obituary

David Family Photograph Album

This first batch are pictures of patients at the St Pierre Hospital at 58/60 Newport Road, dated April 1917.  Two of Tom David’s sisters were nurses in this hospital and appear in the pictures. Some of the injured soldiers also appear in the pictures, taken in the back garden of 126 Newport Road, the David family home.

There is a Red Cross war memorial plaque remembering the men who died at St Pierre Hospital in St Edward’s church Penylan. One of the nursing sisters at the hospital who died in 1918 is also remembered on the memorial.  I wonder if she is pictured in any of these photographs.

The next batch of photographs appears to be autographs of some of the soldiers who stayed at the hospital.

This last autograph included is a sketch of a ship at anchor but no further details of the vessel. The soldier seems to have been Lance Corporal W Dance? 1/2 Welsh Field Ambulance, ? M.C, Cardiff ?

This young woman isn’t a member of the David family. Her cap badge is that of a First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). The David family think she may be Elsie Agnes Courtis who was a FANY member. They have only been able to find a rather fuzzy, oblique image of Elsie among other FANYs and she hasn’t been definitely identified. The Courtis family lived in Hillside, Penylan and later Fairwater Croft in Llandaff.

The reason the family thinks it may be Elsie Courtis is rather circumstantial, she was a witness at a David family marriage and she is mentioned in family correspondence in the early 1920s.

And to finish with a couple of photos that I think we may have featured previously. The first is of a bridge that, according to notes, spanned Queen Street, Cardiff. The view is looking eastwards, out of town and the Cardiff University Queens building can be seen on the left. The second photo shows the plaque identifying the builder.

Searching for Theodora, Harold and Arthur

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I spotted a post on social media last week from someone looking for the origin of the street name Theodora Street in Roath.  I already knew the basics but was keen to learn a bit more so set about doing some research.  Who would have thought it would lead to a lovely day out in rural Herefordshire.

Theodora Street is one eight streets that run between Broadway and Pearl Street that were probably built in the 1870s.  The land was owned by William Bradley (1843-1933), a solicitor, who named the streets after his children, Cecil, Bertam, Blanche and Maud (later renamed Bradley Street).

William Bradley, Cardiff solicitor and landowner

 The problem was that he had more streets to name than he had children.

Bradley streets, Roath, Cardiff (Ref: Open Streetmap)

Instead, he turned to the using the names of his nieces and nephews.

Beresford Road it seems is named after his nephew James Beresford Bradley, child of Frederick and Florence Bradley.

The three remaining streets, Theodora, Harold and Arthur Streets are named after three of his sister’s children.  She was Mary Jane Bradley (1841-80).  She married Rev David Nicholl (1842-1916), the rector of the church in St Brides Super Ely, just outside Cardiff, in 1863. In fact they had ten children together so her brother could have kept building streets – there were plenty of names in reserve.

After marrying Rev David Nicholl became a rector in Llanelli for a short time before they moved to the hamlet of Edvin Loach, Herefordshire where he became rector of St Mary’s church in 1873.  He was rector at St Mary’s for the next 40 years and lived in the nearby rectory.  Having now been there I can understand why he was in no rush to move on.  It’s remote and idyllic.  But then again I did visit on a beautiful spring day and there was a giant hare hopping around the graveyard.

Edvin Loach church, Herefordshire

The day before I visited I had spent researching the Nicholl family history.  It was quite intriguing.  The one thing I noticed when I put the Nicholl family tree together on Ancestry was that nobody else seemed to have researched them.  The reason for that slowly became evident.  Of the ten children Rev David Nicholl and Mary Jane had together, few married and even fewer had children.  I can only find two grandchildren and I think the Nicholl family line may be sparse or have even ended there.

Nicholl family tree (as built in Ancestry.co.uk)

Mary Theodora was the first of the ten children born to Rev David and Mary Jane Nicholl in 1865.  Mary Jane, her mother, tragically died in 1880, the year after her tenth child was born.  In the 1881 census we see Rev David Nicholl living in the rectory in Edvin Loach with the children and a governess and a servant.

One reason I had been keen to visit the church was that I could find no mention of Mary Theodora Nicholl in the newspaper archives.  She died in 1914 of heart disease, aged just 49, still living with her father in the rectory.  I assume that, as the eldest child of widowed Rev David Nicholl, she grew up filling the motherly and vicar’s wife role in the church, as would may have been traditional at the time.

I was interested in knowing if she is buried at the church. The pictures I had seen of St Mary’s church in Edvin Loach showed few graves and there weren’t many recorded on the ‘findagrave.com’ website either.  As I approached through the narrow lanes a small signpost directed to take a turning along a 200m unsurfaced track up to the church.

There are two St Mary’s churches on the site.  The original, which dated back to the 1100’s is now a ruin, owned by English Heritage. It is tiny, with herringbone stonework in the walls, low lintels and no roof.  The ‘new’ St Mary’s dates from the1860s.

Edvin Loach old church

After watching the hare make his/her escape through the fence into the field I set about looking at the headstones.  There were certainly more than I had expected looking at the photos online but the graveyard was by no means packed with headstones which meant some may have been lost over the years to weathering etc.

As I neared the church porch I struck lucky.  There was the grave of Rev David Nicholl and his wife Mary Jane who had predeceased him by 46 years.  Also buried in the grave is Mary Theodora. The pink granite headstone in the shape of a cross is in good condition.

Grave of Mary Theodora Nicholl at Edvin Loach with old Rectory where she lived in the background.

 The other burial in the same plot is Theodora’s brother Francis William Nicholl.  He was a solicitor who died the same year, 1914.  He had tragically taken his own life.  His inquest heard how he had been suffering pain due to a medical condition as well as having financial issues.   

Inscriptions on the Nicholl headstone

Having explored the outside of the church I tried the door and found it open.  It was lovely, with a vaulted timber roof, cream walls and a dozen pews as well as stain glass windows.  As I examined the plaques on the walls and I was in for another surprise.    There was a plaque to both Rev David Nicholl, his wife Mary Jane and on the opposite wall a plaque to Mary Theodora, perhaps signifying the prominent role she had played in the church after her mother’s death.

Rev David and Mary Jane Nicholl plaques in Edvin Loach church, Herefordshire.
Plaque dedicated to Mary Theodora Nicholl in Edvin Loach church, Herefordshire

I was in for one more surprise.  There is another plaque in memory of the vicar who followed on from Rev David Nicholl.  He was Arthur Beresford Holmes.  Is it purely a coincidence that a man with the middle name Beresford went to live in the rectory where Mary Jane Bradley had lived, who had a nephew called John Beresford Bradley after which Beresford Road in Cardiff seems to be named?  I can’t find a connection but maybe a keen sleuther could turn something up.

Plaque dedicated to Arthur Beresford Holmes, Rector of Edvin Loach 1914-1947. A relative of Theodora or is the name Beresford just a coincidence?

 Edvin Loach seems a long way from Roath.  I was left wondering if Mary Theodora ever visited Cardiff to see the street named after her.

Theodora Street, Roath Cardiff and Mary Theodora Nicholl headstone in Edvin Loach church

Before I left this lovely location I had a few more things to see, not connected with the Nicholl family. When I’m not huddled up over a laptop doing local history research I’m often to be found out walking in the countryside.  To give me an excuse to visit new and different locations I visit hills, trigpoints, benchmarks and find geocaches that people have hidden.  It turned out that Edvin Loach had an example of all four of these. There is a cut benchmark on the wall of the new church, the church spire itself is a type of trig point (an intersected station) and the prominent position of the church classifies it as a TuMP (a hill with a 30m promontory).  There is even a tiny geocache hidden at the turn off to the church, which I must admit took me a while to find.  It hadn’t been found for over a year so was a bit of a challenge. Anyway, that’s enough of my nerdy hobbies.  After going to find a couple more trig points nearby and eating my marmalade sandwiches it was back to the local history.

Inside Edvin Loach church and the benchmark on the church wall outside.

My focus now was Lewis Harold Nicholl (1867-1924) after whom Harold Street in Roath is named.  Like his father and indeed his grandfather before him, he went into the church and became a rector. He was born in Bodenham, Herefordshire on 18 May 1866.  He attended Hereford Cathedral School before going on to St John’s College, Cambridge University and became a priest in 1890.  He held positions in the church in Thornbury, Gloucestershire, Ludlow, then Ribbersford, Worcs and Bewdley.  He was there for two years before his heath broke down and he sought warmer weather by going to France (1904-14) where he was Chaplain at the Church of England Christ Church, Pau, South of France.  At the outbreak of WWI he returned to England and became assistant curate in Clifton, Bristol before becoming Curate in Bredenbury, Herefordshire from 1916 until his death in 1924.

Harold Street in Roath, Cardiff

My next stop was therefore Bredenbury church to see if there was any mention of Lewis Harold Nicholl.  He had actually died in Bournemouth where he had gone to try and recuperate from another illness but had died on 21 Nov 1924.

Bredenbury Church, Herefordshire

St Andrew’s at Bredenbury is another lovely Herefordshire church.  The first thing I noticed was the large number of headstones in the graveyard so I wasn’t too confident about finding Harold’s grave.  Being the rector however I guessed he may have had a fairly prominent burial plot. I walked around the perimeter of the church and after a few minutes I spotted it, an unusual flat coffin-shaped stone slab with raised cross.  It looked rather splendid today surrounded by primroses and other spring flowers.

Lewis Harold Nicholl grave, Bredenbury church.

He had married Lilian Theodora Williams in Thornbury, Gloucestershire in 1893.  She passed away when they lived in Pau, France which probably explains why they are not buried together.

This church was also open.  The highlight here was a wonderful carved marble pulpit. Now that must have taken some time to do. 

Carved marble pulpit at St Andrew’s church, Bredenbury

My final stroke of luck for the day, at least from a local history point of view, was finding the brass wall plaque to Lewis Harold Nicholl.  It was good to see him remembered. His newspaper obituary records that ‘he was much respected by his fellow clergy in the Deanery and had endeared himself to his parishioners by his sincere and quiet manner. They found him a homely parish priest who shared with them alike in their joys and sorrows’.

Plaque to Rev Lewis Harold Nicholl at Bredenbury church

In the 1921 census records he was living next door to the church at the rather grand rectory with his two unmarried sisters Emily Maud and Katherine and two servants.

The Rectory at Bredenbury, home of Rev Lewis Harold Nicholl and two of his sisters in 1921.

To finish off a splendid day I took myself off to Bromyard Downs for a two mile walk and some more geocaching before heading home through the Herefordshire countryside.

So having found Theodora and Harold that just left Arthur but unfortunately I found little more than I already knew about him and again no picture.  Arthur Street in Roath is named after David Arthur Nicholl, nephew of the landowner William Bradley.  Arthur was born in Llanelli in 1868, son of church minister Rev David Nicholl and raised in the Bromyard area, Herefordshire. After leaving Hereford Cathedral school he went on to gain three degrees from Cambridge University including law.  He married Hilda Maude Chalmers-Hunt in London in 1913 but they appear not to have had children. His career was spent as a Solicitor and Town Clerk including at Scarborough (1900-12) and Wandsworth Council (1912-34) where he was awarded an OBE for his services. He died in 1949 in Bournemouth.

It seems a shame having looked at the Nicholl siblings who gave their names to three Cardiff streets not to briefly mention the other seven.

Nicholl family tree (as built in Ancestry.co.uk)
  • Francis William Nicholl was mentioned earlier, and is buried with Theodora at Edvin Loach.
  • Emily Maud Nicholl, lived until 78, and died in Staffordshire.  She never married.  She lived with her sister Katherine for most of her life in the Bromyard area.
  • Constance Eva Nicholl, died aged 84 in Staffordshire and again never married. She had a career in nursing all around the country, in both midwifery and as a general nurse. Her nursing records describe her as ‘an educated and refined woman, but not very suited to the work of a district nurse’.
  • Margaret Nicholl, had a career teaching in private schools and died unmarried in Malvern in 1968 aged 94.
  • Katherine Nicholl, died a spinster in Malvern in 1947, aged 71. There is no mention of her having a career. She lived with her parents then her brother then her sister.
  • Violet Cecilia Nicholl, married farmer Albert Bishop and lived in the Worcestershire area and died aged 75.  They had two children, Violet, who died unmarried and Edwin David Bishop who did marry and may have had children, the only possible offspring of the Nicholl family I could find.
  • Edwin Anthony Nicholl, married Isabel Frances Diver in 1916 when he was serving in the army.  After the war they ran a guesthouse in Lynmouth, Devon. They don’t appear to have had children. Edwin was tragically killed in 1935 as a result of a road traffic accident in Welyn Garden City.  He was heading to his allotment on his bicycle aand carrying a garden fork when he was in collision with a lorry.  Witnesses stated he had only one hand on the handlebars.

And on that sad note it is time to leave this insight into the three Nicholl children who gave their names to three Roath streets.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who can add anything to their story.

If anyone ever does find themselves in the Bromyard area of Herefordshire I would encourage a visit to the churches in Edvin Loach and Bredenbury, in particular on a fine spring day.

William Bradley family tree and street names in Roath

Farming in Llanedeyrn

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Under the feudal system the manor lands consisted of the lord’s demesne and the lands of the tenants. In addition there were woodlands, commons and wastelands which provided wood, turves and pasture for cattle.  The change to money rents, the growth of hired labour, the sale of produce and the extension of leasing all combined to hasten the decay of the feudal system.  This would seem to account for John, son of Richard de Sutton, Lord of Malpas, holding land and collecting rents in Llanedeyrn.

By the 16thC most men had gained their freedom, however a quit rent claim for land in Llanedeyrn owned by the Kemeys family shows that the old ways lingered on.  Graig y Llwyn, high up on the ridge in the north of the parish is the only farm known to belong to the Kemeys family from 1650 together with Cae Sir Howell, a small area of meadowland.  Ty Coch (south of Hollybush Road) seems to have belonged to the Kemeys family since 1702

In his list of things necessary for a good farm or dairy, Randall Holmes (c 1688) listed items for use in the barn, in the stable, in the cow house, in the cart shed and in the farmer’s house.  These included digging tools, shovels, spades, pickaxes and mattocks, various kinds of weeding tools, tools for cutting scythes, sickles and pruning hooks, bills saws and hatchets, sharpening and splitting tools, rakes, mauls and forks, flails, winnowing sheets and ladders. In the absence of oxen or horse power, various forms of wheel barrows were necessary.

In the middle ages young cattle were reared on the uplands before being fattened on the pastures in the lowlands.  It was this tradition which led to the practice of droving which was at its peak from the 17thC to the coming of the railways.  Both cattle and sheep were supplied from Wales.  They would walk along traditional routes, grazing at the roadside and in rented pastures as was probable at Cross Farm in Llanedeyrn.

The Kemeys Tynte estates were surveyed by William Jones in 1767 showing their holdings in the parishes of St Mellons, Llanedeyrn and Llanishen.  No acreages are given but the map shows 111 tenancies.  In Llanedeyrn these included Bridge Farm, Capel y Celin, Church Farm, Cwrt Tregarreg, Y Grose, Malt house Farm, Nant y Draenog, Pentwyn, Pont Brenni, Ty Gwyn, Tytomaen, Tyn y Ffynnon and Farm Shillian from 1788, 13 farms in total.

Between 1798 and 1828 H.A. and J.W. Beiderman of Tetbury in Gloucestershire were the principal land agents on behalf of the Kemeys Tynte family.   On 15 July 1803 H.A. Beiderman makes reference to the rebuilding of a stable at Cefn Mabli and on 3 Sept the Steward at Cefn Mabli, George Emerson is writing direct to C.J. Kemeys Tynte enclosing a rough sketch for building a stable and coach house for £128.  In 1807 H.A.Beiderman is writing to C.K. Kemeys Tynte Snr thanking him for his approval to exchange some lands “which will be a great acquisition to Cefn Mabli”.

Cefn Mably House (National Library of Wales and Wikipedia – Public Domain)

In Jan 1824 J.W.Beiderman writes to C.J.Kemeys Tynte Snr that “those that had notice to quit, have paid their half years rent and have promised to be punctual in future”.  In Feb 1824 he writes again still worried by the uncertainties of being able to collect the rents and in July 1827 he is naming names and commenting “that it is to no purpose letting them go on any longer, and as the crops this year are very good it will be the only time to secure the rent due from them”.  Later Beiderman authorizes immediate expenditure on thatching following a severe storm and urges C.K.Kemeys Tynte Snr to improve the land drainage around Cefn Mabli House.  Other items refer to the repair of barns, the provision of new stables and a pigs sty (the latter urgent).  By 1847 he writes to say that” the greater part of the tenants paid their rents remarkably well at Keven Mably and I have remitted…for Miss Tyntes account £2000”.

In 1801 the Home Office organised a national survey by diocese and parish asking the clergy in each parish to note the acreage devoted to each crop, but were not concerned with pasture or meadowland. Unfortunately the returns for Llanedeyrn are missing but over Wales as a whole oats were grown on 38% of the arable land, barley 29%, and wheat 22%.  By comparison, most of the land was used for pastoral farming.

Evidence from the 1844 Tithe Award for Llanedeyrn shows that the 3 most important land owners held 88% of the total acreage, the remaining 12% being divided between 12 small landowners having between 10 and 15 acres each.  However these small land owners accounted for 55% (21) of the farms in the parish. Farms of less than 50 acres were generally cultivated by the farmer and his family who were likely to have other occupations. The 19 acres farmed by Thomas Roberts in 1844 supplemented his other occupation as landlord of the Unicorn Inn.  Often these small units were absorbed into larger farms, as was the case of Gwern Iddi, which had been amalgamated with Ty Draw Farm by 1844.  By 1873 out of a total of 28 farms 9 were under 50 acres in size, 14 were between 51 and 100 acres and 5 between 101 and 300 acres.

Unicorn Inn, Llanedeyrn in 2010 (Pic: Geograph.org.uk © Copyright John Lord and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)

Family continuity in tenancies is a feature of large estates and the Cefn Mabli estate is no exception. David Jones held the tenancy of Pant Glas from before 1841 to 1851 by which time he was 80 years old. His son in law Edward Thomas had taken over the tenancy by 1861, and he was succeeded by his own son John Thomas who was still there in 1911.  At the time of the sale of the estate in 1920 his wife Ann appears to have purchased the farm and she remained there at least until 1937.  The farmhouse was located in North Pentwyn presumably part of the 30 acres of freehold land purchased by Cardiff CC for £200,000 in 1972.

Following the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, agriculture in South Wales was adversely affected by fluctuating wheat prices, wet harvests, and poor crops of potatoes culminating in a disastrous crop in 1846 coinciding with the Irish potato famine between 1845 and 1849.  The continuing bad weather and foreign competition led to arable land giving way to grass especially to dairy farming in South Wales.  On the basis of the tithe awards arable land accounted for 45% of the farmland on the Cefn Mabli estate between 1839 and 1846.  By 1920 this had declined to 29%.  Llanedarne Farm was even more dramatic falling from 40% arable land in1844 to having no arable land in 1920.

After a period of rent reduction, rents showed a steady rise between 1850 and 1860 and the growing interest in farm improvement is indicated by the rise in membership of the Glamorgan Agricultural Society from around 100 in 1830 to 350 in 1837. In 1831 64 (94%) of the 66 families in the parish were employed in agriculture either as farmers or as agricultural labourers.  Only 3 residents were employed in non-agricultural occupations.  By 1841 farmers and agricultural labourers formed 88% of the occupations, but only 14% by 1891.

Carey’s Improved Map of England and Wales 1830

Cattle were valued for their meat and milk and oxen as draught animals.  Improvements of breeds were encouraged by the Agricultural societies.  Fox (1794) notes that “ towards Pontypool and Newport the dark brown Glamorganshire kind are much esteemed “. Because pigs were kept on a domestic basis, improved breeds did not appear so quickly as with cattle, sheep and horses.  In woodland areas common grazing rights often allowed pigs to feed on acorns and beech mast, but in dairy farming areas the fed on whey. B y 1920 most farms in Llanedeyrn had a pig’s cot.  All the farms had accommodation for horses having 2, 3 or 4 stalls and on the larger farms more than one stable.

Specialised dairy farming is known to have existed in the 17thC with butter and cheese being sent across the Severn estuary to the West of England markets.  Eight cowmen lived in the parish in 1861 and 4 Heads of households were described as milk farmers in 1891.  With the increasing conversion to dairy farming in the parish, the Kemeys Tynte sale catalogue (1920) itemises cow houses, dairies, calf pens, bull houses and fowl houses.  Nineteen farms had cow houses, the largest being at Pentwyn, Tytomaen and Maes y Bryn.  Few dairies were separately located in the farmyard.  Most farmhouses in Llanedeyrn had a dairy inside the farmhouse as at Church farm, Gorswg and Bridge farms.  Hens were kept for their meat, eggs and feathers and other birds which might be kept were ducks geese and turkeys.  Keeping hens under cover was practiced from the 18thC.  The Kemeys Tynte sale catalogue (1920) lists pig’s cots with fowl houses above them (for warmth) at Pentwyn, Tytomaen, Tyn y Ffynnon, Cwrt Tregarreg and several other farms in the parish.

Changes in ploughing techniques began in the 18thC, when horses gradually replaced oxen. Improvements were also made to the plough, usually based on the design of the Rotherham Swing plough patented in 1730 which introduced a lighter wooden frame and an improved curved mould board.  A similar plough was built by John Aubrey at New Forge, Llanedeyrn and used at Cwrt Tregareg before finding its final resting place at the National History Museum at St Fagans. Cart sheds were found only on the larger farms before the 18thC.  Most were open building approached from the side as at the Home farm at Cefn Mabli where the construction was of timber and slate.  In Llanedeyrn they were sometimes called wagon sheds, often with a granary on the first floor as at Bridge farm and Pentwyn. Early horse engines were housed in a building adjacent to a barn.  Early designs needed 4-6 horses to drive a threshing machine, but with later improvements only 1 or 2 horses would be required.  Mobile steam engines came into general use after 1854, and engine driving as an occupation appears in the Llanedeyrn census returns for 1871 and 1891.

This is a previously unpublished research paper authored by the late Malcolm Ranson in 2013.