Where’s my Gunn?

Posted on August 2, 2026 by roathhistory

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.

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.

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.

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

Posted on October 21, 2025 by roathhistory

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’.

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.

What characteristics do you admire most in a man?
What characteristics do you admire most in a woman?
What would be your ideal life ?
What do you consider your best quality?
What do you consider your forte to be?
If necessary to work for a living, what calling would you pursue?
What do you consider your greatest failing?
What is your favourite pastime?
What gives you most annoyance?
Are you a linguist and what is your favourite language?
In what country would you prefer to live?
What foreign land would you best like to visit?
Who do you consider has the greatest brain power, man or woman?
Do you think women should take part in public life?
Do you believe in women’s suffrage?
What colour do you think is most becoming to you?
Do you think dress influences character?
Describe the girl of the period
Describe the young man of the day
What is your favourite motto?
What is your favorite flower and what is its meaning?
Who do you consider is the best sovereign in Europe?
What nation exercises most influence in the world?
Who do you consider the greatest politician in Great Britain
Who do you consider the greatest artist of the present age?
Who do you consider the greatest musician of the present age?
Who do you consider the greatest man of science of the present age?
Who do you consider the greatest orator of the present age?
Who do you consider the greatest author of the present age?
Who do you consider the greatest poet of the present age?
Which is your favourite reading prose or poetry?
Name two poems that have given you great pleasure
Name two books of fiction that have given you the most profit
Who is your hero in life?
Who is your hero in fiction?
Who is your heroine in life?
Who is your heroine in fiction?
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.

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

Mary Traynor

Posted on August 27, 2025 by roathhistory

It is with sadness that we learnt recently of the death of Mary Traynor, at the age of 91. Besides being a Society member and a long-time resident of Penylan, Mary was an accomplished artist, who depicted many of Cardiff’s notable buildings in her book Creating Cardiff.

Copies of her book will be available for sale at the AGM and talk on 10 September 2025.

Here is a profile of Mary, first published in the RLHS Newsletter in August 2020.

Some of my most treasured possessions are my sketchbooks. For me they are a record of things I have done, seen and visited over the years on family holidays in places like North Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and painting trips to Palma, Symi and Barcelona; not forgetting Australia and Vietnam where two of my children lived for a while. Being an artist is one thing that has kept me going and has given me pleasure throughout a long life. I have been a widow for many years. There is still a layer of sadness in me, but Brian was so supportive that l was compelled to continue painting, partly in his memory and have done so ever since, exhibiting and selling my work

A four- year course in Theatre Design at Birmingham College of Art & Crafts introduced me to architectural history and the challenges of drawing buildings, especially large historical ones. Perspective has always been difficult and I faintly ‘set square in’ a few vertical and horizontal lines as a guide. The Grade 1 listed art college was the ideal base from which to sketch the huge 19c buildings of the city centre. I then lived in Hammersmith, London for a while, spending my free time in sketching the Thames at Battersea Bridge, going to galleries and museums until I met Brian, a Cardiff man.

It was exciting to have the early sight-seeing trips of Cardiff: the gleaming white City Hall and Law Courts, the National Museum, Cardiff Castle, Castell Coch, the parks and in contrast the Docks and The Valleys which paid for all this building. We settled in Roath (this includes Penylan for convenience) and I have lived here ever since, in three different houses in one road! I raised a family and continued doing art through this time as most women artists blessed with children do. I usually love sketching children.

**Roath Brook Gardens, from Westville Road**

I have spent many happy years living in Roath – and here are some of my favourite places: firstly busy Albany Road and the network of streets surrounding it; the Mackintosh Institute or ‘The Mac’ an early 19c mansion in Plasnewydd Square, a thriving community centre and Farmers’ Market, not forgetting the arts centre opposite in the former Presbyterian Church where I much enjoyed dance performances by the young people of the Rubicon. There is a gruesome side to this as the Albany and Richmond Road crossroads is where Cardiff’s hanging field was! It is very sad that Grade 2 listed Globe Cinema was replaced and The Gaiety in City Road is making way for yet more student flats – how unnecessary is that?

**Globe Cinema, Albany Road, Roath, Cardiff**
A reconstruction based on sketches and photographs of how the cinema might have looked in the 1920’s. It opened in 1913 and was a listed Grade II building that was demolished to build The Pear Tree Cafe.

Top of my list of favourite Roath buildings is the Edwardian Roath Church House with its central panel elegantly carved with the name and 1914 which says it all. Opposite is Grade 1 listed St Margaret’s Church with the polychromatic interior that makes it so special. I felt that I should have painted the interior but the drawing does show patterned brickwork and different stones. I must go down after Covid-19 is over and subtly paint the shadowy interior. I enjoyed doing the front and back in their leafy settings. Nearby I like Willie Seager Cottages, a modern version of the original ones on Newport Road. Charming as they were, it must have been very noisy for the retired mariners living there.

The East Cardiff Conservation Area which takes in the area encircling the parks starts at St Margaret’s and ends at the top of Roath Park Lake. As a representative of The Victorian Society I was on the advisory group. We helped keep the character of the area by vetting detrimental planning applications to both large and smaller houses, sometimes for extensions, more often for new inappropriate windows in the front or as dormers on the front roofs. One application was for another of my favourite buildings – listed Roath Park Primary School- to have replacement windows. We opposed this and the school remains as it was. I did a painting of it as a retirement gift from the school to its Headmistress enjoying putting in the proper windows and children in the playground. Roath Park, said by experts to be one of the country’s finest urban parks is of course of on my list. Scott’s Memorial Lighthouse was done in the raging blizzard of my imagination, instead of from outside! Finally, St Andrew’s United Reformed Church, its elegant spire marking Wellfield Road, the parks and playing field; is for me a reminder of Constable’s paintings of Salisbury Cathedral.

**House in Ninian Road**
Pen and Watercolour
Facing the Roath Recreation Ground, the houses in Ninian Road date from 1891 and completed 1910

Artists don’t retire if they can help it and I keep painting and drawing from my sketch books and photos during Covid -19. I am proud to be one of a group of at least five artists living quite near. For a few years an enterprising group of artists organised ‘Made in Roath’, taking place in October when artists, including me opened their studios to anyone who wanted to see them.

When I first started in the late ’60s and ’70s there were a lot of changes going on in Cardiff, such as the building of Boulevard de Nantes, the demolition of the houses at Dumfries Place and the splitting of the civic centre from the city centre. There was even talk of driving a road through Cathays Cemetery. Painting is what I do, so I would go and sketch buildings I knew were going to disappear – but I didn’t think I would still be doing it 50 years later. In January 2003 the Central Hotel was lost, when a huge fire swept through the derelict building. It was demolished in 2006 to make way for a new high-rise hotel. I have mixed feelings about the redevelopment of Cardiff over the years, some things I love – like the walkway around Cardiff Bay and the Millennium Stadium, which I think is fantastic – but other things I’m not so sure about. There does seem to be a bit more sensitivity now though in the way historic buildings are treated.

The climax of my work to date has been the writing of ‘Creating Cardiff’ done alongside my painting and drawing. The illustrations are taken from work done over many years and especially for the book. Now it is published I shall return to my latest project which is a very challenging commissioned painting of Roath Brook Gardens and then continue recording the different styles of the houses of Roath and Penylan.

In June 2014 Glamorgan Archives received a very interesting and unique deposit, when Mary gifted her collection of sketchbooks and loose works. They form an invaluable record and resource, both for researchers and as the basis for many exhibitions.

Creating Cardiff

ISBN: 9781845242961
Mary Traynor
Publication June 2020
Format: Paperback,
150×155 mm, 168 pages
Price : £8.95

Cardiff became a city in 1905 and the capital of Wales in 1955. It has a castle, civic buildings and extensive parklands, docks, two cathedrals, three universities,concert halls and theatres and museums. A new rugby stadium and arts centre marked the millennium.

Author Biography: Mary Traynor is an artist with a vivid interest in architectural and historical subjects. She has spent a lifetime recording Cardiff buildings, many of which have been threatened and has campaigned to save them. All the images in this book have been sketched on site. Sadly, some have been demolished over the years. This book brings the memory of them back to life in the company of her present-day images of the capital.

To me, this beautiful book, honed over many decades, represents a love letter from Mary to Cardiff, for all to cherish. Elizabeth Morgan.

Military Trunk found in Coffee #1, Wellfield Road

Posted on August 14, 2025 by roathhistory

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 chest trunk in question was marked as belonging to ‘Capt B M Dunn MC, 2^nd 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 23^rd 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 2^nd Battalion, Welsh Regiment, was made a 2^nd 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 8^th 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, 2^nd Lieutenant Gwynne Morgan Dunn (b.1893), served in the 9^th 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 2^nd 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.

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

Posted on June 21, 2025 by roathhistory

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.

Searching for Theodora, Harold and Arthur

Posted on April 16, 2025 by roathhistory

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Trick Cycling on the Rec

Posted on January 6, 2025 by roathhistory

The installation of the new cycle and pedestrian route in Roath Recreation Ground last year certainly raised some criticisms.

What many however may not realise is that the Rec used to have cycle lane around it. Cycling was a popular a pastime at the turn of the 19^th century. In a letter to the editor of the South Wales Echo in 1897 one reader was encouraging cycling in one direction only and that children should keep to the grass.

I recently came across some pictures in a book Cardiff Remembered by journalist Brian Lee of Welsh Champion trick cyclist Billy Brian taken at Roath Park Rec. I thought I’d have a look to see if he had any local connections and sure enough he did.

Billy Brian prforming his balancing acts at Roath Park in 1905.

On 1^st April 1904 it was announced that Billy Brian would be attempting to ride from Newport to the recently opened Moon & Stars Hotel, Roath and if successful be presented with a cup by C.F.Lee, (grandfather of Brian Lee the journalist previously mentioned I think).

The attempt was indeed successful and Billy was presented with the cup on April 4^th 1904.

The Moon and Stars was on Cyfarthfa Street and was a temperance hotel i.e. only served non-alcoholic beverages. It had a short lifetime and closed after about a year. Mentions of the Moon and Stars in the press:

Some of Billy Brian’s other feats:

The above cutting refers to number of interesting aspects:-

Cycling backwards from Abergwynfi to Caerphilly, a distance of nearly 4½ miles in 13 minutes: I don’t understand this as Abergwynfi and Caerphilly are more than 20 miles apart by road so it looks like the time and distance are incorrect or the names towns?

He won first prize at the Sophia Gardens sports when the famous comedian, the late Dan Leno, presented him with the prize. Dan Leno died in Oct 1904 so the presentation must predate this.

He cycled backwards from Newport to Cardiff…….. : Already covered previously.

He also rode backwards up Leckwith Hill and “Tumble Down Dick”: I have never heard the Tumble referred to as Tumble Down Dick previously but it apparently comes from a story that it is where the stagecoach of Richard Cromwell (the son of Oliver Cromwell) struck a pothole with such a jolt that the impact threw him from his seat and out onto the road.

Brian gives exhibitions at local social functions, and is sometimes assisted by his nephews Charlie and Edward Brian, who are also very clever trick cyclists: I’ve researched the Brian family tree and one of Billy Brian’s nephews was Charles Phillip Brian b.1898, died in 1919 of pulmonary TB after serving in WWI and is buried in Cathays Cemetery. He is remembered on a memorial plaque thought to have been in Clifton Street Calvinistic Methodist chapel.

He is trained by F.G.Churchill of Cardiff and has been training for about five years: This looks to be Frederick George Churchill, a sign writer living in Treharris Street, Roath in 1911.

When Billy Brian’s son, also called Billy, was interviewed in 1997, aged 84, he recalled that the great German trick cyclist Bud Snyder, who was appearing at the Empire Theatre at the time, begged his father to join him in his act. But he turned him down, and stayed with Spillers and Bakers where he worked as a clerk for 40 years.

Among other places Billy Jnr recalled his father trick cycling was backwards around Roath Park Lake and up Thornhill. He said he continued trick cycling into his 50s and then took up the piano as he loved the idea of entertaining people.

Brian Family History

Billy Brian was born William O’Brien on 27 Aug 1881 at 11 Garth Street, Newtown, Cardiff. He was the youngest of seven children born to John O’Brien, a labourer, originally from Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland and Margaret O’Brien nèe Whelan also originally from Ireland.

Billy’s mother died when he was less than a year old and his father never remarried. Billy it seems was bought up by his father and older siblings. By 1891 the family had moved to 118 Cyfarthfa Street, Roath. In 1901 the family were living at 25 Croft Street and by now William was working as a clerk in a flour mill.

The spelling of the family surname changed over the years, which wasn’t unusual at the time. In the 1901 census it had changed from O’Brien to O’Brian. Shortly afterwards it appears they dropped the ‘O’ and the whole family adopted the surname Brian.

Billy’s trick cycling exploits seem to have been around the years 1904-1908. In the summer of 1910 he married Florence Thomas, originally from Newport. At the time of the 1911 census Billy and Florence were living at 92 Glenroy Street, Roath. In 1915 they had a son, William Lionel Brian. At the time of the 1921 census they were still living at 92 Glenroy Street and Billy working as a flour milling clerk for Spillers Industry Ltd in Bute Street. By 1939 he had retired and was living at Heol Nest, Whitchurch. He died in Cardiff on 8 Feb 1951 aged 69.

Billy Brian is buried at Cathays Cemetery. After a bit of a search I managed to locate his grave (plot C2115) where the stonework is somewhat damaged but could still make out his name.

Billy Brian’s grave at Cathays Cemetery (plot C2115).

So next time you cycle or walk along the new cycle/pedestrian route on the Rec think of Billy and the awesome feats he achieved and that he practiced those skills here on Roath Recreation Ground.

Newspaper cuttings from Find My Past or Wales Newspapers Online.

Marconi and the part Roath played inventing the radio

Posted on December 15, 2024 by roathhistory

Who invented the radio?

Well, as with many scientific breakthroughs it is often a case of an accumulation of small scientific advances by many different individuals and some good teamwork.

The man most often accredited with the invention of radio is Guglielmo Marconi.

Guglielmo Marconi (pic credit: Wikipedia)

On 13^th May 1897 a message was sent by Marconi on Flat Holm island over to Lavernock Point near Penarth. It was heralded as the first time a message was sent over water. The breakthrough would quickly lead to wireless telegraphy and later the wireless radio.

It was hardly the most inspiring of messages. It is reported to have said: ‘CAN YOU HEAR ME’. It was sent in Morse code and it was picked up at Lavernock Point by Marconi’s assistant George Kemp, who replied ‘YES LOUD AND CLEAR’. The recording slip for the first message is now kept at the National Museum of Wales.

Marconi Hut at Lavernock Point (although this is labeled as Marconi Hut on maps like OpenStreetMap I am uncertain of the foundation for saying this is exactly where the equipment was set up. It seems unlikely that such as building would have been built especially to house a short experiment)

The initial experiments were not successful. It was only a few days later when the equipment had been modified by extending a wire down onto Lavernock beach that a signal was successfully received. A report states:

On the 11th and 12th his experiments were unsatisfactory — worse still, they were failures — and the fate of his new system trembled in the balance.

An inspiration saved it. On the 13th May the apparatus was carried down to the beach at the foot of the cliff, and connected by another 20 yards (18 m) of wire to the pole above, thus making an aerial height of 50 yards (46 m) in all. Result, The instruments which for two days failed to record anything intelligible, now rang out the signals clear and unmistakable, and all by the addition of a few yards of wire!

A week later, on 18th May 1897 the same equipment was used to send a message between Lavernock Point in Wales and Brean Head, near Weston-Super-Mare in England. This was probably the first international telegraph message ever sent.

And here I make a bold claim. That first ever international wireless message may have been sent by a man from Roath.

I haven’t found any pictures of Marconi or Kemp sending or receiving their messages. The picture most often associated with these events is below. For years I assumed one of the men was Marconi or Kemp but apparently not.

The picture is in the National Museum of Wales collection and is labeled:-

The actual transmitting apparatus and Morse Inker used for the Lavernock – Brean Down demonstration of wireless telegraphy for the first time across water in May 1897, being inspected by three Post Office officials associated with the occasion.

By courtesy of the G.P.O. Cardiff, these officials have been identified as (from left to right) :-

Mr. G.N. Partridge, Superintending Engineer

Mr.H.C, Price, Engineer

Mr.S.E.Hailes, Linemen

Sydney Hailes

Sidney Edward Hailes (pic credit: Ancestry)

I believe the man sat down at the front is Sydney Edward Hailes. In 1891 he was 17 and living at 8 System Street, Adamsdown and working as a telegraph messenger. By 1901 he had married and was living at 26 Swinton Street, Splott and working as a GPO Telegraph Linesman. In 1911 the Hailes family were living 26 Alfred Street, Roath and Sydney an Inspector 1^st Class working at the Engineering Department of the PO Telegraphs. By 1921 he had worked his way up to be Chief Inspector Engineering Department G.P.O.

I was led to looking at Sydney Hailes and the Marconi story when I was researching one of his brothers, Frank Uriah Hailes, who was killed in WWI and remembered on the St James the Great Church war memorial, now at St John’s Church in town. On Ancestry there is a picture of the Hailes family with Sydney identified and looking remarkably like the man in the foreground of the photograph, sat down next to the telegraph equipment in the Brean Down photograph. The man on the right in the photograph appears to be the oldest and is probably Hugh Price (b.1858), who lived at Rectory Road, Canton. The man on the top left would therefore have been George Noble Partridge (b.1873) who lived at Llandaff Road, Cardiff.

What part these men played in the Marconi experiment is hard to tell. The caption describes them as ‘inspecting’ the apparatus. The family tree on Ancestry however describes Sydney was being a technician to Marconi. In his retirement speech in 1934 Sydney Hailes described himself as the telegraphist in those early experiments. So maybe he did indeed send that first international message or maybe he didn’t but he certainly appears connected with the event.

It remains a bit of a mystery as to why there are no pictures of Marconi or Kemp themselves but maybe they were keeping a low profile until the invention was patented a while later.

William Preece

William Henry Preece (pic credit: Wikipedia)

Let me introduce you to a couple of other men who played a big part. The first is William Henry Preece (b.1834), engineer-in-chief at the British Post Office. He was a Welshman from Caernarfon, Merionethshire. There’s a strong case actually for arguing that he was the first person to send a telegraph message over the water. He did this at Loch Ness a few years prior to the Marconi experiment at Lavernock. In fact it seems from a newspaper report that William Preece himself has transmitted a message from Lavernock over to Flat Holm in 1894, three years prior to Marconi. The William Preece apparatus however had no way of recording the Morse code message received. What Marconi did was to add the last piece in the jigsaw, a method to record the Morse onto a paper tape. To be honest there were probably other technological differences between what William Preece had been working on in 1894 and what Marconi ended up in 1897 with but they are beyond my comprehension.

March 1894 – three years before the Marconi experiments

Sir John Gavey

Sir John Gavey (pic credit: Guernsey Society & Cardiff Naturalists)

Working alongside William Preece at Loch Ness and other events was another man who lived in Roath, John Gavey. He was originally from St Hellier, Jersey (b.1842) but at the time of the 1881 and 1891 census he was living at 152 Newport Road, Roath and working as ‘Superintendent engineer post office telegraph’. He was a prominent member of the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society, holding the office of hon. secretary for three years, and the presidency of the society in 1890.

Now here’s something I never knew. In 1881 Gavey opened the first telephone trunk line connecting two British towns, namely, Newport and Cardiff.

In 1894 he worked with William Preece at Loch Ness and succeeded in establishing communication between the opposite sides.

He moved to London and would go on became Engineer-in-Chief and Electrician to the General Post Office.

It was Gavey who was responsible for the organisation of the complete telephone trunk system for Great Britain, and he organised the Post Office telephone exchange system for London. He was Knighted in 1907.

Marconi it seems was a prodigy of William Preece and both Preece and Gavey were involved in the Flat Holme experiments. Marconi was introduced to William Preece when he arrived in England in 1896 and the two worked together.

Link to article on John Gavey by Cardiff Naturalist’s Society

Guglielmo Marconi

So having looked at some of the others involved in the Marconi experiment it is time to have a look at the man himself.

He sounds Italian, and indeed he was, well, half-Italian. Guglielmo Marconi (b.1874) was born in Bologna, Italy His mother was in fact Irish. She was Annie Jameson, part of the Jameson Irish Whiskey family. He lived part of his childhood in England and with it is believed paid periodic visits to Ireland.

He was home-schooled and coming from a wealthy family his parents hired personal tutors for him. He never went on to attend university, and judging by his success he had no need to. He homed in on the idea of Wireless telegraphy. This wasn’t a new idea and quite a few people were working in the area. What Marconi seems to have done is make a breakthrough in certain areas and have the vision and commercial sense to turn those ideas into something.

There are a number of things that amaze me about this achievement. How on earth did he gain access to technical information. It was the days pre-computer, pre-radio, and pre-telephone etc. Being home-schooled he would not have had access to academic libraries or alike. Fascinating to think how he managed, but manage he did to come up with lots of ideas.

When the Italian authorities didn’t appear receptive to his ideas his mother bought him to England and it was then that the association between Marconi and Welshman William Preece formed.

His mother Anne Jameson wasn’t Marconi’s only connection with Ireland. He married an Irish lady, Beatrice O’Brien in 1905. They had four children together and moved to Italy. Beatrice served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena of Italy. The marriage however ended in divorce in 1924. He converted to Catholicism to enable him to marry his second wife, Maria Cristina, who was half his age.

Let’s rewind a few years. After the 1897 Flat Holm experiment things moved on apace. Marconi demonstrated his apparatus in many places in Great Britain and Italy including both sets of Royal Families. He patented the invention and his charisma and marketing acumen led to commercial success. In 1909 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

His first commercial venture was the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company (1897–1900), renamed Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company in 1900. It became a mainstay of the British telecommunications industry. It was acquired by GEC in the 1960s but the Marconi name lived on in subsequent subsidiaries all the way through to 2006. Not a bad achievement for a man sat in a hut on top of Lavernock Point in 1897.

Marconi’s later years were less admirable. He joined the National Fascist Party and Mussolini appointed him President of the Royal Academy of Italy and the following quote is attributed to him. “I reclaim the honour of being the first fascist in the field of radiotelegraphy, the first who acknowledged the utility of joining the electric rays in a bundle, as Mussolini was the first in the political field who acknowledged the necessity of merging all the healthy energies of the country into a bundle, for the greater greatness of Italy”. I’m guessing this is why the 2024 Radio sculpture on Cardiff Barrage makes no reference to Marconi himself.

Other Players

I’d like to introduce you to a couple of other people who were involved in a small way with the wireless telegraphy and the arrival of the radio.

Fast forward a decade or so following Marconi’s Lavernock to Flat Holm experiment and his invention has been commercialized. Ships are making use of wireless telegraphy to communicate with the shore to relay important messages and save them having to dock.

It was in 1910 that Dr Crippen the notorious London murderer had been rumbled. The body of his music-hall singer wife Cora, had been dug up from under the kitchen floor in Holloway, London. Dr Crippen and his lover Ethel le Neve went on the run, first making their way to Antwerp and then boarding a transatlantic steam ship S.S.Montrose to escape to Canada. Ethel dressed as a boy to avoid being identified. Unfortunately for them the Captain of the S.S.Montrose was very observant and identified Crippen and le Neve from a ‘Wanted’ poster he had seen posted. His priority however was to get the S.S.Montrose to Canada on time. As the ship was passing Cornwall he got his telegram operator to send a message ashore and alert the police as to who was aboard. When the police received the message they promptly sent a party to Liverpool who boarded a faster trans-Atlantic vessel meaning that when Dr Crippen and Ethel le Neve disembarked they were promptly arrested about bought back to England for trial. Dr Crippen was subsequently found guilty and sent to be hung. So why do I tell you this? Well, it was the first time that wireless telegraphy was used in a murder case and the person who sent the telegraph message from on board the S.S.Montrose was Mr Llewellyn Jones who had in Newport for two years (a somewhat tenuous link to our topic I admit).

The part Llewellyn Jones played in capturing Dr Crippen.

The other story I like is that of Dr.J.J.E Biggs and he certainly was a local man and lived on Newport Road, Roath. A lot of scientific advancement had happened between 1897 when Marconi sent his first message over water to Flat Holm and 1923 when wireless broadcasting first began in Wales from a little studio opposite Cardiff Castle. Have a look for the plaque on the wall next time you are passing. The man whose job it was that day to open the first BBC studio in Wales was Lord Mayor Dr.J.J.E Biggs. He gave a speech acknowledging the invention of radio and cleverly predicting the advent of TV. The only blip was he forgot the name of the BBC and then when turning to someone, asking them to remind him of the name, he forgot he still had his microphone on so everyone heard his blooper. I’ve written about him previously in Dr J.J.E.Biggs – the first man in Wales to forget the microphone was still switched on.

The Legacy in the area

There is a plaque on the wall outside St Lawrence Church in Lavernock celebrating the Marconi-Kemp transmission. It was erected 50 years after the event in 1947 by the Rotary Club of Cardiff. I still haven’t been able to find out anything about the shield on the plaque. The building attributed with the historic event is some 50 meters away, precariously perched on the cliff top.

Lavernock Point – Marconi and Kemp plaque outside the church. Can anyone help identify the shield/motif?

There is a sculpture on a roundabout at the entrance to Tesco in Penarth. It is a representation of the equipment used by Marconi at Lavernock by the artist Ray Smith (b.1949 Harrow, London, d.2018), It was commissioned by Tesco Stores with Cardiff Bay Arts Trust and unveiled in 1996.

Marconi wireless telegraph equipment sculpture – Tesco, Penarth

The newest nod to the historic event of 13th May 1897 is a giant wooden radio sculpture on Cardiff Barrage. I think it was conceived and designed by artist Glenn Davidson and carved at Boyesen Studios in Llangranog, West Wales. The sculpture, titled ‘Radio Flatholm’, re-uses the heritage materials, configuring them through the modem CADCAM technique of 3D carving. It is made from recycled Jarrah or Hornbeam ironwood railway sleepers, originally imported from Southeast Asia during the Victorian era. I think it is a fine piece of artwork, very tactile.

Flat Holm Radio Sculpture (picture credit: Ted RIchards)

Conclusions

So whist I am sat here reflecting on the achievements of Marconi, William Preece and John Gavey and pondering the possibility that it was Roath man, Sydney Hailes, who sent the first ‘international’ telegraph message between England and Wales, I think it is time to celebrate it all and have a glass of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. Thanks for reading.

Additional Material you may find interesting

1 May 1897 – Announcement of forthcoming Marconi experiments.

4 Aug 1897 – Italian Royal Family demonstration

21 Aug 1897 – Demonstation to Queen Victoria

1902: Sydney Hailes operating the equipment at telegraph boys concert with police present.

Refs: Newspaper cuttings – FindMyPast & Welsh Newspapers Online

John Biggs – The Brewer who had Oldwell built.

Posted on September 29, 2024 by roathhistory

Towards the top of Pen-y-lan Road, on the corner with Bronwydd Avenue, there stood until the mid-1980s, a rather grand house called Oldwell. It was built the mid-1880s for owner of the South Wales Brewery, John Biggs. It was one of the grand houses of Pen-y-lan along with its neighbour Wellclose and other nearby houses including Bronwydd, Greenlawn and Pen-y-lan House.

I recall visiting Oldwell in the 1970s when it was a residential home for the elderly owned by the local authority. The other owners are listed in an article by Glamorgan Archives. It was demolished in the 1980s and the land repurposed for flats.

Oldwell must have been an idyllic residence when it was first occupied by John and Emily Biggs and their six boisterous teenage boys back in the mid 1880s. It had a snooker room to entertain them in times of wet weather and a stable at the back for them to learn horse riding skills. But the boy’s real passion was playing rugby. All six would go on to play rugby for Cardiff and two for Wales. There is a story associated with each of them. One boy, John James Egerton Biggs went on to be Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Norman Biggs ended up being killed by a poison arrow and Geoffrey Biggs was captain of one of Britain’s first submarines, the A1.

In this article we concentrate on John Biggs, the man who couldn’t stop brewing. His name crops up in newspaper articles from the time and we are able to piece together bits of his life story but admittedly its an incomplete picture.

John Biggs was born in St Mary Street in 1833 to John Biggs, a wine and spirits merchant, originally from Bristol, and Eliza Biggs née Jones, originally from Glamorgan. John and Eliza Biggs are worth a mention in their own right as they have a plaque in their name at St Mary the Virgin church in Bute Street, probably indicating that they were one of the benefactors who helped pay for the building of the church in 1843.

Plaque to Eliza and John Biggs, St Mary, Bute Street,

John Biggs (our future brewer) was baptised at St John’s church in Dec 1833. In the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census he was living in St Mary Street. By 1861, aged 27, his parents had died and he himself was now working as a wine and spirit merchant and living with his three sisters. John Biggs (Snr) died in 1858 and was buried at St Margaret’s, Roath though virtually all the grave headstones at St Margaret’s have now been removed so I haven’t been able to identify his precise resting place.

In 1866 John Biggs (Jnr) married Emily Sophia Clark, originally from Usk. She was daughter of a newspaper editor and publisher James Henry Clark. Please allow me another brief aside. In 1850 Cardiff was growing rapidly and J.H.Clark came down from Usk and opened a branch of his business in Saint Mary Street. In 1853 he wrote and published ‘Cardiff and its Neighbourhood’ which was the first guide book about Cardiff to be published. After four years however he sold the business because of the inconvenience and expense of regular travelling down to Cardiff.

Engraving of Cardiff Castle from Cardiff and its Neighbourhood

By the time of the 1871 census John Biggs is now describing himself as a ‘wine merchant and brewer’. He’d realized that that the workers of the burgeoning town of Cardiff are thirsty people and enjoyed a beer or two. An advert from 1872 identifies him as the owner of Trinity Street Brewery which would have been adjacent to the present indoor market. Trinity Brewery was later sold, probably to cater for the expansion of James Howell, the department store.

Trinity Street Brewery, Cardiff, brewery owned by John Biggs, advert from 1872

With the proceeds of that sale John Biggs built the South Wales Brewery in 1876. The drawings for the brewery offices are still in Glamorgan Archives with his signature on. The brewery was situated on a triangle of land on Salisbury Road between the two railways. The buildings would later be used for offices of the Taff Vale Railway and today the land is occupied by university accommodation.

In the 1870s things were going well for John Biggs. Not only was his brewing business successful but he finds time to invest in buildings. In the Western Mail of 22 Sept 1876 there is an article entitled ‘Street Architecture in Cardiff’ in which it congratulates John Biggs on a new building in High Street which from the description I have been informed was 6 High Street, now home of Temple Bar. When I went to visit I looked up to the very top of the building and was surprised to see what looks like his initials, though the bottom of the J seems to have fallen away.

6 High Street, Cardiff with what could well be the initials of John Biggs at the very top.

John and Emily Biggs had ten children together, one girl and nine boys, though four of the children, including the daughter, died in infancy. The family lived in St Andrew’s Place in 1871 and Park Place in 1881 before their house Oldwell in Penylan was built in 1885. I’ve tried to find the family at Oldwell in the 1991 census but have never succeeded (now there’s a challenge for you all) as both Oldwell and Wellclose seem to be omitted from the census.

The South Wales Brewery was owned by John Biggs and a John Vaughan Williams. There would also have been a number of hotels/pubs owned by the brewery. One was the Theater Royal Hotel at the southern end of Queen Street. I have discovered an old picture of the hotel with an advertising hording for the South Wales Brewery.

Theatre Royal Hotel, Queen Street with advert for the South Wales Brewery.

In 1888 the John Biggs and John Williams appeared in court charged with adding saccharine to their beer thereby increasing the specific gravity. They were found guilty and ordered to pay £100. One of those hearing the case was Dr Paine who is buried virtually next to John Biggs at Cathays Cemetery. The following year, 1889, William Hancock buys South Wales Brewery. It appears that as part of this deal John Biggs became a Director of Hancocks Brewery.

His stay on the Hancocks Brewery board was however short lived as in 1892 John Biggs resigns and takes over the Canton Cross Brewery on Cowbridge Road. The Canton Cross Vaults pub is still there to this day but no longer a brewery.

Canton Cross Vaults, Cardiff – used to be Canton Cross Brewery owned by John Biggs then Hancocks.

In 1898 the Theatre Royal Hotel in Queen Street is back in the news. Police object to a licence being renewed on the grounds had been frequented by prostitutes. John Biggs objects saying the landlord at the time has been replaced. The hotel is sold later that year.

It appears that the love of John Biggs’s love of brewing is coming to an end. In 1900, with the children by now having left home, Oldwell is put up for sale with son Selwyn Biggs, a solicitor, handing the sale. In the 1901 census John Biggs is living with his in-laws in Usk giving his profession as a Retired Brewer. The Canton Cross brewery is sold to Hancocks in 1904 together with 5 pubs.

In the 1911 census John and Emily Biggs have retired to The Laurels, London Road, Bath. Emily Biggs died in 1919 and John Biggs in 1920. Both their funerals are held back in Cardiff and they are buried in Cathays Cemetery (plots L1211/L1235). What surprises me is that there is no headstone on the grave and no record of there ever having been one. Four of their children were still alive at the time of the funerals; one, Selwyn Biggs was a solicitor and one John James Egerton Biggs becomes Lord Mayor of Cardiff in 1922. There is however large tree nearby so perhaps the headstone suffered damage over the years. It remains a bit of a mystery.

Grave of John and Emily Biggs at Cathays Cemetery

28 The Parade – The Parade Community Education Centre

Posted on August 14, 2024 by roathhistory

28 The Parade was built around 1868 and has only ever had three occupants. In the first two articles in this series we looked at the two earlier occupiers:

In this third article we look at the most recent occupants – The Parade Community Education Centre.

28 The Parade – The Parade Community Education Centre

In the summer of 1971 Cardiff High School for Girls vacated the building as part of their move up to Ty Celyn School on Llandennis Road.

When Ravinand ‘Ravi’ Mooneeram saw the vacated building he saw an opportunity. Teaching was in his blood and he already had a track record of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to some of Cardiff’s new arrivals at Fitzalan High School. The local authority gave permission for 28 The Parade to be used as a base for ESL teaching and called ‘The Parade Community Education Centre’.

The building had been vacated but not emptied. The bins in the rooms were still full. There was work to be done in preparing it. One advantage however was that the caretaker from Cardiff High School for Girls days still lived in the top floor.

ESL evening classes began at the Parade in 1971. Ravi Mooneeram became a teacher/adviser in immigrant education in the city and in 1974 he became county community tutor. Over the next few years he would liaise between schools and parents, leading to an expansion in ESL teaching. The Parade became the hub of a network of ESL classes throughout the city, initially targeting adults but later their children too. The Parade Community Education Centre had the advantage that it wasn’t tied to a specific school.

Staff and students at The Parade Community Education Centre

Teaching at The Parade Community Education Centre

When Panasonic opened up a factory in Cardiff employees from Japan and their families came for English lessons to No.28.

A gesture of thanks from Panasonic Managers.

The work carried out in 28 The Parade however had another aspect. The building provided a base for many thriving multicultural groups, enabling them to maintain their own identity and culture whilst at the same time facilitating integration. Ravi’s whole philosophy and life’s work was one of Britain developing harmoniously into a multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society.

Another aspect of the work was exchange visits with Cardiff’s twin cities such as Stuttgart in Germany and Nantes in France. Groups of pupils from schools in the Cardiff’s twin cities would meet and attend lessons at No.28.

In the 1970s all the Cardiff High School for Girls buildings along The Parade were vacated. The Parade Community Education Centre could therefore sometimes use the Assembly Hall in the adjacent building to No.28. Even later when Ysgol Bryntaf School moved into No.27 it was still sometimes possible to use the hall for events. The South Glamorgan Youth Brass Band under Dewi Griffiths played there regularly.

The South Glamorgan Youth Brass Band under Dewi Griffiths.

Press cuttings over the years show the vast range of work that was carried out at The Parade Community Education Centre.

As well as ESL teachers other staff such John Scofield were recruited to help provide extra tutoring in maths and other subjects to pupils who were struggling in their own schools as they sought to be fully conversant in English.

In 1981, Ravi Mooneeram was appointed a magistrate. A year later, his tireless work would be awarded with an MBE for his services to education and refugees.

He retired in July 1993 but unfortunately had poor health in retirement and sadly passed away in 2002.

His role at The Parade Community Education Centre was taken over by Samina Khan. After 28 The Parade closed in the early 2000s Samina went on to be Equality Diversity and Community Development Manager at Cardiff and Vale College.

Ravi Mooneeram’s own life story is interesting. He hailed from the island of Mauritius. His father died when he was young and Ravi took over the role of father-figure to his siblings. He was initially self-taught, borrowing many books from the local library but then he won a scholarship. He subsidised his own high school education by tutoring younger boys at the school. After leaving school he taught for 12 years at St Andrew’s School on Mauritius.

Ravi and his two brothers had planned to come to Britain and subsidise each other’s university education by working but it never quite worked out. A cyclone hit and destroyed the family home. Eventually Ravi arrived in Cardiff and obtained a degree in Mathematics and Botany at Cardiff University. Securing a teaching job however proved difficult and he ended up as a council worker.

One day a friend spotted him cutting the grass at the Mansion House and through that contact Ravi managed to enter teaching. He became warden at the Grangetown Centre, then, after teaching French at Cyntwell High School, Ely, for three years, he moved to Fitzalan High School to take charge of the immigrant reception class and from there to hid dream job at The Parade Community Education Centre.

Ravi Mooneeram in his office at The Parade Community Education Centre

28 The Parade is now 150 years old. Let’s hope The Parade Community Education Centre were not the last occupants of this fine building. There are grounds for optimism. It seems that the terms of a covenant probably means the building has to be used for educational purposes. Cardiff Council has been exploring the feasibility of turning the building into a new integrated hub for young people.