Swansea in 100 Dates E-Book

Geoff Brookes

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 116

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Experience 100 key dates that shaped Swansea's history, highlighted its people's genius (or silliness) and embraced the unexpected. Featuring an amazing mix of social, criminal and sporting events, this book reveals a past that will fascinate, delight and even shock both residents and visitors of the city.

Leseprobe

To Liz, my wife, who brought me to Swansea in the first place.

Contents

Title

Dedication

About the Author

Introduction

Swansea in 100 Dates

1 January

9 January

12 January

13 January

16 January

18 January

22 January

27 January

28 January

6 February

8 February

10 February

19 February

23 February

28 February

29 February

1 March

4 March

7 March

8 March

10 March

24 March

25 March

27 March

29 March

4 April

7 April

10 April

12 April

15 April

18 April

23 April

26 April

5 May

6 May

10 May

11 May

13 May

29 May

30 May

31 May

1 June

6 June

8 June

9 June

15 June

19 June

25 June

27 June

1 July

7 July

11 July

12 July

14 July

17 July

20 July

21 July

26 July

7 August

8 August

17 August

18 August

19 August

23 August

29 August

31 August

2 September

11 September

22 September

27 September

28 September

29 September

30 September

2 October

3 October

4 October

9 October

13 October

16 October

18 October

27 October

28 October

29 October

9 November

12 November

16 November

20 November

23 November

26 November

28 November

30 November

5 December

6 December

9 December

13 December

19 December

26 December

27 December

29 December

30 December

Copyright

About the Author

Geoff Brookes is a writer with a long-standing interest in Welsh history. A prolific author of local history titles, he has writtenBloody Welsh History: Swansea,Swansea Then & Now,Swansea Murders and Welsh History: Strange but Truefor The History Press. He lives in Swansea.

www.geoffbrookes.co.uk

Introduction

This is, on reflection, a random collection of events, selected from the strange and often untold history of Swansea. The book has a simple concept – 100 dates – and the things that happened on them. There are so many other things that could have been included but didn’t make it. Some of the famous people who were born in Swansea don’t get a mention. But what I hope is that the book gives an impression of our past through the news items that I have selected.

Let’s be honest, Swansea has never really been at the heart of things. It has never been a place where big decisions have shaped the world’s future; but this is its charm. If you look closely at its story, a window will open into the past through which you can see exactly how life was led, how the emotions and priorities that still drive us today were played out in different times. You will meet violence and abject poverty, exploitation and shattered dreams. And you will realise that the people in these brief extracts were no different from us. Just as we do, they lived their lives in an untidy, unplanned way. But this is how the future has always been shaped; always accidentally and always by ordinary people.

Murder, war, industrial accidents, family tragedy, stupidity – all these play their own part in our story. In this book you will meet the real people of Swansea: our ancestors, those who we are ashamed of, and our heroes too. There were plenty of those. It is a town – or city – that has bred resilience and fortitude. It has always been a place divided too, between west and east, between wealth and poverty, between those with the money and those who actually created it – and often suffered for it. This is Swansea, where men fell into vats of molten metal whilst their employers lived away from the poisonous smoke and the filth, developed photography and played around in boats.

The events that appear in this book are those that shaped our city. They have been researched entirely from contemporary sources and I must thank all those unknown and unacknowledged journalists who recorded all these stories in the first place. Without their work, this book would have been impossible. I would also like to extend my admiration and gratitude to the journalists of today, who record the things that we do. And then perhaps one day our own idiocies will be published for the wonder of our great-great grandchildren, who will shake their heads at all the stupid things we have done.

1 January

1136

The Battle of Garngoch, also known as the Battle of Llwchwr or the Battle of Penllergaer, took place on this day. It remains one of the most significant battles in Welsh history. A Norman force, marching out of Gower to confront what they thought was a Welsh raiding party, found themselves surrounded by a properly organised army. Trapped in mud, the Normans were slaughtered. According to the historian William Camden, the Welsh ‘slew divers men of quality and good account’. At least 516 were said to have been killed. This defeat encouraged Welsh insurrection for the next 150 years.

1910

‘The Christmas-tide festivities were never more freely and more whole-heartedly indulged in at Swansea than this year, thanks to the extraordinary industrial prosperity which has prevailed throughout the year, all classes thus having been provided with the wherewithal in exceptional abundance.’ (The Cardiff Times)

1916

The SS Dunvegan ran aground in heavy seas at Pennard after suffering from engine failure. The Port Eynon lifeboat – the Janet – was launched, although the crew of the Dunvegan were saved by land-based rescuers. Sadly the Janet was swamped and three members of the crew were lost in what became known as ‘the Port Eynon Lifeboat Disaster’. The men are remembered on an impressive memorial in Port Eynon churchyard.

9 January

1918

The government developed a scheme to raise money for the war effort through the Tank Bank. Tanks toured the country and the public were invited see the new machines and to invest in War Saving Certificates. These were sold at 15s 6d and would be returned in five years’ time as £1 – representing 5.4 per cent tax-free interest. Investors were described as ‘Fifteen and Sixers’. A tank called Egbert arrived in the town on this date and Swansea was caught up in ‘Tank Bank Fever’. Egbert was placed in Guildhall Square, Wind Street having been rejected since it might lead to traffic disruption. To fuel the patriotic fervour Mrs O’Brien, mother of Sergeant Pat O’Brien of the Swansea Battalion, was presented with his posthumous Military Cross from the tank. It became extremely competitive, with Swansea desperate to raise more money through Egbert that Llanelli could raise through its tank, Julian.

1941

‘We were going to have supper when Jerry was passing over. Had to leave supper as shooting was very bad. Just as I’m writing a plane has passed over but we have not had a warning so far. We still go to bed with clothes on.’ (From the diary of Hannah Rees, Brynhyfryd. Used with the permission of her granddaughter Eileen Bristow.)

12 January

1810

This is the birthday of the local scientist John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882). He was a botanist and photographic pioneer who indulged his interests on his estate at Penllergare. Here he created a private orchid house and kept a boat powered by an electric motor on his lake. He also had his own observatory. The house, meanwhile, was heated by recycling waste steam. In 1844 he was involved in experiments in underwater telegraphy, using submerged wires in Swansea to enable a boat to communicate with the Mumbles lighthouse. But it is his pioneering photographic work for which he is best remembered.

Most of his pictures were taken on the estate and he developed the Oxymel process, using honey and vinegar to preserve images, making it easier to take pictures in outdoor settings.

1906

The Cambrian News reported that ‘the pleasures of the table are not for the singer’ in a story about the singer Adelina Patti. When she was due to sing she ate beef and potatoes, followed by baked apples in the late afternoon. The beef was intended to give force to the voice and apples smoothness. ‘After dinner the prima donna fasts until she sings’, only taking between the acts of the opera ‘homeopathic doses of phosphorus and capsicum’.

13 January

1792

Margaret Geary from Swansea was in service with Paul Chadwick in Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. She was indicted at the Old Bailey on this day for stealing a £50 note from Chadwick’s study. She claimed that she had been cleaning the study and found a piece of paper on the floor. Being unable to read or write, and therefore unaware it was a banknote, she put it in her pocket. Margaret was found guilty of theft and sentenced to death.

1893

The Cambrian News reported:

For unlawfully and maliciously breaking three panes of glass at the Wassail Inn, and also with doing damage to three enamelled letters, glass and gold, two trademarks, and one plate glass in frame, with name of house embossed in gold, the property of Ellen Morgan, the landlady, Annie Taylor, of ill-repute, was sent to prison for three calendar months with hard labour. The damage done amounted to £5 19s and was the result of a very violent temper.

Taylor, it appears, was refused drink at the public house, ‘whereupon she went outside and pelted the windows with stones’.

1916

Private W.J. Sandywell, serving with the Swansea Battalion, died in the trenches when he was accidentally shot by a colleague. He was a married man with five children.

16 January

1857

The Pembrokeshire Herald reported the case of a man called Duggan, who was sentenced to transportation for life for the burglary of Mr Moses, a jeweller in Swansea. In Cardiff Gaol he attempted to murder one of the warders by striking him on the head with a large piece of firewood. He then tried to strangle himself by tying one end of his neckerchief to the window bars, but was rescued. Soon it was noticed that Duggan’s eyes were deteriorating, ‘as if they had been scratched’. In one of his pockets they found a very small piece of glass, ‘with which he had scratched the pupils of the eyes to such an extent as to make it doubtful whether the sight will ever be perfectly restored’. He explained his actions by saying he had no desire to be sent out of the country.

1962

The feature film Only Two Can Play was released. It starred Peter Sellers and Mai Zetterling and is set in the fictional town of Aberdarcy. Based on the novel That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis, it was filmed on location in Swansea and became the first cinema release to receive an X-certificate rating.

18 January

1823

William Buckland climbed down into Goat’s Hole at Paviland in Gower to find the skeleton known as ‘The Red Lady of Paviland’. Whilst it was not the remains of a lady, it was the first human fossil ever found. It was a ceremonial Palaeolithic burial dating from about 27,000 BC.

1939

Sometime during the early hours of the morning, Ruth Webber died at No. 38 Trafalgar Terrace. She was found in bed with her legs and the lower part of her torso burnt away.

She had met Allan Maclean, a Scottish seaman. They had returned to her room drunk and had begun arguing. Maclean hit her and threw her on the bed, covering her with blankets he grabbed from the floor, inadvertently picking up an oil lamp too. This ignited the bedding, which smouldered all night. Ruth, drunk and beaten, never woke up. Maclean was found guilty of manslaughter and sent to prison for five years.

2008

The BBC reported that scientists had posted jellyfish spotters on Irish Sea ferries as part of their research into a species known as ‘mauve stingers’. It was feared that they could swarm along the Welsh coastline, so a marine biologist at Swansea University was given £50,000 to find out how many there were between Wales and Ireland. Consequently, spotters stood on deck, staring at the sea and counting jellyfish.

22 January

1879

Private David Jenkins, who claimed that he fought at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, which took place on this day, was presented to King Edward VII on his visit to Swansea in 1904. It was discovered that he had been omitted from the Roll of Honour of those who had fought there. Following extensive research by his descendants, he was reinstated in 2013. However, there are still those who question his presence during the engagement. David Jenkins died in 1912 and is buried in Cwmgelli Cemetery, Treboeth.

1949

The body of Ernest Melville, a 38-year-old ‘chain man’ working for Swansea Corporation in the Borough Engineer’s department, was found by two girls playing hide and seek. He had been beaten to death with a stone on a bombsite next to Dyfatty Park on Croft Street. Melville lived with his parents on Watkin Street and had that night been playing the piano in the Full Moon public house. Despite extensive enquiries, including the questioning of every sailor known to have been in Swansea that night, the murder has never been solved. Melville’s homosexual lifestyle was regarded as the key element in his death. Neither the tall man in a trench coat in the Palace Bar, nor the two sailors seen opposite the station that the police were anxious to question, were ever traced.

27 January

1883

During a severe storm, eighteen men were lost at Port Eynon when the Agnes Jack was wrecked, most of them dashed to death on the rocks. In another incident the German vessel, Admiral-Prinz Adalbert