Wales Feed

Strikes and riots at the National Wool Museum

BBC Wales History — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:10:00 +0000

A new exhibition at the National Wool Museum called Strikes and Riots, offers an in-depth look into troubled times throughout Wales' industrial history.

The free exhibition, which runs from Tuesday 6 March until 29 June, highlights five strikes and riots relating to work and employment in Wales over a 200-year period.

Troops camped near Llanelli during the Railway Strike, 1911 (Image from Cardiff Central Library)

Ann Whittall, manager of the National Wool Museum in Dre-fach Felindre in the Teifi Valley, said: "This important exhibition is thought provoking and reminds us of the social aspect of our industrial heritage. It adds another dimension to the museum's permanent social history corner."

The exhibition is set up to provoke debate among visitors by asking some uncomfortable questions: What drives workers to down tools and strike? Are bosses always wrong and unions always right, or does the mob always cause trouble?

The events featured in the exhibition include the Merthyr Rising (19th century), Rebecca Riots (19th century), Tonypandy strikes and riots (early 20th century), Llanelli Railway strikes and riots (early 20th century), and Caia Parc Wrexham riots (early 21st century).

The exhibition also coincides with the anniversary of the burning of the toll gate in Dre-fach Felindre which took place on 14 June 1843.

Find out more about the exhibition and opening times on the National Wool Museum website.

Historic buildings to get £400,000 restoration funding boost

BBC Wales History — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:08:14 +0000

Huw Lewis, Minister for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage, has announced that some of Wales' most important historic buildings are set to benefit from Welsh Government grants ranging from £11,200 to £75,000.

The grants awarded to historic buildings across Wales will pay for essential repairs and restoration work.

Speaking about the repair and restoration funding, Huw Lewis said: "The grants will ensure that some of our most important buildings are restored and maintained for the enjoyment of future generations."

The Powerhouse at Llwynypia Colliery Site is set to receive a grant

One historic site set to receive funding is The Powerhouse at Llwynypia Colliery Site in Rhondda Cynon Taff. A grant of £75,000 has been offered to undertake remedial work to the roof, walls, metal windows and rebuilding of gable parapets of the Grade II listed building .

Other buildings to benefit from grant funding include:

St Cynog's Church in Brecon is a Grade II* listed church which is in regular use. A grant of £64,000 has been offered to undertake a number of internal and external repairs.

St Cynin's Church, Llangynin in Carmarthenshire is a Grade II* listed building and is the only community facility within the village of Llangynin. A grant offer of £49,720 has been given to restore its tower.

Mary and St Michaels' RC Church, Llanarth in Cardiganshire is one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in Wales. A grant offer of £39,500 has been made for repairs to include upgrading leadwork, repair rendering, upgrade joinery and make specialist repairs to stained glass windows.

Plas Tirion, Llanrwst in Conwy is also a Grade II* listed building and one of a small number of gentry satellite houses built locally in the second half of the 16th century for junior branches or members of the Wynn family of Gwydir. A grant of £22,500 has been offered to repair front and side elevations, lime wash all elevations and chimneys and replace modern windows with moulded oak mullioned frames to match original features.

For a full list of funding recipients, visit teh Cadw website at www.cadw.wales.gov.uk. Cadw is the Welsh Government's historic environment service.

Tails from the Horse's Mouth

BBC Wales History — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:33:10 +0000

Events to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tonypandy Riots continue this weekend when an original play created to explore the origins, events and opposing viewpoints of the riots will be performed at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea.

Crowds gather in Tonypandy in November 1910

Spectacle Theatre's play Tails From The Horse's Mouth tells the story of a Valleys family in the midst of the 1910 Cambrian Miner's strike, and what happens when three policemen are sent to lodge with the family in November 1910.

The play uses a mix of music, sound effects and lighting and has been created with organisations and individuals of all ages throughout Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Tails From The Horse's Mouth takes place on Sunday 21 November at 2.30pm at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea. For further information, please contact the National Waterfront Museum on 01792 638950.

Read Phil Carradice's blog on the Tonypandy Riots.

Lady with the Lamp statue returns to Tonypandy

BBC Wales History — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:36:17 +0000

A whole host of events took place yesterday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tonypandy Riots.

Yesterday also saw the unveiling of the historic statue, The Lady with the Lamp.

Unveiling of the Lady with the lamp statue in Tonypandy

First unveiled in 1909 and paid for by the colliers of the Rhondda, the statue had stood outside the Pandy Inn on Tonypandy Square for years. When a car crashed into it in 1955, however, the statue was toppled and both her arms were broken.

She was then placed in storage until recently, when money from the Civic Trust Wales was used for the statue to be repaired and displayed at a special community garden in Tonypandy.

Watch a video on the installation of the newly-repaired statue on the BBC Wales News website.

If you missed last night's programme Tonypandy Riots - A New History, you can watch it on the BBC iPlayer.

Tonypandy 2010

BBC Wales History — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:53:12 +0000

This weekend marks the culmination of a series of events organised to commemorate the centenary of the Tonypandy Riots. This is a free event. Here's what's happening on Sunday so far. For the most up to date details visit the www.tonypandy2010.com website.

Image of crowds of men in Tonypandy 1910 (Image Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council)

3pm - De Winton Street Car Park

Unveiling of the Lady With The Lamp Statue
Performances from Spectacle Theatre Company
David Maddox & Gwen Evans Book Signing of "The Tonypandy Riots 1910-1911"
Lantern and Miners Helmet Making Workshops
Trace Your Roots With Glamorgan Family History Society
Street entertainers

An image from The Tonypandy Riots 1910-1911

4pm - Central Library

Cordell Festive Mini Safa Prize Giving at Tonypandy Central Library

Tonypandy after the strike 1910

5pm - De Winton Street Car Park

Lantern Parade from De Winton Street to Asda Car Park

5.30pm - Asda Car Park

Concert featuring:
Cambrian Male Voice Choir
RSD Dance & Cheer Group
Unfaced Dance Group
Tom Richards (X-Factor)
Sophie Evans (Over The Rainbow)
Nicola Heywood Thomas (Compere)
Laser Show
Fireworks Display

For more information contact Rhondda Cynon Taf Events team on 01443 425700 or email events@rctcbc.gov.uk

Don't miss Tonypandy Riots - A New History on Sunday 7 November, 10.25pm on BBC One Wales. Eddie Butler challenges four local people - including Over the Rainbow runner-up Sophie Evans - to discover the truth about the events in mid-Rhondda that rocked the world during the Cambrian coalminers' dispute.

Read Phil Carradice's blog on the Tonypandy Riots.

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The Tonypandy Riots of 1910

Phil Carradice — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:32:59 +0000

This November sees the 100th anniversary of the Tonypandy Riots. These short-lived but seminal series of events have always held a special place in the memories of most Welshmen, attracting legends and stories, truths and half-truths in equal number - Churchill sent in the troops, Churchill held back the troops, Willie Llewellyn's chemist shop was deliberately spared by the rioters, the shop was off the main street and so the rioters missed it, and so on. As with most folklore, the truth probably lies somewhere in between all the various stories and reports.

The riots took place on the evenings of 7 and 8 November 1910, and involved violent clashes between striking miners and members of the Glamorganshire Constabulary - backed up by both the Bristol and the Metropolitan police. Involvement of the military was, at most, rather limited.

In 1910 the Cambrian Collective opened a new seam at their Naval Colliery in Penygraig. It was decided that a test period to determine the rate of production or extraction should take place, an investigation involving a small corps of just 70 miners.

When they saw the results the company promptly declared that the men had worked far too slowly - a strange allegation considering that miners at that time were paid by the tonnage of coal they produced rather than an hourly rate. They had, quite simply, no reason to work slowly.

Whatever their motives, the mine owners now instituted a lock out and closed the mine, not just to the 70 'test men' but to all 950 workers at the colliery. The miners responded by calling a strike and when the Cambrian Collective duly brought in strike breakers from outside the area it was clear that serious trouble lay ahead.

The South Wales Miners Federation (the Fed as it was universally known) balloted workers on 1 November and within days 12,000 men from all the Cambrian pits were out on strike.

Lionel Lindsay, Chief Constable of Glamorganshire, knew that his resources were stretched as there was already a month old strike at pits in the nearby Cynon Valley. As soon as the Fed announced the strike he appealed to the War Office for troops to help with the crisis. None were sent but by Sunday 6 November extra policemen from forces such as Bristol's had been brought to the Rhondda Valley.

By now the only pit left working was Llwynypia Colliery where strike breakers were maintaining the pumps and other machinery. On the evening of 7 November striking miners surrounded the colliery and, as tempers began to boil, stones were thrown.

Fierce hand-to-hand fighting with the police took place and after several baton charges the miners were pushed back into the square at Tonypandy. There they were charged by mounted police from Cardiff and there were several injuries on both sides. Lionel Lindsay again asked for military backup.

Winston Churchill, as Home Secretary, was not desperately keen to send in troops, feeling that people on the spot were perhaps over reacting. He ordered that soldiers, despatched by the War Office from barracks at Tidworth, should be held back, kept in readiness at Cardiff and Swindon. Churchill did agree, however, to send in an extra 270 mounted and foot officers from the Metropolitan police force.

These men, along with those already in the Rhondda, were exceptionally hostile to the miners, acting, apparently, more like an army of occupation than regular detachments of police. Their attitude served only to infuriate the striking miners.

Further rioting occurred on the evening of 8 November. This time the windows of many shops in the town were smashed, and a large number of the shops were looted by men at the end of their tethers. It was reported that miners, and their wives and children, were parading around Tonypandy in clothes taken from the shops and that a general air of festivity seemed to abound.

Image of crowds of men in Tonypandy 1910 (photo courtesy of tonypandy2010.com)

Detachments of the Metropolitan Police arrived in the town square just before 11pm, several hours after the rioting began - they had been busy protecting the homes and property of the mine owners - and by then the disturbances had, in the main, already subsided. Whether or not their presence in the town centre could have prevented the rioting is something that remains unknown.

It was not until the following morning, on 9 November, that soldiers eventually arrived on the scene, patrolling without serious incident in the Tonypandy and Llwynypia areas. There were clashes in Porth and Pontypridd but, generally speaking, the soldiers were - at the time, at least - more welcome than the policemen from outside the valley.

The strike ground on for several months although the violence of the initial riots in Tonypandy was rarely repeated - even though one miner died, it was said, from injuries inflicted by a police baton during an altercation. The strike finally ended in August 1911, 12 months after the lock out that had begun it. It left bitter scars on the community of the Rhondda, particularly as the miners were forced to return to work after agreeing to a paltry figure of just two shillings and three pence per ton of coal extracted.

Churchill was, until his dying day, reviled by many as the man who sent in the troops - even though he had, initially, held them back. The fact that he and other members of the government were even prepared to consider their use was, in the eyes of many, his worst failing.

And Willie Llewellyn's shop? Unlike so many of the businesses in Tonypandy it was left untouched by the rioters. One theory was that Willie, as a Welsh rugby international and a member of the famous 1905 side that had beaten the All Blacks, was a much-loved son of the town - and nobody was going to damage his business. It remains a matter of conjecture.

There are a whole host of events taking place to mark the anniversary of the Tonypandy Riots.

Tonypandy 100 years on

BBC Wales History — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:42:01 +0000

Next month sees a number events to mark the centenary of the Tonypandy Riots.

On Saturday 30 October, a Llafur event will be held at Coleg Morgannwg to mark the 100th anniversary. The event is free to attend and there will be a whole host of lectures taking place, including talks by Professor Dai Smith, Jane Aaron, Chris Williams and Louise Miskell.

The full timetable for the day is:

- 10.15am Welcome and introduction

- 10.30am Dai Smith, Tonypandy 1910: Breaking All The Rules

- 11.15am Jane Aaron, Fictionalizing Tonypandy: The Riots in Literature

- 12pm Chris Williams, 'I depict a riot': the Cambrian Combine dispute in the cartoons of J. M. Staniforth

- 12.45 - 2.15pm Lunch (There will be no lunch provided at this event as there is a café in the venue)

- During the lunch break, Parthian Books will host a special preview of Dai Smith's forthcoming book 'In The Frame: Wales 1910-2010'

- 2.15pm Louise Miskell, 'Beyond Tonypandy: the other face of the "Coal War" of 1910'.

3pm Closing remarks

To book your free place, please contact:

Siân Williams, Llafur Secretary,c/o South Wales Miners' Library, Swansea University, Hendrefoelan Campus, Gower Road, Swansea SA2 7NB

Tel: 01792 518693

Email: s.f.williams@swansea.ac.uk

Historian John Davies looks at the strike action and riots at the beginning of the 20th century in Wales. Read his article.

To find out about other Tonypandy Riot centenary events visit www.tonypandy2010.com

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