The Entrepreneurial Society of the Rhondda Valleys, 1840-1920

Power and Influence in the Porth-Pontypridd Region

Richard Griffiths

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780708322901
• eBook ISBN: 9781783164172
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: History

This is the first significant study of the entrepreneurial society created by the Welsh coal boom (most books up to now having concentrated upon the workers and the unions). Using the Porth-Pontypridd area as its example, it looks closely at the networks of power created by the second-generation middle classes of the Valleys towns, and at the often hair-raising business methods that they used. Close examination of individuals, and of family groups, gives a vivid sense of the reality of the relationships and contacts, and of the nature of the society in which they moved.

Notes

1 The South Wales Coal Industry

¹ Most of the information in this section (except where otherwise indicated) relies on the accounts in J. H. Morris and L. J. Williams, The South Wales Coal Industry 1841–1875 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1958), Trevor Boyns, Colin Baber and Dennis Thomas, ‘The iron, steel and tinplate industries, 1750–1914’, John Williams,’ The coal industry 1750–1914’, and Harold Pollins, ‘The development of transport, 1750–1914’, the last three all in the Glamorgan County History, Vol. 5: Industrial Glamorgan from 1700 to 1970 (Cardiff: Glamorgan County History Trust Ltd, 1980).

² Michael Asteris, ‘The rise and decline of south Wales coal exports, 1870–1930’, Welsh History Review, 13, 26.

³ Most of the information in this section (except where indicated otherwise) is taken from E. D. Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1984).

⁴ Matthew Cope, ‘Marriage and industrial enterprise’, Western Mail, 14 April 1928.

⁵ Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys, p. 42

⁶ D. S. M. Barrie, The Taff Vale Railway, p. 8.

⁷ ‘Bituminous coal working in the lower Rhondda, 1809–1855’, chapter 3 of Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys, pp. 36–65.

⁸ John Williams, ‘The coal industry 1750–1914’, p. 182.

⁹ Morris and Williams, The South Wales Coal Industry, p. 111.

¹⁰ Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys, pp. 67–9.

¹¹ Matthew Cope, ‘Marriage and industrial enterprise’, Western Mail, 14 April 1928.

¹² ‘Steam coal working by private and joint stock enterprise, 1854–84’, part of chapter 4, Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys, pp. 69–76.

¹³ Chris Williams, Democratic Rhondda: Politics and Society, 1885–1951 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996), p. 15.

¹⁴ ‘Rhondda’, in John Davies, Nigel Jenkins, Menna Baines and Peredur I. Lynch (eds), The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales (Cardiff, University of Wales

¹⁵ Press, 2008), p. 746.

¹⁶ Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys, p. 241.

¹⁷ Quentin Outram, ‘Class warriors: the coalowners’, in John Mcllroy, Alan Campbell and Keith Gildart (eds), Industrial Politics and the 1926 Mining lockout (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004), pp. 115–16.

¹⁸ L. J. Williams, ‘Capitalists and coalowners’, Glamorgan County History, 6: Glamorgan Society 1780–1980 (Cardiff: Glamorgan County History Trust, 1988), pp. 113–4.

¹⁹ Williams, ‘Capitalists and coalowners’, p. 113.

²⁰ John Davies, Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1981), p. 215.

²¹ Ibid, p. 216.

²² Glamorgan Record Office, D.LLE.

²³ Davies, Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute, p. 217.

²⁴ See chapter 5.

²⁵ Morris and Williams, The South Wales Coal Industry, pp. 116–25 Davies, Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute, p. 219.

²⁶ William Henry Mathias was typical of such people. (See cha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Note on surnames
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Dramatis Personae
• Aspects of Business and Political Life
• Two Disasters
• Two Strikes
• Sir William James Thomas and the New Century
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography