The Cardiff Book of Days
Page 19
1922: A garage in Salop Street, Penarth, was destroyed by fire. A lorry and a motor-car belonging to the garage’s owner, Mr Allen, were destroyed, as was timber stored in the adjacent yard, the property of Mr Paul Elmer. The Salvation Army’s premises were above the garage and all their brass instruments were lost. Luckily their banner was being stored elsewhere, at the home of Colour-Sergeant Thomas Wallace. (Roy Thorne, Penarth: A History, Starling Press, 1975)
2010: Protesters took their campaign against the proposed incinerator at Trident Park, Splott (see July 23rd), to the steps of the National Assembly. Waste Management company Viridor branded the actions of the campaigners ‘distasteful’. (South Wales Echo)
October 13th
1762: Margaret Williams, described as ‘an old lady aged between 60 and 70 years’ was returning from Cardiff Market to Cogan Pill along Leckwith Causeway when her horse stumbled in the ebbing tide. She was thrown off and drowned but the horse swam safely to Ely. (William Rees, Cardiff: A History of the City, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)
1898: ‘A sad accident, which cost brakesman George Rotheroe his life, occurred on the Rhymney Railway, Cardiff, on Thursday. The man was engaged under the Crwys Road bridge when a London & North Western goods train came along. Rotheroe, not seeing it approach, was knocked down and terribly injured. He was taken to the Cardiff Infirmary where he expired. Deceased lived at 22 Moira Street’ … ‘A meeting of the local Vegetarian Society was held at the Railway Hotel, Cardiff, on Thursday night for the purpose of making arrangements for the public meeting to be held at the Andrews Hall on the 24th inst., when two London speakers – one a lady – will deliver addresses on vegetarianism. Alderman Ebenezer Beavan will be in the chair.’ (Western Mail)
October 14th
1876: The newly-formed Cardiff Rugby Football Club held its inaugural team practice at the Arms Park. The team’s kit included black shirts with a white skull-and-crossbones motif. (Andrew Hignell, From Sophia to Swalec: A History of Cricket in Cardiff, The History Press, 2008)
1918: The Captain Scott Memorial Lighthouse in Roath Park was dedicated and a plaque unveiled by the lighthouse’s donor, Mr F.C. Bowring. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday)
1961: 61,056 people – a record attendance for Ninian Park – watched Wales play England. Long-time football supporter Brian David recalled the occasion in 2009, when Ninian Park staged its last game after ninety-nine years. He told BBC Wales ‘my first trip was as an eleven-year-old with my father. Stood at the wall at the back between the Grange End and the Bob Bank, I can remember shouting “Come on Wales” for most of the match but for one dreadful moment when I shouted ‘Come on England’. About 1,000 faces turned around. My father reckoned that my face was as red as my rosette.’ (www.bbc.co.uk/local/southeastwales)
1993: The Queen officially opened the Cardiff International Arena. The following day she opened the Courtyard Galleries and the Queen’s Gate entrance to the Bute Tunnel. (Western Mail)
October 15th
1233: Llewellyn the Great, taking advantage of the quarrel between Henry III and Richard the Marshal, joined Richard and his fellow barons in revolt. There were outbreaks of fighting in Gwent and Glamorgan. Cardiff Castle was taken over by the King’s forces but on October 15th Richard the Marshal and his supporters stormed the castle. Ships from Cardiff and Newport were also involved in the conflict. (William Rees, Cardiff: A History of the City, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)
1932: Nearly 400 hunger marchers, led by Whitchurch-born Communist leader Will Paynter, left Cardiff to walk to London where they were to join a total of 2,500 protesters from all over Britain. They were campaigning against proposed cuts of 10 per cent in Unemployment Benefit and other cuts in social service spending. On November 1st the marchers presented a petition to Parliament. (T.D. Breverton, The Welsh Almanac, Glyndwr Publications, 2002 / Wikipedia)
1964: Future Prime Minister James Callaghan comfortably held his Cardiff South East seat in the General Election that saw Labour, led by Harold Wilson, back in power at Westminster after ‘thirteen years of Tory misrule’. The defeated Conservative candidate was former England cricket captain, Ted Dexter. (Western Mail)
October 16th
1937: The Royal Welsh Ladies Choir, dressed in full national costume, left by coach for France where they were to perform at the prestigious Paris Exposition. They were waved off by the Mayor of Cardiff, Alderman Sir Herbert Hiles. The choir had been founded by Madame Clara Novello Davies, mother of Ivor Novello (see March 6th). Her husband’s career was a shade more prosaic – he was the head of Cardiff’s Rates Office. The choir Madame Clara founded performed to audiences all over the world.
Another popular Cardiff entertainer of the time was Hilda Banwell of Romilly Road, Canton. In the 1930s she formed an accordion band. For almost forty years she gave concerts all over South Wales in aid of various charities. During the Second World War the band helped keep up morale by entertaining factory workers and the Armed Forces. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday)
October 17th
1977: Glenys Darling, the young and pregnant wife of Llandaff Cathedral assistant verger James Darling, was electrocuted when her husband – allegedly deliberately – dropped a lethally-live electric heater into her bathwater. This was, as Mark Isaacs describes in Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff, ‘a gruesome death punctuated by screams, convulsions and a mass of sparks’. James Darling had come to Llandaff ‘highly recommended with a glowing reference from the Bishop of Pontefract.’ However, he was divorced with two young children. It was made clear to him that the cathedral would ‘look favourably’ on a married man. James then ardently courted Glenys, a pretty young chorister, and wed her within weeks. Strains soon became apparent after their move to Cardiff. Afterwards he changed his story several times and was unsurprisingly convicted of murder. ‘Every now and again a judge has the misfortune to look upon a cold-blooded killer,’ said Judge Tasker Williams. ‘I have that misfortune now.’ Released from prison in 1990, James Darling found work at Leeds parish church. He suffered bouts of depression and in 1998 his body was found floating in a canal near Halifax. (Mark Isaacs, Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff, Wharncliffe, 2009)
October 18th
2010: Plans to build a tidal barrage across the Severn Estuary between Lavernock Point near Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare, appeared to have been halted by the Coalition government’s Energy Secretary Chris Huhne after a ten-year feasibility study put the cost of developing the barrage at £34 million, more than double the original estimate of £15 million. It was concluded that the environmental impact of the barrage would be ‘unprecedented’ and that the proposals should not be considered again ‘for at least five years’. The decision was branded ‘a disaster for Wales’ by Shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain but was applauded by many campaigners. However, following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan and damaged nuclear power plants in March 2011 – and also the political turmoil that destabilised oil-producing areas in the Middle East and North Africa at the same time – it was suggested that the economics had changed and that the barrage scheme might be more viable. (Western Mail / Western Daily Press)
October 19th
1803: The Gloucester Journal reported that ‘the Cardiff Cavalry is daily in expectation of a rout* for the Gower near Swansea for the protection of that part of the coast’. [* rout = call-out] Such units were called upon when necessary to provide men for coastal defence duties and beacon watching. (Bryn Owen, Glamorgan: Its Gentlemen and Yeomanry, Starling Press, 1983)
1972: The death of Fred Keenor, legendary captain of Cardiff City in the 1920s. He had played for Wales against England in the first schoolboys’ international between the two nations. In 1912, when he first signed for City as a professional, his pay was just 10 shillings a week. He served in the First World War in the 17th Middlesex, the famous ‘footballers’ battalion’ and received a leg wound at the Somme but after the war returned to play for Cardiff, then s
till in the Southern League. He played in both the 1925 and 1927 Cup Finals, being Captain in 1927 and thirty-two times for Wales. In February 2011 children at Ton-yr-Ywen Primary School met Fred’s nephew Graham who spoke to them about his uncle whom the club hoped to honour with a statue at their new stadium. (Dennis Morgan, Farewell to Ninian Park, 2008 / South Wales Echo)
October 20th
1909: The Marine Insurance (Gambling) Act became law. This had been introduced to stop the practice, for which Cardiff had become notorious, of allowing their ships to be mysteriously lost at sea because the recession in the shipping business meant that they were worth more as a wreck than in port or sailing. Cardiff shipowners had got such a bad reputation that the insurance companies insisted that they pay higher premiums. When the Albion ‘sank’ in 1908, it was found that nearly £12,000-worth of insurance had been taken out on her. (John Richards, Cardiff: A Maritime History, The History Press, 2005)
1937: HRH the Duchess of Kent, Superintendent-in-Chief for Wales of the St John Ambulance Brigade inspected nursing members of the Order at City Hall. The Bishop of Llandaff, the Rt Revd Timothy Rees, was in attendance. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday)
1995: Harry Ramsden’s Fish Restaurant opened at Cardiff Bay, one of the first ‘national names’ to open in the area. (South Wales Echo)
October 21st
1871: George Andrews (17) of the Brigantine Mary Anning appeared at the Police Court accused of failing to put to sea. The prisoner had signed on as cook and steward but instead of proceeding on board on the stipulated day was found in the company of prostitutes. Andrews expressed sorrow and said he had overslept. He was sentenced to fourteen days hard labour. (E. Alwyn Benjamin, Penarth 1841-71, A Glimpse of the Past, D. Brown & Sons, 1980)
1966: The Civil Defence Unit based at Whitchurch was one of the first to arrive at Aberfan, 18 miles north of Cardiff, to assist in the rescue operation at Ynys Owen Junior School which had been engulfed in an avalanche of colliery waste that slid down the mountainside at 9.16 a.m., soon after classes began. One hundred and sixteen children and twenty-eight adults died in the disaster. (Western Mail)
2010: A former police van parked in a 30mph zone in Cardiff was proving to be an effective deterrent to speeding motorists, according to Kerry Donnelly (59) who had bought it on eBay. ‘It works a treat,’ he said. ‘You can see drivers slow down the minute they see it in the distance. (Daily Telegraph)
October 22nd
1859: A riot at St Mellons, at the fair held on this date (St Melo’s Day) since medieval times, brought the tradition to an end. It involved men from Castleton who were holding a rival fair on the same day. Before the Reformation the main event had been a race from the monastery at Llanrumney to the church at St Mellons. The winner’s prize was nominally the monastery Sanctus Bell but it was really for the honour of handing the bell, which had a distinctive blue clapper, to the care of the monks. In later years the race ended at the Blue Bell Inn. After the disturbances in 1859, when things obviously got seriously out of hand, it was agreed to replace the fair with something more decorous – a ploughing match. This evolved into the St Mellons Agricultural Show, now held at Tredegar Park, Newport. The local villagers must have always been competitive. Another tradition was the Shrove Tuesday football match in which there appeared to be very few rules. In 1794 a Rumney player suffered a fractured skull and died. This event too was discontinued. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday / Brian Lee, Memory Lane Cardiff, Chalford, 2002)
October 23rd
1642: Lieutenant Miles Mathew was at the Battle of Edgehill, ‘fighting like a gallant gentleman for his King’ and died as a result of injuries received. He was the son of William Herbert of Cogan Pill, who had been appointed sheriff in 1579, 1583, 1592 and 1600. (W.R. Williams, ‘Members of Parliament for Cardiff’)
2003: Concorde spent more than four hours at Cardiff Airport as part of a week-long farewell tour before being retired from active service. When the aircraft landed, the pilot unfurled a Welsh flag from the cockpit window. A special car park was set aside to cope with the influx of people who wanted to see the plane for the last time. More cars were parked on local roads and alongside the airport’s perimeter fence. ‘It was unbelievable’, said Simon Baxendale from Dinas Powis, who was Cabin Services Director on the flight. ‘To bring Concorde to my home town – it means so much to me.’ Concorde’s first visit to Cardiff had been in October 1979 when an Air France plane was used for an excursion flight to Paris. In September 2003 a Concorde on a transatlantic flight had been forced to make an unscheduled landing at the airport due to fuel problems. (South Wales Echo)
October 24th
1883: The University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire opened in Cardiff. In 1893 it became one of the founding institutions of the University of Wales. Its first Principal was 27-year-old John Viriamu Jones. There were thirteen academic staff and 102 full-time students, fifteen of whom were women. Women’s education was clearly considered more important than it was at some older universities. In 1904 Millicent McKensie, the first woman Professor in a British university, was appointed to the academic staff. The list of those winning scholarships to the university in 1898 included Emily Morgan (Drapers’ Company Scholarship and Craddock Wells Exhibition: £55 a year for three years with exemption from lecture fees), Elsie Culverwell and Ethel Wakeford, both of whom secured a Craddock Wells Scholarship of £20 and exemption from entrance fees. John Viriamu Jones, described as ‘a charismatic young physicist’ remained Principal for eighteen years until his untimely death in 1901. (Western Mail)
October 25th
1791: The death of Sir Herbert Mackworth (MP for Cardiff, 1766-1790), aged 54. ‘His death was occasioned by a thorn breaking in his finger which brought on a violent inflamation and swelling in his hand, no medical assistance being called till a month afterwards.’ (The Gentleman’s Magazine)
1905: ‘The dockland came to a standstill, processions of men, women and children from every part of the city were joined by converging paraders from Tiger Bay – coloured men in turban and fez jangling their tambourines and strumming their banjos and mandolins and joined by hundreds of seamen. Magnates on the coal and shipping exchanges and their staffs joined in the merry-making in the certain knowledge that the honour would further enhance Cardiff’s name.’ (Radio talk by W.R. Owen, quoted in Glamorgan Historian, 1971, recalling the festivities that marked the award to Cardiff of the status of a city)
1909: The Earl of Plymouth unveiled the equestrian statue of Viscount Tredegar (of Battle of Balaklava fame) in Cathays Park. Unusually, the subject of this honour was not only still alive (he died in 1913) but present for the ceremony. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday)
October 26th
1956: The Minister for Welsh Affairs, Mr Gwilym Lloyd George visited Cardiff to receive the Freedom of the City and to present the formal documents recognising its new status (granted in December 1955) as capital of Wales. Letters Patent from the Queen authorized Cardiff Corporation to modify the city’s coat of arms. From now on its heraldic supporters, the mountain goat and the seahorse, would display a gold chain and the royal badge of Wales. Shops, offices and public buildings were brightly decorated for the occasion. The 700 invited guests at the City Hall included the mayors of all the Welsh boroughs, County Council chairmen and Welsh MPs. In his speech Mr Lloyd George recalled being present as a boy when his father received the Freedom of Cardiff in 1908. Gwilym Lloyd George was created Viscount Tenby in 1957. He died in 1967. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday)
2010: A spokesman for Corian Tafarn, a private consortium hoping to build a Severn Barrage (see October 18th) said that ‘working with the government’, they could complete the scheme in twelve years without spending any public money. (Western Daily Press)
October 27th
1876: Pupil Fred Sandford narrowly escaped drowning in the flooded quarry opposite Penarth Board School. He was rescued by a pupil-teacher. However, six months later the sc
hool log-book recorded the deaths of two boys there: ‘William Richards of Plassy Square lost his life on Saturday. His little brother fell into the water. William jumped in to rescue him but both were drowned.’ The area was filled in and became Belle Vue bowling-green. (Roy Thorne, Penarth: A History, Starling Press, 1975)
1880: The Foundation Stone of the Free Library, Museum and School of Art & Science was laid by the Mayor, Cllr John McConnochie. Within a cavity in the stone were placed copies of local newspapers and a set of coins. (Stewart Williams, Cardiff Yesterday)
1964: Joe Erskine, formerly British & Empire Heavyweight Champion, was beaten on points by Billy Walker over ten rounds at the White City Stadium in London. Originally from Butetown, he had been an excellent boxer whose skill enabled him to defeat bigger opponents. He held the British title from August 1956 to June 1958. (Wikipedia)