A Class History of Wales By Tim Richards (Cymru Goch)

A Class History of Wales By Tim Richards

A CLASS HISTORY OF WALES

Young Alexander conquered India.

He alone?

Caesar beat the Gauls.

Was there not even a cook in his army?

Philip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?î

A worker reads history, Bertholt Brecht.
 

Chapter 1

The workers of Wales have little history except their memories. This is a major loss, as the past is the making of the present; it explains much of our experience today. A people without their history are less aware of their importance, value and identity and are weaker as a result. At the very least, knowledge of our history increases our understanding of today.

Unfortunately, the British educational system ignores the history of the ordinary people. Indeed, it ignores the people who built our industry, who laboured in the fields - the people whose blood, sweat and tears made Britain's wealth for the few who own it today. Instead, orthodox British history concentrates on the antics of the Monarchs and Prime Ministers, the rich businessmen and aristocrats, the wealthy and the powerful, but this is hardly surprising in a state which is still run by that class. British history is further distanced from Welsh workers in that it was, and is, dominated by a ruling class which is largely English. It is a history which assumes that it is the leaders of society who make history, and, at the very least, this is a partial view of our past. The identity of Welsh workers today is threatened by this partial view. In Wales, the loss is two-fold - both our class and our national history have been hidden from us…

There is no comprehensive class history of Wales, but there has been a new interest in the subject in recent years and many interesting books and articles written about the working class history of Wales. The major achievement has been a change in attitude to the history of Wales, taking a more balanced view of our past. It is the intention of this chapter to take that attitude in a short look at the national and class history of Wales, paying particular attention to the economic forces at work.
 

Chapter 2 

TRIBALISM

The first people we can trace in modern civilisation in Wales are the tribes of Iberian ancestry, who were conquered by the Celts from 600BC on. The remnants of the Iberian race can even be identified today, being the short, dark-haired people who still fit the most common description of Welsh appearance.

The Celtic invasion of the British Isles had a profound influence which has survived 2,000 years. The Celtic people were a cultured and powerful race who, at their fullest extent, stretched from Galicia in the far West of Spain, to Austria in the East and from the South of France to Scotland in the North. Organised in tribes, sometimes led by a strong warring tribe, the Celts had settled Wales by the last century BC.

The history of Wales is the history of the land as well as the people. Wales is a mountainous country and this fact is central to the existence of the Welsh nation today The Celts who settled in Wales found that the mountains gave them protection from invaders from the East. The might of the Roman Empire washed at the beach-head of the Welsh mountains and, despite building many roads and forts, the Romans failed to subdue the tribes who had settled in Wales. Their most lasting effect was to introduce Latin to the Celts south of Hadrian's Wall, thereby changing the Celtic tongue to a Brythonic language separate to the Celtic tongue; Gaelic, in the North of Scotland, and Ireland in the West. Eventually, the Romans retreated, leaving a Romano-British culture which was then threatened by the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons from Germany. The British people, i.e. those who spoke the Brythonic Celtic language, lived in the area of England, Wales and Southern Scotland. Those who live in England were conquered or retreated, and by the eighth century, the British people had been driven into the Western and Northern mountains of Wales, Cornwall, Northern England and Southern Scotland. The people of Cornwall had been split from the Cymry to the North by 577 AD and their language then evolved separately, dying out in the sixteenth century. The Cymry of Cumbria were divided from the Cymry of Wales by 716 AD and Welsh came into being. Cymru, the Welsh name for our country, means comrade, but Wales is the English name for our country and means foreigner.
 

Chapter 3

SETTLED TRIBALISM

After this defeat, the Celtic people in Wales evolved into a new independent Welsh society. The laws of Hywel Dda, in the 10th century, give an interesting insight into this Welsh society. They reveal a settled community using the law to settle disputes, compensation to the families being a common remedy. It is worth noting that the position of women in Wales was more advanced than in English law, as they were able to own property. Kinship was crucial to this society as the tribes maintained the old family relationships which evolved into a new stable society, rooted to the land and agriculture.

The stability of Welsh society allowed the bardic tradition in poetry to flower, and it has survived until today. These poems existed in the spoken word for centuries before being written down. The monks who introduced writing were responsible for much more than saving these poems, however, as the Celtic Church was a unique Christian culture which remained divorced from Rome until the 12th century. Indeed, it is to Giraldus Cambrensis, a last representative of Welsh independence in this church, that we must give our thanks for giving us a portrait of Welsh people during the 12th century, - they do not concern themselves with...any other occupation except the practices of war... Nearly everyone lives on the produce of animals, oats, milk, cheese and butter, eating meat in large quantities and consuming bread rather sparingly.î Giraldus makes no mention of the laws within the communities which governed disputes, but the violence was certainly there; the rival princes often using force to extend their power. The diet seems to reflect a fairly prosperous economy, based on livestock as opposed to the growing of cereals.

The main economic activity at this time was farming - arable and mixed in the lowlands, and largely pastoral in the uplands. The tribal ownership of land had given way to more individual ownership of land, and there appears to have been a large proportion of tenants. There was a division between the Celtic people and the conquered Iberians, which had emerged as a class difference between free and unfree people.
 

Chapter 4

THE INCURSION OF FEUDALISM

Wales became a country of settled tribes whose chieftains had become lords, each with their own territory and local power, but by the 13th century they began to copy Norman feudalist organisation. Leaders of the whole of Wales began to emerge at the same time as a necessary defence against the growing power of the Normans. The Norman conquest of England had, like other invasions, only affected S. Wales and the border lowlands, but the independence of Wales was under threat from 1163 on, and forced greater unity on the princes. It was Llywelyn ab Iorwerth who first united Wales as a nation, between 1218 and 1240, having made his peace with Henry III of England. Dafydd ap Llywelyn, his son, ruled for 6 years, and was succeeded by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ab Llywelyn ,

the last native Prince of Wales, who died in 1282, seven centuries ago. Wales has been a conquered nation ever since.

The immediate effect of the death of Llywelyn was the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 by which Edward I formally annexed Wales to the English crown and, amongst other things, forbade Welshmen from taking up a craft in the municipal boroughs, effectively cutting off Welsh people from the higher incomes which were reserved for the conquering English. The only interest for Welshmen in the towns were the markets. In the countryside the cash payments, or rents, were raised, and many peasants could not pay. In addition, the land was being bought up by sections of the English ruling class and many deals swindled the poor Welsh tenants due to the imposition of English law. The Black Death followed in the middle of the 14th century, causing a massive decline in the population. This resulted in the increase of cash payments instead of feudal dues and the feudal system, which had never been strong in Wales, was further weakened.

The effect of the economic crisis caused by the Black Death combined with higher taxes and tolls to make Wales rebellious again, and it was Owain Glyndwr who took advantage to declare himself Prince of Wales and fight a number of battles to establish Wales as an independent state. The period 1400 to 1406 saw a Welsh Parliament, Welsh law restored and treaties signed with other countries, but the existence of Wales as a state was too much for the English monarchy and Owain Glyndwr was defeated and disappeared.

The rebellion had seen the systematic destruction of the manors, burning of crops and manor houses and seizing of stock. The failure was a vicious backlash, with the burden on tenants made worse. It was in the 15th century that the first enclosures occurred in Wales, and common land started to disappear from common ownership.

During the 15th century, Wales still retained its separateness in that it had only partly been a Feudal society and the organisation of Welsh administration was still that of pre-conquest days. Wales had been annexed to the lands of the English monarchy, but still had an economy and society which was different to that of England. Wales had always had a larger proportion of freemen, the system of inheritance, sharing the land between the sons, as opposed to the English system of eldest sons inheriting. The proportion of unfree bondmen was small, and many services had been turned into cash payments. It is clear that the class structure of Wales was very different to England, with the family farm as a stronger element in Welsh society and economy; these welsh being forced by the invasion of English lords to retreat to the uplands.

This was the century which saw the Tudor family, which had Welsh connections, take the throne of England when Henry VII, with distant ancestors from Wales, defeated Richard III at Boswell, in 1485. The success of the Tudors was based on Henryís Army, raised in Pembrokeshire. This tied Welsh lords to an alien monarchy, causing them to finally throw in their lot with England. Many of the Welsh supporters of the Tudors were amply rewarded for their endeavours, and Welsh tradesmen and lawyers took the road to London to make their fortunes. From this point on, the ordinary people of Wales, ìy werinî, the folk of Wales lost their leaders and were a people whose language denied them access to power in Britain. Their class position was diversified, but the overwhelming majority were tied to the land.
 

Chapter 5

WALES INCORPORATED INTO ENGLAND

While Henry VII saw no need to change political structures, Henry VIII revolutionised the Medieval English state and incorporated Wales into it.

This work was largely inspired by Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIIIís chief minister between 1532 and 1540. The purpose was to strengthen the power of the Tudor monarchy, and inevitably led to the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542.

An English parliament, without any representatives from Wales, passed the Acts which incorporated, united and annexed Wales to England. It transformed the lordships into 13 counties, introducing Justices of the Peace and giving Wales representation in Parliament, but with fewer representatives per shire and borough than in England. The border between Wales and England was drawn without any reference to Welsh dioceses or even the Welsh language, e.g. the village of Ewias Lacey was incorporated into Herefordshire, but remained Welsh speaking until the 19th century.

Wales had already been dominated by English law, but the Acts went further and ruled that all justices...shall proclaim and keep...all...courts in the English tongue; …no person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language shall have...any office...within this realm of England, Wales or over the kings Dominion...unless he or they use and exercise the English speech or language. The formal equality of Welsh and English people in the Acts was thus mocked by the use of the English language in the courts, the effect of which was devastating, helping English lords once again to swindle Welsh peasants out of their land. For many years after, the unscrupulous gentry used great ingenuity, searching for flaws in titles to land, turning copyhold into leases, shortening tenancies, raising rents, securing mortgages and then foreclosing on them, and, when all else failed, using physical violence to threaten their enemies.

The Welsh ruling class soon became aware that their future lay with the English language if they wanted to rise within Government. The Welsh gentry saw an English education as vital for their children and, in 1571, Jesus College was founded as the Welsh college at Oxford. At the same time, the bardic tradition, by which the Welsh upper class had patronised poets, was fading away.

The only remnants of independent Welsh institutions after the Acts of Union, were the Council of Wales and the Courts of the King's Great Sessions in Wales, though Monmouthshire was excluded from this Court's jurisdiction and began its long exile as part of England, which lasted until this century. The Council of Wales lasted until 1689 and the Courts of Great Sessions survived until 1830.
 

Chapter 6

THE WELSH ECONOMY COLONISED AND TRANSFORMED TO SUPPLY ENGLAND

While Wales had largely been a self-sufficient country, the 16th century saw Wales opened up to supply primary produce for England. Much livestock was driven East and the woollen trade, which had exported since the 14th century, was monopolised by English merchants at Shrewsbury by an Act of Parliament in 1565, a stranglehold maintained until the 19th century. Coal began to be an important export from South Wales ports and ironworks had been set up by Sussex ironmasters who needed new forests to exploit for charcoal, to smelt the iron.

By the beginning of the 17th century, the Welsh economy was stirring as a producer of mineral wealth. The Company for the Mines, Royal opened up copper mining on Parys Mountain and opened lead and silver mines in Cardigan and Montgomery.

Shrewsbury's legal monopoly of the Welsh wool trade was ended in 1624 but, in practice, it was still dominated by them and Oswestry Market, an only centre for the Welsh cloth trade died out by 1633, as a result of a boycott by Shrewsbury Market. The export of livestock became more important during this century. ìI have seen yearly great droves of fair beasts brought thence (Anglesey) and sold in Essex itself. (Fuller, 1662).

At the same time, Wales was beginning to contribute to the London food market.

The Civil War which led to the commonwealth, when the English monarchy was temporarily abolished, affected Wales only slightly. The Council of Wales at the time gave Wales more power than it had for centuries before or after, but the War was largely the concern of a foreign ruling class, separated by language from the concerns of the Welsh people.

Wales was, at this time, a sleepy colony of England, but the first Capitalist enterprises started to affect Wales by the end of the century. It was in the next century that Capitalism emerged in Wales, which can thus claim to be amongst the first nations to be transformed by the new economic system.
 

Chapter 7

EARLY CAPITALISM

By 1690 coal production had risen tenfold since Tudor times, and when the monopoly of the Mines Royal was ended by Acts of Parliament, between 1689 and 1693, the stage was set for a massive increase in the exploitation of minerals It has been estimated that 400,000 ounces of silver, a huge amount at that time, were mined in Flintshire between 1704 and 1744. Zinc, tin, copper, lead and iron were all exploited in ever-increasing amounts. Welsh copper and iron smelting dominated British production by the end of the century. 90% of Britain's copper smelting being located in the lower Swansea valley until the 1880ís. The capital for these first industrial empires was largely English.

From Cornwall and from Macclesfield immigrant capitalists came in search of copper from Derbyshire and Cheshire, for lead from Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland and London for coal. Manchester capitalists built cotton mills in the North-East of Wales, and Staffordshire potters opened up the Buckley clay deposits.

The copper smelting industry was first started in the Swansea Valley in 1717 and the Vivian's from Cornwall, the Percival's from Bristol and Robert Morris from Shropshire built large new works in the following years. Substantial amounts of capital were required, and the money largely came from English trading families in Bristol, Birmingham and London.

The first of the Northern England Ironmasters, John Guest, started as manager of local capital at the Dowlais works in 1759. He later became a partner and his son built up the family wealth. In 1765, Anthony Bacon, another Northern Englishman, founded the Cyfarthfa Works, with a mineral lease fixed at one hundred pounds a year, for 99 years.

The effects of this invasion of capitalism on South Wales were profound. From a village of 93 farms in 1760, Merthyr grew into a large town of over 7,000 people by 1800, whilst the Swansea Valley became an ecological catastrophe. Toxic fumes of sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid, and poisonous deposits of arsenic, endangered the workers health and killed off all vegetation The effects can still be seen today, a century after the copper smelting industry died. The toxic fumes killed off all vegetation 200 years ago and left a barren landscape which still scars the valley now.

The land of Wales was being transformed by the surge of capitalist exploitation Ironworks, quarries, timber cutting and coal tips were all manifestations of the rape of the fair country of Wales. In parts of the valleys today, it is still possible to imagine how beautiful the landscape of South Wales must once have been, but the transformation was permanent, and the people of South and North East Wales were becoming a new urban community by the beginning of the 19th century.

The birth of the Welsh working class in this century was based on the exploitation of mineral wealth of Wales and the low price of labour due to the backwardness of Wales. In 1768 agricultural workers in the Home Counties earned 10s.9d. A week, while labourers in Glamorgan got 1s. A day.
 

Chapter 8

THE BIRTH OF THE WELSH WORKING CLASS

The position of agricultural workers was worsening at this time due to enclosures and new farming methods which required fewer labourers. By 1790 most of the land in South Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire was enclosed, and it was from the rural areas to the West and North that a flood of workers began to fill S. Wales. The higher wages offered by industry were another factor which caused this migration. A sign of the hardship in rural Wales is also revealed by the rent arrears to the Crown, which, in 1787, totalled thirty two thousand pounds in N. Wales alone. In the same year, it was reported by the Manchester Mercury newspaper

that in N. Wales workmen are superabundant and wages very lowî.

The wars against France in the last decade of the 18th century pushed up the price of food and encouraged the use of more marginal land. At the same time, smallholders found it difficult to make a living with high prices, taxes, rates and rents. Not having the capital to tide them over the lean years, many gave up and joined the move to the industrial areas. The landlords accelerated the trend by letting farms over the heads of sitting tenants. There were a number of food riots throughout the wars against France, which continued up to the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

The wars boosted demand for iron, of course, and the industry expanded dramatically, concentrated at the Northern end of the South Wales valleys, stretching from Hirwaun to Blaenavon. Iron production rose from 10,000 tons a year in 1788 to 200,000 tons in 1823. By 1815 South Wales contributed a third of iron production in Britain. The industry was dominated by English owners, the only Welsh industrialist being Thomas Lewis of Llanishen, and the capital came largely from England - well over a million pounds being invested in the industry up to 1825. From this point on, the Bank of England and English banks dominated finance capital in South Wales as the last Welsh banks failed at this time.

The expansion of the iron industry caused a huge increase in population. By 1801, Merthyr Tydfil had become the largest town in Wales with a population of 7,000, one tenth of the population of Glamorgan. The Cyfarthfa Works alone, employed 2,000 men by 1803 and Merthyr continued to grow rapidly in the next 50 years, reaching a total of 57,000 by mid-century.

The demand for other minerals was also boosted by the wars, and the boom in mining continued up to a peak in the 1820ís. As George Borrow noted over 30 years later, a cry went up throughout the north country (of England) that a great deal of money might be made by opening Wales, that is, by mining Wales in the proper fashion.
 

Chapter 9

SLUMP AND REBELLION

However, a slump followed the end of the wars, and it was biting deeply by the 1830ís. It was in the Winter of that year that Unionism spread from Lancashire to North East Wales. The Friendly Associated Coal miners Union spread like wildfire through the Flint coalfield and on December 20th, miners at Hawarden struck for 2s.6d a day for unskilled and 3s. For skilled men. The owners gave in, provided that other employers in the district agreed to similar terms. As a result, the Union went out and recruited men in other collieries, but the Yeomanry was brought in to restore the peace and the struggle continued. The Municipal Corporations, 4 years later, reported that the system of combination and striking for wages...prevailed so extensively among the neighbouring collieries as to have called for a permanent station of the military at Moldî.

In the previous 30 years there had been about 50 strikes, most of them defensive against the lowering of wages. The attempt of an ironmaster in Merthyr to do the same in 1831 was the root of the Merthyr Uprising, when the Welsh working-class first raised the red flag of the workers. The workers of Merthyr forced the troops to retreat, ambushed their reinforcements and took the town. In an organised fashion, they attacked the hated Court of Inquest. In previous years, a debt crisis had resulted in the Court confiscating the workers property and selling it. In the uprising, the workers property was seized and returned, but it is vital to note that there was little, if any, looting. It took almost a thousand soldiers to put down the rebellion and one leader, Lewsyn yr Heliwr, Lewis the Huntsman, was transported, while Dic Penderyn was hanged as the scapegoat. The uprising was short and ferocious, but it had been disciplined, probably by veterans of the French wars. The Merthyr Uprising was significant as the first attempt by the working-class to organise on class lines and it was a peculiarly Welsh uprising, Lewis the Huntsman declaring that soldiers have come here who do not speak our language.

The struggle turned to a long guerilla warfare, the Scotch Cattle threatening and attacking traitors and Turncoats in nighttime attacks, returned to Nantyglo and organised once again in Monmouthshire. In the lock-out that followed the uprising there were marches from Cyfarthfa and Nantyglo to stiffen the resolve of the ironworkers at Plymouth, but they caved in, and the following years saw a bitter struggle. In 1834 the Union movement organised again, and in the same year, Wales had its first working-class newspaper, ìY Gweithiwrî, ìThe Workerî.

The slump had hit the agricultural labourer as well, and the Poor Law Commission reported that a farm labourer could only just maintain an average family on potatoes, oatmeal, milk and little else. In some areas of Montgomeryshire, even this was said to be impossible. Workhouses were the Governmentís response to poverty, punishing the unemployed for being unemployed. Parish relief was abolished in 1834 and families were split by the workhouse; single mothers being made responsible for illegitimate children and imprisoned in those dismal places.

In the rural areas the small family farms had also been suffering the effects of the slump and the huge increase in tollgates increased the costs of transport to a ridiculous degree. The wet Summer and Autumn of 1838 was a disaster for agriculture, and the seeds of trouble were sown. In January 1839, the trouble started with an attempt to burn down the new workhouse in Narberth in Pembrokeshire. The first night attack on a tollgate happened on May 13th of that year, at Efailwen on the Carmarthenshire/Pembrokeshire border. On June 6th, 300–400 people with blackened faces tore down the gate replaced there. On Thursday, July 17th, a third raid was made in broad daylight and Becca made her appearance with a quotation from the Bible, and they blessed Rebecca, and said unto her...let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them (Genesis, Ch.24, v.60). The ritual by which Rebecca led the burning of the tollgates was derived from the traditional ceffyl pren ritual, which held up people to public ridicule, often in a night attack in disguise.

1839 was a year of great unrest in Wales. In addition to the Hosts of Rebecca, Chartism, the people's appeal for the vote, had spread to Wales in 1836, with the first branch of the Workingmen Association in Carmarthen. In 1838 Workingmen Associations were formed in Gwent and Montgomeryshire. It was no peaceful plea to Parliament which inspired Welsh workers, however. The magistrates of Llanidloes were worried enough to ask the Home Secretary to send a Welsh-speaking officer of the London police force to the area. Ex-militiamen drilled the Chartists at Newtown and Llanidloes. Pikes were manufactured and shooting matches arranged. Three London policemen were sent to Llanidloes on April 29th and 300 special constables were sworn in. The arrest of 3 Chartist leaders led to a crowd rushing the Trwythen Arms Hotel, mauling the police officers, freeing the prisoners and wrecking the hotel. From Wednesday, April 30th to Sunday, May 4th, the Chartists controlled the town. Only an invasion of the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry to Llanidloes and the South Shropshire Yeomanry to Newtown could end the uprising. Once again, the ringleaders were tried and 3 men were transported.

Later that year, the Chartists of Monmouthshire organised a march on Newport. At an October meeting, it was agreed that it should be an armed uprising. On a stormy November night, with floods everywhere, three columns set off from the valleys down to Newport. When they reached the Westgate Hotel, they were driven back by a volley of shots from soldiers stationed there. The bloody failure of the march led, again, to the transportation of 3 leaders to Tasmania.
 

Chapter 10

THE HOSTS OF REBECCA

In 1842 the unrest broke out again in West Wales, to become a rural guerilla force reminiscent of the battles of Owain Glyndwr.

Although tollgates were the main target of the Hosts of Rebecca, the reasons for the riots went far deeper than that. They were part of a greater unrest which had started with the Narberth workhouse attack in 1839. The trouble re-started in 1842, when corn-stacks of local squires were burnt down and the new tollgate at Mermaid, West of Carmarthen, was destroyed. From here, the attacks on tollgates spread during the following Spring across Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. But the targets of protest were wide. Anonymous messages warning of attacks were not just directed at the toll-gates. Landlords, workhouse masters, even the High Sheriff received dire warnings. The attacks included assaults on the property of Justices of the Peace and on a workhouse. In June 1843, a crowd of 2,500 entered Carmarthen in broad daylight bearing a banner ìCyfiawnder a charwyr cyfiawnder ydym ni ollî, which means justice and lovers of Justice are we all. Swelled by the townspeople, the crowd moved to attack the workhouse, but the dragoons arrived. The area was soon flooded with soldiers, but the attacks continued. Attacks spread to the Llanelli district and into industrial West Glamorgan, with tollgates destroyed at Aberfan and Swansea. In the Autumn, unrest spread to the Swansea Valley, when striking copper workers rioted. As far West as Milford Haven the tollgates were attacked and the Hosts of Rebecca had spread to Cardiganshire, and at their limit reached Rhayader, Builth Wells, Llantrisant and Brecon.

The Rebecca Riots died out in 1844 with petitions to the Queen and government concessions on tollgates. The occupation of the area by a massive force of troops showed how seriously worried the English ruling class had been. The soldiers left, to be replaced by the new police force.

The unrest in Wales from 1830 to 1844 was the result of a slump in the Welsh economy which roused the last remnants of the gwerin, the agricultural labourers, the poor farmers, the copper and ironworkers and the miners, were all involved in one way or another. Chartism, unionism and reform were the ideas while Scotch Cattle, the Hosts of Rebecca, unions and riots were the manifestations. But, above all, the English ruling class soon realised one thing - the vast majority of the people who took part in the unrest spoke a different language to the leaders of Welsh society, and to themselves, which made the Welsh difficult to control. The problem of controlling the working class thus gained a new dimension not present in England and was interpreted by the English ruling class in a typically chauvinist fashion.
 

Chapter 11

THE WELSH LANGUAGE ATTACKED

Their revenge was not long in coming. In 1845, an inquiry into the state of education in Wales was called for in the Westminster Parliament. As a result, a Commission of 3 young English barristers carried out an investigation which led to a report published in 1847. After a description of the poverty and degradation of Wales, they came to conclusions which fitted their background. The poverty and degradation of the Welsh people lay in their backwardness, due to their adherence to the Welsh language, e.g. ìThe Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. This view is an example of the sophistry, or empty argument, which the English used to attack the Welsh language. By taking the effect of the exploitation of Wales by the English ruling class - whether in the country, or among the furnaces, the Welsh element is never found at the top of the social scaleî and using them to explain the poverty - ìBecause of their language, the mass of Welsh people are inferior to the English in every branch of practical knowledge and skillî, the Report turned the facts on their head.

The Commissioners confirmed their belief in the superiority of their own language and culture. As Sir Reginald Couplad pointed out - it is not surprising that the Commissioners should have swept aside the ancient language of Wales as ruthlessly as Macauley, a decade earlier, had swept aside the ancient languages of India. The chauvinist conclusion of the Report is a common one found in the Imperial past of British colonisation; poverty being attributed to some personal failing of the poor, rather than the simple truth that they are poor because they have no chance of acquiring wealth.

The people of Wales were thus regarded by the English ruling class with the same contempt as the people of Africa were 50 years later. The eradication of the Welsh language became a priority, and by 1870 the educational system became equipped to kill it off. This is not to pretend, however, that the process was not already at work. The report of the Commission itself notes the use of the Welsh Not system; a system by which schoolchildren were beaten for speaking Welsh. Combined with the dominance of the English language in business, law and government, and the immigration of English speakers up to the end of the century, the Welsh language suffered a massive decline from which it has never recovered, and it is surprising to find that it is still a living language 140 years later.
 

Chapter 12

THE INVASION OF CAPITAL

The 1940s also saw the beginning of a fundamental change in the economy of Wales, with the beginning of heavy investment in coal, production rising threefold, to nearly 16.5 million tons, by 1874. The early successes were often made by local capitalists such as Thomas Powell who sank successful pits at Duffryn , in 1844, thereby establishing the Powell Duffryn empire which exists today. For the first 20 years of this coal giant, ownership and control was in the hands of Powell, but ,when he died in 1863 the empire was established as the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Co. Ltd. The establishment of limited liability companies in the last half of the century reflected the need for larger amounts of capital as shafts

were dug deeper and they were the organisations which exploited coal up to the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947. The death of the owner/manager gave British capital the chance to cash in on the bonanza - this capital largely coming from the English ruling class. As a result, Welsh capitalism was soon submerged and managerial control passed to a new professional class of managers who still control industry today. The ìBlack Gold Rushî to Wales saw production reach 30 million tons by 1891. In the 1840ís the canal system transported coal for export, but the advent of the railways caused a boom in the economy and the population of Wales. From a population of 1,163,000 in 1851, the influx of workers and the natural increase of population, boosted the figure to 2,019,000 in 1901. The population of Wales doubled within 50 years in response to the demand for coal. The huge investment in coal was primarily aimed at export. The railway system was built to extract, as quickly and efficiently as possible, the coal of the South Wales valleys. The new railway lines were built quickly to export the coal down the valleys to the coastal plain, to the ports of South Wales and thence overseas or East to England. Many railway lines led South to Cardiff and the docks built by the Marquis of Bute in the latter half of the century, as well as to Swansea and Newport.
 

Chapter 13

THE WORKING CLASS IN WALES

In the meantime, the nature of the working class in Wales was undergoing a transformation. The influx of English workers into South Wales had first affected Monmouthshire and South East Glamorganshire and many newcomers to Welsh speaking areas had learnt Welsh, but the next 50 years saw a big change. The West and North of Glamorganshire gained their population from the rural hinterland and so maintained a higher level of Welsh language speakers. The frontier was the Rhondda, and it is worth noting that it remained largely Welsh speaking until the first world war.

The conditions in which working class people lived and worked were appalling at this time. The housing was often built by speculators, often ignoring basic sanitary requirements, and without planning, or even sewers. One part of Merthyr, Chinatown, was described as having a labyrinth of miserable tenements and filth. In Aberdare there were hundreds of newly built houses with no privy, and no sewers. In one area the conditions were described as follows, a large number of houses crowded together upon a very limited space without any street paving, drainage of any kind or ventilation. In North Wales, at Rhos, the miners cottages consisted of a single room from 9 to 12 feet square; others have, in addition, a sort of lean-to, forming a separate place to sleep in. They are in general void of furniture...î.

The average life expectation in Merthyr was 18 years 2 months in 1840 and those lucky enough to reach 20 years of age could look forward to, on average, another 28 years of life. Poverty, malnutrition, insanitary housing and bad health were all contributory causes to the high death rate.

The working conditions in the pits were also atrocious, with bad ventilation, flooding, rock-falls and, most dreaded of all, explosions, which continued to kill more and more miners; over100 at Cymmer in 1856, over 250 at Abercarn in 1878 and over 400 in the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd in 1913 - the worst disaster in the history of coal mining in Britain.

The higher wages offered in mining were the only incentive to work there, and the poverty of many agricultural workers drove them South and East to the South Wales coalfield. In 1844, agricultural wages were still as low as 6d. A day, while mining paid up to 4s. A day. Earnings were based on the amount of coal cut, however, and those working in the worst areas earned far less than that.
 

Chapter 14

THE CONSOLIDATION OF CAPITAL

The last half of the century also saw the change from iron to steel with the development of the Bessemer process and steel was developed in the old iron-making areas in the heads of the South Wales valleys, on the coastal plain of South East Wales at Newport and Cardiff, and at Shotton and Brymbo in North East Wales.

At the same time, tinplate manufacture was growing in West Wales, reaching a peak of nearly half a million tons exported by 1890, when the McKinley tariff cut American imports throwing 10,000 out of work. Copper smelting also reached its peak at this time, and was then replaced by zinc smelting. Slate quarrying and mining also reached a peak in the latter half of the 19th century.

From 1880 onwards, house building increased steadily, reaching peaks in 1895 and 1909. The housing continued to be built by speculators, but building societies and coal companies were also responsible for the terraced housing so characteristic of the valleys today. In those days the coal companies often owned not just the collieries, but the whole villages which were built around them.

The Bute family were responsible for the opening up of Cardiff as a port, with a huge investment in the docks from 1839 onwards, turning Cardiff into the largest coal trade port in the world by the 1880ís. As landowners, they made money from highly profitable leases from coal, pioneering the Rhondda, from ironworks like Dowlais and building housing in Cardiff. They were slum landlords, par excellence, e.g. in Tiger Bay and Bute Town, and railway investors, in the Taff Vale and others. In short, they were the most wealthy and powerful family in South Wales and they left us monuments to their extravagant riches in the bizarre medieval fantasies of Castell Coch and Cardiff Castle.

Their rivals included David Davies of Llandinam who ran the Ocean Coal Company and built a totally new railway to Barry Docks which, with others, he built to escape the stranglehold of the Butes at Cardiff.

This was a period of consolidation by the large combines - the Ocean Coal Company, the Cambrian Combine and Powell Duffryn. By the end of the 19th century, the Cambrian Group of Rhondda collieries dominated that area, and by 1914 controlled 5 out of its 7 million ton output. In the same year, 16 pits in the Rhondda Fach were controlled by 3 companies. This consolidation led to organisation of the coal owners and the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Ownersí Association was formed as early as 1871.

It is interesting to note that the Cambrian Combine was formed in 1895, after D. A.Thomas had failed in his efforts with the Cymru Fydd movement, the first form of modern Welsh nationalism. The political voice of Welsh capitalists was the Liberal Party who had taken advantage of the extension of the vote to dominate Welsh politics by the end of the century. In 1892, the Liberal Government relied on the Welsh Liberals and a group within the Welsh Liberal Party organised the Cymru Fydd movement to represent Welsh interests, which were largely seen to be the Welsh language, education and non-conformist religion. They failed to win over the South Wales Liberals who were little interested in such matters and the movement collapsed, without ever coming to terms with the question of Welsh independence; it was always Cymru Fydd not Cymru Rydd.

The Welsh coal industry was overwhelmingly tied to exports and by the turn of the century produced 46% of Britain's exports of coal. Combined with the huge export of coal to England, the Welsh economy was dependent on foreign markets. The Welsh economy at the time was totally different to that of England; its booms and slumps being opposite to those of the rest of the British mainland, and tied closer to the Atlantic economy.
 

Chapter 15

WALES BECOMES BRITISH

The turn of the century saw the Welsh language, 600 years after our conquest, become the minority language, due to the massive influx of English speakers. It is interesting to note, however, that many learnt Welsh while many Welsh speakers were turning to English. The education system was now effectively eradicating Welsh amongst Welsh children, however, as English was the medium of education.

The political voice sought by the Chartists had resulted in the extension of the right to vote, but it was granted sparingly, entrusted to the workers in stages. It was in the growth of the Trade Union movement in the late 19th and early 20th century that the working class in Wales achieved its first organisation, with the miners well to the fore. Up to this time, the political choice of the working class had been Liberal, and it was not until the turn of the century that the Trade Unions began to organise their own political voice. The first party to represent working class people was the Independent Labour Party with Keir Hardie at its head as M.P. in Merthyr The ILP was in favour of Welsh ìHome Ruleî but was replaced by the Trade Unionsí own Labour Representation Committees, which became the Labour Party. The position of the Welsh working class had been ambivalent at the beginning of the century, but the ILP which reached its peak in 1910 soon gave way to the Labour Party. In 1908, the South Wales Minersí Federation voted overwhelmingly in favour of affiliation to the Labour Party.

There was great debate within the Labour movement in Wales as to the direction to take and the context of political organisation. Despite the move towards the Westminster Parliament, there was a large section of the Labour movement which believed in Welsh ìHome Ruleî and this remained a part of the Labour Partyís policy up to 1945.

The first decade of the 20th century saw a great upsurge in militancy amongst the working class in Wales and led to the unrest of 1910 - 1911, when troops were once more ordered onto the streets in South Wales, in Llanelli, Tonypandy, Bargoed, Tredegar, etc., and six people were killed in the Llanelli riots in 1911. The conditions of the Welsh working class remained bad with poor housing, low wages and ill-health the norm. In 1911, the death rate among children was 380 per 1,000 in Wales, and desperate poverty saw desperate measures. The union struggles, often leading to violent clashes with the forces of law and order, were reflected in the politics of the time, culminating in ìThe Minerís Next Stepî, a revolutionary document, calling for workersí control through a militant industrial policy of escalating demands on coal owners by strikes and stoppages. This essentially syndicalist approach was in direct conflict with the approach of Hartshorn and others for the state control of, and nationalisation of, the coal industry which became the policy of the Labour Party. The strength of feeling for local control was echoed in other parts of Britain, but the decision to work through the British political system won through. By 1914 Labour politics was British, and tens of thousands of Welsh workers joined the British army to die in the carnage of the First World War. This is not to say that there was not resistance, however, and it continued throughout the war.
 

Chapter 16

THE DECLINE OF THE WELSH ECONOMY

Many men returned from the war determined to get a better life for themselves and their families, only to find their reward was further hardship and struggle. The decline in the economy was greater in Wales than in Britain as a whole as the economy was more dependent on foreign markets and the slump had set in by the 1920s. There had been a decline in productivity since the 1880s with production falling from 309 tons per man shift to 222 tons by 1912, and since the cost of labour was central to profitability, the coal owners had put the pressure on wages.

The 1920ís saw the emergence of the Communist Party, which introduced Marxist thought to Wales and advocated home rule for Wales, quoting Lenin in support. The militancy of South Wales miners once again led the way and, in the General Strike of 1926, the struggle fought in South Wales was far more cohesive and effective than in many other parts of Britain. The strike committees reached the highest form of organisation in the history of the Welsh working class, and can be likened to the Soviets in Russia at the time of the Revolution.

The failure of the General Strike was a devastating blow to the miners of South Wales. It led to an attack on the working class which destroyed years of progress by the unions and saw the start of company Unions and a massive decline in Trade Union membership, with membership of the South Wales Miners Federation dropping from 136,000 to 60,000 by 1932. The slump in the economy caused a massive decline in the population of Wales. Between 1921 and 1941, 430,000 people left Wales, and the population dropped from 2,656,000 to 2,567,000. By 1933, 33% of the adult population were unemployed with places like Pontypridd reaching 60%, Ferndale 63%, Merthyr 69% and Dowlais 73%. The 1930ís was a period when the decline of king coal was confirmed as a permanent loss. When the collieries closed, the valley communities that had fuelled Britain suffered deeply.

It is worth noting that Plaid Cymru was formed in 1926, largely as an attempt by a section of the intellectual Welsh-speaking middle class to continue to represent their interests. Plaid Cymru was led by a profoundly, reactionary, neo-Fascist leadership, which had no interest or sympathy for the situation of Welsh workers. For the next 40 years, Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales, was, in fact, hardly a political party at all.

The same period also saw a transformation of land ownership in the rural areas. The Welsh gentry had sold out in the latter part of the 19th century, and inflation in the 1920ís prompted many of them to sell up completely. Between 1918 and 1922, 25% of Welsh land changed hands, mainly to tenant farmers who then experienced a massive slump in agriculture, causing yet more young people to emigrate, furthering the decline of the Welsh language.

By the late 1930ís, the decline was temporarily slowed, as the build-up to the Second World War revived the economy. The Spanish Civil War was the curtain-raiser which drew many young Welsh socialists to fight with the Republican forces. From South Wales, volunteers, particularly Communist Party members, made the journey to Spain to fight against Francoís forces. Their sacrifices were in vain, however, and the Fascists defeated the workers' government.
 

Chapter 17

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WELSH ECONOMY

The Second World War followed, with tens of thousands of Welshmen dying in the fight against Fascism. The war was, typically, good for the economy and by 1943 Welsh coal production reached 592,400 tons a week despite a loss of 9,000 miners in the workforce.

By the end of the war, Welsh unemployment had been reduced to 5%, still twice the British average, but better than it had been for decades. The Treforest Industrial Estate near Pontypridd employed almost 20,000 people by the end of the war.

The deprivation of the war caused the people of Wales, like the rest of Britain, to demand a new deal and the Labour Party was swept into power in 1945. In that General Election, the aspirations of working class people in Wales were great. Nye Bevan set up the National Health Service and the collieries were, at last, nationalised.



The 1950ís saw a great optimism in Wales and there was even a parliament for Wales campaign which was supported by Liberal and Labour M.P.s, including the socialist S. O. Davies, representing a Merthyr tradition that went back to Keir Hardie and beyond. Merthyr's independent tradition in politics later saw Plaid Cymru take control of their first South Wales Council there 20 years later.

The post-war expansion saw new steel works built at Port Talbot in 1947 and Llanwern in 1962. The Labour Government had attracted new factories to South Wales, backing 112 of the 179 factories built by 1949, but they were also responsible for the later contraction of the Coal Industry in the 1960ís.

It was the 1960ís that saw Welsh nationalism and the campaign to save the Welsh language emerge, but the Welsh-speaking, middle class, non-conformists who led Plaid Cymru were bewildered by the revolutionary fervour of Welsh youth and totally at a loss with those Welsh working class voters who almost voted out Labour M.P.s in the Rhondda and Caerphilly.

While the giant oil multi-nationals moved into Milford Haven, South Wales coal was declining rapidly; the low wages causing many men to vote with their feet by moving over to the manufacturing industry, which was booming and paid better wages. The irony of the reduction of coal mining in a country built on coal was finally brought home by the Oil Crisis in 1974, as many of the pits closed in the previous decade would have been profitable in competition with the increased price of oil.

The emergence of a new manufacturing base in Wales was, however, a double-edged sword. The majority of the investment was in the lower levels of the manufacturing process, and few companies were concerned with the final assembly of products. Much of the investment was in branch factories taking advantage of government incentives, the more unscrupulous leaving as soon as they could, taking machinery paid for by the taxpayers to other locations. The manufacturing industries were also more interested in exploiting a new labour force - Women, who had, until then, been less economically active than in other parts of Britain.
 

Chapter 18
CONFLICT AND CRISIS

The miner's strike of 1972 and 1974 were the first in the industry for 50 years and were led by the more militant areas, with South Wales once again to the fore. The 1974 strike, which led to the defeat of the Tory Government, raised great hopes in Wales, but by the end of the Labour Government in 1979, workers in the public sector were confronted by a Government of their own choice which was waging war against them. The rot had started when the Labour Government caved in to the IMF within 2 years of gaining office. According to Joel Barnett, Treasury Minister, the Labour Party had taken power in 1974 with no economic policy to tackle the problems. The heavy terms of the IMF loan agreement, which the Labour Government signed, committed them to cutting Public spending in real terms. When they closed East Moors, Shotton and Ebbw Vale Steelworks, the Prime Minister was MP. for East Moors and the Minister of Employment, and later, the Leader of the Labour Party was MP. for Ebbw Vale. The Tory Government, which followed, responded to the slump in the British economy by savaging the Welsh Steel Industry, cutting the work-force by half. The response of the Welsh working class was more revealing than the Anti-Devolution vote which had preceded it less than a year before. For the first time in the history of the British Labour movement, a national grouping, the Wales TUC, took independent action, when it called out over 200,000 workers in the one-day strike of January 28th, 1980 - a strike in support of the steelworkers. For the first time in 150 years, the Welsh working class found its voice on that day. It is worth noting the political response to that voice saw the Labour Party make the same vague protests that they had made in 1926 and Plaid Cymru, yet again, more interested in the Welsh language than the working class.

The slump of the early 1980s also exposed the weakness of the manufacturing sector in the Welsh economy, as company after company declared closures and redundancies. It was in a new area of investment that the decline was felt less severely. The 1960s saw the start of a change in the Welsh economy, with overseas investment flooding into Wales. These new investors from Europe, Japan and North America, saw the potential of a labour force accepting low wages, with good communications to the centre of the European economy, and moved in on Wales in large numbers.

The World-wide slump has hit South Wales hard, however, because of the dependence of the Welsh economy on extraction of primary produce, like coal and timber; on heavy industry, like steel and tinplate; and low levels of manufacturing with little diversity. The unemployment in Wales today is just one symptom of the greater disease of the Welsh economy.