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Draft:Brecon Ironworks

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Brecon Ironworks was situated one mile north of Brecon.[1], in Priory Groves, on the site of an old corn mill.[2] It began as a charcoal-fired furnace which was constructed in 1720[3], to which a forge was added.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). (and who three years later became the county sheriff of Brecknockshire[4]). Probably Tanner operated the furnace[5], while Wellington financed it[6]

The supplies for the Ironworks

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The supplies of iron and limestone for the ironworks were obtained from Hirwaun, eighteen miles south of Brecon, from where they were transported northwards, over the Bannau Brycheiniog and down into the town, using horses and mules.

Hirwaun was an extremely familiar source of iron ore.[7] Iron ore didn't exist in Hirwaun but was obtained from elsewhere. However, this was not a problem – as Ashton (1924: 18) documented in his history of the industrial revolution: ‘the presence of mines [of ironstone or ore] had no great part in deciding the exact location of particular [iron]works.’ However, the furnace produced a ton of iron a week, which was taken to Brecon for finishing (forging).

Like the furnace outside Hirwaun, the Brecon Ironworks was charcoal-fired. Its supplies of charcoal, the need for which was ‘insatiable’[8], were made ‘from timber obtained over wide area of the surrounding countryside’[9], which included Llangammarch (at the foot of Mynydd Epynt) and Llanwrtyd. Also the ironworks would have enjoyed the same benefit as the furnace outside Hirwaun, ‘the advantage of proximity to English markets’[10].[11]

The leases for the Ironworks

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In 1723, the proprietors of the ironworks took out a lease from Edward Jeffreys, a barrister of the Inner Temple, who owned the land and who lived nearby in the Priory, Brecon (which is in the grounds of Brecon Cathedral).[12] Three further leases were subsequently granted in the next thirty years. In 1754, Tanner and Wellington took out a second lease for the land. Then, in 1750, it seems that William Tanner, the son of Benjamin Tanner, with the consent of both his father and Wellington, assigned all interests in the works to Thomas Daniel and Richard Reynolds, two iron merchants and dealers from Bristol. Then, in 1753, another lease was granted, this time to Thomas Maybery, the son of Thomas Maybery[13], who owned Powicks (present-day Powick) Forge, on the River Teme River Teme in Worcestershire.[14] Maybery did not buy the lease for himself but for his son, John, from Aberlonvey (present-day Three Cocks or Aberllynfi), who owned a forge there.

The demise of the Ironworks

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Local historian Ursula Jepson (1997)[15] (who with her husband nearly twenty years previously, bought Forge Villa, a Grade II Listed Building, which was adjacent to the ironworks. She observed that the ironworks seems ‘not to have lasted beyond 1780.’ Two reasons explain its demise. First, at the heads of the valleys, most blast furnaces were located close to supplies of coal, from which they began to produce coke as a fuel.[16] Second, the production of the ironworks came to be dwarfed by that of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, which opened in 1765.

The industrial and historical legacies of the Ironworks

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The Brecon Ironworks produced two legacies, an industrial one and an historical one. John Maybery married Anne, the eldest daughter of John Wilkins, the-then Deputy Prothonotary of The Crown for the Brecknock (see Brecon) circuit, and Sibyl, his wife, with whom he lived in the Tower of the Priory, Brecon (see 'The leases for the Ironworks' previously). In 1757, he took out a lease from Lord Windsor to build an ironworks at Hirwaun.[17] In 1760, upon the death of Lord Windsor, he took out, with John Wilkins, his brother-in-law, and Mary Maybery, his mother, a lease from Lady Windsor for the same land.

In the next two decades, John Maybery took out leases for two other pieces of land in South Wales. In 1764 he took out a lease for the Tredegar Forge[18] and furnaces.[19] And in 1777, he and his father-in-law took out a lease for an ironworks at Machen[20], which might have been what Williams (1960) later described as a forge.

John Maybery died in 1784. He left two sons, Thomas and Arthur Henry Augustus10, both of whom followed their uncle in entering the legal profession. Thomas, his eldest son, succeeded William Wilkins, as Prothonotary for the Brecknock circuit and Arthur Henry Augustus, his second son, became the head of Maybery, Williams, and Cobb, the Brecon firm of solicitors[21].

J.F. Rees (Frederick Rees) (1965: 132), an historian of Wales, observed that, in the early part of the eighteenth century, there were ‘some scattered charcoal-burning furnaces in South Wales’. The subsequent industrialization of South Wales can be viewed through the lens of the 'Maybery Papers', which originated in Brecon and which are held in the National Library of Wales.

The papers came to the attention of John Edward Lloyd (1904: iii), the eminent historian of Wales, around the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century. He recounted that he had come into the possession of a collection of ‘tens of thousands’ (sic) of documents about the South Wales iron works that he described as having been undisturbed for forty years. The donor of the collection was 'Mr A. Maybery of Brecon', who might have been Arthur Henry Augustus Maybery, a solicitor and a member of a the local Maybery family, of Breconshire, of whom more below.

Lloyd attributed the origin of the collection of papers to the Brecon firm of solicitors of Walter and John Powell. He explained that the firm:

‘had the privilege of being largely employed and trusted by the chief Ironmasters, with the result that in the course of years a mass of documents relating to the South Wales Iron Works accumulated in their offices, and passed on to successive members of the firm … Eventually in 1860, every member of the firm having retired or died, the contents of the office became the property of Mr A. Maybery by descent …’. (ibid.)[22]

Lloyd reported that the condition of the papers ‘was such as to make it a risk to health to make among them even a search of a few hours’ duration.’ Nevertheless he examined and reduced them ‘to some kind of order’. Eventually he reproduced what he considered were the most important ones in his book ‘The early history of the old South Wales iron works (1760-1840)’, which was published in 1906.

The book documents the histories of multiple industrial locations in South Wales and comprises thirty-one chapters, which are divided into two divisions, a Western one and an Eastern one.

The first chapter of the book sets the tone for the remaining ones. It relates to the construction in 1720 of the Brecon Furnace and Forge[23], and the Aberllonvey (present-day Three Cocks) Forge and is mostly based upon the reproduction of a lease between the two lessees and the landowner of the related property.

The historical importance of the Maybery Papers will be understood from the wide scope of its contents.

The industrial locations in the Western division comprised Brecon Furnace and Forge and Aberlonvey Forge; Hirwain Iron Works[24]; Dowlais Iron Works; Cyfarthfa Iron Works[25]; Plymouth Iron Works; Pendyarran Iron Works; Neath Abbey Works[26]; Afon, Ynis y Penalwch, Ynis y Gerwn and Dylais Forges; Ynis y Cedwyn Furnace; Melin Griffith Iron Works; Treforest Works[27]; Aberaman Iron Works[28]; Aberdare Iron Works[29]; Abernant Iron Works[30] and Gadlys Iron Works[31].

The industrial locations in the Eastern division comprised Bute Iron Works; Union Iron Works; Tredegar Iron Works[32]; Sirhowy Ironworks; Ebbw Vale Iron Works[33]; Abercarne Iron Works[34]; Blaen Afon Iron Works[35]; Nant y Glo Iron Works; Beaufort Iron Works; Clydach Iron Works[36]; Llanelly (or Clydach) Forge[37]; Llangrwyney Forge[38]; The Forge or Trostre Forge[39]; Abbey Tintern Iron Works[40]; Monmouth Forge[41] and New Wear Forge[42].

Originally coal was used as a fuel in iron production. Then, with the discovery of the huge extent of the South Wales Coalfield, iron production became superseded by the Coal industry, see Atkinson and Baber (1987).

Notes

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  1. ^ See Recorded name: The Forge
  2. ^ See Lloyd (1906:1).
  3. ^ See Lloyd (1906: 3).
  4. ^ See 1726 in Wales.
  5. ^ Young (1937) observed: ‘From the beginning of the industrial revolution, the ironmongery and the ironfounding businesses were closely associated in the provinces, and not a few of the engineering concerns of the present century have had their beginnings in an ironmonger’s workshop.’
  6. ^ Ashton (1924: 5) observed: ‘even in early times the apparatus of an ironworks represented a volume of capital that few save landowners could command.’
  7. ^ David Watkin Jones (1874: 204), who wrote under the bardic name Dafydd Morganwg, documented: 'in 1666 one ‘Mayber' (sic) built a small charcoal-fired furnace in a remote place near Llygad Cynon (the source of the River Cynon), in the parish of Penderyn.'
  8. ^ See Lloyd (1906: 2).
  9. ^ See Minchinton (1961).
  10. ^ See Davies (1933: 136).
  11. ^ Davies (1965: 2-3) observed: '[prior to 1750] access by road to the new industrial areas of [north-east Glamorgan and north Monmouthshire] was not possible until the construction of the Abergavenny-Merthyr road in 1812; indeed, it was easier to reach these communities by road from the north than from the south until well into the second half of the nineteenth century.’
  12. ^ See Jepson (1997).
  13. ^ See Note 4.
  14. ^ See Lloyd (1906:2).
  15. ^ See Jepson (2015).
  16. ^ See Rehder (1987) about the change of fuel from charcoal to coal.
  17. ^ See Minchinton (1961).
  18. ^ See Williams (1960).
  19. ^ See Lloyd (1906: 14).
  20. ^ See Lloyd (1906: 3).
  21. ^ The firm of Maybery, Williams, and Cobb, solicitors, succeeded that of Powell, Jones, and Powell, which in turn had succeeded that of Walter and John Powell
  22. ^ The firm of Walter and John Powell was succeeded by Powell, Jones, and Powell, which in turn was succeeded by Maybery, Williams, and Cobb, which explains how an ancestor of A. Maybery, whose family had previously come from Worcestershire where it owned an iron forge, became associated with the collection of papers that eventually came into Lloyd’s possession.
  23. ^ See Jepson (1997).
  24. ^ See Hirwaun.
  25. ^ See Cyfarthfa Ironworks.
  26. ^ See Neath Abbey.
  27. ^ See Treforest tinplate works.
  28. ^ See Aberaman.
  29. ^ See 'Iron industry' in Aberdare.
  30. ^ See Abernant, Rhondda_Cynon_Taf.
  31. ^ See 'Iron industry' in Aberdare.
  32. ^ See Tredegar Iron and Coal Company.
  33. ^ See Ebbw Vale Steelworks.
  34. ^ See Abercarn.
  35. ^ See Blaenavon Ironworks.
  36. ^ See Clydach Gorge.
  37. ^ See Clydach Gorge.
  38. ^ See Glangrwyney.
  39. ^ See Trostrey.
  40. ^ See Tintern.
  41. ^ See Osbaston, Monmouth.
  42. ^ Unfortunately Lloyd (op. cit.: 207-208) didn't specify the location of New Wear. It is on the Monmouthshire bank of the River Wye, at the boundary across the river between Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, below Symonds Yat and opposite, on the other bank, The Doward. The only map in which it appears is in Black and Black (1856: 384).
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  • Ashton, Thomas Southcliffe (1924). Iron and steel in the industrial revolution. Manchester: University of Manchester Press. ISBN 9333303626.
  • Atkinson, Michael; Baber, Colin (1987). The growth and decline of the South Wales iron industry. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 0-7083-0953-4. Retrieved 28 July 2024.
  • Black, Adam; Black, Charles (1856). Black's Picturesque Guide Through North and South Wales (Sixth ed.). North Bridge: The Authors. Retrieved 26 July 2024.
  • Davies, David James (1933). The economic history of South Wales prior to 1800. Cardiff: University of Wales Press Board.
  • Davies, E.T. (1965). Religion in the Industrial Revolution in South Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  • Jepson, Ursula (1997). "The Brecon Ironworks". Brycheiniog. 29: 47-52. Retrieved 25 July 2024.
  • Jones, Theophilus (1898). A history of the county of Brecknock Containing the chorography, general history, religion, laws, customs, manners, language, and system of agriculture used in that county. Volumes 1-2. Brecknock: Edwin Davies. Retrieved 26 July 2024.
  • Lloyd, John (1906). The early history of the old South Wales ironworks, 1760 to 1840. The Bedford Press: London.
  • Minchinton, W.E. (1961). "The place of Brecknock in the industrialization of South Wales II. Iron and Tinplate". Brycheiniog. VII: 7-29. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  • Morganwg, Dafydd (1874). Hanes Morganwg. Aberdare: The Author.
  • Owen, Matthew (1911). The Story of Breconshire. Cardiff: Educational Publishing Co.
  • Poole, Edwin (1886). The illustrated history and biography of Brecknockshire from the earliest times to the present day. Brecknock: The Author. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  • Rees, J.F. (1965). "How South Wales became industrialized". Studies in Welsh history Collected papers, lectures and reviews (Second ed.). Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  • Rehder, J.E. (1987). "The change from charcoal to coke in iron smelting". Historica/ Metallurgy. 21 (1): 37-43.
  • Williams, L.J. (1960). "A Welsh Ironworks at the Close of the Seventeenth Century". National Library of Wales Journal. XI (3): 266-271. Retrieved 25 July 2024.
  • Young, Wm. A (1937). "A stock book of 1828 and other finds". Transactions of the Newcomen Society. 18 (1): 199-203.


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