Merthyr Tydfil and the Boer War
_______________
Projects
I am currently working on two projects relating to the history of my home town, Merthyr Tydfil, which is situated in the South Wales valleys. For those of you who are not familiar with the Merthyr, I can assure you it has a fascinating history.
Merthyr Tydfil has a good claim on the title of the Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. It was here that Richard Trevithick invented the steam locomotive; and the town recently (2004) celebrated the bi-centenary of this momentous event.
By the 1820's, Merthyr had become the epicenter of 40% of Britain's total iron exports.
In 1831 Merthyr experienced the most serious uprising to occur in nineteenth-century Britain. Coal and iron workers took control of the town for 5 days in protest against wide scale job losses and wage cuts. Before peace was restored some 24 people had lost their lives. Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis) was hanged at Cardiff on 13th August 1831 for his part in the riot, becoming the first martyr of the Welsh working class movement.The uprising is also significant in as much as it was the first time in history that a red flag was raised during a workers' uprising.
Merthyr had 4 ironworks, the oldest, in Dowlais, opened in 1759. By 1845 the Dowlais Ironworks was the largest manufacturing concern in the world, with 18 blast furnaces producing 88,400 tons of iron products a year and and employing between 7,000 and 8,000 people.Between 1801 and 1851 Merthyr was by far the biggest town in Wales.
Merthyr had the world's first coal mine that was completely run by a woman.
The ballot box was invented in Merthyr Tydfil in the 1870's.
Finally, it was Merthyr Tydfil that elected Keir Hardie as Britain's very first Labour MP, in 1900.
Today, the town has the benefits of both an active Historical Society and a well-stocked local history library (with very helpful and knowledgeable staff!!) The library holds many indexes for local churches and for some cemeteries. It has census indexes, as well as transcriptions of school registers and the like. There are also other indexing projects currently underway, such as the Merthyr Express Obituary Index.
Despite the existence of all these wonderful resources, I did notice that anyone wanting to research a soldier from Merthyr would find the task quite difficult. Admittedly, some early militia lists for Merthyr and the surrounding area have been transcribed by the Glamorgan Family History Society, but unfortunately they represent the only militarily orientated resources available to genealogists researching ancestors from the town.
In an attempt to redress this balance, I decided to embark on two projects. The first is a simple inventory of local war memorials and rolls of honour; I have photographed and transcribed each memorial and collated the information into an alphabetical index.
The second project, which is actually two projects, is more ambitious. It involves, firstly, the full transcription and indexing of all Merthyr Express articles related to local soldiers who fought in the Boer War, and secondly, the cross-reference of that information with other sources such as army records and census details. The aim is to compile a very detailed index of Merthyr soldiers who served in the conflict.
I
am also a volunteer
for the British
War Memorial Project, which aims to to build an online
International War Memorial to British Service Personnel from 1914 to the
present day. If you would like to volunteer for the Project, please visit
the British
War Memorial Project website.
For more information about my projects, please follow the links on the left.