2022 Membership Information
2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society. We will be marking the anniversary with several special events - these will be advertised in due course. In the meantime, he committee of the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society is pleased to announce that the lecture programme for our anniversary year is now completed.
MERTHYR TYDFIL HISTORICAL SOCIETY - PROGRAMME 2022 50th ANNIVERSARY YEAR | ||
DATE | SPEAKER | LECTURE |
7 February | Chris Parry | The Life of Robert Thompson Crawshay: God Forgive Who? |
7 March | Jeremy Konsbruck | Merthyr’s Jewish Heroes of the Great War |
4 April | Graham Watkins | The Secrets, Stories and Scandals of Welsh Follies |
9 May | Barrie Jones | Thomastown Park, the First Peoples’ Park |
6 June | Dr Stephanie Ward | Labour Party Women in Interwar South Wales |
July (date to be confirmed) | Society Summer Trip | |
5 September | Professor Madeleine Gray | The Art of the Macabre Followed by A.G.M. |
3 October | Ann Lewis | Merthyr General Hospital |
7 November | Ceri Thompson | Women in the Coal Industry |
5 December | Professor Emerita Christine Trevett | The Depression, Dowlais and its Educational Settlement - A Pictorial History |
Due to escalating costs of overheads, the committee has reluctantly decided to raise the annual membership of the Society to £12 per person (£17 per couple). I hope that this won’t be too much of a blow as we have some first-rate speakers for next year, and I’m sure you will enjoy the 2022 programme.
Steve Brewer - Secretary
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RADCLIFFE HALL
High Street, Penydarren
English Presbyterian
Built - 1905 in the Sub-Classical style of the gable-entry type.
In 1901, members of Hermon and Libanus Chapels in Dowlais started meeting in Penydarren Boys School, and started a Sunday School in the long room of The New Inn, Penydarren.
By 1902 numbers had grown sufficiently for the congregation to build their own chapel. Three cottages were purchased and converted into a meeting place which they called Samaria. In 1904 it was decided to build a new chapel at a cost of £3000, and the name was changed to Radcliffe Hall, and it opened on Good Friday 1905.
Radcliffe Hall chapel was named after Henry Radcliffe, originally from Dowlais, but who lived for many years in Penydarren before moving to Cardiff and eventually owning a shipping company. Henry Radcliffe made a substantial contribution to the building of the chapel.
Originally a Welsh chapel, Radcliffe Hall became an English cause in 1908. It was closed in 1964 and the building burned down in 1976.
Text by Steve Brewer (from "The Chapels of Merthyr Tydfil"
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The difference a decade makes.
‘No religion’ in the Merthyr region
(The religious element in the 2001 and 2011 censuses)
In March this year (2021) there was a census. Its results will start appearing next year. Censuses tell us a lot about change during the decade between each of them but census statistics for religion are notoriously slippery. People are not obliged to answer the religion question, which will skew the figures and it tells you nothing about how seriously people identify with the religion they tick, or practise it (and that’s quite apart from the people who write ‘Jeddai’, ‘Ninja’ and such like). Some people may feel themselves to be Sikh or Jewish or whatever, ‘culturally’ or for family history reasons with no religious commitment at all. So those figures are useless if you want to know what percentage of a population attends a Gurdwara or a Synagogue.
Yet some things were clear from the 2011 census. In the previous ten years people who declared themselves Christians had decreased by 14% in Wales. That was despite the population having risen. They were the only religious group to register decline, moving from 72% of the Wales population in 2001 to 58% Christian in 2011. Also Wales as a whole registered an almost 14% rise in ‘no religion’ response since the 2001 census.
And what of the Merthyr region? The two tables below provide some answers.
2001
Year | Religion | Percentage |
2001 | Christian | 69.81 % |
2001 | No Religion | 21.00 % |
2001 | Religion Not Stated | 8.38 % |
2001 | Muslim | 0.25 % |
2001 | Other Religion | 0.21 % |
2001 | Hindu | 0.17 % |
2001 | Buddhist | 0.11 % |
2001 | Sikh | 0.04 % |
2001 | Jewish | 0.03 % |
*Office of National Statistics data
2011
Year | Religion | Percentage |
2011 | Christian | 56.03 % |
2011 | No Religion | 35.79 % |
2011 | Religion Not Stated | 7.02 % |
2011 | Other Religion | 0.38 % |
2011 | Muslim | 0.34 % |
2011 | Buddhist | 0.21 % |
2011 | Hindu | 0.14 % |
2011 | Sikh | 0.09 % |
2011 | Jewish | 0.01 % |
What will have happened in the last ten years? We have to wait until 2022 for the data and the analysis of it to start emerging.
Christine Trevett
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Short Cuts!!!
After spending my first two school years in Abermorlais, the Infants section closed. For the third year I attended Georgetown Infants.
From Ynysfach Estate my Mother took me along John Street in Georgetown. When I became a bit adventurous, I would take a ‘Short Cut!’, down the steps, along Iron Lane and then up the next steps back onto John Street. My Mother, along with the other Mums, took the sensible, shortest route along John Street.
Keith Lewis-Jones
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Abercanaid Brass Band - 1892
From the Merthyr & Dowlais Times 8/7/1892
Dr. Fred Holley - President
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A Well-travelled Ticket
A gentleman contacted me recently via my blog - ‘The Melting Pot’ to tell me that he had found a Merthyr tram ticket whilst renovating his home........IN ABERDEEN!!!!
Even though his daughter, Poppy, wanted to keep the ticket, he decided, with Poppy's agreement, to send it to me. I will pass it on to the museum of course, but I have taken the opportunity to scan it and share it with everyone first.
Many thanks to Phil Thompson, and especially to his daughter Poppy Reith-Thompson, for sending this to me and allowing me to share it with everyone.
Steve Brewer
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