The Cardiff Book of Days (28 page)

1983:
The Cardiff Singer of the World competition took place for the first time. It was devised by BBC Wales to mark the opening of the St David's Hall. The first winner was the Finnish soprano Karita Mattila. (Wikipedia)

1913:
The Earl of Plymouth ceremonially opened the first two houses on the new Rhiwbina development. A Housing Reform Company had been set up in 1911 to plan and develop a Garden Suburb, following the principles established by pioneer planner Ebenezer Howard at Letchworth and Welwyn in Hertfordshire. The grassed open space in Y Groes was named the Village Green. Tea Gardens established at Rhiwbina in 1916 quickly became a popular rendezvous in summer. Tessa O'Shea later made her first stage appearance there. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1984:
An earthquake measured at 5.4 on the Richter Scale centred on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales was felt in Cardiff. It was the strongest onshore quake to occur in Britain since accurate records began. Landslides were triggered at Tremadog and houses in Liverpool were damaged. In Cardiff the effects were less severe but several people were wakened by the tremors. Several aftershocks – the strongest reaching 4.3 on the Richter scale – followed. (Wikipedia)

1743:
John Wesley preached at Cardiff Castle, probably from the foot of the steps to the keep, where, he later recalled, he had ‘never such a congregation in Wales before, all behaving as God-fearing men'. (William Rees,
Cardiff: A History of the City
, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)

1855:
The first section of the new East Bute Dock was opened. The tug
Queen
towed in the Sunderland barque
William Jones
, dressed overall and with sailors aloft on the yardarms. Four other vessels followed and also Francis Crawshay's private yacht. Music for the occasion was provided by the Cyfarthfa Iron Works Band. (John Richards,
Cardiff: A Maritime History
, The History Press, 2005)

1979:
Ely Leisure Centre opened on part of the former racecourse. An innovative establishment at the time, its facilities have continued to develop and in 2011 included a gymnasium, fitness suite, cardio studio and dance studio. There is a large swimming pool and a smaller training pool, a floodlit outdoor multi-sport pitch and a community room used by local groups. (
www.geograph.org
)

1896:
Fourteen-year-old Louisa Maud Evans died in a ballooning accident at the Cardiff Industrial and Maritime Exhibition in Cathays Park. She had run away from home in Bristol and got involved with Alphonse Gaudron, a Frenchman who was demonstrating the art of parachuting from a balloon tethered over the site. He seems to have lost his nerve and was under threat of being sacked by the show's organisers. He somehow persuaded her to jump instead. It all went horribly wrong. The balloon had not been properly tethered and the helpless Louisa was carried up and out over the sea, her body being retrieved from the Severn at Nash Point near Newport four days later. Her funeral drew large crowds to Cathays cemetery and her headstone, which can still be seen there, was paid for by public subscription. In 2011 performance artist Kathryn Ashill spoke to the
South Wales Echo
about her plans to commemorate Louisa in Cardiff during the summer. ‘I am going to commission a story or poem in her memory,' she said. ‘I was really touched by the fact that people felt the need to look after her in her death.'

1679:
Two Roman Catholic priests, Father Phillip Evans and Father John Lloyd, were martyred in Cardiff at the height of the Titus Oates ‘Popish Plot' hysteria in the reign of Charles II. At their trial no attempt was made to convict them of treason, they were simply charged with being priests. After being convicted, they were first dragged on hurdles to the gallows, situated near the present-day junction of Crwys Road, City Road and Albany Road in Cathays. They were hanged for a few moments but then, before they were dead they were cut down, disembowelled and finally dismembered. The execution is commemorated by a plaque on the side of the NatWest bank. In 1970 Father Evans and Father Lloyd were declared ‘Saints and Martyrs' by Pope Paul VI. (Dennis Morgan,
The Cardiff Story
, D. Brown & Sons, 1991)

1765:
There were more lambs for sale at Ely Fair than ever ‘in the memory of the oldest men' but they sold very cheap ‘because of the dryness of the weather'. (William Rees,
Cardiff: A History of the City
, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)

1323:
A priest from St Mary's, Cardiff, officiated at Mass on the Feast Day of St Margaret. St Mary's had been established as the parish church for the town and outlying chapels at Roath, Llanishen, Lisvane etc. St Mary's had been granted by the Lord of the Manor to the Abbey of Tewkesbury and became a priory with a community of monks until 1221. A small village near Tewkesbury still has the name Walton Cardiff. (William Rees,
Cardiff: A History of the City
, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)

1963:
P.A. Campbell's, which had sold off its steamer fleet, began week-long trials with a 27-ton SRN2 hovercraft with a view to operating a passenger service between Penarth and Weston-super-Mare. (John Richards,
Cardiff: A Maritime History
, The History Press, 2005)

2010:
Campaigners against a proposed 350,000-tonne waste incinerator at Trident Park, Splott, demonstrated outside City Hall. Waste management company Viridor had been given planning permission for the plant in June but local people vowed to continue to fight the plan. (
South Wales Echo
)

1886:
The
Western Mail
published a mock inscription for the statue of John Batchelor in The Hayes (
see
February 11th): ‘In Honour of John Batchelor, a native of Newport who in early life left his country for his country's good. Who, on his return devoted his life and energies to setting class against class. A traitor to the Crown, a reviler of the aristocracy, a hater of the clergy, a panderer to the multitude who, as first Chairman of the Cardiff School Board squandered funds to which he did not contribute, who is sincerely mourned by unpaid creditors to the amount of £50,000 and at the end of his life died a demagogue and a pauper. This monument to the Eternal Disgrace of Cardiff is erected by sympathetic radicals.' It had been sent in by Thomas Ensor, a Cardiff solicitor but he denied it when threatened by Batchelor's son, Cyril and Llewellyn Batchelor. Armed with a riding crop, they accosted the Editor on his way to his office. The row led to an important Test Case on the Law of Libel. In 1887 Mr Justice Stephen ruled that a libel of the dead is not punishable unless an intent to injure the living was proved. (Elizabeth Dart, ‘When Legal History was Made in Cardiff' in
The Cardiff Book
,
Vol.3
, 1977)

1857:
In the last public execution to be held in Cardiff, John Lewis was hanged for the murder of his wife Gwen at Merthyr. He had claimed she had fallen downstairs but scratches on his face seemed to confirm the doctor's view that there had been a struggle and that she was pushed. At his trial the prosecution claimed that Lewis attacked her because he wanted to spend the housekeeping money on drink. There had been a retrial after the first jury failed to agree but he was then convicted at Swansea Assizes. (
www.truecrimeslibrary.com
)