The Cardiff Book of Days (4 page)

1806:
Unable to cope financially with the modern world of free trade and open competition, the impoverished Cordwainers' Gild of Cardiff agreed to sell the guild's remaining assets to a Mr John Wood for £28 2
s
6
d
. These assets included the ancient Cordwainers Hall at the corner of High Street and Duke Street. This had been their home since the twelfth century but now one of the most valuable commercial sites in the centre of the town passed into private hands. William Rees reports in
Cardiff: A History of the City
that ‘excavations in 1927 discovered the remains of this building which are now in the custody of the National Museum of Wales.'

1870:
The birth of John Conway Rees, the first Welshman to captain Oxford University rugby team. He played for Wales three times, firstly against Scotland on February 6th 1892. His other two appearances were against England in 1893 (the season Wales first won the Triple Crown) and in 1894. He also played for Cardiff, the Barbarians, Llanelli and London Welsh. He taught at Sherborne, Rossall and Giggleswick Schools before spending the last thirty years of his life teaching in India. He died in 1932. (T.D. Breverton,
The Welsh Almanac
, Glyndwr Publications, 2002 / Wikipedia)

1621:
William Herbert was elected Member of Parliament for Cardiff, Llantrisant and Cowbridge. He later purchased the White Friars' lands in Cardiff and built a fine house there. He became one of the Deputy Vice-Admirals for South Wales, Mayor of Cardiff and Constable of the Castle, a position he was appointed to at the start of the Civil War. King Charles I instructed him to seize the castle and collect the rents of the Earl of Pembroke who had sided with Parliament. After his death in 1645 his estates, said to be worth £1,000 a year, were bequeathed to his great nephew William Herbert of St Fagans in fulfilment of a promise made to the King after the Battle of Edgehill. (W.R. Williams, ‘Members of Parliament for Cardiff' /
www.british-history.ac.uk
)

2011:
Tributes were paid to Stewart Williams, doyen of local historians, who had died at the age of 85. He was best known as the editor and publisher of the
Cardiff Yesterday
series. This eventually comprised thirty-six volumes and contained over 7,500 archive photos recording the life of Cardiff and its people. He had begun with the four volumes of his Vale of Glamorgan series (1959-62) which was followed by twelve volumes of the
Glamorgan Historian
. The success of
Cardiff Yesterday
enabled him to give up his job as publicity officer for the Western Welsh Bus Company and work full-time on his writing and publishing, assisted by his wife Betty and children Robert and Diane. Fellow author Brian Lee described Williams as an innovator: ‘When he wrote the foreword for my book
A Cardiff Century
in 2004, he mentioned his pride in having a copy of
Cardiff Yesterday
included in a time capsule. He just loved history.'

[When I started to do the research for this book, it was with
Cardiff Yesterday
that I began. It pointed me in the right direction and told me where to look for more information. Clearly, I am only the latest writer on Cardiff to follow gratefully where Stewart Williams has led!]

1909:
A party led by St Fagans-born geologist Sir Edgeworth David was the first to reach the magnetic South Pole. After education at Oxford, David began his career back in South Wales. In 1881 he presented a paper to the Cardiff Naturalists Society on ‘Evidences of Glacial Action in the Neighbourhood of Cardiff'. The following year he went out to Australia where he became Professor of Geology at Sydney University. In 1907 he was invited to join Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic and in March 1908 led the first ascent of Mount Erebus. During the First World War, he enlisted as a Major at the age of 58 and used his geological expertise to advise on the construction of trenches and dug-outs. He was knighted in 1920 and died in Australia in 1934. (T.D. Breverton,
The Welsh Almanac
, Glyndwr Publications, 2002 / Wikipedia)

1919:
USS
Lake Erie
sank off Lavernock Point after a collision with the British steamship
Hazel Branch
. She had been one of a large number of vessels originally ordered by the British and built in Detroit but requisitioned by the American government when the US entered the war. After the accident she was salvaged and continued to trade for the next forty years. (John Richards,
Cardiff: A Maritime History
, The History Press, 2005)

2011:
In a consultation document on managing the flood risk in the Severn Estuary the Environment Agency expressed concern about the sea defences at Penarth. Unless improvements were made, the Agency warned, the Sea Wall could collapse due to frequent ‘overtopping' by about 2040. The report noted that the Vale of Glamorgan Council had plans to strengthen the Promenade which, if done, would help to reduce the flood risk.
The Severn Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy
also predicted that annual flooding could occur in parts of Cardiff and Newport by 2110 if flood defences were not improved. In this Consultation Document the Agency set out a programme of ‘phased improvements' between 2060 and 2110 ‘to keep pace with climate change'. This was to be carried out ‘in a way that is sustainable for people, the economy and the environment'.

1937:
The grandstand at Ninian Park, home of Cardiff City FC, was destroyed by fire. At 3.45 a.m. a policeman saw flames coming from the stand, fanned by a strong wind. It took less than an hour for the grandstand to be reduced to a pile of hot, twisted girders. The brave efforts of the fire brigade prevented the fire spreading to other parts of the stadium but the offices, dressing rooms and the team's kit were destroyed. Sadly, Jack, the stadium guard-dog, perished in the flames, but Trixie, the black cat which had been the club's mascot in the 1927 Cup Final was rescued unhurt but badly singed. A petrol can was found near the safe in the burnt-out office and appeared to have been tampered with. It is thought that burglars had been trying to steal the takings from the weekend's game with Grimsby Town (a 1-3 home defeat) but the gate receipts of about £2,000 had been removed from the ground immediately after the game. (M.J. Mace, ‘A History of Cardiff City Fire Brigade', in
Glamorgan Historian
, 1977)

1963:
The inexperienced Clive Rowlands' first game as Captain of the Welsh rugby team (
v
. England at Cardiff) was under threat due to the exceptionally cold weather. ‘We weren't sure if the game would be played,' Rowlands recalled later. ‘I'm panicking, selected as captain and not certain that I'm going to get to play. The weather was so cold that we didn't train on the Friday'. The players were issued with gloves and warm woolly underwear. An army of volunteers got the ground playable. The players stayed in the changing rooms while the anthems were played and when they ran onto the pitch the surface was rock hard. ‘They shouldn't have played it,' Rowlands admitted, ‘but I'm glad they did because it was my first cap and I may not have got one if the selectors had been given a chance to change their minds'. Wales lost 6-13 but Rowlands went on to captain Wales thirteen more times. (Steve Lewis,
The Priceless Gift: 125 Years of Welsh Rugby Captains
, Mainstream, 2005)

1607:
A tidal wave, due to a tsunami or a storm surge up the Bristol Channel (experts disagree on which was the cause) caused severe flooding of the lowlands on either side of the Severn Estuary. The floodwaters stretched for over twenty miles alongside the river and up to four miles inland. An anonymous chronicler wrote that the waters ‘are affirmed to run with a swiftness so incredible that no greyhound could have escaped by running before them.' Flooding was not uncommon in Cardiff at that time but no one had ever experienced a calamity on this scale. St Mary's Church was seriously damaged and its foundations undermined. Parts of the churchyard were washed away. The church was later abandoned and a new St Mary's built on a different site in 1840. The outline image of a church on a wall in Great Western Lane is thought to depict the old St Mary's whose foundations lie under Wetherspoon's. It was said that 200 bodies were found embalmed in the salty mud near Marshfield when the waters receded. (John Richards,
Cardiff: A Maritime History
, The History Press, 2005)

1939:
Miners' Leader and novelist Lewis Jones (born 1897) died in Cardiff at the end of a hectic day in which he had addressed over thirty meetings in support of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. He had been an active trade unionist in the Nottinghamshire and South Wales coalfields. After the General Strike in 1926 he had been imprisoned in Swansea Jail for three months. An individualist, his turbulent private life and his distrust of Stalin's personality cult led to his being repeatedly suspended and disciplined by the Communist Party. He was sent home from the Soviet Union for remaining seated during a standing ovation for Stalin. He led three Hunger Marches to London during the 1930s. In 1936 he had been elected as one of two Communists on Glamorgan County Council. (T.D. Breverton,
The Welsh Almanac
, Glyndwr Publications, 2002 / Wikipedia)

1982:
The Salutation pub in Hayes Bridge Road (first licensed in 1847) closed its doors for the last time, following its near neighbour, The Greyhound in Bridge Street (September 1855 to May 1981). The area was redeveloped and later became the site of Toys R Us. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1884:
Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Sullivan was sent to prison for a month by Cardiff Magistrates for having been drunk and disorderly the previous evening. It was the eighth time she had been convcted of drunkenness. (
Western Mail
)