The Williamses of Cefn y Gwych, Meliden

Mr Edward Parry, the Assistant Overseer of the Poor introduces you to Mr. John Williams of Meliden. He can only write in Welsh and so his minister, the Reverend Hughes of Seion has provided a translation.

‘Like my father and my grandfather, I am a lead miner. I was born in Cefn y Gwrych in 1840 and will be thirty-six in October. I met my Elizabeth at Meliden Fair and we married at Ebeneser Chapel in Rhuddlan, where she used to help at the Sunday School.

‘Mam died from the diphtheria when I was six and I started ore washing when I was eight—you have to be fourteen now. When I was eighteen, I joined my uncle, father and cousin underground and since the death of my father, I work for uncle Will. Uncle Will is forty-five and he is always breathless. We start at six in the morning and work a six-hour shift. We are paid by how much ore we have raised after it has been washed and weighed. Some of the ore washers are not to be trusted but now that my son Willy and uncle Will’s son Johnnie have both become washers, they watch out for us. The company sells the ore at Holywell on the second Thursday every month and we are paid the following Saturday which is Meliden Fair Day. We usually earn about seventeen shillings a week and the boys about six shillings. [Worth about £80 and £28 in 2021]

‘I still live in the company cottage where I was born. It has a parlour, a kitchen and two bedrooms. Outside there is a wash-house with a copper boiler and we have our own privy at the end of the garden. We are lucky because the water pump is on the road to Penrhwylfa and it only takes Eliza five minutes if she doesn’t meet Mrs. Hughes from Tŷ Newydd Farm. We eat bread and potatoes mostly and I grow a few other vegetables on my piece of land. When the pig is killed, we will use the money towards next year’s rent and new shoes for Sundays. I go to Seion twice every Sunday and on Tuesday evenings some of us attend the chapel schoolhouse where the Reverend Hughes helps us with our writing and Bible reading. In my younger days I played for the Talargoch Swifts and I also played in the Talargoch Brass Band but my breath is getting short. Like most of the other miners, I suffer from the colic for which I take opening medicines and avoid drink. My father and his father both died before they were forty.

‘I do not allow Eliza to work, that would be wrong—her place is to keep house and look after the children. I do nothing around the house but I do look after the garden and the pig with the help of young William. Eliza makes bread first thing on Tuesdays and Fridays and Beth, our nine-year, takes the loaves, in their tins, to Mrs. Ellis’s bakehouse at Tai Cochion on her way to school and then collects them on the way home. Eliza gets up at five every morning to get myself and William off to work. Tommy-bach is five now and happy to look after himself while my wife does her chores. Monday is wash day and Eliza does the ironing on Tuesdays. On Wednesday mornings she beats the rugs and then sweeps the house from top to bottom. She blackens the grate and after Bryn ‘rogli has been to empty the privy, she gives it a good scrubbing which helps clean her hands. On Thursdays she makes and mends our clothes—she made all our curtains, rag rugs, bed linen, towels and nappies with cloth she bought at the fair, She does all the shopping on Friday morning and in the afternoon she cleans the lamps and brasses. I think that she takes in dressmaking when I am at work but I say nothing.

‘We have a tin bath hanging on the kitchen wall and although the company has a wash-house, nobody uses it. I have a cold bath every day after work but in the winter we bring in pails of hot water from the wash-house copper. Eliza worries about my cough and wishes I could stop mining. Her sister, Mair, has applied to Mr. Parry for assistance but may have to go to into the workhouse because she has just lost her Tom who was forty-three and still mining.

‘Our Mary left school last year—she’s fifteen now and has started cleaning for the Davieses at Pwll y Bont, which is just down the hill. She will have to work to earn her keep at home until we find her a husband but she is always complaining that I don’t let her see any young men or let her go to the Meliden Fair. She helps Eliza around the house but is more a hindrance than a help—I can’t imagine what use she is down at Pwll y Bont. She wants to marry a farmer and live in a big house with servants! Eliza tells me that Peter Hughes is a good boy and I will have a talk with his father.

‘My elder son, Willy, who I mentioned earlier, washes lead at Yr Olchfa. He is always soaking wet, even in the winter and can’t wait until he is eighteen so he can join us underground. I always tell him that he is lucky not to be working in Trelogan where Captain Bowen beats the lads with a stick! He dreams of driving the Clive engine at Letty Mwyn but Captain Lean says that his English would need to improve and he would have to attend college to become an engineer.

‘Little Beth is far more useful than her sister and Mr. Denman says that she is doing very well in school. Her writing and counting are good but she finds Scripture and History difficult because they are taught in English. She likes sewing with Mrs. Denman who has learnt to speak Welsh and encourages them with little pieces of Meliden fair toffee.

‘I have been chosen by Captain John to attend the recue brigade that trains at Trelogan Lead Mine. We meet once every month and are shown how to help miners who have injured themselves. About five years ago I helped get poor old Davy Jones out of the bottom of 80 inch engine shaft after he missed his footing on the ladder and drowned in the sump. Usually it’s only broken arms or legs.’

[Mr. John Williams wrote his account in March 1876 and had no idea what was about to happen. In October, the mining company tried to make the men work eight hour shifts instead of six. The resulting strike lasted four months and the men won—sort of. It was a prolonged affair and because it was in the winter months, the men could not grow food in their gardens or undertake casual labour on the farms. After it was all over in February 1877, there were only 40 Meliden men left in the mines. Many moved away and found work as labourers in the Liverpool Docks or building roads. Mr. Williams was fortunate because he was one of the few miners who had stopped using old fashioned black power explosives in favour of the recently invented dynamite. With his experience he was able to find work in the Penmaenmawr granite quarries.]

Lead miners practising first aid at Trelogan Lead Mine.