The Home Front

I've probably mentioned this before in passing but it's another incident that deserves a post of its own.  Let's remember the historical context here, just a couple of days after the Somme offensive of 1916 had ended, leaving over one million soldiers dead or wounded.

Meanwhile on the glensides of Radnorshire:

Clearly these bold Radnorians with their dynamite and gaffs were a disgrace to the Empire or Team GB as it is now known.

The River Whey?  Well I guess Hansard's stenographer was bamboozled by the gallant Captain's Old Etonian accent - later ennobled as Viscount Bledisloe he would present a cup still pursued energetically by former colonial egg-chasers.

An Outrage Scarcely Surpassed in Ireland

Although the old Radnorshire folk may be heading for the red-list along with the curlew and the skylark; your blogger is still a bit wary of naming names, even when describing events that occurred more than a hundred years ago.  The farmer responsible for the downfall of poor Miriam Jones remains anonymous in my account - no actual court conviction and too many potential descendants to offend.  Then there is a particular surname which appears far more often than it would be reasonable to expect in the county's criminal records ..... and even amongst those of the clan who migrated to the United States.  Let's leave their progeny in well-deserved peace.

Occasionally of course one makes a mistake, a name is mentioned and across the decades a family member gets in touch.  This was the case recently with a brief reference I made some years ago to the attack on the Llanbadarnfynydd police station in December 1880.  An incident which deserves to be described in greater detail.

Take this reprt from distant Hull where the local newspaper summed up the "murderous attack by the Rebeccaites" as an "outrage (which) has scarcely been surpassed in Ireland."  The Irish comparison was a frequently expressed opinion when the Radnorshire troubles appeared in the Victorian press.  "Death was then cried a score of times and volley after volley was fired, the door and windows being riddled with bullets and shot ... the valley of the Ithon appeared to be alive with armed men."  The opinion of the Hull paper was that "nothing but a strong force of military will restore order in these disturbed districts in Radnorshire."

A more sober report shows that Hull's hyperbole was not far off the mark:

"On the night of 5th Dec 1881, a police officer was badly injured by salmon poachers. This officer, who was stationed at Llanbadarn Fynydd, was patrolling the road between Llanbister and Llanbadarn Fynydd. Lights could be seen on the river and the noise of gun-fire heard.  When near a house called Brook Cottage the officer's attention was drawn by a noise in the hedge close to him. Turning his bullseye in the direction from which the sound came he saw three men about to climb over the hedge. Two of the men carried shotguns and the third a salmon spear. The latter at once struck at the officer with the spear. The policeman attempted to ward off the blow with his left arm but the spear pierced his helmet and cut his nose. The force of the blow fractured his arm. After a shot had been fired at the policeman, which fortunately missed him, the men ran away. The policeman then made his way home as best he could but his ordeal was not over, for shortly afterwards a gang of armed men appeared outside his house. Shots were fired at the window of the constable's house, smashing panes. A stone struck a clock in the living room and a shot passed over the crib in which the officer's baby was lying. Twenty seven slugs were later found in the front door. Fortunately no injury was sustained by the occupants, but this was undoubtedly a night of terror for the police officer and his family."

Now "salmon poachers" is hardly an accurate description of these Victorian activists.  Poachers don't usually draw attention to themselves by firing guns, parading in large numbers, often in daylight and in the centre of villages and towns.  This was an open challenge to the authorities and the Llanbadarn attack was the culmination of a month of  activity by the Rebeccaites on the Ithon and Upper Wye - an official inquiry later reported that a hundred individuals took part in the attack on the police station.  The Rebeccaites were standing-up for the traditional right of the populace to take salmon from the river and against over-netting by big landowners down-stream in Herefordshire.

Violence against the local police was uncommon, that against bailiffs and other outsiders less so. Police-Constable Cairns, the subject of the attack had a bad reputation in the county.  He seems to have been eager to confront the Rebeccaites.  In his 1976 article in the journal Llafur entitled the Second Rebecca Riots the historian David Jones gave some background concerning the victim of the attack:

"From Rhayader, where additional policemen were stoned on arrival came reports of 'foreign' armed policemen making noisy night patrols through the streets and subjecting innocent bystanders to undignified searches. One of the most unpopular constables was Frederick Cairns, who was charged at various times with assaulting people in the countryside near Rhayader."

Constable Cairns identified two of his assailants who were bailed (for a sizeable £400) to appear before the magistrates in Penybont.  Come the day and the village was said to have the appearance of a fair, such were the crowds drawn in support of the defendants.  Still suffering from his injuries Cairns braved a courtroom in which the public noisily greeted the supposed Rebeccaites as heroes.  Of course the defendants had alibis for the night in question and the court adjourned for a week to consider their decision.

To much public rejoicing the Penybont two were found not guilty.  The magistrates concluding that the constable had made an honest mistake in identifying them as his attackers.  Within a few weeks Cairns had been dismissed from the Radnorshire Constabulary.  Enquiries having shown that he had previously been found guilty of misconduct while employed in English police forces, something that he had denied during the court case.

Of course the Rebeccaites were operating in a society where the right to vote was restricted.  It's often forgotten that even after the 1884 Representation of the People Act some 40% of men were still denied a vote in parliamentary elections as well as 100% of women.  By resorting to shows of strength in support of popular causes the activists were able to curb excesses on the part of the local elite - evictions during the enclosures for example were carried out by newcomers to the district, who soon learnt the virtues of discretion when dealing with the commonality.  In the same way the Fishing regulations were a foreign imposition and there was conflict between outsiders determined to enforce the law and local magistrates and squires intent on social harmony.

There is a danger with popular movements which use threats and actual intimidation to achieve their ends, it's probably how the Mafia started out.  There are examples of over-stepping the mark in Radnorshire, for example I understand that this incident is still a cause of controversy amongst some families in the locality concerned.

Will Rebeccaism ever return to rural Wales?  Well you sometimes get the impression that our rulers regard democracy as only a short-lived experiment, so you never know.

A Reluctant Welsh Blogger

This blog started out to cover snippets of Radnorshire history - basically to show that the county was part and parcel of mainstream Wales and not, for example, as this offering would have it: "neither in Wales nor England, but simply Radnorshire." Well-meaning perhaps, but for me comments like this just play into the hands of our ill-wishers and have no real basis in historical fact.

Occasionally I've allowed myself a rant about some contemporary issue or other and this is probably why my blog got listed on Blog Wales, where it rubs shoulders with more mainstream political offerings.  I feel a bit embarrassed by this.  Do my new readers really want to be informed about some minutiae from Radnorshire's past?   I'm tempted to tailor my material to suit the new audience but that's not really on. So apologies to anyone expecting a Radnorian take on NHS reform or Climate Change.

Over the years I've posted a lot about the Rebecca Riots in Radnorshire.  Whereas in most of Wales these actions were done and dusted by the 1840s, in western Radnorshire they continued throughout the Victorian period and even as late as the 1930s.  Tory magistrates thought better of convicting the Rebeccaites while Edwardian Liberal politicians found it expedient to praise them.  Aimed mainly at the fishery laws, Rebecca's activities also encompassed actions against evictions and enclosures, over-pricing by shopkeepers and so on.

Knowing all this I was still a little gobsmacked to read about this action in 1916. With the socialists of  Merthyr Tydfil competing to see who could be more jingoistic in their support for the war and Lloyd George on the verge of becoming prime minister, you'd imagine that red, white and blue would have been the order of the day.  Perhaps Radnorshire is a world of its own after all.

A Rebeccaite Attack

The Rebeccaite attack in the Claerwen valley on September 10th 1868 is retold in two must-have books, see here and here. At the same time we can add a few more facts with the help of a report in the newspaper Baner ac Amserau Cymru and the census returns.

The Nanteos estate had built a shepherd's cottage on Esgair-garthen in Llanwrthwl parish with the purpose, in part at least, of harassing the stock of local farmers who traditionally grazed sheep and cattle on the open mountain thereabouts. Perhaps the shepherd took his duties a little too seriously, for his home was soon subject to a visit by 15 or so Rebeccaites with blackened faces. As chance would have it the shepherd was away and the house was occupied by his wife, baby son and ten year-old sister-in-law. The family's furniture and clothing were taken out and the house demolished and burnt along with it's stacks of peat and hay. Ms Bidgood reports that the china was put on the dung heap, which seems a mean thing, although in reality it was probably the safest place for them.

Seven of the attackers later appeared in Builth magistrates' court and it is interesting to note that the five easily identifiable individuals all originated from Radnorshire - William Palfrey and his son John from Dyffryn, Llanwrthwl were a Nantmel family, while John Lewis of Dolifor and Thomas Hughes of Cefn were born in Cwmteuddwr. John Scott of Ciloerwynt was also a Cwmteuddwr man. Two others cannot be identified with certainty although David Davies, a servant at Cefn, was most likely a Radnorian while Thomas Jones, a carpenter, was probably a Cardi.

No doubt for the shepherd's family this was as terrifying an experience as for those legally evicted from their homes on the commons. The Esgair-garthen action was part of an on-going very low level insurgency against those members of the ruling class who were seen as over-stepping the mark. To a degree it was a threat that kept the majority of landlords a tad more honest.

The prosecutor in the Builth court complained about the "Irish" character of the attack and like most of the cases where Rebeccaites were brought before the bench, there were no convictions for lack of evidence.

A Popular Insurrection

Radnorshire Rebeccaites on the Edw, December 1932.

If the rapid retreat of Welsh in 19C Radnorshire is reminiscent of language shift in Ireland, then the London press were also quick to draw Irish comparisons when reporting the activities of the county's Rebeccaites. Throughout the Victorian period and beyond this body openly challenged the authorities with acts of public lawbreaking, armed marching gangs, intimidations and pranks. Not just in respect of the fisheries but also against profiteering shopkeepers and the like.

Much to the disgust of outsiders the Radnorshire magistrates were loath to hand out heavy fines or even convictions to the handful of rioters brought before the courts. After all the local landlords knew that the Rebeccaites had widespread public support. In most respect Radnorshire was one of the most law-abiding districts in the kingdom - during its 90 year plus existence the Radnorshire Constabulary only investigated four murders for example. But where there was perceived injustice the populace turned to Rebecca.

As far as I know the best account of these activities is "The Second Rebecca Riots: A Study of Poaching on the Upper Wye" by historian David Jones. It was published in the journal Llafur, volume 2 no. 1 - spring 1976. A more recent account can be found in the Keith Parker book Parties, Poll and Riots - Politics in 19C Radnorshire. There is plenty in the contemporary press of course - much of which can be accessed online via our National Library.

NOTE: It should be noted that far from being mere ruthless exploiters of salmon stocks the Victorian Rebeccaites were campaigning against the commercial night-netting activities of landowners such as the Duke of Beaufort, who were taking 6000 fish a season from the Wye between Ross and Hereford.

Attitudes to Radnorshire in the 19C, part two

The Welsh language is, of course, one of the markers of Welshness, but it is not the only one.

You only have to look at the position of Ireland to see that a sense of national identity does not depend on a vigorous national language alone. Indeed the very strength of Welsh, still spoken by perhaps a quarter of the population, to an extent weakens the national self-confidence of the 75% who do not.

Although Radnorshire was the first county in Wales to be anglicised in language terms, in other respects it was one of the most traditional of all the Welsh counties. Rebeccaism, tai un nos, the traditions of ceffyl pren are all examples of this. The following is an extract of an 1861 article translated from the newspaper Baner ac Amserau Cymru. Although to modern ears the description of the traditional parish wake in Aberedw seems laudable enough - an example of Hen Gymru Llawen (Merrie Old Wales) - to the author of the article and his readers it was something to be condemned.

The other day I was in Aberedw, to see the ruins of the castle and Llywelyn’s cave. Aberedw is a place on the Radnorshire side (of the Wye). We went to sit for a while in a house that was known to one of our company. The niece of the man of the house happened be there on a visit.

“When are you going home?” someone asked.
“I’m not going home” replied the young girl, “ until after the feast.”
“When is the feast?”
“Next Sunday”
“What feast is that” I asked.
“Aberedw Feast” said the girl.
“What sort of feast is that?”

But the young lady could not give an explanation, other than it was Aberedw feast, a little amazed that I should enquire about a subject of which everyone was aware.

“Gwlabsant” explained her uncle “that’s the feast.”
“Perhaps.” he said “you don’t know what gwlabsant is?”

I knew a little from history, but only from history. I had never before been in a district where the gwyl y mabsant, the feast of the patron saint was still alive.

“What will happen next Sunday that is different from any other Sunday?”
“Oh the feast is not as big as it was years ago. Then it lasted a week, feasting and drinking, singing and dancing, fighting and so on. But now there’s just a little feasting, killing fowls, baking cakes, puddings, pasties and meeting to spend the day eating and socialising with each other."

Even the very mention of a saint’s feast has died out long ago in every other part of Wales. There’s barely one in a thousand who even knows the meaning of the word. The Sunday schools have extinguished virtually all of the old country customs except in Radnorshire. Here they have a refuge and a burial place.

Attitudes to Radnorshire in the 19C, part one

The government's 1847 report on education in Wales has long been notorious for blaming all the country's supposed social ills - deceitfulness, illiteracy, illegitimacy, drunkenness - on the Welsh language. Of course these criticisms proved intolerable to the Welsh speaking chapel based intelligentsia, who sought to counter the libels against the nation.

Now the county in Wales, indeed Britain, with the highest level of illegitimacy was Radnorshire, a county notorious for Rebeccaism and for the drunkenness associated with its fairs and, heaven forbid, parish wakes. With something like 90% of the households in the county speaking the English language around the hearth, Radnorshire was an easy target for the 19C Welsh language press in their efforts to prove that Welsh was not the cause of civic backwardness.

In language that matched the 1847 report at its most prejudiced, the supposed depravity said to be typical of Radnorshire was laid at the door of the county's recent anglicisation, here is a typical example:

"What for example has Radnorshire gained from that? ..... it is one of the darkest and most backward parts of the whole kingdom in terms of morality and learning. It is as if the human mind has disappeared from view as regards the population in general. Only the animal aspect of humanity can be seen living there." - Baner Cymru 19/5/1858

These attitudes towards Radnorshire persisted into the 20C and are well illustrated by the Montgomeryshire born Iorwerth Peate writing in 1933. For him Radnorians were "a deracine people, a people fallen between two stools a community of half-things." Even today such prejudices can be seen in the perfunctory and ill-informed treatment of Radnorshire topics by some historians coming from the Welsh-speaking, non-conformist tradition.

Edward Rice

The bare outline of Edward Rice's life can be sketched from the public records. He was born in Llanwrthwl around 1808 and by the late 1830's he was farming at Dolyfallen in that parish. Rice must have been successful, in 1840 he married Ann Lloyd of Nantmel parish and in the 1841 census they had four servants living in at Dolyfallen.

By the time of the 1851 census Edward and Ann had two sons, Edward and John Lloyd and the family were farming 150 acres at Dolelfa in St Harmon parish. Later that year Ann Rice died and Edward eventually remarried. He died in 1882, aged 74, his two sons continuing to farm Dolelfa into the twentieth century.

Why should Radnorians remember Edward Rice? Well, according to a letter written to Boulogne in France and addressed to local squire Thomas Lewis Lloyd of Nantgwyllt, Edward Rice was the leader of the Rebecca movement in the Rhayader area during the anti-toll gate uprising of the 1840s.

The Attack on the Police Station at Llanbadarn Fynydd

Although Victorian Radnorshire had a deserved reputation for being a district where common criminality was rare, at the same time the activities of the Rebeccaites saw the county being compared to the most rebellious parts of Ireland. Rebecca deliberately challenged the authority of the state with her open displays of law-breaking, her public ridicule of an impotent police force and her disdain for a court system that rarely brought any of her unruly children to book.

The month of November 1880 had seen large numbers of Rebeccaites openly taking salmon on the Wye, the Ithon and their tributaries. This activity culminated on the evening of December 6th 1880, when a blackened faced party of one hundred armed men took salmon from the Ithon in the North Radnorshire village of Llanbadarn Fynydd. The local police officer Frederick Cairns, a man with a reputation for brutality, was observing the activity from a distance when he heard a noise beside him. Swinging his torch he claimed to identify a local farmer William Davies, before being struck down with a spear that burst the policeman's nose and left him with a broken arm. Later in the evening, having left the river, the Rebeccaites launched a volley of stones and gunshots at the door and windows of Cairns' police station before disappearing into the night.

William Davies and another local man. John Williams, a farm servant at Llinwent, were brought to court in Penybont, but, as was so often the case in a county where sympathy for Rebecca and her daughters was so strong, both men were discharged.

Rebeccaism in Radnorshire

The anti-toll gate campaign of the 1840s was not the last Radnorshire saw of Rebecca and her daughters. Whenever the community felt a sense of injustice she seemed to reappear from the shadows, whether the concern were the game laws, the price of food or some other issue troubling the locality.

Rebeccaism flourished because Radnorians did not feel that they could get justice in the courts. The Rebeccaites openly challenged English law by breaking it in public and in such large numbers that the authorities could do nothing. They wore disguises so that individuals could not be prosecuted when the established order had been reasserted.

The photograph shows a party of Rebeccaites taking salmon on the Edw as late as December 1932. The fishery laws were a particular bone of contention in Radnorshire whose populace had long ago paid the English Crown for the right to fish and hunt in perpetuity, it was a bargain that the Crown had decided to forget. The picture was not grabbed by some intrepid photojournalist, it was posed deliberately and was later displayed in public and sent to the newspapers. It was an open challenge to the authority of the state, which infact failed to convict any of those involved.

It is a pity that the Assembly sponsored Gathering the Jewels website tries to diminish this political act with some half cocked story that attempts to portray these men as dim-wits.

Girl Power

From an Australian newspaper dated February 1882. Presumably this would have concerned lawlessness associated with the fisheries. Rebeccaism certainly seems to have been quite a factor in Nineteenth Century Radnorshire life - not that you would realise the fact from watching Llandrindod's quaint Victorian festival.

Rebecca's Law

The recent oil price rise seems to have provided an excuse for all manner of businesses to hike their prices. Back in 1854 the good citizens of Mid Wales seem to have had fairly radical ideas of how to deal with such opportunism.

Perhaps we might see an historical reenactment during Llandrindod's eagerly awaited but somewhat overly genteel Victorian Festival?

Victorian Radnorshire

Victorian Radnorshire, Chartists, Rebecca Rioters, evictions, lawlessness associated with the fisheries, the workhouse, the emigrations in the wake of agricultural depression, the links with the coalfield - none of this gets much of a look-in with Llandrindod's somewhat middle-class, somewhat English Victorian festival. Here's a glimpse of that other Radnorshire from the 1891 census, just click on the image to enlarge.

Rebecca in Radnorshire

Here's a report of the Rebecca rioters in 1840's Rhayader. In the main Rebecca's activities in Radnorshire were concentrated in those parishes that were still mainly Welsh speaking in the mid-nineteenth century - Cwmteuddwr, Rhayader, St Harmons, Llanwrthwl (OK so it's in Breconshire) and much of Nantmel and Llanyre.

It's as well to remember the causes of these actions. For example a ton of coal cost 16 shillings in Brecon but in order to transport it to Rhayader a total of 9 shillings would have to be paid in tolls. It wasn't as if the Trusts used the tolls they collected to improve the roads, in many cases the local population had to mend the roads at their own expense just to keep them passable.

More Old News

The Hereford Journal reported on the flash flood of 9th July 1853, that led to the loss of three lives in Howey, I guess if it happened today the “experts” would blame global warming. This event was still recalled in the village when I was a lad in the 1950s:

“At 1 o’clock the rain began to fall in torrents, and by 4 o’clock the usually peaceful little brook had risen to the almost incredible height of 15 feet. A little before 4 a cottage gave way to the devastating element, and soon afterwards the bridge fell in with a fearful crash. In a short time two other cottages gave way, and two lives were lost. A poor man, who has for a length of time has been unable to move from his bed, was swept out of one house, bed and all; his wife and a twin child belonging to another woman in the house were drowned. The mother, with the other child naked in her arms, stood for upwards of two hours upon the projecting point of an old-fashioned chimney-piece, when she was perilously rescued by her brother, who proceeded to her assistance with a rope fastened around his body and held by persons who succeeded in getting them into an adjoining garden.”

It’s sometimes forgotten that western Radnorshire was a centre of the Rebecca movement in the 1840’s. Here’s a typical report from the Times of 7th November 1843:

“A few nights ago a party in the usual disguise of Rebecca and her daughters, some of whom were on horseback, but the majority on foot destroyed the turnpike gate at Newbridge, Radnorshire ......... a detachment of the 4th Light Dragoon is now stationed at Newbridge, having been removed from Builth to that place at the request of the magistrate."

Finally a strange tale of middle class life from the Times of January 24th 1963:

“A boy, aged 13, travelled 140 miles in the boot of his father’s Bentley tonight before he was freed with the help of Automobile Association officers in Leicester. The father, Mr Barry Hutton of Builth Wells, had driven his son Peter to his school at Crawley, and as the boy was unpacking his suitcases he fell into the boot and the lid shut. Mr Hutton, thinking the boy was in the school, set off for Nottingham.”