The Cardiff Book of Days (17 page)

1851:
The clerk of the Cardiff Board of Health was ordered ‘to write to Mr Brunel pointing out the nuisance and injurious effects to Public Health arising from the old bed of the River Taff in consequence of the diversion of the river by the South Wales Railway.' (Stephen K. Jones,
Brunel in South Wales, Vol. 2
, The History Press, 2006)

1978:
Closure of the East Moors (Dowlais) Steelworks (opened on February 4th 1891). (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1941:
Forty-one people were killed and many more seriously injured when four parachute mines were dropped by German bombers aiming for the city centre. Most of the casualties occurred in Llanbleddian Gardens and Wyverne Road, Cathays. At no. 19 Wyverne Road, Mr and Mrs Palmer and their eight children were all killed. The wreckage of their Anderson Shelter was found on the roof of a house in Rhymney Street. Fifty-four houses were demolished, 348 were so seriously damaged as to be rendered uninhabitable. Houses as far away as Albany Road and Crwys Road had their windows blown out. Some 250 homeless people were sent to the Gladstone Road schools for temporary shelter but found there was nobody there to receive them. This incident was kept secret at the time in the interests of public morale. Elsewhere a landmine blew a crater 15ft deep in the grounds of Cardiff Castle. The headquarters of the 4
^th
Cardiff (St Andrew's) Scouts was demolished in the raid but the troop's prize possession, the flag presented by the troop to Captain Scott when his expedition left for the Antarctic in June 1910 (and returned after Scott's death) was rescued intact. (J.H. Morgan, ‘Cardiff at War' in Stewart Williams (ed.)
The Cardiff Book, Vol.3
, 1974 / Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1975:
One of Cardiff's typical street-corner pubs, the Duke of York in Wellington Street closed prior to demolition. The area, bounded by Wellington Street, Cowbridge Road and Leckwith Road, was by the mid-1960s considered ripe for redevelopment. It had been well-provided with pubs. As well as the Duke of York, it had the Greyhound, Red Cow, Rover Vaults and the Swan. This was in complete contrast to ‘Temperance Town', an area of narrow streets and terraced houses just north of the railway station. When the owner of this land, Colonel Edward Robert Wood, leased the land to developer John Scott Matthews in 1858, he stipulated that certain trades could not be carried out there without his permission. These included ‘tavern-keeper, alehouse-keeper or retailer of beer'. Matthews was himself a teetotaller. The first building to be erected was a Temperance Hall (which later became Wood Street Congregational Chapel) and a Temperance Hotel followed. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1869:
First issue of the
Western Mail
, originally financed by the Bute family after they failed to regain the Parliamentary seat for Cardiff in the Election earlier in the year. This defeat was blamed by supporters on the lack of a Conservative-supporting newspaper locally. The paper's name reflects the fact that it was ‘intended to traverse not only highways of the whole of the Principality but guaranteed to cross the Bristol Channel', its planned circulation area including also South West England. (Geraint Talfain Davies in ‘The Capital Makes News' in Stewart Williams (ed.)
The Cardiff Book, Vol.
2, 1974)

1902:
The Cardiff Corporation Tramways system was officially inaugurated with a procession of twelve tramcars, decorated with flowers and Welsh dragons. The trams left their depot in Clare Road and travelled to the Town Hall where the Mayor, council officers and invited guests were waiting to be taken on a tour of the town. The first route to be opened was between Castle Road (renamed City Road in 1905) and the Docks. Purpose-built depots were provided in Clare Road and Newport Road. By 1905 there were 131 trams which carried 18 million passengers on twelve different routes. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1947:
A gale drove the 7,131-ton Canadian steamer
Port Royal Park
broadside into Penarth Pier. The ship, which had been travelling empty from Newport to Cardiff to load cargo for the Persian Gulf, came to rest with her bow within a few yards of the promenade. A considerable amount of damage was done to the pier which had to be closed to the public for two years. (Roy Thorne,
Penarth: A History, Vol.2
, Starling Press, 1976)

1974:
Twenty-year-old trainee reporter Diana Halprin made her own headlines when she posed naked for the latest issue of top-shelf men's magazine
Mayfair
. She had been spotted by its photographer ‘notebook in hand pursuing contestants at a flower show'. Miss Halprin told readers that after leaving school in the Rhondda she had ‘endured eighteen months in a Cardiff insurance office. It taught me shorthand and the fact that I never wanted to work in an office again,' she said. ‘Her April 21st birthdate makes her a Taurean,' readers were informed. Apart from her more visible attributes, the magazine was much taken with her Welsh accent!

1958:
The ‘Festival of Wales' was inaugurated by a spectacular procession through the streets of Cardiff. Led by a giant Welsh dragon breathing smoke, it wound its way past the City Hall where the Duke of Gloucester took the salute and then performed the festival's opening ceremony. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1965:
The death of journalist and author Howard Spring. He had been born in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff in 1889, the third of nine children. His father was a jobbing gardener who was often out of work. His mother took in washing to eke out the family income. He left school at twelve and worked for a short time as a butcher's errand boy and as an office boy at an accountant's in the docks. He then got a job as a messenger at the offices of the
South Wales News
. His ambition and willingness to learn persuaded his editor to pay for Spring to go to evening classes. This led to a distinguished career in journalism in South Wales, Yorkshire and London. He became a novelist, best-known for his 1940 book
Fame is the Spur
. His Cardiff childhood is described in
Heaven Lies All About Us
(1939). (
Dictionary of National Biography
, OUP)

1926:
the start of the General Strike. This had been called by the Trades Union Congress in support of the miners. In April the coal-owners, in response to the worsening economic situation and the decline in the market for coal, demanded that miners worked longer hours for 10-25 per cent less pay. They rejected this and were locked out. Across the country workers' reactions to the strike call were immediate and overwhelming, surprising both the Government and the TUC which quickly lost control of the situation. In Cardiff the men at the Dowlais steelworks walked out as did all the transport workers. Nearly 3,500 railway wagons were strikebound in the local marshalling yards. Seamen, however, refused to strike and the city's trams were kept running by volunteers who ran the risk of assault by angry strikers. Over 600 Special Constables were enrolled and the Government sent troops to key installations and warships to the main ports. Cardiff received a battalion of infantry, a submarine and a cruiser. In the docks volunteers operated tugs and grain elevators and unloaded essential cargo. (Dennis Morgan,
The Cardiff Story
, D. Brown & Sons, 1991 / Wikipedia)

1846:
The
Cardiff & Merthyr Guardian
announced that the Cardiff Cricket Club had been reformed at a meeting at the White Lion Inn. The new club seems to have been a bit more go-ahead than its short-lived predecessor. The increase in trade in Cardiff following the opening of Bute Dock in 1839 led to an influx of young men from England, many of whom were keen cricketers, ‘gentlemen who have already learned the rudiments of the game, as well as being involved in matches of decent standard'. The new club played matches against teams from Tredegar, Merthyr and Newport, as well as several military sides. However, the ground at Longcross House in Newport Road was only available to the club on Thursdays. In July 1847 the paper reported that ‘several members say the day appointed for play is not convenient and that a day earlier in the week would suit the majority of members much better'. On some occasions the club played at an alternative ground in Splott. (Andrew Hignell,
From Sophia to Swalec: A History of Cricket in Cardiff
, The History Press, 2008)

1945:
‘One of the last battles of the Second World War was fought not in Germany but at Ninian Park. The weekend before VE-Day England beat Wales 3-2 in front of a 40,000 crowd. The
Echo
soccer pundit, “The Citizen”, described how Welsh fans had plastered the goalposts and field with leeks before jumping on the crossbars and behaving like monkeys. The police frog-marched some of the worst offenders from the field'. (John O'Sullivan & Bryn Jones,
Cardiff: A Centenary Celebration
, The History Press, 2005)