the out-Burgesses of Loughor for wch reason (among others) wee refused to bring him in Alderman.-Sil: Bevans and Myselfe are much more concerned for the health of this place, ourselves & family (wch are numerous) live in it & wee are not soe necessitous or soe covetous that we would endanger our healths for any considerations whatsoever. There are several Copper workest near Neath, several inhabitants abt those workes, & yet we doe not hear the least complaint of any unhealthinesse thereby, nay, I am told there is a Copper worke in ye middle of Southwark-must ours be more unhealthy than those or Doctor Lanes wch is surrounded with inhabitants, verry strange indeed & what wee never heard untill ye last Letter. It was insinuated unto me (who has been at 150 abt my Garden) in order to divert me from this affayre that it would spoyle my Garden—but that I look upon as idle as the least of their ptences. There is but one wind in the 24 & that wch blows ye most seldom vizt N.N.E. that will blow upon any p,te of ye Towne & ye work being three fields distance from ye uppermost house in Towne I am wel satisfyed It will not affect usBut upon ye whole, let ye consequence be what it will, Wee are determined to Goe on & think it very hard that the Inhabitants of this Place should be debarred of seekeing those advantages wch their situation intitles them to without being opposed by Strangers whose Avarice would ingrosse all advantages to themselves!--Had wee the happiness to see you here I should hope to have this affayre terminated in our favor but since that is denyed us I do insist on ye p,mise to visit our friends in BreconshireCol Vaughan, Major Wms & honest Mr. Will. Aubrey expect you-my house Pennant (wch I desire you will make yrs) is within halfe a mile of Brecon. If you will lett me know ye time-I will be sure to be there to Receive you I doe not doubt but Ned: Catchmayd & Will: Edwards will attend you." yr most obliedged humble Servant "I am, worthy S'r Το JOHN BURGH, Esqr. This "Gabriel Powell" was the then Steward of the Lordship of Gower, and "John Burgh,” Trustee of the Duke *Saw a portrait of him by Zoffany, at the Brighton Exhibition in 1872, lent by Mr. Bevan, his descendant, the Banker of London. † In the Ministers' Accounts of the Exchequer, of the 17th year of King Edward the 4th, 1479, appears the following entry:- By the hands of "the Reeve of the aforesaid Town of Swaynsey, for the rent of the 'Smelting House, near the Castle there, formerly of Henry Conneway, "which was wont to render 4s. 8d. to the Crown."- -Vide this, in my letter to Cambrian, dated 22nd Sept., 1868, on the next page, as well as in the Evidence of the Case and declaration of Corporation v. Lumsden, tried 2nd January, 1832, at Swansea Assizes. G. G. F. of Beaufort of that time-in those days ruling powers in Swansea. These documents, however, prove to me that the first Copper Works on the banks of the Tawe near Swansea were those of Dr. Lane and his relative Mr. Pollard, called THE LLANGAVELACH WORKS, erected in that parish a little west and north of the present Tinplate Works* of G. B. Morris & Co., at Landore, and according to a Plan of the fee of Trewyddfa, dated 1761, now before me; they must have stood on the ground partially occupied by the Turnpike Road to Neath, and, as at that date, they are on the plan described "Old Copper Works, Thomas Popkins, Esq.," they were probably disused, if not ruinated. To Dr. Percy I am indebted for a copy of their appearance as shown by a curious old drawing in the Topographical Collection of George the Third, still preserved in the British Museum. When first erected and used I have been unable to discover an authority for, but † the Dr. says they were at work in 1745. THE SMELTING OF COPPER IN THE SWANSEA DISTRICT TO THE EDITOR OF "THE CAMBRIAN." SIR,-My communications in your columns on this subject last year satisfactorily proved the commencement of this important manufacture in our District to have taken place at Neath in July, 1584,‡ but I was at the same time obliged to confess my regret that I had been unable to discover the precise date when the first copper works on the Tawe were erected near Swansea, though they were said to be at work in 1745. * See the Municipal boundary Map in my Swansea Charters, folio, 1867, p. 119, No. 39 reference. †They were built in 1717, as described over leaf. At p. 23 of "History of Swansea," is a note in which it is said "there "was no Copper works at Swansea till about 1719, when the first was " erected on the site next occupied by the old Cambrian Pottery, but, I "believe that a Copper Work was in operation at Neath nearly 20 years "before."-I. W. D. § Vide the orig. work on Copper Smelting, 8vo. 1867, pp. 7 & 8. G. G. F. На I am now, however, in a position to fix the year in which the Copper trade itself began near Swansea, as the following extract from a document still in the Muniment room of our Corporation proves.* For the purpose of some proceedings at law, on the part of the Burgesses," a case was prepared for Counsel, and "the opinion" given thereon is signed N. Fazakerly, 19 April, 1734.* Amongst other matters the Town Clerk of that day set forth was, that "in the year 1717, Works were first erected upon the river of Swansea for smelting Copper and Lead ores, which works are scituated above the Town, and about two miles beyond the extent [boundary] of this Corporation. In the year 1720, another work was erected upon Swansea river for smelting of Copper ores, which is scituated within the limits of the Corporation," at Burlaisbrook junction with Tawe. So that, historically, we now know that the Smelting of Copper at its present several centres in this District was as follows: At Neath, by the Mines Royal, in the year Mr. Pollard At Taibach, by Newton and At Penclawdd, by John Vivian and Others At Loughor, by Morris and Rees Elkington 1584 1717-20 1727 1805 1809 1837 1846 I am glad to have thus filled up the only important hiatus in my work, and shall have pleasure in supplying any one who has a copy of the orig. work with this additional information in print, to go in at its page 71, under the sub-head of "Llangavelach works." I remain, Sir, yours faithfully, GEO. GRANT-FRANCIS, F.S.A., Cae Bailey, 22d Sept., 1868. Though Dr. Lane had been thus the first to introduce “the great Staple of Swansea" to the banks of the Tawe, it is but bare justice to say, that the perception of its real value to the District and the fixing of the Trade to this Centre, is preeminently due to the first Gabriel Powell, and the "Wee, who are determined to go on, let the consequences be what they will," and who thought it "very hard that the Inhabitants of * For which, let reader examine the 'Miscellaneous Vol.' there for 1545. 1844. † See also, this Vol. earlier, under 'Swansea Works.' Swanzey should be debarred of seeking those advantages which their situation entitled them to." There was a farsightedness about this, which was greatly to the credit of the ducal agent of the day, paralleled only by that of the late Mr. F. P. Hooper in the same capacity, when forcing on the Floating accommodation of later years in the Port of Swansea. Though no part of Dr. Lane's Works remain above ground, I am informed that at the present Landore Tin-plate Works,* and in the ground all around, even now, when cutting below the surfaces, the workmen constantly have to drive through large deposits of the well-known "Copper Slag," the out-throw of those old works. Touching these establishments, Mr. W. Edmond was good enough to hand me the following memorandum, given him by a friend some years since, at Clase, but whence the authority for the dates was obtained by that gentleman he was unable to say: Copper Works were erected at Bank-y-Gockus,† at Swansea, in 1719; were removed soon afterwards to Landore; they passed into the hands of Lockwood, Morris & Co., in 1727, and later in the same year were removed up to the then New works at "Forest." In 1747 an assay office was built there, and is still in existence, as well as an underground canal (also still open) through which the coal was brought for use into the Works." Mr. S. C. Hall, in his "Book of South Wales," copies the following interesting matter, as he states, from an old Swansea Guide Book :— "It is known that the art of making copper was anciently practised in Great Britain, yet it was certainly from the reign of Queen Elizabeth that it was attempted to be revived by Sir Clement Clark in Cornwall [about * At p. 43 of "Windham's Tour in Wales," 8vo., 1775, that author says:Swansea makes a handsome appearance from the approach to it, being built at the mouth of the Tawey, on a semicircular bank above it. The Town is populous and the streets are wide: it carries on a considerable trade in coals, pottery and copper. A large Copper Work is constantly smoking in view of the Town, and another still larger employs many hands a few miles up the river towards Neath." The plenty of Coal in this neighbourhood and its convenience of export have caused the preference for this locality. * * * + Bank-y-Gockus, I suspect to have been the spot on which the works of Dr. Lane were built in 1717, or possibly, some place near by, where the first trials and Copper Slags were made, * about [? date], where he built some furnaces; but finding the price of Coal too high in that country to make copper profitably, he removed his project to the river side Hotwells, near Bristol. Sir Clement soon failed, but having employed Mr. Coster and Mr. Wayne as managers, the latter, in conjunction with Sir Abraham Elton, erected a Copper Works at Screws' Hole near Bristol, where they soon made a profit of £60,000. Mr. Coster, however, erected his Work at Red Brook, in Glostershire, on the side of the river Wye, although by no means a good situation; yet by buying ore in Cornwall at a very low price (it being at that time thrown aside by the miners in working for Tin as good for little or nothing, under the name of Poder), he soon also greatly improved his fortune. After his death his sons joined the Brass Wire Company,† of Bristol, (under Messrs. Harford & Co.) considering that to be a better situation than Red Brook; though Mr. Chambers, of London, (now under the name, by charter, of the English Copper Company) thought proper to make erections on the Wye, but which were afterwards removed to Taibach, beyond Neath. About the years 1700 Sir Humphrey Mackworth, with a Company calling themselves 66 The Mine Adventurers," erected premises for smelting Copper at Mellyn-gry-than, nr. Gnoll, Neath; and about the same time Mr. Pollard, who held considerable Copper Mines upon his estate in Cornwall, in conjunction with his son-in-law, Dr. Lane, erected Works where the old Cambrian Pottery‡ is now carried on near Swansea, and subsequently at Landore; but he having failed, as many others did at the period of the South-Sea bubble, these works were purchased by Richard Lockwood, Edward Gibbon (the grandfather of the great historian), and Robert Morris, Esq., father of the first Sir John Morris, Bart. ; by whom and other immediate representatives they were carried on for nearly a century, together with very extensive Collieries, the consequence of which connection very rapidly led to the improvement of Swansea Town and its commerce.” In addition to the foregoing works, I find that one Wm. Wood, a proprietor of Iron and Copper Works, obtained a Patent in 1720, to coin half-pence and farthings for Ireland. The Mint at that time paid is. 6d. a lb. for prepared Copper, and the charge for coinage was 4d. a lb. ; while the duties and allowances on Copper imported into Ireland were 20 pr. ct. The Copper used by Wood for his beautiful coins was manu *Mr. Keates says:- "The Bristol Brass and Copper Co. bought ores "also as Harfords & Co., Harfords and Bristol Brass Co., and also as "Brass Wire Co. Mr. John Bevan of Morriston, was their last smelting 66 manager." In my Report on the Estate of the Corporation, 8vo., 1851, p. 1, an extract from the Cambrian Pottery Lease runs thus: "The Pottery, being part of the premises formerly called the old Copper Works.”—G. G. F. That this is a mistake has been made pretty clear by the evidence contained in the earlier series of letters in these pages. |