of fine Swedish produce. In 1717, a further coinage took place of 700 tons of English copper, at the price of 15 d. per lb. In 1702 the first Brass Works' at Bristol were erected. So late as 1750, Copper tea-kettles, saucepans, and the like, were imported from Holland. In 1731 the East India Company began exporting Copper in cakes, but in 1751 they exported it manufactured, paying £135 6s. 8d. per ton. In 1673 new mines had been found in Derbyshire and in Wales, so that the price of Copper through these discoveries gradually fell, in 1781, to £79 per ton for cash. It was in this year also that a great competition took place at the India House between the Cornish copper and the Anglesea copper, the former sacrificing £25,000 to keep the Anglesea copper out of the market!"

In his day, this gentleman (Mr. T. Williams, M.P.) was held to be the leading man in the Trade, and was largely interested in the great Anglesey mines, which made such huge fortunes for their lucky holders. Mr. Williams having joined the Stanley Smelting Company, a new lease was granted by the Earl of Jersey (who had recently succeeded to the Britonferry estates of the Mansells) to Owen Williams, son of Thomas, and Pascoe Grenfell, Esquires, in 1803. So the works continued, until the partnership of Williams and Grenfell ceased, about the year 1825 or 26, the whole merging in the Grenfell family alone; to whom Lord Jersey, in 1828, granted a new lease for 99 years. For many years the conduct of these extensive establishments of 'Upper' and 'Middle Bank,' first built and managed by Mr. J. B. Smith, devolved upon Mr. Pascoe St. L. Grenfell,* who, living at Maesteg House, near by, gave all the advan

* Under the Volunteering of the Kingdom, in 1859-60, Mr. Grenfell raised two Companies at their Works, of which he became the CaptainCommandant and eventually Colonel. At first, they wore grey with dark green facings and silver mounts, but afterwards, when consolidated with the Margam and other county Corps, wore scarlet. The Corps itself was enrolled as the 6th Glamorganshire Rifle Volunteers. G. G. F.

tages (especially) to those employed, which ever results from a liberal resident management.

It would be ungracious to pass from these Works without stating that it was here that Mr. Geo. Fred. Muntz, M.P. for Birmingham, completed and carried out his important invention in the manufacture of the brass sheathing and bolts, so well known and extensively used under the name of "Muntz's, or Yellow Metal."*

This Metal having been extensively used by the mercantile marine of the whole world, has lately been adopted by our Admiralty for the Royal Navy: and further, I desire to notice that an effort was made here to benefit the neighbourhood (utterly devastated as had been the western surface of Kilvey) by the promotion of "Gurlt's "t plan for the consumption of the Smoke, and so arrest its exit from the chimneys.

The attempt, I regret to have to say, has utterly failed; and so we are left to hope for the complete success of Gerstenhöfer's plans at the Hafod,' the only one at present successfully carried out for the suppression of the Copper Smoke Nuisance,' due entirely to the capital and energy of Mr. H. H. Vivian, M.P. for Glamorgan, his co-partners and relatives.

Before stepping into the 19th century, there are several other Works which ought to be noticed as having existed at a prior period, but having failed to ascertain the exact dates I must take them at hap-hazard for relative position, leaving it to time and further opportunity to secure precision in these respects.

* Mr. P. St. L. Grenfell told me that in practice he had found that 'best selected Copper' 60, and Zinc 40, made very excellent Yellow metal.

† In reply to an enquiry, Mr. Grenfell, under date of 10th August, 1868, wrote me word that, "Gurlt's process is a failure. We have tried some little modifications of it, with partial success, but not enough to warrant any great outlay to carry it out."-G. G. F.

I have been unable to trace the origin of these Works on the Neath river, further than that they were erected some time in the middle of the last century, through the agency of persons who were at the time interested in similar Works at Cheadle, in Staffordshire.

Mr. John Place, writing from the 'Mines Royal' Works, Neath, on the 8th May, 1797,* says: 'Mr. Weaver, a partner of Roe and Co., of the Cheadle Works, is here.' And, in 1803, I find the Rev. J. Evans, in his 'Welsh Tours,' gives Roe and Co. as a then existing Copper Smelting firm in Wales.

The Neath Abbey Iron Co., who have latterly occupied the old Cheadle premises, on the north of the road to Neath, are unable to say when they were disused for 'Copper smelting,' though they do say that, it was prior to the commencement of their own works, which as such were started in 1824 or 5.

Mr. D. Howell Morgan, lately Mayor of Neath, informs me that "Mr. Keates, now of St. Helen's' Copper Wks., Lanc., succeeded a Dr. Plumb in the management of the 'Neath Cheadle' Works, and remained there until the bottoms of the furnaces were broken up and sold," which is confirmed by Mr. Keates himself, who writes, "that all remnants not suitable for removal to Cheadle, were sold to Vivian and Sons in the year 1821."t

In 1812, a penny Token in copper was issued and made payable at "London, Cheadle, and Neath" by "The Cheadle Copper and Brass Company" (vide Appendix 35), which must rather tend to upset the notion of the Abbey Works Co. that the Cheadle were not then at work on the banks of Neath river.

* See p. 55, ante.

† Mr. Keates tells me it is within his memory that the Cheadle Works occupied them from 1809 to 1821,

G. G. F.

also on the Neath, were certainly in use within the last century, and were erected by a Birmingham firm for which a copper Token of one Penny was also struck. It had the device of a Crown Royal in the field, and was dated 1811, issued by the Crown Copper Company,' and made payable at 'Birmingham and Neath' (vide Appendix, No. 25).

For many years these works had been in the hands of Messrs. Williams, Foster and Co. under a lease from Lord Dynevor, but which in 1866 passed into the hands of Messrs. Moore, Thomas and others, who after reducing some 20 tons of ore to metal and holding possession for a few weeks, abandoned their taking, when the works again reverted to the landowner, Lord Dynevor, who subsequently leased them to a Company styling themselves the Laxey Neath Co., who converted part of the Works into Zinc Works. The whole since came to be taken up by Mr. Humby, of Bath (who now also holds the Rhondda Neath Coke Works), who, however, has never worked them.

In Lord Dynevor's Estate Act, 1837, I find that there appears in the Schedule :-"Crown Copper Works, comprising several quantities of pasture land and garden ground; Crown Copper Co., 45a. Ir. 6p., £55 os. od."

"
THE PENCLAWDD' COPPER WORKS.

'I believe,' writes Mr. Keates, that the Copper Works at "Penclawdd" were commenced by John Vivian, in conjunction with the Company,' and, in Mar., 1869, he further wrote to me saying that, "I was quite a boy when the Cheadle Co. and old Mr. John Vivian gave up Copper Smelting at Penclawdd. I am sorry that I never ascertained from my Father when they began, or what was the exact nature of the connexion between the two parties. My impression however, is, that Mr. Vivian bought ores in Cornwall, for the Cheadle Co.'s account, but I have a notion also, that

he was ultimately interested in the Smelting of them likewise. I know that the Cheadle Co. were buyers of Ores in Cornwall for Penclawdd, previous to the year 1798, but do not know how long before that date.'

Some Penclawdd people assure me that the place was called the Park-House, and that one Mr. Doyley had the 'Penclawdd original works' prior to the arrival of Mr. John Vivian; he, Doyley, is said by old Cornelius to have gone to them from Middle Bank' Copper Works, where he remembered him in full swing.

Those on the south side of the river Loughor in Gower, were originally known as the 'Kent-house' Lead Works, and they were converted from Lead to Copper-smelting under the auspices of the first of the Vivian family who came from Truro, it is said, somewhere about 1800 to represent the 'Associated Miners of Cornwall,' who had an idea that the value of their ores was not paid to them by the smelters (a view by the way, which has prevailed from that day to this), and who therefore opened the Penclawdd Copper Works on their joint account, charging a commission for smelting according, as they averred, to the real outlay. Be that as it may, it was soon found not to answer on general account; but the managing partner, Mr. John Vivian, had proved to his own satisfaction that Copper Smelting was a worthy and profitable occupation, and, astute man as he was, he sent his second son, John Henry, to the Mining Schools of Germany to fit him for the work, and having found a suitable site for new works, with an ample supply of Coal of the proper quality and price, at Hafod' on the Swansea river, land was there taken of the Duke of Beaufort and Lord Jersey, in 1810, in the names of Richard Hussey and John Henry Vivian, Esqrs., and those works were constructed, which have since obtained such a deserved world-wide reputation-of them, however, by and bye.