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is that still known as the ' Birmingham'; the 3rd as the 'Rose' Works; the 4th, if taken as they lie on the river bank, should be the 'Landore,' but I was not previously aware that Mr. Morris had these in work; the 5th was evidently the Anglesea firm, the Williams (either Owen or Thomas) spoken of in connection with Middle and Upper' Bank at p. 86, ante, but then I can give them no works, for Freeman and Co. (No. 6) had the 'White Rock,' and this would leave 7 as the last to be appropriated to doubtless the 'Middle and Upper' Bank; while Roe and Co., No. 8, never were at Swansea, but at Neath it is very possible, therefore, that Mr. Evans made up his list from a Ticketing paper at Swansea, and there no doubt they all appeared as buyers for their several Co.'s or Works.

Wood, in his "Rivers of Wales," written in 1811, and published in 1813, at p. 93 of the 1st volume, writing of Morriston, states, that it was begun by Mr. Morris, from whom it takes its name, about the year 1768, and is now of considerable extent and population. It has a Church and some dissenting meeting houses. There are large Copper Works at 'Forest,' belonging to Messrs. Harfords & Co., with adjoining Rolling Mills, where a great deal of Copper has been utilised for the use of the Navy. A little lower is a work belonging to the 'Birmingham Mining' Company, and near that, another worked by the Rose' Company. At Landwr, is another worked by the British' Copper Company, and below that a large one lately built by Messrs. Vivian & Co., at 'Hafod,' in the construction of which a laudable attention has been paid to the comfort and convenience of the workmen by a different arrangement of the furnaces. On the Eastern side of the river, are the Upper and Middle Bank' Copper

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* The book is enriched with several views of the Tawe, and the then existing Copper Works on its banks, which are very interesting for reference.

Works, belonging to Messrs. O. Williams, P. Grenfell and Co.; and lower down, on the same side of the river, is a larger work carried on by The 'Bristol' Company. This "Bristol Company," I presume, meant Messrs. Daniels, of that city and of The White Rock' Works, vide p. 82, ante. I have two Tokens, penny and halfpenny, both dated 1811, with the arms, crest, and motto of the City of Bristol; on the reverse "B. B. and Copper Co." in the field, surrounded by the words "Penny (or Halfpenny) payable at Bristol,* Swansea, and London." I am told these coins do not relate to the White Rock Works, but to "The Bristol Brass and Copper Co.," who were not smelters at Swansea, but buyers only of metallic copper, which they rolled and manufactured at Bristol. If so, it is not clear to me why "Swansea" was inserted, unless, indeed, the House may have had an office and agency here.

We are, at length, fairly in the Nineteenth century, and find ourselves once more able to deal with authenticated dates.

At the beginning of this century there was evidently a great disposition to construct works and invest capital in connection with Copper Smelting. There was about the trade itself something magnificent; the quantity of ores produced from the Cornish and the Anglesey mines, the latter in particular, was so large, the profit so ample, the rise of modest men into nobles (as examplified in the case of Hughes, Lord Dinorben), and the increase of wealth, by those who were the fortunate holders of a comparatively few acres of copper ore, so vast, that it produced the natural result "a rush into the Copper trade"-and hence the erection of many Works at this period near those Coal districts which it was supposed would best supply the proper * Vide Appendix, Tokens, 28, 29.

fuel for smelting at fair and reasonable charges, with certainty of continuity of supply.

In the year 1805 a step was taken to the westward. At Llanelly, in Carmarthenshire, on the banks of the river Burry, Messrs. Daniel, of Cornwall, Savill of London, Guest of Birmingham, and Nevill of Swansea and Birmingham, selected a site and erected the works called

THE LLANELLY' COPPER WORKS,*

which have been successfully carried on by some of the original folk or their representatives from that time to the present day; Mr. Charles W. Nevill remaining the able and respected managing partner there.†

The example set on the west, by Llanelly, of leaving the immediate neighbourhood of Swansea, seems to have been followed on the extreme East of the South Wales Coal-Field; for the only Copper Works ever attempted in Monmouthshire, were those erected in 1807, by the "Union Company," and called THE RISCA' COPPER WORKS,

from the village of that name, near the town of Newport. Mr. O. Morgan, M.P., says "that the copper trade being much depressed in 1817, the smelters determined to reduce the number of works, and they accordingly drew lots to decide which works should be given up! The lot fell upon the Risca, which were consequently abandoned, and have since been converted and used as Chemical Works."

I suspect an unintentional error here as regards the original Company, for coins in my cabinet § shew that a penny token

* Of which I have an admirable drawing, by Baxter, in my Swansea Topographic Collection, giving their appearance in 1811.

+ His father and predecessor, Mr. R. J. Nevill, appears 4th in the Magnates in this volume.

Vide Percy's Metallurgy, Vol. I., page 293.

§ Since presented by the Author to Royal Institution Museum, Swansea, G G, F.

was issued in 1811 by "The Birmingham and Risca Copper Company," with the device of a pair of clasped hands in the centre over the date. On the reverse is impressed "One Penny Token, payable in Birmingham." Another Penny I have, issued in the same year, with a like reverse, but the device on the obverse changed from the united hands to a Copper Works with eight smoking Furnaces, the date as before, being 1811, but the inscription changed to "Risca Union Copper Company." In 1812 another penny Token was issued by "The Union Copper Company, Birmingham," those words surrounding the first device of the united hands—the reverse stating that this "One penny Token" was "payable in Cash-notes." What Cash-notes meant I am at a loss to know, unless it was a modest idea of the Company that their notes were as good as cash. Of one thing we may be quite certain "the Union" succeeded "the Birmingham" Company, and that in the year 1811. Its ignoble deposition, we have already stated, took effect in 1817, and thus the County of Monmouth lost its solitary Copper Manufactory.

Mr. Keates tells me, "The Union Company built the Works at Risca and issued the Tokens as you say, but the words Birmingham and Risca on the coins denoted which were intended to circulate in the respective Districts. The fate of the Risca may have been determined by lot, but Mr. Betts, the late Silver refiner (and a Shareholder) of Birmingham, told me that the business was given up, because those Shareholders who were consumers of Copper, found that they could buy it cheaper from others than they could produce it themselves," a sufficiently cogent reason commercially certainly.

About A.D. 1809, another site on the banks of the Loughor river, opposite the Borough of that name, was selected on a point, or spit of sandy ground, part of the adjoining

Llangennech estate, in Carmarthenshire, and there Messrs. Morris and Rees* erected

THE SPITTY' COPPER WORKS.

The latter gentleman had for some time been manager at Penclawdd, under the first Mr. Vivian, the other had been land agent to Mr. Tunno, at Llangennech Park, not far off.

Subsequently the Works were carried on by Messrs. Mary W. Shears and Son, with Mr. Keates (now of St. Helen's, Lancashire) as manager: † after whom Mr. Schneider, M.P., now of Furness Abbey, and Sir William Foster, of Norwich, with the late Mr. Champion Jones for manager; together with Messrs. Napier and Cameron for chemists, here carried out some interesting patented experiments to prove whether the extracting of Copper more by chemical combinations than direct smelting, could not be successfully accomplished; but, after a few years, we must assume a non success, for the works were closed, and in 1858 the firms of Williams and Vivians purchased the lease, broke up the furnace bottoms, and to the great loss of the immediate neighbourhood they have remained idle as to Copper ever since.

The year 1810 saw the commencement of the now celebrated

'HAFOD' COPPER WORKS,

at Swansea, on the lands of the name, belonging to the Duke of Beaufort and the Earl of Jersey, granted by lease in that year, to Messrs. Richard Hussey and John Henry Vivian. Their father, John Vivian, Esq. (whose family name

in

connection with metallurgic manufactures has now obtained a world-wide reputation), I have already stated, first * This Mr. W. Rees, when he left Spitty, was employed at the Aberavan Works, and thence went to Amlwch Copper Works, where he died. † See a note as to this Gentleman at page 125.

Full particulars of this letting may be gathered from the Act of Ist Vict., cap. 25, 3rd July, 1837.

G. G. F.

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