Island in the City

I first wrote this book for my grandchildren, painting a picture of my own childhood growing up in a working-class area of Cardiff. after the war. Having expanded it and added illustrations, it turned out to have interested readers; not only those who also lived in Grangetown, but also those wishing to get a feel for what it was like to be a child after the war, experiencing rationing and a much freer way of life. We seemed to roam for miles, in and out of what now would be considered dangerous places, learning how to manage these dangers and look after ourselves.

There is always a danger in books of reminiscences, that they become one boring list of opinions and observations by the writer, as though he or she wants to protest at the present rather than present the past. I hope I haven’t fallen into this trap.

One thing that I hope will help avoid boredom are the stories of some rather odd people, characters of great interest, who seemed to populate such areas then. Eccentrics seem to have been squashed or otherwise got rid of these days, we’re all a bland beige colour. Similarly, childhood adventures have been prevented by Health and Safety thinking by nervous parents. This book takes us back to a more relaxed time.

This book is the published version of Victorian Grangetown which I printed privately. As far as I know, it is probably the only comprehensive history of the construction of this area of Cardiff.

The area was once part-marsh, part farmland, exploited by the monks of Margam Abbey, near Port Talbot. Prior to that, it came under a Norman lord, Geoffrey de Sturmi, whose base was near Kenfig in the Vale of Glamorgan. Believing it was useless land, often flooded not only by the sea but also by the rivers Ely and Taff, he donated it to the abbey at Margam.

Once the Industrial Revolution demonstrated to investors that it was much more profitable to invest in industry than in land, the Windsor family (primarily) sold off much of their estates to finance the construction of Penarth Docks in competition with the Marquis of Bute. He had already established enormous docking facilities, railways and shipping interests across the bay at Cardiff. Grangetown was established as housing for workers at the docks and associated industries that were attracted to the area, notably a gas works, iron works and rope works.

Sadly, because Grangetown was built on a marsh, one that refused to dry out, the health of its first inhabitants was very poor and major improvements were needed as the town expanded.

We are all familiar with the dystopian, Dickensian picture of a Victorian workhouse, but this hides the centuries of history of dealing with the poor which, in rural areas could be quite compassionate. Unfortunately, even in such areas, treatment of the poor was triggered more by the discomfort they caused others rather than aiming to alleviate their suffering. We could say that the poor were only noticed when they annoyed others. They didn’t even have a history of their own, such a history requiring the recording of their story by the poor themselves which was impossible.

The aim of this study is to not only examine the development of the workhouse itself but just as importantly to examine who the poor were. Who were the destitute wretches who begged at the gates of these establishments and what in particular eventually turned a system of care into one of punishment? What was the motivation that brought about the deliberate punishing of the poor for being poor? "You, the poor ... [do not have] the right to exist as befits human beings.”

This work examines the lives, living conditions and work of the poor and highlights an entirely new phenomenon that appeared in the industrial revolution - the working poor. It seemed that working in the factories of the revolution that enriched so many, automatically and fundamentally required such workers to be poor, to die early and to suffer. It seemed to be a condition of capitalism. Frederick Engels went so far as to accuse society of committing murder. “Society commits social murder. It knows how injurious are conditions to the health of the poor yet does nothing. As such, it is not manslaughter, but murder.”

His compatriot and campaigner, Karl Marx, saw the poor as slaves; the factories and the workhouses (so-called houses of terror) both being the same thing, and both causing suffering: “The House of Terror for paupers which the capitalist could only dream of was realised in the shape of a gigantic Workhouse. It is called a Factory.”

We can trace the legislative history of caring for the poor from the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law, it having a structure that lasted well into the 19th century before being radically redesigned by the 1834 New Poor Law. This law was a hammer blow to the poor. Seeking to radically reduce the cost of caring for them, which had certainly ballooned in the years following the end of the Napoleonic War, the commission set up in 1832 to confront the issue of cost decided simply and brutally, to make the experience of a workhouse so degrading and humiliating, as to deter the poor from asking for help. Some commissioners even suggested that the poor be not helped and allowed to die.

Such was the outcry from across society, notably from newspapers but also writers and those concerned with the morals of society, that gradually and slowly workhouses became once more places of shelter and care, some becoming the infrastructure of the NHS. Changes were hard-won; it was the acute suffering of the poor that provided the horsepower for change, not only in the houses of terror, but also of British society.