1913 in Wales

An additional blog, following the post about the Swansea winners at the 1913 National Eisteddfod.  Let’s look at the other events of the 1913.

Edward, Prince of Wales, 
1919

The Prince of Wales, during 1913, was Edward.  His officially invested as Prince of Wales at a ceremony at Caernarfon Castle, October 1911.  The instigation took place Wales at the instigation of the Welsh politician David Lloyd George, whom was the Constable of the Castle, the Liberal Government Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Lloyd George’s ceremony was in the style of a Welsh pageant, and Edward was coached to speak a few words of Welsh.  This event occurred a month after his father’s George, coronation having been crowned George V.

It would 26 years later, 1936, that his father the aforementioned George V died, and the Edward was crowned.  During this year, there was the constitutional crisis, as Edward wanted to marry the American socialite and already divorced and soon to be divorced Wallis Simpson.  Edward who refused to give up Wallis, abdicated the thrown December 1936.  He was succeeded by his brother Albert, Duke of York, who was crowned King George VI.

Emmeline Parkhurst,
1913

1913, in Wales, started with the Suffragette 19^th February arson attack on David Lloyd George’s house which at the time was built near Walton Heath Golf Club, Surrey.  In her speech in Cardiff, on the same evening of the attack, Emmeline Parkhurst claimed that she incited this and other incidents.

Walton Heath Gold Club which had a long association with royalty and politics.  Edward, the Prince of Wales, was the club’s first captain in 1935.  Other members included Prime Ministers, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Bonar Law and Arthur Balfour.

Y Gestiana

June 1913, the last ship Y Gestiana was built at Porthmadog.  October 4^th1913, she is wrecked on her maiden voyage on the coast of Nova Scotia.

Robert Falcon Scott

June also the return of Robert Falcon Scott’s ship Terra Nova returning back to the port of Cardiff.  Three years earlier she left Cardiff on the fateful voyage to the Antarctic.  Captain Scott along with his four men, Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Captain Oates and Edgar Evans, were beaten by Roald Amundsen, who reached the Pole on 14^th December 1911, a month before Scott.

Edgar Evans,
1911

The return journey, Edgar Evans was the first die on 17^th February on Ross Ice Shelf, a month later, 17^th March, Captain Oates, walked willingly to his death in a blizzard to save his comrades left the tent stating, “I am just going outside I may be some time”.  Later in the month, Scott, Wilson and Bowers perished in their tent.  Their bodies having been discovered in November 1912.  Their tent collapsed over their bodies and a snow cairn topped by a pair ski marked the burial site.

Terra Nova

Before the Terra Nova left the South Pole for the last time under Captain Edward Evans, a wooden cross made by the ship’s carpenters with the names of the lost and lines from Tennyson’s poem Ulysses “To Strive, To Seek, To Find, and Not To Yield” was erected as a permanent memorial over Observation Hill.

Edward Evans,
1st Baron Mountevans 

Edward Evans, travelled to Gower where he broke the news of Edgar’s death to his widow, Lois, whom was at the beach.

Layout of the Senghenydd Mines

1913 was the peak year for coal production in Wales, however, October 14^th the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster occurred.  An explosion which killed 439 miners and a rescuer.  This was the worse mining accident in the United Kingdom. 

3.00 am on the 14^th October, the day firemen descended the pit to conduct the daily checks.  They had two hours to carry out these checks. A check considered placing a naked flame into cavities and to check the flame lengthened. 

Between 5.10 am and 6.00 am 950 men descended into the pit.  The shift would last until 2.000 pm.

Just after 8.00 am an explosion occurred on the west side of the colliery, it is possible that there were two further explosions as stated by survivors.  The cause of the explosion was the build up of firedamp that had been ignited by an electric spark, this ignited airborne coal dust and the shock wave ahead of the explosion raised more coal dust.  The explosive wave travelled.

The colliery manager, Edward Shaw who was on the surface descended the shaft accompanied by overman, D. R. Thomas. The descent was slow and clearing any obstructions.  On arrival they fond the men on the east side numbering 450 works were unharmed. They were ordered to evacuate.  Moving to the west side, they found two men alive but injured. They arranged for them to travel back to the surface. 

Some of the survivors on the west side were tacking the fire with hand extinguishers as the water pipes from the surface were fractured.

Returning to the surface, Shaw, organised rescue and fire-fighting teams from neighbouring collieries. By 11.00 am specialist mine rescues teams had begun to arrive from Rhymney and Rhondda Valleys, along with the Red Cross. 

For the reminder of the day, rescue parties and their endeavours to save lives.  A group of 18 men were found the following morning at 1.00 am, they were last to be found.  A total of 432 men were killed that day.  Some bodies were not fond until later and a further 7 men died later in hospital or at home.  A journalist for The Times, wrote “The numbers are truly awful. We talk in awed terms of the decimation of a regiment in a bloody battle, but here a great community engaged in the pursuit of a peaceful vocation is threatened with the loss of at least a quarter of its able-bodied manhood”

Later in the month of October saw a tornado that hit the Taff Valley, resulting in four deaths.

During 1913, saw the Carmarthen Farm being established being the first of its kind.

Morfydd Llwyn Owen

In music, Morfydd Llwyn Owen was awarded the Nocturne (Charles Lucas Medal). 

Morfydd born 1891, Treforest of a Welsh speaking home.  Morfrydd shown her musical abilities at an early age.  Won a scholarship to Cardiff University and graduating in 1912, also during 1912, was admitted to the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod.  The following year, Morfydd won first prize for her singing at the Eisteddfod. 

Morfydd won a scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music, where she was an outstanding student. She composed choral works, chamber music, piano and orchestral works, songs, and hymn tunes, becoming an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Whilst in London, had friends at the Welsh Presbyterian Chapel, Charing Cros Road.  Morfydd was friends with the likes of D. H. Lawrence and the American poet, Ezra Pound. 

6^th February 1917, Morfydd married the Gowerton-born atheist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Ernest Jones at Marylebone registry office. 

Hedd Wyn

Morfydd performed at the 1917 Eisteddfod known as the “The Eisteddfod of the Black Chair”, due to the death of winner Hedd Wyn, being killed during the First World War.  The marriage curtailed Morfydd activities.  Weekend were spent as hostess as to Jones’s psychoanalyst friends at his cottage at Sussex.

Morfydd who was going to toake a Fellowship from the University of Wales to study the folk music of Russia, Norway and Finland was prevented due to the outbreak of the First World War, August 1914.  Ernest took his wife on holiday to Gower, which she hadn’t visited before. They were to reside at a house called Craig-y-Mor, where Ernest’s widowed father was living.

Morfydd Llwyn Owen's Grave
Oystermouth cemetery

The couple visited Caswell, Langland, Sketty, Swansea market and had a meal at Kardomah Café. Morfydd was taken ill with appendicitis, instead of having an operation at Swansea Infirmary, the operation took place at Craig-y-Mor, Ernest, acted as anaesthetist  and instead of using aesthetic chloroform was used.  Morfynn died on 7^th September 1918,  weeks before her 27^th birthday.

Morfydd was buried at Oystermouth Cemetery, and here headstone bears a quotation from Goethe’s Faust.

Frances Hoggan

Frances Hoggan wrote the English book “American Negro Women During the Fifty Years of Freedom”.  Frances, however, best remembered to be the first British woman to receive a doctorate in medicine.  She was also a pioneering medical practitioner, researcher and social reformer also the first female doctor to be registered in Wales. 

France born 1843 in Brecon, married Dr. George Hoggan.  They were the first to open a husband-and-wife medical centre in Britain.

After her death in 1927, the Learned Society of Wales award the Frances Hoggan Medal to an outstanding woman in Wales in the areas of science, medicine, engineering, technology or mathematics.