TOPIC:

Steve a lot of the towns in that area have health spa histories as signified by "Wells" in their name - Llandrindod Wells being the Queen of them. I am a frequenter of Welsh bogs when counting Marsh Fritillary butterflies in May/June and their larval webs in late August/September - I have always left wearing two wellington boots but it has been a close call on several occasions!

You asked if anybody knew of a Llanwrtyd Wells man who served in the ABW - using the techniques I developed for discovering Smethwickians I have discovered one and he has an impressive life story.

He was Arthur Edwards born in Llanwrtyd Wells on 2nd May 1868 - I can be precise because he lived long enough to make the 1939 Register, in fact he died on 8th January 1943 aged 74, again I can be precise because his military records include a copy of his death certificate. He served in the ABW as 3065 in the 2nd Battalion of the South Wales Borderers and appears on medal rolls with the rank of Corporal. When he retired from the Army in 1908 he was a Sergeant.



Hi paternal grandfather was a farmer of a couple hundred acres in somewhere unpronounceable in Wales but some way distant from Llanwrtyd Wells. His father found employment with the railways and aged 2 Arthur was living at Dolau Station house where his father was the Station Master - these days Dolau is an unmanned station on the Heart of Wales Line and is shown on this map by the red pin.



Arthur attested in Tredegar on 30th November 1889 and here is his subsequent service record:



His QSAM had 3 clasps - Johannesburg, Cape Colony & Orange Free State. As you would expect from the above he also received the KSAM with both clasps.

The 1911 Census found him living in Caerphilly with his wife and 3 children. He met his wife when he was stationed at Pembroke Dock before the ABW and she was born at Hodson in Pembrokeshire. Their first child was born in Pembroke Dock, the second in Dalhousie in India and the third in Bedwas in Monmouthshire.

In 1915 aged 47 he attested again and was allocated to the Labour Corps serving in the UK but look at this:



You can see that in February 1917 (aged 49) he was transferred to the 2nd Battalion of the Liverpool Regiment and apparently went overseas presumably to France/Flanders. Subsequent paperwork (there is a lot of it) shows he was back with the Labour Corps in the UK four months later. I have come across this before and I suspect Arthur was involved in training new recruits and accompanied them to the Western Front where he wished them Good Luck and returned home. He was demobbed 1st April 1919.

The 1921 Census finds him living in Aldershot and working in the Barracks as a labourer. His wife is also listed but none of his children who would have been 21, 17 & 11. I was beginning to worry they might have had to deal with a premature child death but their son appears on the 1939 Register with them and working as a "Government Messenger". They are also providing a home for an invalid army pensioner and an 18 year old unemployed young lady - I think I would have liked to have known Arthur and Mary Jane

To round things off here is his death certificate - perhaps there should be a memorial on Spion Kop, Llanwrtyd Wells to his 20 plus years of service to Queen, King & Country.

David,
Many thanks for taking the time to discover Arthur and his lengthy service and to post here. Arthur and Mary Jane do sound like a very benevolent couple and would have had many tales to tell. If only there was a diary! Maybe a memorial plaque could appear up there! I wonder if he ever visited the memorial at Spion Kop, LW.

When working anywhere, I usually finish work before midday then try and locate anything to do with the Anglo Boer War to visit in the afternoon, take photographs and then do the research and post here.

I spent many days in 2023 yomping around the uplands of Wales doing bird surveys. That waterlogged molinia nearly killed me!lol!

Tywyn Boer War memorial is the next target.....

Steve - There is second who was born in the locality, if up to 8 miles away is local. John Arthur Jones was born at Penrhos Farm, Llanafan-Fawr which can be see about 8 miles north-east of Llanwrtyd Wells on the map supplied above re Arthur Edwards. He does not have such an impressive story to tell as Arthur but information given on his attestation & discharge papers & the QSA medal roll add interesting detail to his life. A Public Family Tree on Ancestry, by a descendant of his sister, adds a photo of him, his wife to be and his Tad (Welsh for Dad as the 1911 Census shows he spoke Welsh as well as English).

His parents were Enoch Jones, a farmer, and Annie Arthur and he was born on 21st January 1881. He forsook a farming future in Wales when he was about 16 and moved south to New Tredegar, a coal mining town in the South Wales Valleys, which was new in the 1850’s when a colliery was opened there. However he stayed above ground as he served a two year apprenticeship in a drapery shop in James Street, New Tredegar. Having completed this he took a very bold and large step when he found employment at Hitchcock Williams & Co. Look closely at this photograph (courtesy Historic England) and you will realise what a large concern he worked for right in the heart of London as the steps on the right take you into St Paul’s Cathedral. I suspect the façade of St Paul’s was rather more impressive to 19 year old John Arthur than the Welsh hillside that was to be anointed “Spion Kop”.



Whilst working at Hitchcock Williams he joined the City of London Artillery, a volunteer military organisation with over 1,500 members spread across London many of whom served in the City Imperial Volunteers during the Boer War.

John Arthur attested for service in the Boer War at 48 Duke Street, Marylebone on 30th January, having celebrated his 20th birthday 9 days before, and having worked for Hitchcock Williams for just over a year (this rules him out from being in the above photo which was taken on 1st May 1897).

When John Arthur attested he gave his birthplace as “Penrhos, Garth”. Garth can be seen on the Arthur Edwards map to the south of LLanafan-fawr and we can imagine the recruiting officer saying “Come again” and John Arthur second time opting for somewhere close by that the recruiting officer had a chance of spelling. I am also pretty certain that Penrhos Farm lay south of Llanafan-fawr and may actually have been closer to Garth. The details, written in a different hand, for his father, Enoch as next of kin, do say he lived at Penrhos, Llanafan – a name which seems to have been given to the district rather than the village itself.

John Arthur was recruited by a member of the Duke of Cambridge’s Own or put another way the Middlesex Regiment and the answer given to question 15 indicates this is the regiment he wished to join. However, this did not happen. For his medical he was sent to nearby Carlton Street where was found the Pall Mall Deposit which was used at the time as a recruiting headquarters and “clearing house” for the Imperial Yeomanry and John Arthur ended up serving in the 22nd (Cheshire) Company, 2nd Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry and he was given the Regimental number 34362.

At the medical he was measured as being 5 feet 4 inches tall, a couple of inches below the average hight for the time and it is interesting that the creator of a very useful Public Family Tree on Ancestry noted that her great-grandfather Enoch Jones was reputedly short in stature. I also have to thank her for the photos at the end of this account.

The second contingent of the 22nd Company set sail from Southampton on 2nd March 1901 aboard the Norham Castle. It was 34 days before they disembarked at Cape Town owing to engine troubles on the way which required the Norham Castle to be towed for 500 miles to Ascension Island.



The delays meant the overlap of the second contingent with the first was much shorter than intended. Newspaper reports do not tell us how the second contingent fared in South Africa but no doubt they escorted convoys and contributed to columns pursuing Bitterenders.

He did spend Christmas 1901 in South Africa which means it could be his boots in need of repair in the above Christmas Card created by a member of the 22nd Company of the Imperial Yeomanry (with thanks to Neville Constantine, who posted the full card on 21st December 2022).

Most of the second contingent of the 22nd Company earned only the Cape Colony and Orange Free State QSAM clasps but John Arthur was one of the few exceptions who also received the Transvaal Clasp. He, along with the rest of the 22nd Company who were still standing, returned home in August 1902 and as a result he also earned the two Date Clasps for his QSAM.

Back on English soil he was discharged five days later at Aldershot. His character & conduct were given as “Very Good”. He told them he intended to return to his trade as a “Draper’s Assistant” and left a forwarding address: “c/o Mr E A Polley, 18 Cromwell Grove, Kensington, SW London”. Edwin Arthur Polley was discharged at the same place and on the same day as John Arthur and his parents lived at 18 Cromwell Grove on both the 1901 & 1911 Census.



The medal roll covering the issue of the date clasps was drawn up on 11th February 1904 and gives a forwarding address for John Arthur – 204 Norwood Grove, SE London. From the photo aboove (courtesy of the Lamberth Archive service) we can conclude he had already successfully returned to being a Draper’s Assistant. This is confirmed by the 1911 Census which shows John Arthur living at 147 Offord Road, Islington and working as a Draper’s Salesman in the company of five other Draper’s Salesmen, three Draper’s Clerks, two Draper’s apprentices and a Hosiery & Ironmonger’s Salesmen for a bit of variety. Unfortunately the return does not show which emporium they worked for and by the time of the 1921 Census, which would have given employers names, the large house has been divided into several domestic flats occupied by families.

John Arthur married Harriet Jane Cleary in London during the summer of 1912. Harriet had been born in the Battersea area of London and was five years younger than John Arthur. The 1911 Census found Harriet living “over the shop”. She worked as a Draper’s Assistant in the emporium of Longuehay’s Drapers which occupied 285-299 Commercial Road, Stepney and advertised clothing articles by the thousand at knockdown prices.

There is no evidence that John Arthur served in the Great War but he would only have been 35 years of age when conscription was introduced for married men in May 1916 and his occupation would not have absolved him from service. His two younger brothers had also left home in their teens. The youngest of them Rees Price Jones moved to Cardiff and was a member of a militia unit attached to the Welsh Regiment until he was discharged for committing a civil felony (actually stealing some clothing worth 4 shillings and having being led into the venture by a much older accomplice) but he did serve in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the Great War. His other brother, William also allegedly served in the Great War where his experiences subsequently caused him to find escape in a bottle. Both became coal miners in the South
Wales valleys and William died young aged 43 and presumably as an indirect result of his war experiences.

The 1921 Census found John Arthur & Harriet Jane living in Mitcham, Surrey with their three children aged 8, 6 & 1 years old at the time. John Arthur was now a partner in a firm importing Chine & Japanese Goods.

In March 1924 both John Arthur’s parents passed away still living at Penrhos, Llanafan-fawr. At the time of the 1921 Census a grandson was helping 68 year old Enoch to run the farm.

The 1939 Register found John Arthur alone at 38, Boundaries Road, Wandsworth. He gave his occupation as “Commercial Traveller in Furs”, so presumably the import business had not been a success. Harriet was staying with her married daughter in Devon and died there 22 years later.

John Arthur died in London 1940 aged 59 years. Whether John Arthur ever climbed Spion Kop, Llanwrtyd Wells either before or after it received its South African name we can only speculate.

Some photos to close – Enoch, John Arthur and Harriet Jane (exact dates of all unknown).

David,
Thanks for taking the time to search and research these men from Llanwrtyd. Manyfold the response I was expecting!
What a different path John took from his brothers in going to London. A far better fate than going down the pit. And think of the poor old chap Enoch slogging away on the farm!

Moranthorse1 wrote: FRONCYSYLLTE MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN,
MAIN STREET,
HOLYHEAD ROAD,
FRONCYSYLLTE,
WREXHAM,
CLWYD,
CH7 1 LH,
WALES.

ORDNANCE SURVEY GRID REFERENCE: SJ2416164241

The memorial was previously located at :
SOUTH SIDE OF A5,
FRONCYSYLLTE,
GLYNDER,
CLWYD,
LL20 7RB,
WALES.

ORDNANCE SURVEY GRID REFERENCE: SJ2724141191

Visitors will find easy parking along the main road.
Unfortunately, the fountain no longer works!

I organised the re-location of this memorial way back when, raising money to pay for it. The WW plaques came from a disused chapel and had been in store for many years. The re-location was an ideal opportiunity to bring them to public view.

The fountain no longer works because of the re-location. The ABW memorial was located a few hundred yards away set into a retaining wall right on the roadside where the bowl was knocked by passing traffic - the damge you can see there. After the re-location the village held a re-dedication service which I attended.

I will write it up one day.

Steve - I have now completed my search for men who served in the ABW who were born in the Welsh Spas with the following scores:

Llandrindod Wells 1, Lanwrytd Wells 1, Builth Wells 0, Llangammarch Wells 0.

The man from Llandrindod Wells was Arthur Thomas Price who served in the second contingent 40th (Oxfordshire) Company, 10th Battalion IY. I can't tell you much about his life before & after the ABW except like John Arthur Jones he had left Wales some time before he attested and gave his address at the time as Forest Gate, Essex (today Forest Gate is part of London). I would suggest that if neither of these young men had come under the day to day influence of Englishmen they might never have felt it necessary to sort out the agricultural Boers.

There is little doubt that the enthusiasm for the ABW in Wales where the Liberal Party still held sway was a lot less than England & even Scotland. In Wales in the "khaki" General Election of 1900 the Liberal Party regained ground they had lost in the General Election of 1895, especially so in rural Wales - in England and even Scotland the swing went the other way towards the Unionists. There may have also been a local factor in the case of the Spa towns lying just south of the Elan Valley - the Birmingham Corporation Water Act was passed in 1892 which allowed Birmingham to compulsorily purchase the Elan Valley to build their first reservoir - whilst land owners were compensated the displaced tenant farmers and villagers were not.

Yesterday I found this conclusion to a short 1969 article entitled "Wales and the Boer War" which appeared in a publication entitled the "Welsh History Review".



The other factor which the learned Pelling did not mention was religious non-conformism - much stronger in Wales than England. At the time of the Boer War by and large the non-conformist churches were pacifist and denounced the Boer War. Their attitude changed markedly at the start of WW1 and as a result the WW1 Memorial in Llandrindod Wells bears 57 names. What really surprised me was that 26 names were added to cover WW2 - not sure I have ever come across a war memorial covering both WWs where WW2 names are as high as 46% of WW1.