The Life of Honest Carrie Gilmore.

Carrie Gilmore has been written about before by a couple of Welsh authors and she's mentioned in a few online articles. Unfortunately none of the authors have made any effort to find out who she really was. Hopefully this will rectify that. It is rare to have such a detailed life story of a woman who lived on the wrong side of 'normal' society.

This slightly blurred photograph is 28 year old Carrie Gilmore in 1906. This is the first time this photograph has been linked to her life story.

Carrie, or Caroline Evans as she was baptised, was born in 1878 to a Welsh speaking working class Llanelli family. Her mother Ann had sixteen children and her father worked in a respected position at the South Wales Tin Works. Her childhood seems to have been happy and her mother says Carrie was 'bright and intelligent' and a good scholar. She followed the traditional path of leaving school by the age of 13 and working as a domestic servant. Though she probably also helped her mother out at home looking after her siblings David, Sage, Rees, Ellen, Ethel, Sidney, Gwilym and Frederick who were all younger than she was. 

How Carrie met Patrick 'Patsy' Gilmore is unknown but it must have been on the streets of Llanelli where they both lived. Patsy's mother loved her son and she had nothing bad to say about him. Patsy's father was a hawker but Patsy was an apprentice plasterer in Llanelli. 

In July 1896 Patsy signed up to the Carmarthenshire Militia and a few months later he went out on a drinking spree with friends to the coast near Llanelli. Patsy and his mates met two other young men and at the end of the night the two groups squeezed into a cab on the way back home. The larger group, Patsy among them, kicked the shit out of the other two men, stole their money and watches and left them for dead at the side of the road. The incident was put down to drunken high jinks and Patsy and the rest were acquitted. 

Carrie and Patsy married at the end of 1898 and lived at home with her mother for almost a year. Carrie's mother said it was the happiest time of her life and that Carrie was an admirable housekeeper. They moved to Maesteg briefly and then to Merthyr to a 'very nice house' in Adam and Eve Court. Her mother said you would never see a happier pair and Patsy was the best of husbands. The house was small but as it was just the two of them it was fine and Patsy worked in Merthyr as a plasterer.

Carrie and Patsy were not settled long in Merthyr when Britain went to war with the Boers in South Africa. With Patsy being a militia man he was called up and left Merthyr in December 1899, a little over a year after marrying Carrie. 

This is Patsy Gilmore attired in his army clothes.

Carrie did not cope well in the strange town of Merthyr on her own. Whether it was loneliness, stress, boredom or bad influences from others she "went wrong" and turned to drink. Carrie was convicted four times for drunkenness and the court had very little sympathy for her. 

Husband at the Front, wife in the police court.

Patsy, thousands of miles away, had already fought in the Battle of Driefontein and been wounded in the foot. When Patsy returned from South Africa ten months later in October 1900 the tide could not be turned. Carrie continued to drink and Patsy's mother said "she was very nearly the ruination of his life". They only lasted a few more months in Merthyr before moving back to Carrie's family home in Llanelli in 1901. The couple soon split up and Patsy returned to Merthyr for a while before moving to Neath where he lived with another woman. 

Carrie didn't stay in the family home. Presumably her heavy drinking strained family life and by 1902 she was in Swansea being cautioned for begging on the streets. She lodged in Tontine Street with an old school friend from Llanelly for a short while and the 'small and slight' figure of Carrie was a regular sight in the pubs of the town. 

Carrie then ended up in Barry, a few miles to the west of Cardiff. She stayed at the lodging house of Mrs Mary Ann Fury in Cadoxton near the docks. Here she met a German seaman called Frederick Dreher. Fred was very fond of Carrie and she married him bigamously at Barry Registry Office in October 1903. Carrie Gilmore was now Fanny Dreher. 

All was not well however as Carrie was still drinking heavily. The sailor told his landlady "I would do anything for her, if she would only keep from the drink." When Fred went to work at sea Carrie would return to Cardiff to drink and sleep in lodging houses or rough on the streets. Fred "was afraid to leave her half-pay because I knew she would only spend it with other men." The lodging keeper would not have her in her house when she was on her own either because when she was in drink she was 'one of the worse I have seen.'

This is where one interesting aspect of Carrie's personality comes out. While she was drinking with men she would sometimes rob them- but Carrie seemed too honest to be any good at being a thief. Once she came back to Mrs Fury's lodging house with two large gashes on her arm saying a man had stabbed her. Carrie had robbed the sailor and then told him to his face afterwards that she had done so! (The actual phrase Mrs Fury used to describe the man was a racist term which I won't repeat, safe to say racist terminology was in frequent use amongst the white population of Welsh seaports.)

So when her husband Fred was at sea Carrie would go to Cardiff, where one of her sisters lived and possibly offered occasional support. Then when Fred returned to port he would go and fetch Carrie back down to Barry and live quietly with her, trying to reform her away from the drink. Her landlady said 'whisky was her favourite drink and I have seen her swallow a tumbler full of raw whisky many times.' 

At one point Carrie managed to stay sober for about three months while Fred stayed with her in Barry. He then foolishly bought a little whisky, which 'set her off again.' I think this drawing from a photograph is of Carrie when she was with Fred. 

Fred cared for Carrie very much and seems to have tried very hard to help her with her alcohol addiction. He said he would have taken her to his home in Germany but he was afraid she would break out and disgrace him before his family. 

Carrie and Fred eventually drifted apart. Carrie had meanwhile picked up at least 20 convictions in the Barry Police Court for drunkenness and obscene language, though interestingly not for theft. 

Carrie flitted between Barry and Cardiff in a world of drink and petty violence as this incident in 1904 attests. One of her attackers here was Annie Courtney alias Pidell, a notorious prostitute who also flitted between Barry and Cardiff. 

A year later Carrie was sentenced to three months hard labour at Cardiff for being a disorderly prostitute. When she was released she picked up more convictions for drunkennes, assaulting the police and soliciting. In the summer of 1906 she met up with a man hawking strawberries. After he sold them off they went on a drinking bout together, which ended with a quarrel. 

Carrie was in Cardiff by September 1906 and had hooked up with Elijah Priest. Elijah was a fifty year old 'rag dealer' who had a chequered history to say the least. He had been a 'horse dealer' in Newport, a pimp in Pontypridd and a drunk in Tredegar amongst other things. This is Elijah. He may have also been the strawberry hawker mentioned earlier. 

Carrie was only 28 by this time and lodged with Elijah at Little Frederick Street in Cardiff. One night she met a German sailor in the streets. Perhaps she had picked up some German from her time with Fred and she persuaded him to go home with her. Elijah asked the sailor for some drink but he refused and when they realised he had no money they both threw him out, minus his gold Geneva watch, which the sailor later realised was missing. 

Meanwhile the chimney of their house caught fire and brought a curious policeman to the house. Carrie's honesty was to be her undoing again. Carrie and Elijah were both drunk and arguing. Elijah, seeing the policeman, shouted at Carrie "This is your fault!" and Carrie, so drunk as not to be thinking, shouted back "What about the gold watch I stole from the German on Monday night and you went to Newport yesterday to pawn?" and that was that. Carrie and Elijah got six months in Cardiff gaol. 

Carrie was released in April 1907 and drifted to Mary Ann Street in Cardiff. Mary Ann Street was a poor area full of lodging houses. Carrie lodged with a Mrs Bryan and a Mrs Martin and these wonderful photographs, dated to the 1890's show what the street was like.

Here Carrie was well known and well liked. The residents described her as a 'short, good looking little piece', a 'little short woman of generous disposition,' 'as good as gold' 'not a girl for fighting and quarelling and very good hearted'. It was said if she had tuppence anybody was welcome to share it. 

One of the places Carrie went when she didn't have the sixpence to lodge at Mary Ann Street for the night was near the ice house. You can see it marked on this map as the 'Cold Stores'. 

Another place was on the opposite side of the timber pond marked on the map, a piece of waste land that included an overgrown railway siding. Here the homeless would drink and sleep rough out of the way of residential homes and off the policeman's beat, though they would often check on who was there in the early hours of the morning. 

Carrie may have been addicted to drink and often homeless but she was tidy and took good care of her appearance. A few days after being released from her latest six week stay in Cardiff gaol she went back to Mary Ann Street where she felt part of the community. On Monday 26th August 1907 she slept out near the ice house but went back to 12 Mary Ann Street early in the morning to Mrs Martin. She'd known Mrs Martin for the last eight months and affectionally called her 'Mamma'. Following a windfall she had bought herself some new clothes. She spent the summer's day inside Mrs Martin's lodging house and in the garden out back.

By the evening she had brushed her hair, plaited it, put on a white blouse, new pinafore and a new shawl. She said 'Mamma, don't I look nice in them?' then left the house and headed into town, chatting to two friends Polly Fear and Rachel Evans a couple of hours later and ending up in the Palace Music Hall. 

Carrie did not return to Mary Ann Street that night. She got drinking with some sailors and ended the night taking one of them to her rough sleeping spot. The man was mentally ill and stabbed Carrie to death. 

The events of the early hours of Wednesday morning can be read about here. I don't really want to recount the details as that is what everyone else writing about her has focused on. 

Carrie, a kind, flawed and loved woman, was buried on the Saturday afternoon in an elm coffin inscribed with her birth and death date. Her first husband Patsy was there but riding in the funeral carraige with the coffin was two of her brothers and one sister together with a 'lady friend' who may well have been Mrs Martin from the lodging house. The majority of the fairly large crowd of mourners were women from her adopted community in Mary Ann Street who, the newspaper tells us, 'from their demeanour, must have been on terms of affection with the unfortunate woman'. 

Placed on the coffin was a cross of white maple wood, a floral cross 'by which the relatives typified their sorrow and their hope' and a lovely floral wreath, the offering of the 'female friend'. She is very probably buried in the Church of England section of Cathay's Cemetary. 

References avaliable.
Carrie Gilmore and Elijah Prieset photographs are courtesy of Glamorgan Archives. Newspaper articles are courtesy of Welsh Newspapers Online, Photographs of Mary Ann Street are courtesy National Museum of Wales and date to the 1890's. 

The Origin of 'Tiger Bay' in Cardiff.

Following on from my blog post that uncovered the reason why the red light district of Merthyr Tydfil was nicknamed 'China' (found here) in the 1840's I thought I'd do a post on 'Tiger Bay' in Cardiff. 

Although I'm not claiming to have uncovered anything particularly original I think the 'Tiger' part of the Tiger Bay name has been obscured over the years and I'll like to speak up on behalf of the Tigers.  

My main area of expertise is the first 'red-light' area of Cardiff on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane, which was active from the 1830's until the 1870's. Bute Street took over this mantle from the 1870's onwards and this street was at the centre of Tiger Bay. See this description from 1870: 

The 'debased women' referred to were sex workers and Bute Street, where the sailors would invariably walk along when they got to Cardiff, was where the women would look for trade. 

London's Tiger Bay

There's a few dodgy explanations of the origin of Cardiff's 'Tiger Bay' floating round on the internet including references to dangerous tides and waves that looked like tigers. None of these have any evidence behind them and thankfully the Wikipedia article on Cardiff's Tiger Bay explains the origin of the name:

'The name "Tiger Bay" was applied in popular literature and slang (especially that of sailors) to any dock or seaside neighbourhood which shared a similar notoriety for danger.'

This is the origin of the term and if we go to London in the 1860's we find that 'Tiger Bay' was used as another name for Bluegate Fields, a slum area that existed just north of the old east London docks. It's the place where Dorian Gray goes to smoke opium in the famous novel and was part of St George's-in-the-East parish. 

This description from 1865 deserves to be read in full: 

TIGER BAY

This portion of thief-London, which has lately been made somewhat prominent by newspaper allusions and descriptive articles respecting a few of its inhabitants, is generally associated in the public mind with dangerous ruffianism and unscrupulous crime. This is, in a sense, true enough; but he who goes to Tiger Bay in the expectation of meeting with roaring, riotous vice, or in fear of sudden and desperate robbery, would altogether mistake the place. It is true that the unsuspecting wayfarer going through some of these dark alleys might be suddenly pounced upon by a couple of ruffians and be robbed and half stifled, but it is not this sort of crime which gives its name to Tiger Bay. 
The tigers are, for the most part, quiet in their lairs; slinking, watchful, crouching, cruel beasts, who wait there, sharpening their claws, and looking with hungry eyes for the prey that their treacherous she-cats bring down. Jack (the sailor) is their prey chiefly; they half live on him, and he knows it, and so upon these shallows, where he is lured to his destruction, he has bestowed the name of Tiger Bay; for to him the tiger, - as a land animal, to cope with which he is unequal, is more expressive than the shark who meets him on a more congenial element, and therefore, - "Tiger Bay."

The dwelling-place of the ruffian and the thief- Tiger Bay is not named after these, but takes its name from the brothels and those who keep them - the harpies and harlots who deal with drugged liquor, and the slinking bullies who come, like foul beasts, about the prey.

The man who wrote this spent time in the area (he even tried to get out of his head in one of the opium dens there) so he knew the community first hand.

So the 'treacherous she-cats' or the Tigers of London's Tiger Bay were the sex workers who, occasionally, robbed unwary sailors. 

Cardiff's Tiger Bay

Back to Cardiff. As the dock traffic increased and more and more sailors came to the town throughout the 1860's and 1870's, the area around Bute Street served their thirst for drink and women. It became even more prominent when the brothels of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were bought up or shut down by 1869. There were many drinking houses, brothels and prostitutes active on and around Bute Street. Here's a letter to the Western Mail in 1878:

The sailors, many of whom would have been familiar with London docks, brought the 'Tiger Bay' slang name with them to this part of Wales to describe exactly the same thing as in London. 

As far as I can make out 'Tiger Bay' was first used to describe Cardiff's docks in the 1880's. The first reference I can find in Welsh Newspapers online from the National Library of Wales is a tongue in cheek letter from 1882 in which the writer, who is clearly living in Cardiff, signs himself off as:

"John Snob, Captain, Salvation Army.

The Barracks, Tiger Bay."

But it takes another three years to 1885 to find a proper use of the phrase in an article entitled "The New Criminal Law at Cardiff" which describes how the Head Constable of Cardiff had evicted all the sex workers from the brothels. Here the newspaper has to explain the phrase "Tiger Bay" to its readers:

'The houses formerly occupied by the girls are spread over a number of streets running off Bute Road (Bute Street), the district being locally known as "Tiger Bay." The "bay" is not a nice place to look at, and its inhabitants are not the most refined people on the face of the earth. They consist principally of dock labourers, members of the seafaring community, boarding-house keepers, and females of uncertain virtue. Squalor reigns everywhere, rows are frequent, and on the whole it may be said that the "bay" is a very desirable place- to live out of it.'

So begins the use of 'Tiger Bay'. After 1885 "Tiger Bay" is used to describe the area around Bute Street, usually when the article is about crime. 

An article on a murder in 1887 re-enforces the idea that Tiger Bay was a name given by the sailors. The 'rough locality, known amongst seafaring men as "Tiger Bay"':

Because the press love a good nickname 'Tiger Bay' was used with increasing frequency: 

This from 1886:

And this from 1888 at the height of the Ripper craze in London: 

The 1890's saw a marked increase in references to Tiger Bay, especially when the articles were about drunkenness, prostitution and crime, and also especially crime committed by black and ethnic minorities, such as this 'zulu' case: 

The 'Tiger Bay' name stuck, although I doubt in the beginning whether the locals used it to describe where they lived- they would more likely use Butetown or Cardiff Docks. It was more of an derogatory 'outsider' term to be savoured by newspaper readers sat in their suburbs.

Now, and rightly so, Tiger Bay is synonymous with it's multi-cultural history but the original Tigers of Cardiff's Tiger Bay were the Victorian sex-workers who earned their living in the streets around Bute Street and the name is derived from a previous use in London's East End.   

This post is dedicated to Neil Sinclair who recently passed away. His contribution to the history of Tiger Bay is immense. See his 2013 book The Tiger Bay Story for more information about this unique place and community. 

References:

'Women Tearing each others hair' and 'A By Street by Night' are from an article on the Salvation Army in Tiger Bay from Evening Express October 13th 1893 p.3.
Wikipedia entry for Tiger Bay. Here.
Bluegate Fields wikipedia page is here.
Tiger Bay 1865 description from The Pauper, The Thief and the Convict by Thomas Archer from the wonderful Victorian London website link here. A description of a visit to the London Tiger Bay can be found here.
1882 description of area off Radcliffe Highway link here.
Bute Street Nuisance Western Mail 1878 August 13th p.4.
1882 John Snob letter is in Western Mail 8th December 1882. p.4.
1885 first description Cardiff Times November 7th 1885. Interestingly a counter was included in an editorial of the same week, it reads thus:

'In connection with the subject, I may mention that I have had some more letters as to the character of Tiger Bay. I presume they are from sensitive residents, and for their satisfaction I have great pleasure in saying to them that there is really no need for them to be under a misapprehension as to the general belief of the respectability of many of the inhabitants of the district. It is hardly the Belgravia (a posh area of London) of Cardiff perhaps, but neither is it all bad. Everybody is quite aware of this, and there is no need for the respectable part of the inhabitants to think that they have been classed with the disreputable.' South Wales Daily News 6th November 1885 p.2.

Rough Locality South Wales Echo 18th August 1887 p.2.
Peeps Behind the Scenes: Western Mail 15th May 1886 p.4.
Jack: South Wales Daily News 8th October 1888.
Zulu: Weekly Mail 3rd April 1897 p.2.

The True Origin of the 'China' nickname for Merthyr's Prostitute District.

China in Merthyr Tydfil was the most notorious area of prostitution and criminality in Victorian Wales.
The problem is no-one knows why it was nicknamed 'China'. As this blog is about my love of dodgy districts in Victorian Wales I'm very pleased to have finally solved this mystery.

Pontystorehouse in yellow, China in red.

Most recently Joe England's excellent new book 'Merthyr: The Crucible of Modern Wales', says:

'Where the name China came from is unknown but it probably came from an imaginative journalist who saw the district as mysterious and dangerous. From the early 1840's Britain was involved in 'Opium Wars' with China.' 

Keith Strange says as the Victorians became aware of the real country's 'strange culture and customs' they named another 'alien' society, namely Merthyr's underworld, after the same thing.

All the historians who have written about China, better scholars than I, have no idea how the name started.

I can reveal, I believe for the first time in over 180 years, that China in Merthyr was not named due a vague imagined link to a 'mysterious' and 'strange' culture but something more local and specific.

It was named after the exploits of a 55 year old God-fearing tee-totalling zealous missionary Wesleyan called Walter Watkins, commonly known as 'Father Watkins.'

Here's how I know:

'China' was, pre-1843, known as 'The Cellars', 'The Cellary', or Pontystorehouse. This was it's official name until the 1890's and it appears on the census as 'The Cellars'.

This area was already notorious as a sex-work and brothel area since the 1820's and it was where prostitutes and their bullies (pimps) congregated. Thus in January 1841 reports like this appeared in the newspapers:

Pontystorehouse was technically on the other side of the river to The Cellars but they were both old areas dating from the 1790's when the Glamorganshire canal terminated nearby. Warehouses and houses sprung up around this canal head giving it the name Pontystorehouse which translates as 'Bridge of the Warehouse'. (It's worth noting here that the opposite end of the Glamorganshire Canal in Cardiff was where Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were located.)

On the 11th June 1842 this report appeared in the newspaper, relating the case of Mary Davies, alias 'Mary Strap':

It exhorted the religious community to cleanse the 'vast storehouse of evil' in Pontystorehouse (nice play on words!)

Now the Wesleyans were already holding Tea Parties in Merthyr Tydfil, as this report from January 1843 shows:

And lo and behold less than a year later in April 1843 we read that they had turned their attentions to the Cellars:

Cleaning the Augean Stables was one of the 12 tasks of Hercules as the stables were so massively full of cow shit. Again they are referring to how society saw the Cellars.

So at the start of April 1843 the Wesleyans set about 'cleaning' the Pontstorehouse Cellars  by holding religious meetings there. They're not named in this article- but, as you will soon see, I'm pretty sure I know who their leader was.

A month later the newspaper was congratulating them on their success, they had rescued one of the 'nymphs' (prostitutes) from the Cellars. Well, they had encouraged her to go back home anyway.

Five months after this and for the first time ever The Cellars and Pontstorehouse are referred to as 'China' in an important article on the bully Benjamin Richards alias 'Benny Blackstone' and some of his cronies, including Edward 'Ned' Hudson:

This article goes all out calling Blackstone 'Emperor of China' but then using the old term 'Pontstorehouse Cellars' to clarify where it was talking about. Something must have happened before October 1843 that influenced the name change to China.

We have to then wait until February 1845 to hear the name China again in a report about Edward 'Ned' Hudson running a foot race and this is where it all nicely clicks into place:

The reporter here obviously knows his stuff. So what happened? A Father Watkins- who happened to be a massive advocate of temperance (i.e. not drinking) went into the Cellars and preached to the prostitutes and bullies every Sunday morning. Now it just happens that Father Watkins also ran the Canton Tea Shop on High Street in Merthyr, and presumably part of this efforts involved exhorting the prostitutes and bullies to drink Chinese tea instead- and this at a time when tea was a big novelty and not the widely used drink it is today.

Hence the preacher who ran the Canton Tea Shop was the cause of the name 'Little China', or more correctly 'China Fach' - the majority of The Cellars being Welsh speaking at this time. After 1845 the name China is used frequently, as is 'The Celestial City' and references to the Emperor and Empress of China.

I'm pretty confident that Father Watkins was the main man among the Wesleyans who went to China to preach in April 1843- though the 1845 article does not give dates it is written less than two years after the 'preaching' event.

If you doubt this explanation here is some more information on Father Watkins and his zeal for  temperance movements, the bible generally and mission work:

Firstly the dates all match up. In July 1843 at a meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Merthyr Father Watkins 'declared that his love to the bible society reached to his head and his pocket, and he laid on the table the sum of five guineas as his subscription.' (a large amount of cash at the time!)

In August 1843- four months after 'The Wesleyans' were in the Cellars preaching and two months before the first known use of the name 'China' his Canton Tea Rooms were obviously established as they were advertised in the newspaper:

The article explaining Father Watkins' reason for going into the Cellars mentions drunkenness and Father Watkins hated alcohol with a vengeance. In December 1843 Father Watkins was elected the chair of the Merthyr Teetotallers where at a meeting of a thousand people he 'in his usual style (which meant he'd been doing this before) fired at once against the demon intemperance':

So was Father Watkins a Wesleyan? Well in December 1845 at the death of a well known Wesleyan minster Walter Watkins testified that he had known him for forty years. In 1851 Walter presented a watch at a Wesleyan friends party and, by the by, that report gives the names of Walter Watkins and then Father Watkins in the same report- so it's definitely the same man. 

Father Watkins kept up his anti drink crusade all of his life. In April 1846 Mr Walter Watkins presided at the Merthyr Temperance meeting and was described as 'that veteran teetotaller'.

In August 1848 he chaired lectures by a famous teetotaller and was described as 'that staunch teetotaller.'

He even tried to convert the great ironmaster Sir John Josiah Guest:

1849 he was again supporting the British and Foreign Bible Society, he was part of the Early Closing Association (i.e. the closing of pubs!) and he was taking contributions for the Temperance Conference for Wales at Swansea.

You get the idea, this guy was hardcore anti-drink and pro-missionary work- exactly what he was doing at The Cellars.

He sold his grocery business in 1850 but kept the Canton Tea Warehouse and continued his involvement in all of his religious and temperance societies, for example at a meeting of the London Missionary Society he 'opened the proceedings in a speech replete with a zeal for missions.' 

Father Watkins died aged 66 on the 22nd December 1854.

So - I can confirm here once and for all that the worst area for prostitution and vice in Wales is named after Father Watkins- a sincere man with a 'hatred of drunkenness' whose speeches were full of 'fiery and riotous declamation'.

Father Watkins obviously liked tea very much, it was his occupation and his drink of choice, so his association with temperance and The Canton Tea Rooms gave The Cellars the nickname 'China Fach' after the Spring of 1843 when he brought his fiery missionary zeal to the prostitutes and bullies. The community obviously remembered him well.
This report about 'Lovely Mary Ann' in 1846 shows the 'China Fach' name beginning to embed in the consciousness of the locals:

I'm sure the connotations with China as a mysterious and 'otherly' land helped the name to stick but let's all raise a teacup to remember Father Watkins. I'm really pleased I have uncovered his story and put a mystery to rest. 

References:

Merthyr: The Crucible of Modern Wales, Parthain, 2017.
Keith Strange 'In Search of the Celestial Empire Llafur Vol3 No1 1980
THE 'CONQUERING OF CHINA': CRIME IN AN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY, 1842-64 David Jones and Alan Bainbridge in Llafur Vol2 No 4 1979.
Age is from death in 1854, the Census 1851 Merthyr Tydfil HO107/2458 f.553 p.12 puts him younger.
William Row report: Glamorgan Monmouth and Brecon Gazette and Merthyr Guardian January 1841, I have unfortunately not recorded the exact date...
Mary Davies: Monmouthshire Merlin 11 June 1842 p.3.
1841 sentencing The Cambrian 10 July 1841 p.4. and for release from custody HO13 Home Office: Correspondence and Warrants Piece 78 p.238
Augean Stables: CMBGMG 29 April 1853 p.2.
Benjamin Richards: CMBGMG 21 October 1843 p.3.
Explanation report MM 22 February 1845 p.3.
History of Tea
Bible Society report The Cambrian 15 July 1843 p.2.
Canton Tea advert GMBGMG 12 August 1843 p.2.
Merthyr Teetotallers MM 30 December 1843 p.3.
Death of Rev John Davies The Cambrian 26 December 1845 p.3. Watch presentation CMGGMBG 29 March 1851 p.3.
Veteran Teetollar MM 18 April 1846 p.3.
Staunch Teetotaller CMGGMBG 26 August 1848 p.3.
Guest: Merthyr Telegraph 26 January 1856 p.2.
Bible Meeting The Principality 30 March 1849 p.8. Early Closing Association The Principality 29 June 1849 p.5. Temperance Conference The Principality 20 July 1849 p.1. Warm manner CMGGMBG 31 July 1852 p.3.
Selling Canton Tea Warehouse The Principality 21 June 1850 p.4. Missions The Welshman 17 October 1851 p.3.
Death in The Welshman 1 December 1854 p.3. Obituary CMGGMBG 1 December 1854 p.3.
Mary Ann Morgans The Welshman 3 July 1846 p.3.

The Quiet Brothel: Mary Ann Wright

Mrs Wright's brothel in Red, Custom House in Blue, Golden Cross in Yellow

My book Notorious covers the life stories of thirty people who made a living from prostitution, theft and violence in 19th century Cardiff. I can write their stories, or at least what we know about them, from the records that survive. A large part of those records are court and crime records.

But what of the ones that didn't get caught? Crime history is often the story of the bad ones, i.e. the ones that got caught. The good ones we know nothing about.

One history that remains hidden for ever is the brothel of Mary Ann Wright. The other established brothels from this time have a wealth of newspaper and court records written about them. See my post on 31 Charlotte Street as a case in point- this brothel lasted 15 years.

Mary Ann's brothel ran for at least 24 years on Whitmore Lane but the records are quiet, very quiet. After four years of searching this is all I have on Mary Ann Wright and her brothel.

Mary Ann Wright, together with Mrs Prothero, was one of the earliest brothel keepers that I know of on Whitmore Lane. The first we hear of her is in 1837 when Superintendent Stockdale was ordered to prosecute a 'Hannah Wright- Widow' for keeping a Disorderly House.

I don't know if he succeeded as the newspapers have recorded nothing. Her brothel on Whitmore Lane appears on the 1841 census:

Mary Wright is already 50. 'Lodging house keeper' is a polite euphemism for brothel keeper and the census writer has written 'single woman' for each of the women living there, again, another euphemism for prostitute. 

Mary has six girls: Catherine Davies, Mary Morgan, Ann Evans, Fanny Bancha, Mary William and Ann Cheguin.  

Mary Morgan was possibly arrested just before this census in March 1841:

Mary Williams was arrested for being a 'common and disorderly prostitute' in August 1842 and was described as 'an old offender' when she was arrested for drunk and disorderly in November 1844. 

Ann Cheguin soon after the census conceived a son. He died on the 20th March 1842 of 'convulsions' aged three weeks, although she had moved to the slum court of Stanley Street by then. Similarly Catherine Davies and Fanny Bancha I haven't been able to trace further and Ann Evans is too common a name to say if any report on her is the same one.

There is one enigmatic record of an 'Ann Wright v Geo Davies PC' on the 10th February 1845 entry of Superintendent Stockdale's log book- but no information is given apart from the names. I know George Davies was on the Custom House Beat at this time- and the Custom House was on Whitmore Lane. What Ann was charging the constable with we will never know. It seems unrelated to the charge above it against The Tennis Court landlord.

Mary Ann Wright herself is not mentioned until 1848 when there are two incidents. In June the boatman Thomas Miles broke a door and assaulted Mrs Wright. Lots of the boatmen were bullies or pimps and he is probably here breaking into Mrs Wright's brothel. 

June 16th 1848

Then two months later 'Mary Anne Wright' is called to give evidence when the bully Henry Wood was charged with assaulting a sailor on Whitmore Lane:

September 2nd 1848

In 1851 Mary A Wright, now aged 77, is again listed on the census running a brothel at 47 Whitmore Lane, this end of the street was near to the Custom House where the sailors got paid off (probable location marked on red in map at start of blog).

She is listed with Mary Ann Howells, Mary Ann Jones, Ann Williams and Ann Atkins.

Mary Ann Jones is very probably 'Cockatoo' who was already an experienced prostitute from Newport who worked there from 1843 to the start of 1847. She'd moved to Whitmore Lane by August 1847. 

Ann Atkins, another of Mrs Wright's women from the 1851 census was given a week for being drunk and disorderly on Whitmore Lane in November of the same year. A year later she was involved in a brothel theft, possibly at Mrs Wright's brothel, but not necessarily as the women moved houses very often:

Mary Ann Howell in 1853 was assaulting a beerhouse landlord on Charlotte Street and the fourth woman listed, Ann Williams, is problematic as there were at least two with the same name working Whitmore Lane at the time, this report from July 1851 is probably her though:

July 12th 1851

Mrs Wright isn't mentioned again in the records until the summer of 1855 when Ellen Jones, described as 'powerful looking' beats a navvy on Whitmore Lane then breaks Mrs Wright's windows. The breaking of windows was common by prostitutes when they felt wronged:

June 30th 1855

Then there's another blank of five years until Mrs Mary Ann Wright dies from heart disease and bronchitis on the 15th February 1860 after running her brothel for two decades (I like to think she passed away in the night after her last St Valentine's Day). She was aged 80, a phenomenal age at the time.

The informant of the death was yet another Mary Ann- Mary Ann Thomas. This Mary Ann was described as 'good-looking' in the newspaper reports of her arrest a few months after the death of her madam. Interestingly Mary Ann Thomas only appears in the police records in the months after the death of Mrs Wright. She's arrested for drunk and disorderly charges in May, July, August and October 1860 and also in March 1861.

May 12th 1860

Mrs Mary Ann Wright was buried February 17th at St Johns aged 80.

And that's it. Apart from three references, the two in 1848 and the one in 1855 this is all I can find that reference Mrs Wright's brothel. Obviously there are quite a few references to the girls who were working in her brothel, especially the 1851 batch, but that doesn't mean they were working for Mrs Wright when they were arrested in the years before or after 1851. 

Compared to Mrs Prothero's brothel- which was active around the same time from 1836-1856- and had many, many mentions in the newspapers Mary Ann Wright's brothel was extremely quiet. 

Why was it so quiet? I suspect three possible reasons.

One: Mary kept a tight ship. She seems to have employed 'careful' women to work there who didn't get into a lot of trouble, Mary Ann Jones, Fanny Bancha and Ann Cheguin being examples. Believe me there were plenty of loud, heavy drinking women who weren't afraid to steal from their marks and fight back when required.

Two: She died in the same month that saw the first round of crackdowns on the brothels in 1860. I suspect no matter how careful she was she would have come under the radar of the police and private individuals who began systematically prosecuting the brothels of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane from February 1860 onwards.

Three: For me this is the main reason. There was no beerhouse linked financially or physically to her brothel. Drink, especially late at night, brought trouble and the joint beerhouse/brothels and brothels supplied by beerhouses were much more rowdy places.

Overall I think that Mrs Wright's brothel catered for the sailors who were spending more than one night with the women. They would lodge there while they waited for their ship to load or unload or they waited for a berth on a new ship. There is some evidence for these short term relationships in the other brothels but in the main the other brothels seemed to have been 'walk-in' night by night places.
I suspect Mrs Wright's place catered for regular sailors and that's why there was little trouble there- brothels themselves were not illegal before 1860 and so as long as it was quiet the law would have left it alone.

Mary Ann Wright was careful enough to avoid trouble and attention from the law. It can't have been an easy task and she must have negotiated her every day life with skill, resilience and forethought. Unfortunately for us her successful business model means we know very little about her.

References available. 

Article is copyright A Rhys 2018.
Newspaper images appear courtesy of Wales Newspapers Online and Glamorgan Record Office.

Black Ribbon: Death on the Canal

The canal in blue down the side of Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane. The Custom House bridge is middle-left.

This blogpost is part of a series looking at offshoot themes from my book 'Notorious' that recounts the lives people living on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane in Cardiff from 1841-1870. It contains mature content. The introduction to the notorious streets can be found here.

The black ribbon, the Glamorganshire Canal, wound it's way down through the Taff valley from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff docks.

Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane were bounded to the west and north by the canal and it had a large influence on the society that lived there, employment only being a small part. It is no coincidence that the other two main areas of prostitution and vice in South Wales, China in Merthyr and Friar's Fields in Newport were also both within close proximity to canals. When historians write about canals, such as in the two volume 'Glamorganshire and Aberdare Canal' by Rawson and Wright, they neglect to mention the dark influences the canal had on the societies that lived alongside it.

Murder

The authorities were well aware of one nefarious use the canal had among the prostitutes and bullies of Charlotte Street and the Lane. In 1842 a ships captain was found dead in the canal missing his money. He'd last been seen the night before leaving the Somerset Arms which had entrances on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane. Despite an inquest his killers were never found. In 1846 the coroner had this to say about how the canal was used to murder:

John Thomas had come to Cardiff from Treforest to enjoy the Whitsun holiday in 1860 but met his wet end in the canal after drinking with the 'bad characters in Whitmore Lane:

Of course foul play could never be proved.

The Black Ribbon had two other social uses that its makers never intended, suicide and the dumping of babies and foetuses.

Suicide

It was the sheer proximity of the canal that lent itself as a suicide spot. This close to the sea it was deep and very few people could swim. In April 1850 John Gleeson, who ran a lodging house on Whitmore Lane, lost it shortly after the birth of his only son:

Suicide was of course a crime at this time- hence the five shilling and costs fine (about a weeks rent).

In June 1854 the prostitute Ann Moore alias 'Carrots' (who was working with Jenny Piano in 1861) attempted a suicidal escape attempt, after being arrested for fighting with another Whitmore Lane prostitute:

In 1855 Naomi Oram, a prostitute working out of Mary Prothero's brothel on Whitmore Lane also lost it one Sunday morning in July. She had very probably been up all Saturday night drinking and had not yet gone to bed when she was rescued by an umbrella:

She was taken back to Prothero's brothel and continued to work the streets for another five years.
In March 1857 Annie McNelly age 22 was assaulted by a brothel keeper and his wife and another working girl called Bella King on Christiana Street. At one point the man slammed her head in a door and she ran off and into the canal. She died. The man William Roberts was charged with her assault and got three months in gaol, the women were freed.
In June 1857 Ellen Griffiths, another prostitute from Whitmore Lane, threw herself into the canal and is saved, rather poetically by one of the town missionaries:

Hannah Phillips, who was brought up since she was an infant on Charlotte Street and lived at her parents lodging house at number 39 (the canal end of Charlotte Street), decided the same thing in the summer of 1861:

The magistrate, ever tuned to the difficulties of being poor, blames her life on her 'love of dress':

Hannah Phillip's case is interesting as she is evidence of a 'fallen women' who was literally brought up in the environs of brothels and prostitution for most of her life.

In 1862 Elizabeth Williams, who'd been working Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane for the last five years, also felt distressed enough to jump into the canal:

In April 1866 the Superintendent of police Stockdale was fed up of prostitutes trying, and succeeding, in drowning themselves in the canal:

1866 saw a mix up where the prostitute Eliza Lewis was found dead in the Junction Canal off Bute Street. See here for The Twelve Day Death of Eliza Lewis.
In 1867 'a woman named Grey' tried to commit suicide by the Hayes bridge (the next one up from the Custom House). She is probably Mary Grey.

Again in 1867 Sergeant Price saw Elizabeth Long running towards the canal. He ran after her and caught her 'by the hair' just as she was in the act of jumping in.
In 1868 Margaret Mahoney, a Whitmore Lane prostitute also wanted to end her life:

Old age had a depressing effect on some, like William Griffiths, a usually friendly and sociable razor grinder from Charlotte Street who walked up to the nearest bridge and jumped off in the summer of 1869:

In 1871 Catherine Martin, a 24 year old Irish prostitute living at 17 Charlotte Street who had been working there for over ten years, attempted suicide while drunk:

This was the third time she had attempted suicide by jumping into the canal.
The last suicide attempt takes us full circle in a way. John Gleeson attempted suicide in 1850- he opens this section of the blog. Almost 30 years later in May of 1879 his daughter Mary Ann Gleeson, who had been working as a prostitute, jumped in at exactly the same spot.

The lock hospital mentioned was for venereal disease. The way they say her 'illness was very manifest' means that she was probably in the last stages of syphilis- her body was being eaten away by sores and infection and she was using a crutch to walk.

Infanticide & Concealment of Birth

I have found only one reference, in 1842, to a baby's body being discovered in the privies (outside toilets) of Whitmore Lane. Considering the huge number of brothels and prostitutes on Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane there must have been a high rate of unwanted pregnancies, still born and aborted babies.

Many of the working women worked right up to the birth of their children, for example Sarah Nips was with a client the day before she gave birth in 1852 and Ann Arnott was working in Mrs George's Dinas Arms brothel until two weeks before she gave birth in 1868. We have recorded the still-born birth of a child of Jane Allen, a Whitmore Lane prostitute, who gave birth in Mrs Donovan's brothel at 24 Whitmore Lane in 1856. The baby was put into a box and placed under the bed while the midwife attended to the mother. If the police had not turned up after hearing the rumours I wonder where that box would have ended up, perhaps the midwife would have buried it, what is certain is that many unwanted babies, still born or not ended up in the Glamorganshire Canal.

This report from 1855 shows how grisly the practice could be:

In January 1857 another baby was found. It had lived and it's umbilical cord has been torn rather than cut, showing the desperation of the birth:

In February of the next year two boys found the body of a baby girl:

In January 1868 another murdered child was found in the canal by Whitmore Lane:

Another dead baby was found five months later in June wrapped in calico hidden between the canal bridge wall and the fence of a timber merchant at the end of Whitmore Lane:

This report, also from 1868 and around the corner in Bute Street, shows how so many mothers and children came to be in this desperate situation:

This servant called in the police, but often these babies were born in dark, secret places to poor and desperate women. Who knows how many ended up in the canal. I'm not saying that they all came from the women and brothels of Charlotte Street and the Lane, we'll never know their stories, but it is likely that many did.

Accident

Falling into the canal was not always intentional, it was in fact a frequent occurrence. We begin with a 16 year old boatman man falling off a barge while partying with friends and some lady guests by Whitmore Lane. They took his body to Caroline/Catherine Mouls' brothel on Whitmore Lane. 

In the same vein another man falls into the canal drunk from Whitmore Lane in April 1850:

This obscene 'tit-bit' masquerading as humour appeared in the editorial section on Glamorganshire in the Monmouthshire Merlin in 1850:

You don't have to be a historian to understand that these children were missed, no matter how poor or inconsequential their parents were. I'm sure Bridget Kirby's widowed father, who was a labourer lodging at Whitmore Lane, missed his five year old daughter after she went to play on the Thursday and was found lifeless in the canal on a Saturday morning in 1855.

Elizabeth George, the landlady of the Dinas Arms on Charlotte Street, almost lost her son George to the canal shortly after moving to Cardiff in May 1858. The brothel keeper and prostitute Susan Stanton wasn't so lucky. Her four year old son, a grandson of Mary the Cripple, fell from a narrowboat into the canal on an April afternoon in 1859 and was only found when his dead body resurfaced many hours later.
This boy from Charlotte Street had a lucky escape from death in 1868:

The reports are in the hundreds. I'll end with this article from 1907.

I've always been interested in the Glamorganshire Canal, having lived alongside it's path at one point, and have been dismayed at the destruction of it over the years. Very little remains of it today, most disappearing under the A470. I never realised how much blood and pain had soaked into it's clay lined channel over the years.

References:

Murder
Captain death inquest: 1842 October 8th Cardiff Merthyr Guardian p.3.

Coroner's report: 1846 January 3rd CMG p.2.
Merthyr Man's death: 1864 May 20th Cardiff News p.2.
Suicide

John Gleeson suicide: 1850 April 20th CMG p.4. & Monmouthshire Merlin p.2.
Ann Moore: 1854 June 9th CMG p.3.

Naomi Oram suicide: 1855 July 7th CMG p.5.
Annie McNelly: CMG 1857 March 14th p.8.
Ellen Griffiths: 1857 June 27th CMG p.5.
Hannah Phillips: 1861 July 19th Cardiff Times p.8. 1861 July 20th CMG p.6.
Hannah Phillips Census 1861 St Marys Cardiff RG9/4033 F85 p55.
Hannah Phillips: See also 1859 July 9th CT p.3.
Elizabeth Williams: 1862 Sept 13th MM p.6. Earlier see 1857 July 4th CMG p.6.
Grey: CT 1867 July 13th p.6. for Mary Grey see CMG 1865 March 31st p.6.
Elizabeth Long see PSCBO/1/49 30th July.
Margaret Mahoney: 1868 February 1st Cardiff Times p.5.
William Griffiths: 1869 July 10th CMG p.5.
Kate Martin: 1871 October 25th Western Mail p.3. 3rd time Oct 28 CMG p.5.
Kate Martin: There's a long list of previous convictions e.g. 1862 July 25th CT p.6.
Mary Driscoll: 1855 November 10th CMG p.3.
Infanticide:
1855 July 28th CMG p.8.
1857 Jan 17th CMG p.8.
1858 Feb 27th CMG p.5.
1868 January 25th Cardiff Times p.3.
1868 June 27th Cardiff Times p.5.
Accidents:
Something like a Bull: 1850 August 17th MM p.3.

Margaret Griffiths: 1858 July 31st CMG p.6. Taken in for 'obstructing the pavement' 1854 June 23rd CMG p.3.

George George: 1858 May 15th p.5.
Bridget Kirby: 1855 July 14th CMG p.8. 1855 burial in St Mary's burial records p.279
John Thomas: 1860 June 9th Cardiff Times p.5.
John Jones: 1868 April 25 Cardiff Times p.5.
Last article Evening Express October 5th 1907 p.3.


Map is from the Glamorgan Archives, the newspaper reports are either from the excellent Welsh Newspapers Online site from the National Library of Wales or from microfiche at the Cathays Library in Cardiff.


The book 'Notorious' is almost completed, I'm just adding some final evidence from birth, marriage and death certificates that I need to order, and painting the portraits of the characters within it.
This post in its current form is copyright Anthony Rhys 2017.