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 Golden Cross: Last Pub Standing

1849 map, Golden Cross, or Shield & Newcastle Tavern, marked with yellow arrow

1892 The view towards The Golden Cross in the same direction as the yellow arrow on the map above. Note the golden crosses in the upstairs windows.

I get shivers when I drink in The Golden Cross.

Why? Because I've spent two years writing 'Notorious: Charlotte Street and the Lane' and The Golden Cross is the only survivor from that time, the only building left standing where the people I've written about drank, sang, laughed, stole and lost their tempers. The Golden Cross is all that remains of these heady years. 

Gone from Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane are The Cornish Arms, The Navigators, The Lame Chicken, The Noah's Ark, The Flying Eagle, The Dinas Arms, The King's Head, The Farmer's Arms, The Crown, The Britannia Inn, The Pembrokeshire Arms, The Newport & Pembroke, The Albion, The Somerset House, The Gloucester House, The Ship Inn, The Six Bells, The Caledonian, The Irishman's Glory, The Welsh Harp, The Sailor's Return, The Jolly Sailor, The Seven Stars, The Red Lion, The Excavators Arms, The Wild Wave, The Ocean Wave, The Golden Swan, The Three Crowns, The Castle Inn, The Globe Inn, The Custom House Hotel, The Ship & Pilot, The Ship Afloat, The New York Tavern, The New London, The Hibernian, The Great Eastern, The Green Fields of Erin, The Amber Bar, The Richards Arms and The Coal Hole. These people were thirsty back then...

People have been drinking beer on this site since at least 1846, that's 171 years of constant drinking! The pub's been called The Golden Cross since 1860 (wikipedia, and everyone else says it was 1863 but this date is wrong). It was rebuilt in 1904 so technically it's not the same Golden Cross but hey, we can't be too picky. In the same way the interior of the Custom House at the other end of Whitmore Lane was gutted in the 1980's and only the facade remains. 

This post will tell the early history of The Golden Cross. It's part of a series on two notorious streets in Cardiff, more can be found here.
The photo above of the 'Whitmore Lane Crossing' dates from a time when Charlotte Street and the old housing on Whitmore Lane had already been demolished a decade earlier. The crowded street scene, with it's sailors, police and local women still harks back to those times though. When this photo was taken Whitmore Lane had been renamed 'Custom House Street' twenty years earlier in an effort to whitewash it's iniquitous history.

Technically The Golden Cross was on Bute Street, but it is often referred to as part of Whitmore Lane. The longer half of it's frontage was along Whitmore Lane and the front door was on the corner of Whitmore Lane and Bute Street.

The Shield & Newcastle

The history starts in November 1846 with the pub called 'The Shield and Newcastle'. It was run by John Platt and his wife Ann. As it was on a street notorious for brothels and prostitution it's hardly surprising that Mr & Mrs Platt would get on the wrong side of some of the sex-workers there. In November 1846 John got a mouth full of curses from the experienced Mary Freeman. In June 1847 Ann Platt has a run in with Rachel Holiday. Rachel Holiday was a prostitute, her two sisters were also prostitutes, and she was going out with Harry Kickup, a thug from Cornwall who features heavily in my 'Notorious' book. After Rachel had been drinking she started to smash the glasses and then hit Ann Platt over the head with a jug:

Not the first, or the last, blood to be spilt in the pub.
The next month in July 1847 John Platt was getting assaulted by one of my Notorious women Kesiah Jones. Kesiah came out of gaol in the morning then went to his pub:

The location given here of the pub on Lewis Street must be incorrect as elsewhere Mary Griffith is recorded as working for John Platt at the Shields and Newcastle.
In September 1847 a milkman parked his cart too close to the windows of the Shields. Ann went out first to try to tip his milk cart over, the milkman shoved her back so John came out he beat him up. Meanwhile the donkey ran off:

On Boxing Day 1847, which was also a Sunday, John Platt was in trouble for being open. A mixture of soldiers, locals and 'girls of the town' including 'Plymouth Eliza' and Ann Perkins (who went on to run a brothel) were drinking in the Shields, which was the usual clientele on Whitmore Lane.
Ann Platt died in the summer of 1849, when the pub was called 'Newcastle Tavern' and John moved to Lewis Street to run a pub there- where he is by the 1851 census.

The Castle Inn

The pub then passed into the hands of Daniel Francis. Daniel lived at 40 Charlotte Street, which was spitting distance from The Shields and Newcastle, there he had run The Jolly Sailor beerhouse from 1842 until 1852.
In 1852 Daniel had dropped 'The Shields' part of the name and the pub was called 'New Castle Tavern'. This name further evolved into the 'Castle Inn' by 1855. It seems to have been a quiet place, supplying spirits to Whitmore Lane and staying out of trouble, until a man almost burnt to death there in 1856:

In February 1859 John Thomas had bought The Castle Inn. He was already the owner of The Griffin Inn on St Mary Street and a theatre in town.

The Castle Inn was the nearest place for the inhabitants of Whitmore Lane to buy spirits. There's a reference in March 1859 to two of Harry Kickup's prostitutes, Ellen Myers and Ann White, going to 'Thomas' gin shop' inbetween drinking at the beerhouses. They picked up a man at the gin shop and then beat the shit out of him afterwards.
Then in July 1859 The Castle Inn was undergoing a re-fit when a horrible accident occurred:

The fact that you could die from a broken leg goes to show the tough conditions at the time!

The Golden Cross

That death came at the same time as the death of The Castle Inn. The Golden Cross was born by March 1860 when John Thomas had the licence officially transferred from Daniel Francis into his name:

We are also fortunate to have a plan of the bar at The Golden Cross, probably the result of this fatal 1859 refit. It is housed in the Glamorgan Archives and was produced for a unused redevelopment of the pub planned in 1899. This is the only floor plan extant of any pub on Whitmore Lane or Charlotte Street:

The top right door is still the way into The Golden Cross today. Note the spiral staircase in the middle of the pub leading to the second floor living quarters. Also there are no ladies toilets. These weren't installed until 1943! (I assume they used the one marked behind the bar next to the outside area). Daniel Francis wouldn't have had to walk far to work either when he owned it as 40 Charlotte Street is top left of the plan.
John Thomas is running The Golden Cross but not living there as the 1861 census shows a bar manager Catherine Bevan and a servant Margaret Crowley or Crowline living there:

Although John Thomas is there when a man tries to pay for beer with fake money:

Catherine Bevan and John Thomas were probably behind the bar when the notorious prostitute Irish Meg went there for a drink in 1861 soon after she'd made a mint in a brothel robbery:

Margaret Crowley was still working there in 1863 with fellow barmaid Emily Price when the notorious thief Stephen Anderson, alias 'Mouse', popped in to The Golden Cross for a drink in 1863, it cost him four years of his life.

My favourite incident is also from 1863 when Billy Shortlegs, a Whitmore Lane bully and boatman who had lost his lower limbs, kicked off in The Golden Cross big style:

An important aspect of The Golden Cross was that it was a licensed public house. That meant it could sell spirits as well as beer- the majority of the 15 or so beerhouses on Whitmore Lane and Charlotte Street at this time were restricted to beer. These two prostitutes enjoy a glass of gin in 1864 then steal one of the glasses....

Selling spirits brought in the customers but it also came with a problem- licensed houses had to be behaved or their licenses would be revoked by the council (the beerhouses didn't have the same problem as they were regulated by Customs & Excise- who weren't fussy about morals). So although The Golden Cross has it's fair share of drunken fights and thefts it is highly unlikely it would have been a brothel in the 1860's as is claimed by some. It would have soon lost it's license and anyhow there were already about 10 brothels open at any given time at the other end of Whitmore Lane and on Charlotte Street.
Theft of items from The Golden Cross was a constant problem with so much poverty around. Stealing and pawning a glass could get you enough cash for a bed for the night. On a cold January day in 1864 three glasses got a young lad a bed for two months in gaol, then two years at reformatory school:

Harry Kickup was drinking in The Golden Cross, where his ex-wife had assaulted the landlady 17 years previously, in 1864. This time he was the victim of violence:

Thomas Yarwood, son of Mary the Cripple, was drinking in The Golden Cross in December 1864 and he claimed he was assaulted by PC Evans when he went out:

The problem with this claim is that Thomas Yarwood and Jack Matthews were both notorious brothel keepers and PC Evans was the policeman responsible for prosecuting the brothels.
The location of The Golden Cross at the intersection of Whitmore Lane, full of brothels, and Bute Street, full of sailors, meant that it was a good place for the working girls to take their marks for drinks, though they would then go on to a brothel. Here Emma Fry and Mary Ann Lee entertain at the end of 1863:

In 1868 the police were called to throw out John Daley, a local rough, who was making trouble (transcription below):

"At 12 Saturday night last found prisoner in the Golden Cross very drunk and riotous and threatening to split our heads- he refused to go out- we were requested by the barmaid and he refused to go we put him out and he struck Lewis (another PC) on the arm with a pewter cup- at the Police Station he kicked me in the privates. 30 shillings and costs or 21 days hard labour."
In 1869 it all got too much for one policeman. With a sick wife and child at home he had to have some shut eye supported by The Golden Cross:

There are plenty more incidents recorded for the years following 1869 - mainly assaults involving sailors, labourers and 'ladies of the pave' and petty thefts but I'll leave those for another time.

The Golden Cross is now a grade II listed building and it's survival is one of those happy accidents of history- it's fancy exterior and interior tiling being it's main saving grace. Nothing survives around it and like Whitmore Lane this end of Bute Street was renamed 'Hayes Bridge Road' and completely demolished in the late 1900's to whitewash the previous connotations of supposed sin.
The Golden Cross is now an island amidst a sea of traffic, glass and concrete and work has started on building Wales' tallest building just across the road from it on the other side of Whitmore Lane. But still, this fine, friendly pub remains- a stones throw from the city centre with some excellent internal and external features together with wet beer and good company and I would heartily recommend a visit.

So when I sit in the corner of The Golden Cross I know I am drinking where Harry Kickup, Irish Meg, Mouse, Thomas Yarwood, Billy Shortlegs and most probably all the other people I'm writing about once drank and it makes me happy that it's still there.

References:

1849 O'Rourke's Map is copyright Cardiff Libraries.
Photograph is 1892 by William Booth. National Library of Wales ID7202/DF000948
GRO PSCBO/1 C.P. Phillips v Mary Freeman 30th November 1846.
GRO PSCBO/1/3 Ann Platt v Rachel Holyday 14th June 1847.
Kesiah Jones: Monmouthshire Merlin 1847 July 31st.
Milkman: Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian 1847 September 18th p.2.
Boxing Day: GRO PSCBO/1/5 J.B. Stockdale vs John Platt 3rd January 1848.

Castle Inn
Name evolving: See Trade Directories for 1849, 1852, 1855
Harry Kickup's girls: see PSCBO/1/23 Henry Tonkin Warren 18th March 1859.
Sewerage: MM April 26 1856 p.3.
Lodger burning: CMG April 5th 1856 p.5.
Police drinking: CMG September 19th 1857 p.7.
License: CMG 1859 February 26th 1859 p.4.
Man death: CMG 1859 July 30th p.5.

Golden Cross
License: CMG March 10th 1860 p.6.
Census 1861 RG9/4033 F60 p3 Cardiff St Mary.
Women's Toilets: Plans are at Glamorgan Archives BC/S/1/34541
2 rebuilds were proposed in 1899 and 1901: Glamorgan Archives BC/S/1/13888 (1899) BC/S/1/14650 (1901) but were never realised.
Irish Meg: CMG April 20th 1861 p.6.
Bad Coin: 1861 Cardiff Times December 13th p.6.
Stephen Anderson MM October 31st 1863 p.2.
William Charles CMG September 18th 1863 p.7.
Girls stealing glass: Cardiff News March 4th 1864 p.3. Theft was a problem- a spoon stolen in 1863 (CMG November 20th p.8.) Three tankards also in the same year (Cardiff Times May 1st p.5.)
Reformatory school: 1864 CMG January 8th p.7.
Henry Warren: Cardiff New April 1st 1864 p.4.
Yarwood: CMG December 16th 1864 p.3.
Emma Fry CT January 1st 1864 p.6.
John Daley: PSCBO/1/50 John Daley 31st August 1868.
Policeman sleeping: Cardiff Times November 6th 1869 p.8.

The PSCBO/1 references are from the Glamorgan Record Office.
Newspaper images from the wonderful Welsh Newspapers Online.