| Victoria Square, Aberdare | |
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The Black Lion Hotel in Victoria Square has played an important part in the life of the town since at least 1811 when it served as the base of the Aberdare Union Friendly Society. In the early Nineteenth Century the Black Lion Hotel was also used as the first Post Office in Aberdare, with the landlord Robert Jones serving as postmaster. The Black Lion also operated a brewery and owned a number of tied public houses in the Aberdare area before the brewery was sold in 1911. One of these tied houses was the Vulcan Inn, which was located opposite the Black Lion at the bottom of Monk Street, first recorded in 1844 the Vulcan Inn closed in 1925 shortly after this photograph was taken. |
| Victoria Square has been an important centre of commerce in Aberdare since the mid Nineteenth Century and was originally known as Commercial Place until the name was changed in celebration of the jubilee of Queen Victoria. Miles the Butchers was a well established retail business in Aberdare when this photograph was taken in the 1920's, in 1926 R H Miles owned not only this premises in Victoria Square but also stores at 8 Cardiff Street, 18 Canon Street, and 56 Jubilee Road, Aberaman as well as a restaurant and confectioners at 2 Canon Street. |
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Above: The unveiling of the statue of "Caradog" |
The story of how Griffith Rhys Jones 'Caradog' lead the Cor Mawr to victory at the Crystal Palace in 1872 and 1873 is well known. Caradog was born in the Rose and Crown in Trecynon in 1834 and showed an interest in music from an early age. At age 19 he lead his first choir to an Eisteddfod at Aberafan and in 1858 was appointed conductor of the Aberdare United Choir which he lead to great success before his appointment to lead the Cor Mawr. The statue of Caradog in Victoria Square was paid for by public subscription and sculpted by Sir W Goscombe John. The unveiling ceremony took place on Saturday 10th July 1920 and was very popular, bringing Aberdare to a standstill despite the poor weather conditions. After Lord Aberdare unveiled the statue, Madame Williams-Penn sang the Welsh National Anthem and then the crowd retreated to an overflowing Palladium to hear speeches by Lord Aberdare and Alderman Hopkin Morgan among others. |
| This photograph was taken during the 1910 Coal strike in the Aberdare Valley. The dispute began in October 1910 when the collieries of the Powell Duffryn Group stopped the custom allowing miner's to take home waste wood, insisting that they required permission to take the wood and would have to pay for it. This spark ignited miner's tensions over a number of grievances and the unofficial dispute spread throughout the collieries of the Aberdare Valley. The gentleman third from left in the photograph is C B Stanton (1873-1946), the Miner's Agent for the Aberdare Valley during the strike. Stanton was a controversial MP for the Merthyr Borough between 1915 and 1922, severing his former ties with the Independent Labour Party he instead campaigned under a reactionary jingoistic platform, denouncing many of his former colleagues for their views on the First World War. |
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