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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SUS-TAV |
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SWANSEA , a municipal, county and parliamentary borough, founded in 1835, is housed in a handsome building in the Ionic market town, and seaport of Glamorganshire, South Wales, style erected in 18381839 and possesses a museum in which the finely situated in an angle between lofty hills, on the river geology, mineralogy
interest
of the municipal borough previous to 1836, occupies the west The free library and art gallery of the corporation , a four-bank of the Tawe near its mouth and is now wholly given up to storeyed building in Italian style erected in 1887, contains the business. Stretching inland to the north along the river for library of the Rev. Rowland Williams (one of the authors of some 3 M. through Landore to Morriston, and also eastwards Essays and Reviews), the rich Welsh collection of the Rev. Robert along the sea margin towards Neath, is the industrial quarter, Jones of Rotherhithe, a email Devonian section (presented by while the residential part occupies the sea front and the slopes the Swansea Devonian Society), and about 8000 volumes and of the Town Hill (58o ft. high) to the west, stretching out to 2500 prints and engravings, intended to be mutually illustrathe pleasant suburb of Sketty. The east side of the river (known tive, given by the Swansea portrait-painter and art critic, as St Thomas's and Port Tennant) is approached from the west John Deffett Francis, from 1876 to 1881, to receive whose first by a road carried over the North Dock Lock and the river by gift the library was established in 1876. It also contains a two girder drawbridges, each of which has a double line of complete set of the patent office publications.roadway (on which tramways are laid), two footpaths and a The grammar school founded in 1682 by Hugh Gore (1613line of railway. All the main thoroughfares are spacious, and 1691), bishop of Waterford, is now carried on by the town council in two or three instances even imposing, but most of the resi- under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, and dential part consists of monotonous stuccoed terraces. The there is a similar school for girls. The technical college is also climate is mild and relaxing and the rainfall averages about carried on by the town council, the chief features of its 40 in. annually. curriculum being chemistry, metallurgy and engineering. A Public Buildings, &c.The old castle, first built by Henry training college for school-mistresses, established by the British de Newburgh about 1099, has entirely disappeared; but of the and Foreign School Society in 1872, was transferred to the new castle, which was probably intended only. as a fortified town council in roo8. house, there remain the great and lesser halls, a tower and a The other public buildings of the town include the gildhall so-called keep with the curtain wall
hall
meet-episcopal palaces of St Davids and Lamphey built by Henry and abattoirs (1869); the Albert Hall
ings (1864) ; the Royal Metal Exchange (1897) ; harbour trust Gower (d. 1347), bishop of St Davids, to whom the building of offices (1904); a central post office (1901) and two theatres. The the new " castle " is also ascribed. Part of it is now used as benevolent institutions include the general hospital, founded in the headquarters of the 4th Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade R.F.A. 1817, removed to the present site in 1867, extended by the addition Possibly some traces of St Davids Hospital, built by the same of two wings in 1878 and of an eye department in 1890; a convalescent home for twenty patients from the hospital only (19o3) ; prelate in 1331, are still to be seen at Cross Keys Inn. The parish the Royal Cambrian Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, estabchurch of St Mary was entirely rebuilt in 18951898. It pre- lished in 1847 at Aberystwyth, removed to Swansea in 1850, and viously consisted of a tower and chancel (with a fine Decorated several times enlarged, so as to have at present accommodation window) built by Bishop Gower, the piers of the chancel for ninety-eight pupils; the Swansea and South Wales Institution w for the Blind, established in 1865 and now under the Board of arch being partly built on earlier Norman work, the Herbert Education; the Swansea and South Wales Nursing Institute (1873), Chapel (originally St Ann's) of about the same date as the providing a home for nurses in the intervals of their employment; chancel and rebuilt in the early part of the 16th century, and a a nursing institution (19(32) for nursing the sick poor in their own homes, affiliated with the Queen's Jubilee Institute of London; Dane built in 1739. Of the earlier work there remains the door the Sailors' Home (1864) ; a Sailors' Rest (1885) ; and a Mission to of the rood loft (built into a wall
marble slab with a representation of the resurrection, in memory The town possesses 103 acres of parks and open spaces, the chief of Sir Hugh Johnys (d. c. 1463) and his wife, and three canopied being Llewelyn Park of 42 acres in the north of the town near Morris-altar tombsone with the effigy of a priest and another with effigies of Sir Matthew Cradock and his wife. Within the parish of St Mary was St John's, the church of a small parish of the same name lying to the north of St Mary's and once owned by the Knights Hospitallers. This church, which was entirely rebuilt in 1820, was renamed St Matthew in 1880, when a new St John's was built within its own parish. There are ton, Victoria Park (16 acres) and recreation ground (8 acres) abutting on the sands in the west, with the privately owned football field between them, Cwmdonkin (13 acres) commanding a fine panoramic view of the bay, and Brynmill (9 acres) with a disused reservoir constructed in 1837 and now converted into an ornamental lake. Other features of these parks are a small botanical garden in Cwmdonkin, a good collection of waterfowl in Brynmill, and a small aviary of the rarer British birds in Victoria Park, which also has a meteorological station in connexion with the meteorological office, and a statue of Mr William Thomas of Lan erected in 1905 in appreciation of the work done by him in preserving and obtaining " open spaces " for Swansea. In the town itself there are statues of J. Henry Vivian and of his son Sir Henry Hussey Vivian (created Lord Swansea in 1893) each in his turn the " copper king." The corporation owns about 645 acres of land within the limits of the ancient borough. This consists mainly of land acquired under an Inclosure Act of 1761, but a small part is surplus land acquired in 1876-1879 in connexion with an improvement scheme for clearing a large insanitary area in the centre of the town. -The town is lighted with gas supplied by a gas company first incorporated in 1830 and by electricity supplied by the corporation. There is a good system of electrically worked tramways, 52 m. being owned by a company and nearly 6 m. by the corporation, but the whole worked by the company. The town obtains its chief supply of water from moorlands situated on the Old Red Sandstone formation in the valley of the Cray, a tributary of the Usk in Brecon-shire where a reservoir of 1,000,000,000 gallons capacity has been constructed at a cost of 547,759, under parliamentary powers obtained in 1892, 1902 and 1905. The water is brought to the town in a conduit consisting of 23i M. of iron pipes and 3 m. of tunnel into a service reservoir of 3,000,000 gallons capacity made on the Town Hill at an elevation
Harbour and Commerce.Swansea owes its commercial prosperity to its great natural advantages as a harbour and its situation within the South Wales coal basin, for the anthracite portion of which it is the natural port of shipment. It is the most westerly port of the Bristol Channel and the nearest to the open sea, only 35 m. from the natural harbour of refuge at Lundy, and there is sheltered anchorage under the Mumbles Head at all states of the tide. The modern development of the port dates from about the middle of the 18th century when coal began to be extensively worked at I.lansamlet and copper smelting (begun at Swansea in 1717, though at Neath it dated from 1584) assumed large proportions. The coal was conveyed to the works and for shipment to a wharf on the east bank, on the backs of mules and somewhat later by means of a private canal. The common quay was on the west bank; all ships coming in had to lie in the river bed or in a natural tidal basin known as Fabian
Fabian
Jersey
The total exports (foreign and coastwise) from Swansea during 1907 amounted to 4,825,898 tons, of which coal and coke made up 3,655,050 tons; patent fuel, 679,002 tons; tin, terne and black plates, 348,240 tons; iron and steel and their manufactures, 38,438 tons; various chemicals (mostly the by-products of the metal industries), 37,100 tons; copper, zinc and silver, 22,633 tons. Its imports during the same year amounted to 899,201 tons, including 172,319 tons of grain and other agricultural produce, 156,620 tons of firewood, 145,255 tons of pig-iron and manufactured iron and steel, 47,201 tons of iron ore, 121,168 tons of copper, silver, lead, tin and nickel with their ores and alloys, 63,009 tons of zinc, its ores and alloys, 41,029 tons of sulphur ore, phosphates and other raw material for the chemical trade. The town (which is often called " the metallurgical capital of Wales ") is the chief seat of the copper, spelter, tin-plate and patent fuel industries, and has within a compass of 4 rn. over too different works of 36 varieties (exclusive of collieries) for the treatment or manufacture of copper, gold, silver, lead, sulphate of copper, spelter, tinplates, steel and iron, nickel and cobalt, yellow metal, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, creosote, alkali, galvanized sheets, patent fuel as well as engineering works, iron foundries, large flour and provender mills, fuse works and brick works. Copper smelting, which during most of the 19th century was the chief industry, has not maintained its relative importance, though Swansea is still the chief seat of the trade, but three-fourths of the tinplates manufactured in Great Britain and nineteen-twentieths of the spelter or zinc are made in the Swansea district, and its tube works are also the largest in the kingdom. While the bulk of the coal is sent to France and the Mediterranean ports, an increasing quantity of anthracite is shipped to Germany, and, in sailing vessels to the Pacific ports of America, patent fuel is largely sent to South America, whence return cargoes of mineral ores and grain are obtained, while Germany, France, Italy, Rumania, the United States and the Far East are the chief customers for tinplates. Over one hundred fishing-smacks and trawlers usually land their catches at the south dock, where there is a flourishing fish-market. There is also a large ice factory. From 1535 to 1832 (with the exception of 1658-1659) Swansea was associated with the other boroughs of Glamorgan in sending one representative to Parliament. In 1658 Cromwell gave the town the right of separately returning a member of its own, but this right lapsed with the Restoration. In 1832 St John's, St Thomas and parts of the parishes of Llansamlet and Llangyfelach were added to the parliamentary borough of Swansea, to which along with the boroughs of Neath, Aberavon, Kenfig and Loughor a separate representative was given. In 1836 the municipal borough was made coextensive with the parliamentary borough and continued so till 1868, when some further small additions were made to the latter, with which the municipal borough was once more made co-extensive in 1889. Meanwhile in 1885 the parliamentary constituency was made into two divisions with a member each, namely Swansea Town consisting of the original borough with St Thomas's, and Swan-sea District consisting of the remainder of the borough with the four contributory boroughs. In 1888 Swansea was made a county borough and in 1900 the various parishes constituting it were consolidated into the civil parish of Swansea. Its total area is 5194 acres. The corporation consists of to aldermen and 30 councillors. The assizes and quarter sessions for Glamorgan are held at Swansea alternately with Cardiff. The borough has a separate commission of the peace, and, since 1891, a court of quarter sessions. The population of the old borough was 6099 in 1801 and 13,256 in 1831; after the first extension it amounted to 24,604 in 1841. The population in 1901 was 94,537. Of those who were three years of age and upwards, nearly 67 % were returned as speaking English only, 29% as speaking both English and Welsh, and 3-1% as speaking Welsh only. History.No traces -of any Roman settlement have been discovered at Swansea, though there seems to have been a small one at Oystermouth, 5 M. to the south, and the Via Julia from Nidum (Neath) to Loughor probably passed through the northern part of the present borough where a large quantity of Roman coins was found in 1835. The name Swansea stands for Sweyn's " ey " or inlet, and may have been derived from King Sweyn Forkbeard, who certainly visited the Bristol Channel SWANWICK and may have established a small settlement at the estuary of the Tawe. The earliest known form of the name is Sweynesse, which occurs in a charter granted by William earl of Warwick some time previous to 1184; in King John's charter (1215) it appears as Sweyneshe, and in the town seal, the origin of which is supposed to date from about the same period, it is given as " Sweyse." An attempt has been made to derive the name from Sein Henydd, the Welsh name of a Gower castle which has been plausibly identified with the first castle built at Swansea, but that derivation is etymologically impossible. The Welsh name, Aber Tawy, first appears in Welsh poems of the beginning of the 13th century. The town grew up round the castle which Henry de Beauchamp (or Beaumont) on his conquest of Gower about 1099, built on the west bank of the river. The castle passed with the lordship or seigniory of Gower, of which it was the ca put, into the hands of the De Braose family in 1203 (by grant from King John) and eventually it came by marriage to the Somersets and is still held by the dukes of Beaufort, whose title of barons de Gower dates from 15o6. The castle was frequently attacked and on several occasions more or less demolished, in the 12th and 13th centuries by the Welsh under the princes of Dynevor. It was visited by King John in 1210 and probably by Edward II. in 1326, for, after his capture, the chancery rolls were found de-posited in the castle and were thence removed to Hereford. It was finally destroyed by Glendower, was a " ruinous building " when seen by Leland (1536) and has since wholly disappeared. In the Civil War the town was royalist till the autumn of 1645 when Colonel Philip Jones, a native of the adjoining parish of Llangyfelach and subsequently a member of Cromwell's upper house, was made its governor. Cromwell stayed in the town in May 1648, and July 1649, on his way to Pembroke and Ireland respectively, and later showed it exceptional favour by giving it a liberal charter and parliamentary representation. The town claimed to be a borough by prescription, for its only known charters of incorporation are those of Cromwell and James II., which were never acted upon. It probably received its first grant of municipal privileges from William 3rd earl of Warwick some time before 1184. By a charter of 1215 (confirmed by Henry II. in 1234, by Edward II. in 1312 and Edward III. in 1332), John himself granted the burgesses the right of trading, free of all customs due, throughout the whole kingdom (except in London), a right which was previously limited to the seigniory. By 1305 the burgesses had become so powerful as to wring a most liberal grant of privileges from their then seigneur William de Braose (fourth in descent from his namesake to whom Gower was granted by King John in 1203), and he bound himself to pay 500 to the king and 500 marks to any burgess in the event of his infringing any of the rights contained in it. By this charter the burgesses acquired the right of nominating annually two of their number for the office of portreeve so that the lord's steward might select one of them to exercise the office, an arrangement which continued till 1835; the bailiff's functions were defined and curtailed, and the lord's chancery was to be continually kept open for all requiring writs, and in Gowernot wherever the lord might happen to be. A patent of murage and pavagefrom which it may probably be inferred that Swansea was a walled townwas granted by Edward II. in 1317 and another by Edward III. in 1338. Cromwell's charter of 1655, though reciting that " time out of mind " Swansea had been " a town corporate," incorporated it anew, and changed the title of portreeve into mayor, in whom, with twelve aldermen and twelve capital burgesses, it vested the government of the town. The mayor, ex-mayor and one selected alderman were to be justices of the peace with exclusive jurisdiction and the mayor was the coroner. Four annual fairs were appointed, namely on the 8th of May, 2nd of July, 15th of August and 8th of Octoberthe first, how-ever, being the only new one. In 1658 the protector by another charter granted the town independent representation in parliament. At the Restoration, Cromwell's charters lapsed, but in 1685 James II. granted another charter which contained the I83 arbitrary proviso that the king by order in council might remove any officer or members of the corporation. This charter was not adopted by the burgesses. De Braose's charter of 1305 bears some evidence to the importance of the shipping of Swansea even at that date, for by it there was granted or confirmed to the burgesses the right to take from the lord's woods sufficient timber to make four great ships at a time and as many small vessels as they wished. Coal was even then worked in the district. Cromwell in his charter of 1655 recognized Swansea as " an ancient port town and populous, situate on the sea coast towards France convenient for shipping and resisting foreign invasions." Its status was only that of a " creek " in the port of Cardiff till 1685, when it was made an independent port with jurisdiction over Newton (now Porthcawl), Neath or Briton Ferry and South Burry, its limits being defined in 1847 as extending from Nash Point on the east to Whitford Point on the west, but in 1904 Port Talbot, which was included in this area, was made into a separate port. From about 1768 to 1850 Swansea had a somewhat famous pottery. Beginning with earthenware which twenty years later was improved into " opaque china," it produced from 1814 to 1823 superior porcelain which was beautifully decorated with landscapes, birds, butterflies and flowers
See Lewis W. Dillwyn, Contributions towards a History of Swansea (1840); Colonel G. Grant-Francis, Charters Granted to Swansea (1867), and The Smelting of Copper in the Swansea District (2nd ed., 1881); S. C. Gamwell, A Guide to Swansea and District (i88o) Lieut.-Colonel W. LI. Morgan, R.E., An Antiquarian Survey of East Gower. (D. La. T.) End of Article: SWANSEA If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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