Weaving the industrial pastof a Swansea warehouse

On occasion, the accession of a single photograph into the archives can lead to the discovery of a web of interrelated stories that contribute to our shared understanding of a place. Earlier this year, we were given a photograph which shows the Strand, a less well-known part of Swansea, during the SecondWorldWar. The back bearsthe stamp of Swansea professional photographer Jack Thomas and in handwriting ‘Taken Oct 29 1941’. The picture itselfshows a warehouse. In the midst of a line of cars, large sacks are beinghoisted onto or off a lorry. One sack is captured in mid-air next to workers controlling it from the first floor. Tracing the history of this building, and the land on which it stood,reveals the industrial characterof the Strand and the road’s importance to the economy of Swansea, a role which persisted over three centuries, almost to the present day.

The Swansea Corporation Burgesses had managed the tidal shores of the Tawe as theirfreehold, for centuries, with theStrand following the former right bank of the river.1 Although there are limited surviving archives from the medieval and early modernperiods, the documents we do hold suggest it was undeveloped and somewhat marshy at this earlier time.2

However, during the eighteenth century, the Burgesses clearly recognised the economic potential of developing wharves beside the river. Theysigned lease agreements with several prominent businessmen. The area depicted in the photograph was the subject of a deed of 1733, which leased land to industrialist Robert Morris.3

Robert Morris, manager of a copper-smelting enterprise in Llangyfelach since 1727, was permitted to ‘Erect a dock… for the Loading of Ships’ and could use the shore ‘for the Setting down Coales’. Robert’s second son, John Morris, continued to use this wharf in the decades that followed, as evidenced by a 1768 counterpart lease.

Samuel and Nathaniel Buck’s beautifully-drawn print ‘East View of Swansea’, originally published in 1748, quite clearly shows the Strand and its wharves. The depiction of sailing vessels and cargoes on the wharf suggests a level of economicprosperity to the town which the artists were no doubt keen to capture.

Our land parcel of interest was transformed into a timber yard for shipbuilding and ship-repairs when merchants David Francis and John Richardson signed a lease agreement in 1834.4

The area changed significantly in 1852 when the town opened its first dock after obtaining an Act of Parliament for it in 1836.5 The Strand was nowadjacent, not to a curve of the river Tawe, but to a ‘floating dock’.

Atwentiethcenturywarehouseandfellmongersfactory

A deed of 1889 shows how the timber merchant’s yard made way for development of the site by manufacturers T. P. Parry and Frederick Rocke.6 Their ‘fellmongers’ building and associated tan pits are marked on a March 1888 insurance plan published by Charles E. Goad (a fellmonger is a dealer in hides or skins, particularly of sheep). They appear to have produced both leather and woollengoodsonsite. Onthe1897revisionoftheGoadplan,thepremisesarenowa‘fellmongering warehouse and factory’, with ‘air drying on [the] roof’.

Parry and Rocke’s ‘fellmongers’ factory, labelled on Goad’s Insurance Plan (1888)

Revision of Goad’s Insurance plan showing first appearance of Parry and Rocke’s warehouse (1897)

A letter to the South Wales Evening Post in August 1953 (right) exposes the dangers and long working hours in the factory in the earlytwentieth century. However, an article in the Western Mail of 18 May 1928 reveals that the company closed the factory in 1926 and moved its operations toWarrington. When Parry and Rocke then petitoned against the Great Western Railway (North Dock Abandonment) Bill, they said that the premises had lainempty for the previous eighteeen months and the company was seeking a newtenant.

Atwenty-firstcenturycarpark

Although the Blitz leftmuch of Swansea’s town centre in ruins, the warehouse appears from the picture to have been more or less intact and in usefor storage. Whilst the broken windows may have been the result of blast damage in February 1941, it appears to be relatively minor and may instead be the result of petty vandalism while the building had lain empty.

Given the proximity of Weaver’sflourmill to the warehouse, the sack being hoisted may be of flour or grain. Grain from North America was vital to keeping the population from starving during wartime and Swansea was a key Atlantic port for this trade – between them the ports of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport handled over 6% of the UK’s imports during the period 1940-1941.7 Wedo not know if the line of cars was parked in connection with businesson the Strand or else possibly because the town centre beyond was stillinaccessible to motor traffic.

The 1961 Goad Insurance map shows the warehouse (or its site) being used as a motor showroom after the war. It is not known exactly when the building was demolished but the site was subsumed into the construction of the Parc Tawe retailpark in the 1980s. Thus a site rich in industrial history is lost in a post-industrial era and has become a shoppers’ car park. Documents however survive as a permanent testament to its past and we can hope that in time, just like this photograph, more may come to light.

Beth Amos Archive Trainee

The following reference works and documents are all available in our Swansea searchroom:

1. W.C. Rogers, Bernard Morris andWest Glamorgan Archive Service (WGAS), Historic Swansea (Llandybie: Dinefwr Press, 2005), xxv.

2. Ref.: D/D MG 1: O. Cromwell, ‘O. Cromwell’s Survey of Gower. A.D. 1650’ in Surveys of Gower and Kilvey and of Several Mesne Manors within that Seigniory, edited by Charles Baker and G. G. Francis (London: T. Richards, 1861), 1-94, 31.

3. EA 1/39: Counterpart lease agreement between the Swansea Borough Burgesses and Robert Morris relating to riverside land on the Strand [title deed] (1733).

For an account of Robert Morris’ earlycommercial success in the copper-smelting industry largely based on his own contemporary letters, see RISW/DOC 11/9: Robert Morris, History of the Copper Concern and Matters Incidental Thereto: Extracted from the Letter-Books 1774 [Manuscript] (c. 1926).

4. EA 1/269: Counterpart lease between the Swansea Borough burgesses and timber merchants Francis and Richardson [title deed] (1834).

5. D/D SHa/1/1: Plan of the Harbour of Swansea and of the River Tawe from the piers to the Forest Weir, with the proposed improvements [plan] (1836).

6. TC 102/91: Agreement for T. P. Parry and F. Rocke to lease a piece of ground on the Strand [title deed] (1889).

7 https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/battle-of-atlantic/liverpool