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Cardiff remembered: City once home to ‘shifty and pauper population’ due to jobs

Author Brian Lee writes a weekly history and nostalgia column for the South Wales Echo.

Saffron Jenkins

Saffron Jenkins, InYourArea Community

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Cardiff remembered: City once home to ‘shifty and pauper population’ due to jobs

Pictures from Brian Lee’s book Central Cardiff.

Written by Brian Lee

Sam Allen in his Cardiff Reminiscences published in 1918 wrote: “A visitor to the modern and beautiful City of Cardiff will see a vastly different place to what I saw on my arrival in 1859, the main features of which had very little changed since they were pictured in Speed’s map of 1610.”

While Matthew Williams, curator of Cardiff Castle, who kindly wrote the foreword to my book Central Cardiff in 1998, (The History Press at £13.99), wrote: “Cardiff has always been a city of change. “Its rapid expansion during the last century caused it to be once called The Welsh Chicago, and as it approaches the new millennium, a great regeneration is once more revitalising the city.”

However, rewind to 1831 when the population of our beloved Cardiff numbered just 6,137 and one would have found that the town centre was cluttered with 45 courts.

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These included Kingston Court, Green Garden Court, Jenkins Court, Evan Court and Rowes Square. Some of these dwellings, we are informed, were neat and clean, while the condition of others were squalid.

The entrances to some of these courts were often through a narrow and dark passage and a government report claimed that: “Although the town is certainly thriving and likely to improve, it is appreciated that there will always be a shifty and pauper population in its suburbs in consequence of the description of labourers required for loading and discharging the vessels, for attending the wharfs, and for other casual occupation.”

Pictures from Brian Lee’s book Central Cardiff.

The report went on to mention Milkmaid’s Bridge. This was a stone bridge, which crossed the Glamorganshire Canal at the south end of the Hayes. It was given its name because, at one time, cows crossed it to be milked.

TW Rammell’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Town of Cardiff 1850, reported: “Nothing can be worse than the house accommodation for the poor of this town; the overcrowding is fearful, beyond anything of the kind I have ever known of.

“I inspected no 17 Stanley Street... I counted the persons living in the house. There were 54 persons, men women and children; they live, eat and sleep all in one room. The smell arising from the overcrowded room was most overpowering.” The report went on to say: “The well in Mary Ann Street is used for drinking. “I have seen worms in it; the people clamber over the wall for this water; it is like a struggle for life and death.

“In Waterloo Buildings in The Hayes, there are 11 or 12 houses with two privies; one was full up to the board. The burial ground, of St John’s Church, is excessively crowded... Persons dying of Typhus fever are frequently interred with no more than two feet of soil above them.”

But Central Cardiff is not all gloom and doom as there are pictures of the Carlton Restaurant, which was a popular venue for wining, dining and dancing, the Empire Pool Swimming Baths, David Morgan the Family Store, the Dutch Cafe in Queen Street and long gone pubs such as The Lifeboat, The Griffin, Rose & Crown, British Volunteer, The Masons Arms and the Horse and Groom.

  • Please send your pictures and stories to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remember, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1XR
  • or email brianlee4@virginmedia.com
  • If sending a letter, please include your phone number.

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