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A Trek through old Mumbles Village
and Thistleboon by Styart
A Trek through old Mumbles Village
and Thistleboon by Styart
Part Eight
Part Eight
Thistleboon House: a Community Asset?
A Timeline from 1841 to 1975
Thistleboon House: a Community Asset?
A Timeline from 1841 to 1975
Well here we are, still outside Thistleboon House in the middle of the Nineteenth Century with the house making a distinct shift in its contribution towards not only our community in Oystermouth, but as we shall see towards a much wider world for almost one hundred years as a School and as an Orphanage closely linked to our All Saints Parish Church.
We have already seen that from a population for the Parish of 715 in 1801, it had risen to 1938 by 1851, and was destined to increase dramatically by 1901 to 4461, and by 1951 to 11678, more than doubling every fifty years. Naturally this increasing population led to the usual demands for Housing, Highways, Water and Sanitary provision Relief of the Poor and Burial of the Dead responsibility for all of which fell to the Vicar and Churchwardens by virtue of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. This was to continue until 1885 when the present system of Local Government came into being.
For this reason, the Vestry Minute Book and the Registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths are a rich source of evidence. The Parish was part of the Gower Union responsible for the Workhouse at Penmaen (now the Three Cliffs Nursing Home) where the destitute were sent when the system of ‘outdoor relief’ failed. Outdoor relief was the ‘benefits’ paid to the Poor and detailed in the Minute Book for all to see.
As to education and its intertwining with religion, The Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales 1847, the notorious ‘Blue Books’, brought the state of education in the Parish into sharp focus. Malcolm Ridge has published Part 1 of his account of ‘Mid-nineteenth century schools for the poor in the parishes of peninsular Gower’ based on the Blue Books (see Gower 71.2020) and Part 2 will follow next year when he will cover Oystermouth.
The Commissioner who visited Oystermouth was only there for a day, and the following extracts give an idea of what was found, and what was thought:
“Oystermouth is an important and growing parish. Iron mines have been discovered in it and are being worked. It is likely to be comprised in the improvements to Swansea’s harbour; from these causes the population may be expected to increase rapidly. Wages were good and the people very well off; if otherwise it was owing to intemperance and carelessness”
There was an infant school promoted by our Henry Bath of ‘Rosehill’, a Quaker, but who by 1860 was a churchwarden. It had 55 pupils, of which 18 were over ten.
There were two village schools, one for boys and one for girls, both founded in the early part of the century, connected with the Church and promoted by the Perpetual Curate, Rev Samuel Davies of ‘The Grange’ at West Cross.
The Commissioner didn’t think much of the boys’ school, describing it as ‘a slovenly unsystematic school of the old sort’. Although there were 59 pupils it didn’t help that there was a ‘thin attendance’ on the day of the visit. “There had been a wreck in the neighbourhood the day before and all the bigger boys were gone to look at it”!
By contrast the girls’ school came off a bit better. The schoolroom, in the kitchen of the mistress’s cottage ‘was very neat’ and the 38 girls were ‘orderly and tidy’, and as well as learning how to sew they learned the Catechism, which they “knew by rote, but were utterly unable to give any rational explanation of any part or sentence of it”!
The Parish also had the longest-established Private Adventure Day-school in the peninsula which had been established in 1806 by a retired Ships Purser James Bennett, now aged 77, and his wife. There were 55 pupils, 5 aged over 10, but they were all on holiday when the Commissioner called on 22nd December, so very little was discovered about the school.
There were no complaints about the use of the Welsh language, which the Commissioners couldn’t understand (as it was not in use), but it was noted that some of the teachers had problems understanding their pupils as they spoke the local/Gower dialect, something I also struggled with in the nineteen fifties!
In addition, there were three Sunday Schools:
1. A Church Sunday School, the earliest one in Gower established in 1805. It used the day school premises and had three teachers for 74 pupils all below the age 15
2. A Methodist Sunday School at the old Wesleyan Chapel. The Chapel had been built in 1814, and the Sunday School started in 1825 used that chapel. It had ten teachers teaching 50 pupils all under 15
3. Paraclete Chapel at Newton, established by Lady Barham in 1819 had become a Congregational Chapel, but the Sunday School that met there was independent of the chapel. It also had ten teachers and a Superintendent teaching 66 pupils, 31 of whom over 15
The Report doesn’t say where the day schools were held or specify the nature of their foundations. Carol Powell’s delightful book ‘Days Before Yesterday: Childhood in Victorian Oystermouth ‘ fills in many of the gaps:
·
·
Henry Bath’s infant School was a ‘British’ (ie non denominational) school established under the auspices of the British and Foreign Schools Society, which had been opened in Dunns Lane in 1813 on the site of the present Library
The other boys’ and girls’ schools had been established as a Church School in 1805 named Oystermouth Village School .
Oystermouth National School, at All Saints Church
The 1841 School Sites Act made it easier for Voluntary Schools such as these to be built. However, it was not until 1856 that we saw the first ‘National’ (Anglican) school established under the auspices of the National Society for promoting Religious Education, being built in a corner of All Saints Churchyard. It is now, of course, the Lower Church Room, which retains its 1856 Foundation Stone Plaque.
This ‘Church School’ soon outgrew this modest schoolroom so that in only 11 years, by 1867 it was superseded by a much larger and impressive new schoolroom built at Southend to accommodate 105 girls and 59 boys.
Oystermouth National Church School, Southend
The building still stands much altered having been the home of the Swansea Little Theatre and the Mumbles Motorboat and Fishing Club before its conversion to ‘Rooms at Patricks’.
Oystermouth National Church School, Southend, is the building with a tower in the centre of this photo, 1870© National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Oystermouth Church School, Dunns Lane
History repeated itself when in 1907 the Church School moved again to its new home in Dunns Lane on the site of Abse Peachey’s paddock which had been used for his Livery and ‘Taxi’ service; which was based in The Dunns, where Oyster Cabs are still using the same office! It remained a Church School until 1946 when the new regime created by the Education Act 1944 came into effect. The building was used as a School until 1984, as Church Rooms until 1987 and after sale by the Church, was demolished in 1988 to be replaced by the ‘housing for the elderly’ that is now Dunns Close.
· I was a pupil there between 1949 and 1956 when it was known as Mumbles Junior Mixed School. I recall a visit by Alderman Harry Libby when he was Mayor of Swansea. He regaled us with the tale of when, as a pupil in 1907 the whole School walked from the old school to the new. Strangely he doesn’t mention this in his fascinating undated book ‘The Mixture: Mumbles and Harry Libby’, but he does record that the School Motto was “I ought-I can-I will”
· For completeness I must add that on 14 January 1878 following Forster’s Education Act of 1870 the Oystermouth Board School came into existence moving from Castleton Chapel Schoolroom to its new site further up Newton Road in August of that year.
Strangely, although there is mention of the Private Venture Day school there is no mention in the Blue Books of the School that was being run by the Rev Thomas Bowen at Thistleboon since 1841. It’s a pity as the Commissioner might have given us an objective insight into what was going on up there. However, I can understand the Commissioner having no appetite for the Trek up the hill a few days before Christmas, and it was probably not in his remit as it was a Boarding School.
Fortunately we do have a very good picture of the School at Thistleboon from the wonderful account written by Wendy Cope from her original research which appeared as an Article headed “Thistleboon House School “in Gower 46 and in the exhibits which she prepared with Edna Davies and John and Carol Powell for the OHA Exhibitions in the nineteen nineties. What follows is entirely attributable to Wendy…so here goes:
1841 to 1894: the School at Thistleboon House
In August 1840 the Duke of Beaufort’s Steward Thomas Thomas placed a ‘To Let’ advert in the Cambrian in precisely the same terms as the 1832 advert we have already seen, but this time the suggestion that the house was suitable for a school took long term fruit.
The Rev Thomas Bowen is shown in the Schedule to the 1844 Tithe Map as the occupier of Parcel 1063, the Garden already mentioned, and of Parcel 1112, the Farmyard described as ‘Arable Land, part of Thistleboon House’. There is no mention of him occupying the House as that was not the purpose of the Tithe Map to record. It is, of course, not entirely accurate as the holding had been split to create Thistleboon Farm in 1841. Perhaps the explanation for this inaccuracy is the fact that the Tithe Act Survey was carried out in 1841, and not published until two or three years later.
Rev Bowen would have taken a Lease from the Beaufort Estate for 21 years. This was replaced by a Lease to J R D Colston for 21 years from 25 March 1859 at a yearly rent of £35.The copy 1860 ground plan reproduced from the original at the National Library is illuminating in that it shows:
1. The extent of the part of the House let to Mr Colston
2. The extent of the new Dormitory and Schoolroom
3. The cesspool and the Pigsty on the Site of our present Vicarage!
4. The layout of the walled garden
5. Some of Thistleboon Farm as then let to John Beynon
This Lease gave Mr Colston permission to build a new block at the rear of the property consisting of classrooms on the ground floor, and school dormitories on the first floor. These were completed and brought into use for the Autumn Term in 1859.
© National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
This 1860 ground plan shows the extent of the school house and grounds and the position of the new building. Farmer John Beynon's part of the house is marked with diagonal lines.
The Block can just be seen in Ashley Lovering’s photo taken from the Farmyard before demolition in 1976.
Wendy Cope
On termination of the 1859 Lease by effluxion of time a new Lease was granted at the end of 1877 to Dr T H Maule for 21 years from 25 December 1877 again at a yearly rent of £35. This Lease recorded that the House was then in the possession of Rev R C Christian.
This ties in nicely with Wendy’s attached list of the eight headmasters of the School between 1841 and 1894. I do not intend to repeat the detailed accounts of each of their incumbencies, save to comment on some things that I find significant.
Of the eight headmasters, five were Reverend gentlemen. Indeed, during his incumbency John R D Colston converted from Methodism and was ordained in 1865. He became an Assistant Curate to the priest in charge at All Saints, Rev Samuel Davies following the great expansion of the Church building in 1860. Whilst the old Church could accommodate 416 worshippers, the extended Church accommodated 669.
Rev. Samuel Davies
The Grange, West Cross
Fortunately, Samuel Davies was a wealthy man in his own right building a grand house to accommodate him and his family at the Grange West Cross. Indeed, I recall seeing a Census Return for the Grange at that time which showed 16 residents, eight family and eight servants!
Religion clearly played a significant part in the boarding school life of the inmates. They were no doubt required to attend Church on Sundays, and usually had the Priest in charge to address them at their annual Speech Days.
This was no ‘Dotheboys Hall’ of David Copperfield infamy. Indeed, it seems to have rivalled Eton in its range of subjects and Dress.
In his Adverts in the Cambrian Edward Butler (1849-1859) would state:
“Besides Classics and the usual routine of a thorough English Education, particular attention will be devoted to Geometry, Algebra, Mensuration, Navigation, and Book-keeping; and a series of Lectures will be delivered to the Pupils on Natural Philosophy and the Physical Sciences, thereby affording those who do not intend to enter College the benefit of a College Education. Young Gentlemen who are designed for the Ministry can be instructed in Hebrew, and Music will be taught to those who wish to learn, by one of the Resident Masters, a Piano having been provided for the use of the School”
Sidney and Billy Blencow, 1890s. Photo: A studio in Devizes
The view from the School Yard in 1850, attributed to William Butler
Butler was 48 when he bought the School, then called Thistleboon House School, and 58 when he retired. He seems to have run a successful school with 15 boarders in 1852 plus Day boys. It was he who employed William Butler as a part time Drawing Master. This Butler is responsible for many fine drawings and paintings of Swansea and Mumbles, including the Sketch shown here as the view from the School Yard in 1850 (for more about him see Bernard Morris’ Article “William Butler, Artist: 1824-1870” in Minerva: Swansea History Journal Vol 3 (1995)
'Thistleboon Road', a painting said to be by William Butler, c.1850
The Painting also shown is taken from a few yards further down Thistleboon Road featuring No 11 with Nos 13, 15 and 17 behind with thatched roofs. There is no attribution to the painting, but the chimney lines are very similar to those in the Sketch, the style is similar to other paintings attributed to Butler…and, of course he was there! On the balance of probability, I suspect that the Painting is a Butler, and that it can be dated to about 1850.
Mr Butler seems to have been popular with his pupils and their parents for, when he retired he was presented with a silver snuff box which was in Wendy’s collection. The two photographs here show its Inscription and its size. Its tiny, but no doubt served its purpose well.
By the time that Butler retired in 1859, the School had become known as ‘Thistleboon Academy’ as that was the way it was described in the announcement in the Cambrian of a sale by auction on the premises of “The modern and well preserved HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE and EFFECTS” which included numerous beds and bedding, chests of drawers, desks and chairs and the Piano! These chattels must have been sold over and over again for whenever a Headmaster and his wife left there was always an auction.
· As noted on Wendy’s list of Headmasters, Rev John R D Colston seems to have been the most successful. She has noted that he was probably a descendant of Edward Colston the Bristol philanthropist who has been in the news recently with his statue being cast into the Bristol Float because of his links with the Slave trade. John ran a successful school in York Street Swansea for 13 years before moving to Thistleboon House, and published a Prospectus mentioning this, which can be found in the West Glamorgan Archives (See Header)
Kate Jones has carried out some original research on John Colston and notes that by the time of the 1861 Census there were no less than 47 souls living in the extended building: John and Frances Colston, their 7 children, Frances’ 2 parents, 2 assistant schoolmasters, 4 servants, a governess and 29 boarding pupils. Quite a little cottage industry. The rather stylised painting of the house as Thistleboon Academy (and reproduced again here) might also have been painted by William Butler, a clue being the little people in the foreground being similar to those shown in the other Painting I have highlighted.
Thistleboon Academy, by an unknown artist, 1860s
The image above was found as a header to the School Report Forms used by John Colston at that time and was taken from the 1860 Midsummer Half-Yearly Report on H L Buckley, of Llanelly’s Buckley’s Brewery fame. Indeed, the Prospectus shows that between 1857 and 1870 the pupils came from all over South and West Wales: from Haverfordwest in the west, to Ebbw Vale in the east, and as far north as Aberdare. Some of them went on to great achievements (See Chart researched by Wendy Cope).
It seems that John Colston threw himself into Village life. He led a Bible Class and was an organiser of the celebrations held to mark the marriage of Edward Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra in 1863, and the raising of the funds to build ‘The Prince’s Fountain’ at the bottom of Western Lane. As an Assistant curate he no doubt ensured that all his pupils regularly attended Church Services and Sunday School.
Unfortunately, he suffered at least two tragedies:
1. On 6th July 1869 his third daughter Martha Slain Colson aged 14, was drowned at Langland whilst swimming with her elder sister who was saved. A full account of the incident and of the Inquest was reported in the Cambrian on 9th July. John was devastated and on 10th July wrote and published a 34 verse rhyming Eulogy to his beloved ‘Matty’. It is very moving.
2. On 5th June 1873 a young Frenchman Elie Louis Joliclere who was employed at the school as a French Teacher, took his own life there with an overdose of Laudanum. He was only 25. The incident was sensationally reported in a number of newspapers as was details of the Inquest held by the Coroner Mr Edward Strick at Thistleboon House the next day. A full account of all this written by Kate Jones headed ‘Priez pour Lui’ appears in the Parish Magazine published in November 2019, and on the ‘A History of Mumbles’ website. Although the verdict recorded that he had ‘committed suicide by taking poison whilst suffering from a diseased state of mind’ he was nevertheless buried in consecrated ground at All Saints. His gravestone, inscribed in French is outside the north wall of the Church on the left as you come up the drangway from Mumbles Road.
During this Inquest it was recorded as evidence that on 4th June Elie was seen riding his horse at Langland Bay ‘furiously through the sea into the small bay [Rotherslade] and up a most difficult path. He then rode to Mumbles and came up the steep hill as hard as the horse could go’. Poor horse! Perhaps it was this image and that of Matty that caused John Colston to give up the Academy after teaching in the area for 27 years, taking himself off to Gloucester to run a Mission with a broken heart.
· As will be seen from our list above, the last Headmaster at Thistleboon House was Rev.F C Scott who was only there for a short time from about 1892 to 1894. By that time the name had reverted to Thistleboon House School as that was what it was called in an Article that appeared in the Cambrian on 3rd August 1894. I set it out as follows
PRESENTATION OF PRIZES AT
PRESENTATION OF PRIZES AT
THISTLEBOON HOUSE
THISTLEBOON HOUSE
SCHOOL
SCHOOL
ADDRESS BY THE VICAR OF OYSTERMOUTH
The prize day of the well-known Thistleboon House School for boys at the Mumbles, took place on Tuesday afternoon last, when the Vicar of Oystermouth, who is an old boy of the school, which is now under the mastership of the Rev. G Scott, M.A. presented the prizes to the successful scholars. In the course of a pleasant address to the boys, the Rev Mr Jones said he liked the old school because it was founded on staunch religious principles. In the Board schools’ religious education was shelved altogether, and in the National Schools it did not receive the attention it deserved because it took up time which could be devoted to subjects which procured government grants. But in Thistleboon he was glad to see that religious instruction was an important part of the curriculum. No boy could become a useful member of society unless his education was based upon a sound religious foundation. Another reason why the gentleman liked the school was because Latin and Greek were placed among the foremost secular subjects. He did not agree with those people who, in their attempts to discourage the teaching of those subjects, declared they were dead languages, for he himself had always thought them very much alive. It was very easy to discern , in the society of educated people, who were acquainted with the Latin and Greek languages. He recommended the boys to persevere in the study of those languages
All very Victorian and very ‘public school’ by a former pupil, with an interesting gloss on the other major schools in the Village at that time.
Like his predecessor Samuel Davies, the Rev David Secretan Jones was Perpetual Curate between 1867 and 1898 and came from a wealthy background. He also lived in some style at the Manor House on Highpool Lane at Newton, and used some of his wealth to purchase from the Improprietor of the Parish the Advowson; ie the right to appoint a Vicar. He was not a Vicar himself, but he used this right to appoint his successor Rev Harold Stepney Williams 1898-1938 as the first true Vicar of Oystermouth. He then gifted the Advowson to the Diocese of St David’s which became the Patron of the Parish into the twentieth century. With this Patronage came a duty to provide the incumbent Vicar with a Parsonage House. Perhaps its’ not a pity that the present Vicarage is on the site of a pig stye!
The Manor House, Newton
Rev David Secretan Jones
Rev F E Scott was assisted in running the school by Mr W A Stent as assistant master, Mr J F Fricker as music master and Sergeant O A Bird as the drilling instructor, indicative of the spirit then prevailing that tired boys caused less trouble! If my memory serves me correctly this man was nicknamed ‘Oiseau Bird’ and was the model for the statue commemorating the Boer War which still stands on the Promenade opposite St Helens Rugby Ground in Brynmill.
The School fees at that time ranged between 9 and 12 guineas per annum for day boys to 15 guineas per term for boarders under 14 and 17 guineas for boarders over 14. In modern currency that is between £4134 and £4686 per annum for boarders, which meant that only the wealthy could send their sons there. Put another way one boarder’s fees for a year would cover the whole year’s rent of £35 payable to the Beaufort Estate
In the summer of 1894 Rev Scott moved his pupils to more modern premises in a villa at Langland, renamed the school St Catherine’s College, and Thistleboon House was left empty. In hand to the Beaufort Estate once again.
Thistleboon House Orphanage children and staff
1898 to 1939: The Orphanage at Thistleboon House
The House seems to have remained empty for four years until it re-opened in 1898 as an Orphanage. It also seems to have been neglected as depicted in this description in The Methodist Recorder 1900 Winter Edition describing a Mr George Leaker who had taught at the School:
Mr Leaker had been a tutor in Mr Colston’s school at Thistleboon House. ‘The house still remains. It is now in the occupancy of the Kilburn Sisters, and is much shut in with trees and walls and narrow country lanes and hedges, so that it is well-nigh impossible, except when winter has stripped away the leaves, to take a photograph of the whole building. Its front remains unchanged, but behind in what was formerly the playground a little iron chapel has been erected. Mr Leaker went with Mr Slater and myself to point out the house. It would now be exceedingly difficult for a stranger, unaided, to discover it. One of the windows - the second above the little girl who is standing at the gateway – Mr Leaker told me was the window of the room in which his old pupil, Hugh Price Hughes slept.’
Mr. George Leaker on the path over Mumbles Hill(The scene of Hugh Price Hughe's decision for Christ).
At the orphanage gate, 1900Wendy Cope
I have produced copies of the photos of Mr Leaker and of the orphan girl at the gate which accompanied that Article. The latter certainly shows how overgrown the front garden had become but more interesting to me is that the Gates are precisely the same ones that were there when I was a child, fifty years later. The house was by then 250 years old and showing its age. I believe that the ‘Mr Slater’ referred to was a prominent member of the Methodist congregation, a prominent Swansea Solicitor, and the author of the letter complaining about the fog horn in 1905 who I described as a ‘peculiar’ person in Part 4 of this Trek . . . >.
Although the little girl might look like Annie from the musical of that name, fortunately this Orphanage was nothing like Miss Hannigan’s Hudson Street Orphanage in New York. As appears from Wendy’s Article “Thistleboon House Orphanage” published in Gower 57 (2006), and from the Cottle Press’ “Lady & Me: Memories of life in The Orphanage, Thistleboon, Mumbles” by Amy Winters (1995) the place exuded happy memories. Extracts from Amy’s book and lots of photos can be found on the ‘A History of Mumbles’ website, and are well worth reading. I don’t intend to repeat what is said there, but to touch again on features which contribute to this Trek. In particular:
· The St David’s Diocesan Home’s beginning dated from about 1888 when the Sisters of the Community of the Name of Jesus (an Anglican Order of Nuns) started to care for ‘waifs and strays’. By 1893, under Sister Amy the Order was caring for children at a Home in Lamphey Park Pembrokeshire, but demand for the Home was on the increase. With the support of the then Diocese a larger house was sought where there were more people to contribute to the support of the orphanage.
· When it opened as ‘St David’s Orphanage, Thistleboon’ in 1898, the Order made a contribution to its upkeep, but this was reduced annually until 1903 when the orphanage became self-supporting and had to rely on fund-raising to keep it going. To their eternal credit, the people of Mumbles were the largest contributors to the orphanage for the rest of its life here.
· Its arrival coincided with the arrival in Mumbles of the first ‘Vicar of Oystermouth’ Rev Harold Stepney Williams. He was appointed Chaplain to the Orphanage and continued in that post until he retired in 1938. He was a human dynamo building the new Church of St Peters at Newton in1903, and the new Church School in Dunns Lane by 1907. With his energy the house was soon restored. The religious life of the Orphanage revolved around All Saints Church and the Church School, and its goings on were regularly recorded in the Parish Magazine
· The children seem to have had to trek down and up that hill three times every Sunday, and also to have formed part of that snake of children that marched from the old ‘National’ Church School at Southend to the new Church School in Dunns Lane in 1907. If a knowledge of religion equated with education, those children were well educated as well as well cared for.
· In November 1903 Sister Amy, Amelia Sarah Kendall died at the age of sixty and in the Parish Magazine Rev Harold Williams wrote:
Sister Amy lived for her children, their welfare was the end and object of her life. She was a real mother to the motherless and destitute and the children loved her. The Home was indeed a hom
The children take a walk on Mumbles Hill, with helper Elaine Bladen (Symmons) on the left.
The running of the Home continued from then until its closure in 1939 by Sister Amy’s Assistant Sister Rose Margaret Scott who became known as ‘Lady’, under the supervision of the Community, but it later became the direct responsibility of the Diocese of St David’s and later Swansea and Brecon. The Vicar worked closely with Miss Scott to keep the show on the road during the First World War as is evidenced by a report which appeared in the Mumbles Press on 7th October 1915 when the two of them launched an Appeal. It is worth setting it out in full
Reverent Harold Williams
St. Peter's Church, Newton
Sister Rose Scott 'Lady'
AFFECTED BY THE WAR
AFFECTED BY THE WAR
THISTLEBOON ORPHANAGE IN NEED OF FUNDS
THISTLEBOON ORPHANAGE IN NEED OF FUNDS
Bishop of St. Davids and the Claims of an “Invaluable Institution”
The following appeal has been issued by Miss Scott and the Rev Harold Williams, the Hon Superintendent, and Chaplain respectively of the St Davids Orphanage Thistleboon.
Among the Institutions seriously affected by the War is St Davids Orphanage Thistleboon, Mumbles. For the past 22 years this Home has cared for the children of the respectable poor; a class too often overlooked. A widow obliged to go out to work is glad to place her children where they will be well brought up; motherless children find in the Home a mother’s care. Little brothers and sisters need not be separated but find a real home here. All the children are legitimate, There is no needless delay in admission to the Home provided there is a vacancy. There are now 14 boys and 29 girls, a total of 43 children in the Orphanage, which is more than full. Others are awaiting their turn for admission, All are deserving cases, poor, but not paupers. Parents or friends pay small weekly sums towards maintenance but about £500 has to be raised annually to pay expenses. There is no endowment or fixed income. The majority of workers give their services voluntarily.
At present £250 is urgently needed to pay debts and provide food and clothes for the next six months.
The orphans appeal to you to help them – now at once. Besides money, boys’ clothes and boots for all the children are needed. An Annual Report is issued with audited Statement of Receipts and Payments. The Home tries as far as possible to help its own funds, Needlework orders are carefully executed, the surplus produce of the garden is sold, and large quantities of garments made for sale.
The Orphanage is under the patronage of the Lord Bishop of St David’s, the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, the Dowager Lady Cawdor, Lady Kensington, Lady Swansea and Lady Howard.
The children are well mannered, truthful and honest, and make good citizens in later life. Eleven old boys are now in the Army, and several more in training for it. The girls are trained for domestic service.
Must such work as this fail for want of money? Certainly not.
Must such work as this fail for want of money? Certainly not.
We trust you to help us, and believe our trust will not be in vain
We trust you to help us, and believe our trust will not be in vain
The Duke of Beaufort at that time was Henry Somerset, the 9th Duke from 1899 to 1924.[See photo] He was, of course, also the owner of Thistleboon House, and therefore Landlord of the Orphanage. I have been unable to ascertain the basis upon which the Orphanage was let, but as the Duke was a patron it is to be hoped that the annual rent was no more than a peppercorn!
The 9th Duke, as a young man, 1860s
The good work of the Orphanage continued after the world shattering First World War, and to give a flavour of what it looked like I have produced the only two photos of the frontage I have found in the OHA Archive. The first was taken in 1923 before the Fire Escape to the second floor was added, and the second after. Judging by the number of children on the Fire Escape I wonder whether they were caught giving it a safety check!
· All good things must come to an end. Harold Williams, now Archdeacon of Gower retired in 1938 and in 1939 ‘Lady’ decided to retire after 34 years in charge. She and her Assistant Miss Mossop gave their Notice to the Diocese and retired in the summer when the Orphanage closed. Fortunately, that was not the end of the good work being done as it coincided with the retirement of the ageing Sisters of the Community of the Name of Jesus who ran the Anglican House of Mercy at Eastmoor, West Cross, also in the Parish of Oystermouth. The Sisters of the Society of St John the Evangelist from Dublin were persuaded to take charge of the new Home 'The Home of the Good Shepherd’ > in this new location. Building work was carried out at Eastmoor to accommodate the work, just in time for the outbreak of the Second World War. In time the work of the Sisters was taken over by the Church of England Childrens’ Society and continued until the late nineteen seventies.
Thistleboon House Orphanage children and staff. Photo: Ronald Studden
1940 to 1945: Thistleboon House Refuge
After the ’Phoney War’ of 1939, the Nazi blitzkrieg of France and Belgium in 1940 led to the inevitable tide of refugees fleeing from the invading German Army. One such group of refugees from Belgium managed to cross the English Channel seeking asylum and were sent to Swansea. I don’t know how accommodation was arranged for them, but the empty Orphanage at Thistleboon was to provide them with a home until the end of the War in 1945.
My mother, living opposite at that time remembered the traumatised families who lived there with great affection. I remember her telling me that the men were always looking out for her safety and that of whichever sister was living with her at the time. In particular during the Blitz of Swansea in January and February of 1941, they insisted on taking them down into the great vaulted cellar after the sirens had been sounded.
John Court particularly remembered that after the sirens had sounded the terrifying noise he had to put up with was the sound of the Ack – Ack Guns being fired from the Emplacements on Mumbles Hill. His family stayed indoors under the overturned sofa until each raid was over. It was just as well that the ‘big guns’ on the headland weren’t fired too, as the whole Village would have shaken and shuddered were those First World War Battleship guns to have been discharged.
John Powell has carried out a lot of research into what went on behind the fences around the garrison of 350 Service Personnel there at the time (see again the ‘A History of Mumbles ‘website for a fascinating account). However, the residents had no idea what was going on as it was all ‘Top Secret’. Even though the servicemen and women were allowed to visit the pubs in the Village when they were on leave, my mother recalls that they were all very well disciplined, and no-one felt at all threatened by their presence. Indeed, towards the end of the War my mother’s younger sister particularly enjoyed jitterbugging at the parties held in the Officers Mess!
At the end of the war in May 1945 a VE Day party was held in the grounds of the House for all the local families; possibly in the Farm as the tea seems to have been laid under one of the open fronted Farm buildings. My Mum was not able to enjoy this party as I had just been born, but I suspect that my Dad sneaked over for a few beers!
1946 to 1975: Thistleboon Flats
The House did not stay empty for long, as once again it was to provide great help to the local community.
Over a period of just under two and a half years Swansea suffered a large number of air attacks, the worst being the so called ‘Three Nights Blitz’ of 19,20 and 21 February 1941. The Town suffered severe material damage as well as a significant loss of life. By the end of the War 27,450 properties in the County Borough of Swansea had been damaged in some way; 13,927 of them seriously, while 2,000 had been completely destroyed. This was significantly greater than anywhere else in Wales. 387 lives had been lost and 413 had been seriously injured. It goes without saying that there was a housing crisis exacerbated in Mumble by the fact that many had fled there. A Mass Observation Report made as soon as March 1st 1941 contained the following statement:
‘Unofficial evacuation has already been referred to, A Councillor in charge of billeting at Mumbles summed up the attitude of the evacuees when he said:
“Firstly, they’re frightened, definitely frightened, its no good hiding that fact. Secondly, they do feel ever so much safer even though they’re only five miles away. Thirdly they come from all sections of the community and all types. Oh, just as many men as women, yes, they’re just as bad – yes a large percentage are bombed out and have no home to go back to, but I wouldn’t say most, we must be accurate. I just say a large percentage”’.
Most of the Holiday Chalets in and around Limeslade and Thistleboon, Caswell and Murton were crammed, as were most of the houses and Boarding Houses. It was against that background that Thistleboon House was converted to create 5 fairly basic Flats to complement the Farm House. It ended up as follows:
1. A flat on the right hand side of the ground floor
2. A flat on the right hand side of the first floor
3. A flat right across the top floor
4. A first floor flat in the extension in the back:all these were entered through the main front door
5. A ground floor flat in the extension at the back with its own outside door
6. The farmhouse as it had been, on the ground and first floors to the left of the main door, but with its entrance through the porch on the side of the building, with a connecting door to the main passage behind the front door.
This was how I remember it. In this, its last lease of life the building was to be home to six families until it was cleared in 1975, prior to demolition in 1976. It was a sad end to this valuable community resource which, by then, had been there for 325 years.
Stuart Batcup
January 2021
PS. 1985 was the Centenary of the Church of England Children’s Society in Wales, and amongst its Celebration material was a photo of its ‘Mumbles Home for Girls, Swansea’ which had been opened in 1885, when the Society was known as the Waifs and Strays’ Society. The property is now known as ‘Mount View’, 53 Overland Road, and is available to purchase if you have £830,000 to spare!
It was opened by the Bishop of St David’s on 1st July 1885 and accommodated up to 25 girls aged 7-15. There is a photo and a brief history of the Home at https://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/SWANSO1.html It concludes with the words “We do not know the reasons for this Home’s closure in 1902. The Annual Report for that year mentions ‘various reasons’”. I think that, having read this Part of my Trek, we now know one of the major reasons for its closure.
The Matron and Girls at Mumbles Home for Girls, Swansea. © The Children’s Society
Where was Thistleboon House situated
Where was Thistleboon House situated
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