Welsh steam coal was in high demand among steamship companies in England. Well-connected train transport was essential to meet this demand, which consequently led to the construction of the Severn Tunnel. Thomas Andrew Walker oversaw the project and expanded the site at Sudbrook (1880-1886, Wales) into a village with basic provisions for the navvies. However, navvy villages in New Passage in Gloucestershire were tainted by disease and unsanitary living conditions. Mead’s article investigates the problems the navvy settlements faced and their impact on New Passage and Bristol.
Tag: Wales
A Bristol Apprenticeship: Craft, migration and liberty in the early modern city
The practice of apprenticeship brought many new faces to Bristol throughout the early modern period. In this Article with an introduction by Peter Flemming, Jinx Newley revives the lives of Welsh apprentices from the pages of a surviving Bristol Apprentice book, held at the Bristol Record Office. Looking into the seventeenth century, Margaret McGregor examines the notes of Clerks at the Tolzey Court (which dealt with Bristol apprentices) to find records of teenage runaways.