NEWS & MEMBERS ARTICLES
10 March 2025‘A Day of Stirring Incidents and Inspiring Enthusiasm’
The Royal Visit and Opening of
the Territorial Force Drill Hall
‘A Day of Stirring Incidents and Inspiring Enthusiasm’[1]
The 25th April 2024 marked the 110th anniversary of the ceremonial opening of Neath’s Territorial Force Drill Hall by their ‘Royal and Serene Highnesses’ Prince Alexander of Teck, the brother-in-law of King George V and his wife Princess Alice, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.[2] Aside from the civic celebration, the essential purpose of the visit was to boost recruitment to the Territorial Forces in the face of the perceived military threat from Germany.
Prince and Princess Alexander of Teck
The Cheltenham Looker-On - 2nd May 1914
On a three-acre site at the junction of Eastland Road and Cimla Road, the new Territorial Headquarters were built to house the 1st Glamorgan Royal Field Artillery, F Company of the 6th Battalion, Welsh Regiment, E Company 7th (Cyclist) Battalion, Welsh Regiment and the Neath Squadron of the Glamorgan Yeomanry. Designed by Mansel H Hunter, a Neath architect and a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorials, the construction costs were over £6,000 but the outcome was not met with critical acclaim.[3] Consisting of three separate blocks and a caretaker’s house, The Cambria Daily Leader newspaper described the buildings as ‘a plain, but substantial and serviceable structure’ but ‘architectural beauty has not been studied.’[4]
Neath’s New Territorial Headquarters
Cambria Daily Leader - 25th April 1914
The principal focus of the newspapers, however, was the Royal visit. The Cambria Daily Leader reminded its readers that while Edward VII had ‘passed [Neath] when he visited Swansea’, the opening of the drill hall would be ‘an event invested with novelty, for on no previous occasion has the ancient borough been favoured with a like visit.’[5] In the week before the visit, both of Swansea’s newspapers carried the proposed programme for the day, the highpoint of which would be Princess Alice’s formal opening of the Territorial’s Headquarters with a ‘golden key.’[6] With local businesses set to close ‘from three to five o’clock’, the streets were predicted to be a ‘blaze of colour.’[7] A ‘large influx of visitors’ was expected from ‘neighbouring valleys and towns’ and the newspapers forecast that it would be ‘one of the most brilliant military and civic events’ in Neath’s history.[8]
Having travelled by road from Miskin Manor the Royal party arrived in Neath on the afternoon of the 25th April 1914. There was, reported the South Wales Weekly Post, ‘one prolonged note of gladness from the moment of the arrival of our illustrious guests to the moment of their departure.’[9] With the reported cheering of the ‘thousands that lined the streets’, there was ‘barely a street which did not bear some humble tribute of loyalty.’[10] Travelling in an open motor car the Prince and Princess were escorted by mounted police along Briton Ferry Road, Windsor Road, Green Street and Orchard Street before arriving at the Gwyn Hall. To the ‘strains of martial music’ and a guard of honour from the 6th Battalion Welsh Regiment, the Royal guests were met by the Mayor, William Burrows Trick JP and the Mayoress.
Saluting the Colours outside the Gwyn Hall
(the Prince and Princess are on the left)
Herald of Wales - 2nd May 1914.
Little expense appears to have been spared neither on the decoration of the Gwyn Hall, nor on the menu for the 120 guests invited to lunch. The floor of the Council chamber had been ‘richly carpeted’ to form a ‘luxuriously furnished banqueting hall’ and the guests were entertained by a string orchestra during lunch.[11] Similarly, the corridors had been carpeted and ‘draped with tapestries’ and the anterooms for the Prince and Princess ‘tastefully furnished’ with ‘tapestries, mirrors and oil paintings’ supplied by Ben Evans and Co. of Swansea.[12]
Menu for the Civic Lunch - South Wales Weekly Post, 2nd May 1914
After a lengthy lunch, followed by speeches and the loyal toast, the civic part of the day was concluded and the Mayor’s guests departed the Gwyn Hall to the singing of the Neath Choral Society. Preceded by the Skewen Silver Band, and with an escort of the Glamorgan Yeomanry, the Royal party were driven, via St David’s Street and Victoria Gardens, to the Territorial Force Headquarters. With the new buildings and the parade ground bedecked in streamers, bunting and flags, the Prince, dressed in the dress uniform of the Life Guards, inspected the guard of honour before the Princess performed the official opening ceremony of unlocking the door of the new drill hall. Patronised by the press as possessing the ‘very pretty gift of making ... tactful and well phrased speeches’, on this occasion the Princess restricted herself to declaring the hall open for the ‘Territorial Force in the ancient borough of Neath.’[13] After taking tea with the officers of the Territorials, the visit ended with an inspection of the Neath Battalion of the Glamorgan National Reserve at the Great Western railway station.[14]
The Prince and Princess arriving at Neath
NAS Collection - (NAS/PH/52/2/098)
Before the Royal party returned to Miskin Manor, the South West Weekly Post quaintly described the ‘cordial au revoirs’, from the Mayor and his Deputy to the Prince and Princess, as comparable to ‘old friends bidding each other adieu.’[15] Not everyone, however, was enamoured by the expense of the Royal visit and the Neath’s Trades Council passed a resolution of no confidence in the Council at the expenditure of public money and ‘the fostering of the military spirit.’ [16] Nevertheless, both of Swansea’s principal newspapers praised the people of Neath, the Mayor and the civic officials on the success of the Royal visit but the Chief Constable’s report is etched with a sense of relief that there was ‘not a single accident, or any case of theft being reported.’[17] With 92 additional police officers from the Glamorgan County force, two detectives from Cardiff and a detective from the ‘Special Service Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department’ at New Scotland Yard, the Chief Constable, William Higgins, reported that the ‘public generally behaved excellently and greatly assisted the police ... showing their loyalty in a proper manner.’[18]
Amid the pageantry and the celebration of the Royal visit, the real function of the day was to ‘give impetus’ to increasing the size of the Territorial Force and combat the threat of German militarism and a possible invasion.[19] While World War One was not foreseen in April 1914, international tension between Britain and Germany had been growing since the turn of the century, particularly over the expansion of the German North Sea fleet. The suspicion of Germany was consequently a ‘smouldering fire’ which was kept alight by the growing conviction in the press and popular literature of a German threat to Britain and her Empire.[20] Under pressure from the National Service League and its celebrity supporters, for compulsory military service for 18–30-year-old males, in 1908 the Government combined the Volunteers and Yeomanry into the Territorial Force, but maintained the principle of voluntary military service.[21] In the opinion of the South Wales Weekly Post, the main obstacle for the Territorial Force was ‘public apathy’ and the newspaper recommend that the events in Neath, by ‘bringing the Territorials conspicuously before the public eye should recur more frequently.’[22]
Although the Territorial Force was intended for home defence, during World War One many of its members volunteered for overseas service, including members of the 6th Battalion, Welsh Regiment, the first Welsh Territorial Force to be sent to France in 1914.[23] Among those volunteering was its commanding officer, Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart M.P., who was present at the opening of the Territorial Force drill hall in Neath in April 1914.[24] Prince Alexander of Teck also served with British forces on the Western Front and in 1917, when George V renounced the Royal family’s German titles, he adopted the name of Cambridge and was later appointed Earl of Athlone.[25] In 1923 the society diarist Chips Channon described the Earl as ‘affable, polite, meticulous and rather the German cavalry officer in his sense of detail for uniforms, orders, etc.’ while Princess Alice was ‘much the easiest of the royalties and rather prides herself on it’, she was ‘delightful, human and pretty, in an unostentatious way and even chic.’[26]
[1] Western Mail, 27th April 1914.
[2] South Wales Weekly Post, 2nd May 1914.
[3] Cambria Daily Leader, 25th April 1914.
[4] Cambria Daily Leader, 18th April 1914.
[5] Cambria Daily Leader, 18th April 1914, South Wales Weekly Post, 25th April 1914. The brief but ignominious visit of Edward II to Neath Abbey in 1326 was quickly glossed over by the newspaper.
[6] Cambria Daily Leader, 18th April 1914.
[7] Ibid. 18th April 1914.
[8] Ibid. 18th April 1914.
[9] South Wales Weekly Post, 2nd May 1914
[10] Ibid. 2nd May 1914
[11] Cambria Daily Leader, 25th April 1914.
[12] Herald of Wales, 2nd May 1914.
[13] Cambria Daily Leader, 25th April 1914.
[14] The National Reserve was a register of former officers and men who had no further obligation for military service. Its purpose was to enable an increase in military resources in the event of imminent national danger.
[15] South Wales Weekly Post, 2nd May 1914.
[16] Amman Valley Chronicle, 30th April 1914.
[17] Cardiff, Glamorgan Archives, DCON/143 Neath Borough Police Records, Chief Constable's Reports 1905-1918
[18] Ibid. Glamorgan Archives.
[19] Cambria Daily Leader, 27th April 1914.
[20] Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in our Midst: Germans in Britain During the First World War (New York: Berg, 1991), p.41.
[21] The National Services League was formed in 1902 and in addition to military and political figures, its advocates included the novelist Rudyard Kipling and the founder of the Scouting movement Robert Baden-Powell.
[22] South Wales Weekly Post, 2nd May 1914.
[23] Cambria Daily Leader, 28th October 1914.
[24] Herald of Wales, 2nd May 1914; Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart M.P., the second son of the 3rd Marquess of Bute, was killed at the Battle of Loos in October 1915.
[25] The Earl of Athlone died in 1957 and Princess Alice in 1981.
[26] Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, The Diaries 1981-1938, ed. by Simon Heffer (London: Hutchinson, 2021), p.66-67.
21 January 2025Profile of an Innkeeper
PROFILE OF AN INNKEEPER
SUE WARE
Jenkin Savours was born in Taibach on 12th May 1807 son of Jenkin and Margaret Savours. His father, also Jenkin, is recorded as a glazier earlier in life but later became an innkeeper of the Globe Inn, Aberavon. Jenkin, the son, married and also became a publican, keeping the Somerset Arms in Taibach.
In 1842 Jenkin Savours took on the lease of The Castle Hotel, Neath and from here his close association with the town of Neath really begins. On 10th November 1843, one year after taking over The Castle Hotel, he hosts a ‘house warming dinner’ with tickets available at one guinea each. This event attracted seventy guests, many toasts were drunk and entertainments kept the dinner going until a late hour. Hywel Gwyn and Nash Vaughan Edwards Vaughan of Rheola House were present at this notable event.
Jenkin Savours wife, Jennet, died in 1851 and the census for that year shows him listed at The Castle Hotel, The Parade as Innkeeper and farmer of 100 acres employing two labourers. He is living with his sons Evan Morgan aged 14 and Richard Jenkin aged 12 and daughters Catherine aged 12 and Rosina aged 6. His sister, Ann, is also resident at The Castle Hotel during what must have been a difficult time for the family. The census also lists a barmaid, chambermaids, cook, boots, waiter and kitchen maid living on the premises.
The Castle Hotel was an established coaching inn situated on the Milford Road and the most prominent hotel in the town of Neath. The year 1850, however, was a turning point for the Hotel and the town when The South Wales Railway arrived in Neath to great rejoicing. This event caused the Castle Inn to lose a large area of land to the Railway. In 1854 the lease was transferred to Robert Atkinson but his tenure at the Castle Hotel was not a success. Could it be that Jenkin Savours was astute enough in his business dealings to make the best of the last years of the coaching trade before the railway became the major route west for travellers? Evidence of Jenkin Savours success can be seen in the will of his father, Jenkin, who died in 1854. His will states
‘considering that my eldest son Jenkin Savours has received a full and just share of my property during my lifetime and that his circumstances are prosperous and his business flourishing, I only bequeath to him the sum of one shilling.’
The name of Jenkin Savours crops up in newspaper reports on many occasions, ranging from his being charged, in 1848, of trespassing in pursuit of game in the Hamlet of Coedfrank and fined 30s to permitting drunkenness in the tap room in 1854. In 1868 his name crops up when he is charged with causing a nuisance contrary to by-laws and he is ordered to connect his premises to a main sewer within 10 days. The location of this offence is not noted.
As already mentioned, Jenkin Savours leaves The Castle Hotel in 1854 and the following year takes on the lease of Tyn yr Heol Farm, Blaenhonddan. It will be noted that in the census record for 1851 he calls himself innkeeper and farmer of 100 acres and it is very likely that the farm that he alludes to is in fact Tyn yr Heol Farm. In 1841 he was already leasing two fields alongside the River Clydach from Lord Dynevor. The previous tenant of Tyn yr Heol Farm from 1837, was Margaretta Targett, wife of Thomas Targett proprietor of the Castle Hotel, Neath. Thomas Targett dies in 1835 and his wife carries on running the hotel before marrying John Meredith in 1840. Following her death later that year, John Meredith carries on running the Hotel alone. As we already know, Jenkin Savours takes on the tenancy in 1842.
From 1855 Jenkin Savours becomes the gentleman farmer of Tyn yr Heol House, the farmhouse now elevated to House. He appears to already be a well-respected judge of livestock and dogs. His name crops up regularly in reports of the West Glamorgan Agricultural Association and is a regular prize winner in races and shows.
One place in Neath where the name of Savours could be seen was Savours Court in The Green area of town. It seems that some prominent names in Neath during the 1860s invested money in building closely packed houses including a series of courts featuring communal toilets and standpipes. Close to Savours Court we find Allens Court whose benefactor appears to be Nicholas Bowen Allen 1804-1871 a local builder. This was a poor part of town with a rough reputation.
In a Medical Officers Report of February 1895 Lukes Court, Jollys Court and Savours Court are described as ‘hovels without a pane of glass in the window frames and their partitions fallen down’ and that the spaces in front were sodden with sewage.
Opposite these courts in 1873 The Green Mission was built. Mission churches were established to cater for people in poor areas of town where they would be welcome regardless of their low status or ability to afford ‘Sunday Best’ clothing.
Savours Court was listed for demolition in 1938 but along with other areas of substandard housing in the locality demolition was delayed until after WW2 and indeed some of the properties were still inhabited in 1959.
Jenkin Savours died in 1878 and The Cambrian newspaper records his death under the heading ‘Awful Sudden Death’,
‘On Monday last Mr Jenkin Savours of Tyn yr Heol Farm, an old resident in the district was proceeding home from Neath on foot when near the Rhydding Collieries was observed to stagger and fall forward on his face. When picked up he was quite dead and a subsequent medical examination at the Travellers Rest (where his body had been conveyed) confirmed this. The deceased was about 65 years of age, well known and much respected in the neighbourhood. He was one of the best judges of stock in the neighbourhood and has on several occasions officiated as one of the stewards of the West Glamorgan Show.’
He is buried in St Matthews Church, Dyffryn in a tomb close to those of the Gwyn Family. He lost his mother at the age of 12 and at his death describes himself as a gentleman, having risen well above his lowly start in life.
