Tonypandy

An English translation of the name Tonypandy is ‘the meadow of the fulling mill’. E.D. Lewis in his work ‘The Rhondda Valleys’ provides us with an outline history of the mill that once stood in Tonypandy, and from which the town took its name. He describes how, ‘The woollen manufactri and the pandy or fulling mill were situated on Nant Clydach, near the confluence of the Clydach brook and the River Rhondda Fawr at Tonypandy’. He further describes how the mill dates back to 1738 and was established by Harri David, and was run in the second half of the eighteenth century by David Martin.

He states that in the first half of the nineteenth century the primary work of the mill was the bleaching of the finished work of the farmsteads in the area around Tonypandy. The work of the mill declined with the coming of the Taff Vale Railway to Tonypandy which made cheaper textile goods from the North of England more readily available. The mill eventually closed, and in 1914 an unsuccessful attempt was made to transfer its wheel and loom to the National Museum.

The 1847 tithe map of the area around Tonypandy shows how the area, possibly because of importance of the mill as a centre for local farmers, contained in addition to the usual scattered farmhouses a number of cottages as well as a shop. Mines were sunk at Tonypandy, such as Nantgwyn on the hillside above Tonypandy in 1892, and Gellifaelog sunk by Walter Coffin in 1845. However Tonypandy’s importance came more from its position as a commercial and cultural centre for the surrounding villages.

The first free library in the Rhondda was set up in Tonypandy above a furniture shop in Dunraven Street, and theatres such as the Empire Theatre of Varieties and the Theatre Royal thrived in the last half of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. Tonypandy also boasted the substantial Methodist Central Hall for many years, a substantial and impressive building. Originally known as the Wesleyan Central Hall it was erected in 1923 at a cost of £27,000 and contained a main hall capable of seating 1,000, as well as suites of rooms and a lesser hall, which sat 500.

Additionally the town had a secondary school erected in 1915 which later became its grammar school, a Roman Catholic church and elementary school, a main police station which in 1926 had a compliment of three sergeants and ten constables.
For many years a fountain and water trough, known locally as ‘The Lady with the Lamp’, graced Tonypandy square. This fountain and statue was erected in 1909 with money left over from the memorial statue to Archibald Hood the well-known Scottish engineer and local mine owner.

Tonypandy is best known as the place of the 1910 Tonypandy Riots, which led to the Metropolitan Police and military units being stationed in the Rhondda, following disturbance during the Cambrian Colliery Dispute.