A unique piece of Wales’ Black history from Cardiff goes online: William Hall’s Slavery Narrative

William Hall, an escaped slave and resident of Cardiff, published his life story from Bute Street in 1862

An extremely rare piece of Wales’ Black history has been published online for the first time.

William Hall’s ‘Personal Narrative’ – one of two known copies in the world. The other is believed to be in Chicago.

Published on the city’s Bute Street in 1862, William Hall’s “Personal Narrative” is a shocking and graphic account of his birth into slavery in Tennessee, and his arduous journey to Cardiff. Hall describes being sold to various plantation owners, detailing multiple attempts to escape his captors, as well as his encounters with other escaped slaves.

Now held in Cardiff University’s Special Collections and Archives, it is believed to be one of two surviving copies in the world.

Inspiring the next generation of researchers

It is a small, fragile and unassuming pamphlet – and from today, it will be available online for anyone to read and download.

Says Tracey Stanley, Cardiff University Librarian:

“This unique document is such an important part of the Black history of Cardiff, and Wales, and we wanted to make it available to everyone.”

“We’re still discovering more about William Hall and his life thanks to ongoing research. By publishing this work online, we hope to inspire a new generation of researchers who will go on to explore Black history in Wales.”

Sharing rare works by Black authors with a wider audience

The document was originally funded by people attending Cardiff’s Wesleyan chapels, and sheds light on historic support for the anti-slavery movement in the city.

Due to its rare and fragile nature, the pamphlet would normally be handled under specialist conditions at Cardiff University’s Special Collections and Archives. The lockdown period has made accessing rare books a particular challenge for researchers – and digital technology is providing a way for this work to continue.

“Our staff have been working hard to support students and researchers during this difficult lockdown period. Here at Special Collections and Archives, that includes bringing some unique texts online, that may be rare or too fragile to handle.” says Alan Vaughan Hughes, Head of Special Collections and Archives at Cardiff University.

“Historic works by Black authors – such as William Hall’s work – deserve a wider audience, and we’re proud to be able to share this with the public today through the Internet Archive. We’re also grateful to Professor William Jones and Dr David Wyatt for shedding light on this significant document through their research.”

Discover more about William Hall, and Cardiff’s pro- and anti- abolition movements in Canu Caeth, edited by Daniel G. Williams.

Download William Hall’s ‘Personal Narrative’ in full:

https://archive.org/details/williamhall

International events in the Barbier archive: from the Dreyfus Affair to the Boer Wars

In this guest post, Katy Stone, who has been cataloguing the Barbier archive as part of a CUROP student intern project, keeps us up to date with some more fascinating insights into the Barbier family, and what their archive can tell us about key international events at the end of the nineteenth century.

In this update I’d like to share with you my discoveries about international events as revealed through the eyes of the Barbiers. Over the summer I have delved through boxes of intriguing letters dating from 1898-1904 and these have shed light on various international controversies, tensions and conflicts that shook the world during the family’s time in Cardiff. Of all the Barbier sons, the archive suggests that Georges took the most interest in international current affairs, noting he would “very much like to be more up to date”.

Georges Barbier

The Dreyfus Affair

In 1898, Georges often writes about the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal which divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until 1906. The controversy centred on the question of guilt or innocence of a Jewish army captain, Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason for selling military secrets to the Germans in December 1894, but finally pardoned on 19 September 1899. French citizens were torn between those who supported him (Dreyfusards) and those who thought he was a traitor. Georges presents the situation in France as “very bad”. His letters reveal that he clearly supported Dreyfus, referring to those who condemned him as “pigs”, and adding that if Dreyfus’s innocence could be proved, he would not complete his military service, revealing his disgust with the army who took an anti-Dreyfus position. Euphémie Barbier also referred to the scandal in a letter dated 1898, hoping that “spirits will calm, and we won’t have a war”. Isabelle Bornet placed high hopes in the new French President, Émile Loubet, writing in 1899 that “France will soon be rid of this affair which it has suffered for a long time”.

 

The Spanish-American War

Georges also wrote in some detail about the Spanish-American War, fought between America and Spain between 21 April 1898 and 13 August 1898. Hostilities began after an explosion sank the American battleship USS Maine, which was sent to protect US citizens and property after anti-Spanish rioting in Havana Harbour in Cuba that led to US intervention in the Cuban War of Independence from Spain, which began in February 1895. The conflict ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and the US acquired territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.  I was struck by his personal perception that England supported America simply because they were the “same race and origin”. Considering this, Georges’s support for the Spaniards and his proclamation that “it would be a great pleasure to see them [the Americans] receive a good beating”, surprised me. Perhaps Georges’s support for Spain stems from his European heritage. Euphémie was also supportive of the Spaniards, describing them as “patriotic”, after telling of one civilian who sold everything he had to support the war effort, later receiving an honourary title. Again, her opinions may be biased due to the Barbier family’s European roots.

Euphémie Bornet

Anglo-French relations preoccupy Paul Barbier fils in his letters dated around 1898. He discusses the Fashoda Incident, which was the climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa: “The question of Fashoda seems rather serious, although it is probably less serious than it looks”. I was fascinated by his thoughts about the attitudes of the press in London, and especially the Daily Mail, which he implies was perhaps not the most reliant source of information regarding the conflict and its “apparent gravity“. Later, he states it was obvious there would be war “if England insists on the pure and simple reminder of the Commanding Officer to precede all negotiations”, demanding his father to “ask the Consul in all cases what is my duty in this case, if it is absolutely the same as in the case of war with Germany, i.e. my immediate return to the regiment”. Paul’s offer to step in suggests that he was frustrated by the unwillingness of the Commanding Officer to take a leading role in negotiations. Perhaps to reassure Paul, his mother Euphémie related that his father believed “the Fashoda affair will calm itself”.

Other letters reference the Second Boer War, particularly the Siege of Ladysmith in Natal between 2 November 1899 and 28 February 1900. The Second Boer War was fought between the British Empire and the two Boer states, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, over the Empire’s influence in South Africa. In a letter of 1900, Marie mentions demonstrations in Cardiff for the relief of Ladysmith, which occurred during nightfall on 28 February 1900, when the siege was lifted. Marie notes somewhat ironically, that “all the young people at the Docks have a break this afternoon”. This perhaps reflects a feeling of antipathy towards those protesting. I would be interested to see how much contemporary documentation exists about this demonstration beyond the Barbier archive, if any.

Marie Barbier

In short, some material in the Barbier Archive makes compelling reference to international affairs, contributing greatly to our understanding of tensions throughout the period by unveiling contemporary interpretations that may be missed by history textbooks, particularly as perceived in Cardiff. I found the parallels between the reporting on current affairs at the time, and current affairs today including concerns over the neutrality of reporting, particularly interesting. I was most drawn however to the human elements within the text, and the family connections strengthened through these letters as they kept each other up to date with ongoing affairs.

Guest Post: The Barbier Family in Victorian Cardiff

Yet another fascinating post on the Barbier family courtesy of Katy Stone, who is discovering much about this exceptional family, and life in Victorian Cardiff, by working her way through their archive as part of a CUROP project to catalogue this unique resource.

In this blog post, I’d like to share my discoveries about life in Cardiff during the Victorian era (1837-1901), as seen through the eyes of the Barbiers. Since I started working with the archive earlier this summer, I have sifted through boxes of letters from 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1903 and 1904, and they have given me a fascinating insight into daily life in the Welsh capital during the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

Sadly, the letters reveal that poor housing conditions, outbreaks of infectious disease and premature death were not uncommon in Cardiff. Much of the archive in this period is dedicated to correspondence from Euphémie Barbier to her son Paul Barbier Fils. In one of her letters I discovered that a servant of the De Guélis household fell ill with diphtheria due to unsatisfactory sewage arrangements in the house. I have also found repeated reports of influenza, particularly during 1898 and 1899, and in one unfortunate case the family’s milkman died very suddenly, showing how the epidemic could lead rapidly to pneumonia. Euphémie’s letters also highlight poor dental health. The younger Euphémie Barbier (known as Phémie), suffered terribly from neuralgia (intense pain along a nerve, especially in the head or face). One letter from 1898 recounts how her mother had called the doctor as her daughter’s hands and face were “twitching”. I was particularly struck by Euphémie’s explanation of how she tried to bribe the doctor with cups of strong black coffee to encourage her to visit again, underlining the high demand for access to medical care. Her letters also mention a variety of other disorders including brain tumours, lumbago, ringworm and chicken pox. Victorian Cardiff’s poor sanitary conditions are boldly summed up by Georges Barbier’s stark description of the city as a “dirty hole”.

The Barbier letters also reveal stories about the widespread use of curious medicines during this era. In a letter from 1898, Euphémie Barbier advised her son to take “rhubarb pills” or “Epsom salts” to help alleviate the deafness in his ear. Another example from 1898, tells of the application of cocaine to treat an abscess on Isabelle Barbier’s mouth, which surprised me given it’s illegal today! More often than not though, simply taking a bath was recommended to relieve the painful symptoms of various ailments and illnesses. In one letter, Georges Barbier even recommends mixing disinfectant into bathwater in order to kill germs, which sounds a bit extreme to me!

The poor quality of public health appears to have put a strain on family finances as contemporaries were often forced to take time off school or work to recover. I quickly noticed from the letters that there was a daily struggle to make ends meet. Euphémie’s lists of household spending usually included only basic commodities, highlighting that luxuries were rare. Opportunities to go out or travel were often missed, and Euphémie remarked that it was “unfortunate” to have to live like that on a daily basis. In fact, as the mother of the Barbier Family, her letters are often preoccupied with money worries, describing the pressure to pay taxes as “tormenting”.

The archive also reveals Victorian attitudes to education, with a letter written by Uline Barbier featuring an illustration of a boy wearing a ‘dunce’ hat drawn by Paul Barbier Fils. Pupils who were slow at learning were made to stand in a corner wearing a tall pointed hat decorated with a letter D or sometimes the word ‘dunce’, while the teacher and their peers mocked them. Nowadays this seems harsh, but contemporaries believed that all pupils were capable of learning and that a slow or backward pupil was being deliberately lazy or reluctant to learn. I was stunned by a criticism made by Phémie’s geography teacher, Joan Reynolds; “I know that your mental capacity is not great, in fact we all know that you have not much brain power”.

Victorian Cardiff is certainly portrayed as a close-knit, vibrant community by the archive, with many letters uncovering a wealth of clues about the social activities of the Barbiers during this era. They often dined with family friends, danced, listened to music and played chess, for example, and generous gifts like brandy, chocolates, sweets and even chickens, were often received. Personally, I think this shows how much the Barbier Family were truly valued and respected by their friends and the wider Cardiff community.

I also noticed references to a number of monuments to civic pride in Cardiff during this period. Phémie writes about an exhibition for the stores of Cardiff to promote their businesses to the public at Park Hall, a theatre and cinema that was situated along Park Place, for example. Dances were also held in places such as Aberdare Hall, a residence for female students established in 1883 by the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, which now stands a Grade II-listed Gothic revival hall of residence belonging to Cardiff University.

Overall, the Barbier Archive offers colourful insights into many aspects of life in Cardiff during Queen Victoria’s reign. It has been particularly fascinating to discover a series of health epidemics, and the pessimistic outlook people held towards potential learning difficulties. I look forward to sharing further discoveries that emerge from the extraordinary range of materials I have encountered whilst working on this magnificent archive, which holds great potential for future researchers.

Guest Post: Paul E E Barbier and the wider Cardiff Community

This guest post comes from Pip Bartlett, undergraduate in French and Italian in the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University. Pip is currently working on a CUROP project to catalogue the Barbier family archive.

Paul E E Barbier was a respected member of staff at the University of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University), as well as being a recognised name within the wider community in Cardiff. After moving there in 1883 with his family, he made a concerted effort to become involved with local cultural societies and in particular was interested in the conservation of the Welsh language. The archive testifies to his sustained commitment to Welsh throughout his time in the Welsh capital.

Photograph of Paul E E Barbier, courtesy of Delphine Isaaman.

He also sought to foster the relationship between Britain and France. According to an article from the Revue Mensuelle Galloise (March 1909), no one ‘laboured more arduously, in his own sphere, than Professor Barbier to bring about a better understanding between England and France’. In 1906, he co-founded the Société Franco-Britannique de Cardiff alongside Max Wideman and W.E Thomas, two other Francophiles residing in Cardiff. The society looked to ‘strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries’ and continues to have an extensive programme of lectures (in French) and social events. I have met John Martin, the society’s current treasurer, who has provided me with a history of the society (which of course mentions Paul Barbier) and a programme of upcoming events. The society’s website can be found here: http://www.francais-a-cardiff.org.uk/index.html

I have also found evidence in the archive that Paul E E Barbier was a member of the Société Nationale des Professeurs de Français en Grande-Bretagne (SNPF). Founded in 1881, the society still exists to promote French culture, as well as the teaching of the French language. Through his public lectures and contributions to the press gathered in the archive, Barbier also promoted the Entente Cordiale, a series of agreements signed in 1904 which settled a number of controversial matters and sought to bring an end to antagonisms between Great Britain and France. In an obituary from the South Wales Echo dated 26^th September 1921, I learnt that the secretary of King Edward VII sent Paul Barbier a letter of thanks in the name of the King for his public spirit. I’ve searched the archive for this letter, unfortunately without success so far, but it would be great to see it!

As well as speaking and writing perfect English along with his native French, Professor Barbier had a keen interest in the Welsh language. From 1897 he was on the committee for the National Eisteddfod, the annual festival held in a different Welsh town or city each year. As mentioned in my last blog post, I have found the Welsh Newspapers Online website very useful in obtaining information about Paul E E Barbier. One article for The Western Mail (7^th July 1899) entitled ‘Mons. P Barbier on the Eisteddfodd’ explains that he contributed to a series of short newspaper articles about the National Eisteddfodd. In the same article, Paul Barbier asserts that ‘the Welsh nation owes its spirit of culture to the Eisteddfodd’.

Western Mail, 7th July 1899.

I understand that during the late 1800s very little attention was paid to the Welsh language in Cardiff, nonetheless it seems that Paul E E Barbier devoted his time and attention to the study of the language. Throughout the archive I have found evidence of Welsh being used. It is apparent in exercise books and letters from Paul E E Barbier. When the University of South Wales and Monmouthshire first opened, there was no option to study Welsh. However, Paul E E Barbier’s son, Paul E A Barbier, studied for a MA in French and Welsh – this suggests that Paul E E Barbier might have had something to do with the pioneering of Welsh studies. Evidence from newspaper articles explain that Barbier delivered lectures about Welsh language and culture.  An article from The South Wales Echo (2^nd February 1899) gives an account of his lecture ‘My Impressions of Wales and Welshmen’. According to the article, there ‘was a full attendance’ and the lecture ‘was full of humour and literary charm’.  The article also cites a wonderful quote from the lecture, in which Paul E E Barbier says ‘if French were the language of men, German of soldiers, Spanish of God’s Saints, Italian of women and English of birds, surely Welsh was that of angels!’.

 

Oh for books sake! Big spiders and Bibliomania

I know what you’re thinking – only my third post and I’m talking book crazy! Well, working in Special Collections it was bound to happen sooner or later, though I’d be lying if I blamed my current state of mind on the awesome collections here; I’ve always been mad about books.

So enthused in fact, that not even the huge spider in our Research Reserve could deter me from one of my rummaging sessions (he was scrunched up dead, but I was still petrified!) which, incidentally,  led to another where the following titles also jumped out at me:

Books on Bibliomania in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

Bibliomania describes the ‘passionate enthusiasm for collecting and possessing books’, and was first coined by the physician John Ferriar in 1809. In a poem he dedicated to his friend, The Bibliomania: An Epistle to Richard Heber Esq’, Ferriar describes Heber as ‘the hapless man, who feels the book disease’, whose ‘anxious’ eyes scans the catalogues of book auctions to ‘snatch obscurest names from endless night’. Heber was an English book collector and one of the founding members of the Roxburghe Club, an exclusive bibliophilic and publishing society for like-minded book lovers and collectors. (Note: do not confuse bibliomania with bibliophilia which is not as bad as it sounds, merely the great love of books!).  Incidentally, another founding member, Thomas Frognall Dibdin, published Bibliomania: or Book Madness in 1809, a sumptuously illustrated work set as a series of dialogues on the history of book collecting. It’s interesting that the notion of Bibliomania is seen as some kind of folly or affliction. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the budding culture of reading brought about by the growth of print and literacy was often described as some sort of endemic. Reading-fever, or even reading-lust was one aspect of this, characterised by the compulsive reading of one book after another.

Portrait of Dic Aberdaron from Hanes bywyd y diweddar Richard Robert Jones, neu Dic Aberdaron (Caernarfon, 1844)

This brings to mind the famous Welsh linguist Richard Robert Jones, or Dic Aberdaron, reputed to have mastered fourteen languages through his constant consumption of books. His patron, William Roscoe, describes how ‘His clothing consisted of several coarse and ragged vestments, the spaces between which were filled with books, surrounding him in successive layers so that he was literally a walking library… Absorbed in his studies, he had continually a book in his hand’.

So whilst trying to work out if I am bibliomanic or bibliophilic, I started thinking about other eminent book enthusiasts and, either way, I’m in good company! John Dee, the Elizabethan scientist and astrological advisor to Elizabeth I, we know was an avid accumulator of books, amassing one of the largest private libraries during the 16th century. Sadly, most of his collection was dispersed or stolen during his own lifetime, but Special Collections is fortunate to hold his copy of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa contra gen[t]iles . Naturally, Dee was bereft at the loss, and we get a sense of his deep devotion to books from his dreams. In one, which he recorded in his diary, he ‘dremed that I was deade… and … the Lord Thresoror was com to my howse to burn my bokes’. On August the 6th, 1597, Dee relates how:

‘On this night I had the vision … of many bokes in my dreame, and among the rest was one great volume thik in large quarto, new printed, on the first page whereof as a title in great letters was printed ‘Notus in Judaea Deus’. Many other bokes me-thowght I saw new printed, of very strange arguments’.

He too encountered an eight-legged beast, writing on the 2 of September: ‘the spider at ten of the clock at night suddenly on my desk, … a most rare one in bygnes and length of feet’. You know you’re in trouble when you can see their feet! I truly sympathise Dr Dee, on both counts.

And what about our very own Enoch Salisbury? His hunger for book collecting began with a gift, an 1824 Welsh edition of Robinson Crusoe, and developed over the next sixty years into a compilation of over 13,000 works worthy of a national collection, a genuine prospect at that time.

Title page of  Bywyd hynod a gweithredoedd rhyfeddol y dewr a’r gwrol Robinson Crusoe,   owned by E. Salisbury

Just some of the books in the Salisbury Library

 

 

In 1886, financial troubles forced Salisbury to sell his collection which was ingeniously acquired by Cardiff University thanks to the foresight of its Registrar Ivor James. In a letter to James, Salisbury outlines his ‘one hope… that the same public feeling which carried it away to Cardiff, may lead to its perfection… for the use of a National Library’.  When the concept for a National Museum and Library for Wales was being considered, Cardiff was a serious contender, offering both the Salisbury Library and the collected works at Cardiff Public Library to be housed in a joint museum and library at Cathays Park.

Plan of Cathays Park and site for the National Library in Memorial of the Corporation of Cardiff, (Cardiff, 1905)

The Public Library collection was also compiled through several worthy deposits made by keen collectors. David Lewis Wooding (1828 -1891) was one. A shopkeeper and keen book collector, his library contained over 5,000 volumes which he donated. Another collection incorporated was the Tonn library in 1891, which belonged to the Rees family of Llandovery. This consisted of 7,000 printed volumes and 100 manuscripts, and even the Cardiff coal owner John Cory purchased 67 incunabula which he too presented to the Library.

Nevertheless, Cardiff’s vision for a cultural institution was scuppered by another Victorian bibliomaniac, Sir John Williams. He had been buying whole collections for his own private library since the 1870s, and in 1898 struck literary gold when he acquired the Peniarth Manuscripts, which he donated to the proposed library in 1907, on condition that it be built at Aberystwyth. With nuggets like the Black Book of Carmarthen, the White Book of Rhydderch and the Book of Taliesin, Cardiff was inevitably outdone, for the library at least.

As fate would have it, Cardiff University now houses the Cardiff Rare Books alongside Salisbury’s Library, forming a unique collection of national interest which, over the years, has morphed from one compendium to another, each carrying their own unique story. These collections and subsequently, Special Collections, would not exist if it weren’t for Bibliomania. So the moral of this post is, whether you’re bibliomanic, bibliophilic, even arachnophobic, it matters not; there is always an exquisite method in a madness for books, as seen in Daniel Jubb’s Bookcase.

Cardiff Women’s Suffrage Society banner comes home

Copyright: Local Studies, Cardiff Public Library

On Saturday 13 June 1908, the newly-formed Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society were returning from a mass demonstration in London to demand equal voting rights. On the journey back to Cardiff, their coach was intercepted by police. The vehicle was searched, and all propaganda material was confiscated and set alight in a nearby field.

One item escaped the fire – a large canvas banner, featuring a hand-stitched red dragon motif and the Society’s name. One of the suffragists, Irene Protheroe, concealed the item from police in her clothing, and brought it back to Cardiff in one piece.

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Special Collections and Archives was recently contacted by Irene’s granddaughter, now living in London. She told us that a women’s suffrage banner had been passed down through her family. She knew that it had been taken to London and back for a march, and saved from destruction, but had no more specific details. Seeking a safe home for its long-term preservation, Irene made a final London-to-Cardiff trip with the banner, and kindly agreed to donate this very special piece of Cardiff’s history to the archives.

Seeking further information on the march mentioned by the donor, we enlisted the help of Beth Jenkins, PhD candidate in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion. Her research examines women’s professional employment in 19th and 20th century Wales. She immediately recognised the banner from photographs of the 1908 march, which have been reproduced here with the kind permission of Local Studies, Cardiff Public Library. Below, Beth summarises her research on the details of the march and its wider context.

In June 1908, over 10,000 women marched from Embankment to the Royal Albert Hall, where a large meeting took place. The procession was organised by the ‘constitutional’ wing of the women’s suffrage movement and led by Millicent Fawcett, leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. It included women from all classes, parties, and areas of Britain. Provincial detachments marched behind the leaders in alphabetical order. Each contingent carried a banner made for the march by local branch members, or designed by the Artists’ League for Women’s Suffrage. These banners used regional or national emblems: a leek for Llandudno and a dragon for Cardiff.

Copyright: Local Studies, Cardiff Public Library

The years preceding the First World War were the pinnacle of activity in the struggle for women’s parliamentary franchise, and campaigners used both constitutional and militant means to promote their cause. Banners were an important element of the spectacle in the suffrage marches and helped to distinguish groups – even though contemporaries did not always do so. The participants of this march displayed their non-militancy in the colours they wore: the red, white and green of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, rather than the purple, white and green which would be used by the Women’s Social and Political Union in their Hyde Park rally the following week. Participants with degrees also wore their academic robes to demonstrate the respectability of their supporters and women’s suitability for citizenship.

Formed in June 1908, this march would have been one of the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society’s inaugural activities. The society began with a membership of 70, and rapidly grew until it became the largest branch outside of London in 1912-13. Its membership peaked at 1,200 on the outbreak of the First World War.

The branch’s co-founder was Millicent Mackenzie, Professor of Education at the University (formerly the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire). Mackenzie became the first female professor in Wales and the first female professor in the United Kingdom appointed to a fully chartered university in 1910. She also stood as the only female parliamentary candidate in Wales in 1918 – the first election in which women could vote, and be voted for.

Following the Representation of the People Act in 1918, the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society reconstituted itself as a Women Citizens’ Association, and continued to campaign for women’s franchise on the same terms as men. This was eventually achieved in 1928.

Back in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Professor Bill Jones brought his Culture, Society and Identity in Wales 1847-1914 undergraduates into Special Collections to see the banner. The impact was palpable: following a stunned silence, the group broke out into discussion: how was it made, who would have carried it, what did they talk about while it was being sewn, how far through the sewing were they before they realised that the dragon was facing the wrong way…? Some questions will never be answered, but thanks to the University’s research community, we now know much more about the history of this important item.

“A true report of certaine wonderfull ouerflowings”: the great flood of 1607 in a contemporary pamphlet

With so much of the country finding itself suddenly underwater earlier this month, it is no surprise that I couldn’t resist having a closer look at a book called “Of floods in England – 1607” when I noticed it in the stacks.

This little pamphlet, printed in London in 1607, commemorates the terrible events of 30 January the same year, when the Bristol Channel overflowed to truly devastating effect. Entire villages were reportedly swept away, hundreds of miles of farmland and whole herds of livestock were destroyed, and more than 2,000 lives were lost. Here in Cardiff, not much more than a fishing village in 1607, the wave reached up to four miles inland and washed away all before it, including the foundations of the parish church on St. Mary’s Street.

The church depicted here is thought to be the church of St Mary in the village of Nash, near Newport.

The author of the pamphlet paints a vivid picture of the chaos of that awful night: “Men that were going to their labours were compelled (seeing so dreadfull an enemy approaching) to flye back to their houses, yet before they could enter, Death stood at their dores ready to receive them. In a short tyme did whole villages stand like islands … and in a more short time were those islands undiscoverable, and no where to be found.”

“An infant likewise was found swimming in a cradle, some mile or two [from that] place where it was knowen to be kept …”

The pamphlet’s terrifying tales of watery death and destruction are thankfully tempered by a few stories of miraculous survival and community spirit: “Here comes a husbande with his wife on his back, and under either arm an infant. The sonne carries the father, the brother the sister, the daughter the mother, whilst the unmercifull conqueror breakes down the walls of the houses … yet like a mercifull conquerour, having taken the towne, it gave them their liues …”

While recent research has suggested that the great flood of 1607 may have been caused by a tsunami rather than a simple storm surge, contemporary reports tended to place the blame firmly on God’s shoulders and viewed the flood as a warning of His displeasure: “If this affliction laid vppon our Countrey now, bee sharper than that before, make vse of it: tremble, be fore-warned, Amend, least a more feareful punishment, and a longer whip of correction draw blood of us.”