Corporal M. J. Pughe

 11^th August 1917, The Cambrian Daily Leader, published in its Births, Marriages and Deaths Section, the death notice of Corporal M. J. Pughe.

11^th August 1917 
The Cambrian Daily Leader

So, who was M. J. Pughe?

Morris Jones Pughe was born 1880, Barmouth, Merionethshire. Son of John and Mary Ann Pughe.  At the time, of the 1881 Census, the family were residing at Tanyfron, Llanaber, Merionethshire.  John, 35, is employed as a joiner, and Mary Anne, 28, is employed as a Lodging Housekeeper.

1881 Census
Tanyfron, Llanaber, Merionethshire

By the time of the 1911 Census, Morris, now aged 31, is residing at Primrose Villas, Aberfan, Merthyr Vale. Morris’s occupation is listed as School Master (Asst. Master), having been employed by Merthyr Borough Education Committee.  Also residing at the property, is a boarder, Earnest Jones, 31. 

1911 Census
Primrose Villas, Aberfan, Merthyr

The next record regarding Morris, is his Attestation Papers at the time of his enlistment during 1915. His address is the same as that recording as the one used at the time of the 1911 Census.  The records, indicate that Morris, married Mary Ann Evans, 15^th May 1913, at Capel Gomer, Orchard Street.  Mary was the daughter, of Mr William Evans, of 24 Park Street, Swansea. The couple were to have a daughter, Beryl, born 1914. Morris served with the 234^th Battalion, Training Reserve.

Morris Jones Pughe
headstone
St. Margaret’s Churchyard,
Herringfleet, Suffolk

Sadly, July 1917, Morris died in whilst bathing at the River Waveney, Great Yarmouth.  He is buried at St. Margaret’s Churchyard, Herringfleet, Suffolk.

If we were to find Chapel Gomer today, we would find the second chapel, situation at Carlton Terrace.  Since the 1970s, the chapel, is the Swansea Chinese Christian Church.

So, where was the original Chapel Gomer?

Chapel Gomer
Orchard Street

Today, the multi-story car park situation along Orchard Street, is the location of the original Chapel Gomer.

The first English language newspaper in Wales was The Cambrian, published in Swansea from 1804.  Not so well-known is the fact that the Welsh language newspaper in Wales was also published in Swansea, rather than in a predominately Welsh-speaking part of the Principality.

Rev. Joseph Harris

This was Seren Gomer (literally meaning “Star of Gomer”), launched in January 1814 by Rev. Joseph Harris, who took the Bardic name Gomer.  Born a son of a farm bailiff in Pembrokeshire in 1773, Harris was inspired by a religious revival at Puncheston in 1795, and after his marriage became minister of Swansea’s Welsh Baptist Chapel in Back Lane in 1801, living first in Tontine Street and later in High Street.  He also kept a day-school, and had a bookshop and a printing works, publishing sermons in both English and Welsh and in 1821 a collection of hymns “Casgliad o Hymnau”, which included some of his own compositions.  He wrote pamphlets and books to uphold belief in the Trinity and oppos trends towards Unitarianism. He was a contemporary of Christmas Evans, with whom he collaborated on a translation into Welsh of Dr. Gill’s Commentary on the New Testament.

Seren Gomer
1st January 1814

Seren Gomer was published by David Jenkin of High Street, Swansea, and sold in about fifty places throughout Wales.  It was intended as a ‘general weekly informant for the whole of the Principality of Wales’, and contained local, national and foreign news, poems, letters, details of the movement of shipping, and reports on markets and fairs.  Compared with the immediacy of the contents of current newspapers, Seren Gomer of necessity often contained news translated into Welsh of events that occurred long before the publication date, which, were often updated or corrected in later reports towards the end of the same edition, as with the progress of Napoeleon’s march through France before Waterloo.

Rev. Lewis Valentine

Saunders Lewis

But the heavy tax on newspaper and paucity of revenue from advertising caused the newspaper of cease publication in August 1815 after 85 editions. Three years later it was re-launched as a fortnightly publication and during 1820 it became monthly.  Before Joseph Harris died aged 52 in 1825, Seren Gomer, was sold to Carmarthen publisher David Evans, and became a quarterly Baptist magazine, which, continued until 1983. Its editor from 1951 to 1975 was Rev. Lewis Valentine, who, along with other Plaid Cymru founders Swansea University lecturer Saunders Lewis and teacher D. J. Williams, had been imprisoned for a year after their 1936 protest plans to erect an RAF bombing school in the Llyn peninsula.

Capel Gomer
Chinese Christian community

It was Joseph Harris who secured the site overlooking Penclawdd where the now ruined Mount Hermon Baptist Chapel was built. After his death, the Back Lane congregation divided amicably to form separate English and Welsh chapels – respectively in 1827 Mount Pleasant in Gower Street (now The Kingsway), and in 1831, Bethesda in Bethesda Street (now Prince of Wales Road).  Capel Gomer opened March 1891, being named after Joseph Harris.  Along with the Central Hall next door, it was destroyed by enemy bombardment during the Second World War, February 19141. The congregational relocated to Mount Zion at the top of Craddock Street, which was rebuilt in 1962 as Capel Gomer, and is now home to the Chinese Christian community in Swansea.

Following her father’s death, Beryl, married December 1939, to George Glynn Isaacs.  The marriage conducted at St. James’s Church, Muswell Hill, Middlesex.  Both Beryl and George were Swansea born.

 

December 1939
St. James’s Church, Muswell Hill, Middlesex

George’s father, Reginald George Isaacs, occupation on the marriage certificate is that of a University Lecturer.  Having been employed at the newly opened Swansea University as an Electrical Lecturers.  For several years, he lived at Penlan Crescent.