Tryweryn: A New Dawn?

By Wyn Thomas

Definitive account of the cultural and political impact on Wales of the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley. The failure of the nation to block the move politically led to increased Welsh national consciousness and to a period of militant activism which eventually led to the process of devolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Y Lolfa
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781800994959

Book preview

Tryweryn_A_New_Dawn.jpg

Forewords

‘This well-researched and detailed study casts a new light on a hugely significant political event which had a massive impact on my generation in Wales, and also was, arguably, a turning point in Welsh history. The drowning of the Tryweryn Valley was an embarrassment to all who regarded Liverpool as the capital of North Wales and a tragedy for many of the residents of the Capel Celyn community. But it was also an experience from which – the author concludes – Wales emerged stronger, both politically and culturally … and which heralded for Wales a new beginning … a new dawn..

This is not a book which merely re-interprets a well-known saga which shook mid-twentieth century Wales. It goes beneath and beyond the superficial and polarized viewpoints expressed in so many previous publications. It does so by amassing an immense volume of research, including transcripts of many radio and television programmes, as well as a considerable number of personal interviews by the author, collected from a wide range of those involved in the Tryweryn saga. No-one escapes from these pages without objective criticism: not the obdurate Labour controlled Liverpool council, nor the largely ineffective politically independent Merionethshire County Council; nor even the residents of the local community, directly impacted by the drowning of their valley, who are shown to have had mixed feelings about the flooding. Some of those who resorted to acts of violence, later regretted their actions. Nor does Plaid Cymru emerge unscathed: its (then) limited political experience was exposed by the party’s failure to galvanize the voters’ antagonism.

Yet the author concludes that 31st July, 1957, the date on which Westminster finally passed Liverpool’s Tryweryn Reservoir Bill, was the date on which the geopolitical architecture of Wales was created. On any basis, this significant book deserves to be read by all who study the emergence of modern Wales’.

Lord Dafydd Wigley, former MP and AM

for Caernarfon and President of Plaid Cymru

‘The Greater Good is always an uncomfortable phrase. Viewed from outside it seems obvious that if a million people in a downtrodden city (pre-Beatles Liverpool in the early sixties) urgently need clean water, and the best way of getting it is to flood a valley with a hundred or so inhabitants, all of whom will get new and better housing above the water line, then that is the right thing to do. Viewed from the inside, as one of the hundred people about to be displaced, this may not feel like ‘the greater good’ at all. When you add to the mix the fact that the city is in England and the valley in Wales, you bring into play all sorts of historical resentments that turn the greater good into yet another piece of perceived bullying.

My father, John Stilgoe, was Liverpool’s chief Water Engineer, and thus the designer and project manager of the reservoir, so in my teenage years I also had an insider’s view. I spent many Saturdays with him in the valley, as he got to know the people of Capel Celyn. As well as being a brilliant engineer, my dad was honest, decent and fair. I watched real mutual respect develop between him and the residents, as he dealt politely and kindly with all of them. He was incapable of doing anything unfair or dishonourable, and I am really grateful to Dr Wyn Thomas for reflecting this in this thorough and balanced history’.

Sir Richard Stilgoe, son of John Stilgoe,

Liverpool’s Water Engineer

‘This book is an extraordinary piece of historical analysis, which is meticulous in its factual endeavour accurately to record the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley in North Wales. It outlines in impressive detail the constitutional journey of the Tryweryn Bill and, in delivering a considered and comprehensive assessment of the Liverpool perspective, it provides an honest evaluation of the situation as held by Liverpool City Council and, indeed, the Conservative government of the day, in which my father was proud to serve. Nevertheless, in keeping with his reputation for being a balanced and nuanced historian, Dr Wyn Thomas also affords due and considerable attention to those who opposed the measure to flood the Tryweryn Valley; while, furthermore, he highlights the impact that the passing of the Tryweryn Bill by Parliament was to have on the Tryweryn community. Dr Wyn Thomas should be commended for this book, which is destined to be the definitive appraisal of an important event in the recent political history of the United Kingdom’.

Lord Peter Brooke, former Secretary of State for

Northern Ireland and son of Lord Henry Brooke,

Minister for Welsh Affairs and Housing and Local Government

‘Tryweryn is an iconic event in Welsh history that continues to inspire and cause debate. It is thus very surprising that before now there has been no comprehensive history of what actually happened. This book rectifies that omission and is thus a major contribution to the history of Wales. Based on extensive archival research, it carefully documents events in this controversial episode. Dr Wyn Thomas’ analysis is both exhaustive and even-handed. He steps beyond the emotions and myths, in order not to just understand what happened but why it happened too. As such, this book will become the ‘go to’ account for those who want to understand one of the defining moments in the creation of modern Wales’.

Professor Martin Johnes, historian

specialising in twentieth-century Welsh history

‘Dr Wyn Thomas is an intelligent man who through his inquisitive and analytical writing enjoys an insight into the very soul of Wales. For a long time now, his diligence and impressive approach have resulted in Dr Thomas being close to many important events in the life of Wales – and, as such, he is a sapient and informed commentator. Moreover, Dr Wyn Thomas is an historian truly blessed with a gift for the written word. He writes with fluidity, panache and conviction and, in so doing, captures perfectly the period and the events under review. His love for Wales and Welsh history have provided Dr Wyn Thomas an understanding. He is, to quote, simpatico; and it is this passion – underpinned by many years of in-depth research – which shines through his accurate and scrupulously fair appraisals’.

Lord Elystan Morgan, former Labour MP

and Circuit Judge of Chester and North Wales

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1

‘We’re thinking of drowning this valley’

Chapter 2

‘Philistines in our midst’

Chapter 3

‘Wales is a part of our country’

Chapter 4

‘No national issue during this century has united the people of Wales as strongly as this’

Chapter 5

‘You do realise don’t you, we don’t drink your water; all we do is flush our toilets with it’

Conclusion

Appendices

Bibliography

For Dad, Mum & Sue

First impression: 2023

© Copyright Dr Wyn Thomas and Y Lolfa Cyf., 2023

The contents of this book are subject to copyright, and may not be reproduced by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the prior, written consent of the publishers.

The publishers wish to acknowledge the support of

Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru

Cover design: Y Lolfa

Cover photograph: National Library of Wales

eISBN: 978-1-80099-495-9

ISBN: 978-1-912631-48-3

Published and printed in Wales

on paper from well-maintained forests by

Y Lolfa Cyf., Talybont, Ceredigion SY24 5HE

website www.ylolfa.com

e-mail [e-mail]

tel [phone]

This book is based on research undertaken by Dr Wyn Thomas between 2000 and 2023. The information contained in this book is correct and factual to the best of the author’s knowledge and understanding.

Acknowledgments

I dedicate this book to all those whose honesty, courage, hard work, determination, stubborn sense of fairness, and patriotism – by whomever and wherever expressed – have provided such a source of inspiration. So too would I like to thank everyone who directly contributed to the writing of this book. All contributions, large or small, helped me to record accurately this important and influential period in recent Welsh and British political and cultural history.

Nonetheless, I would like to extend my particular gratitude to the following: Sian Baird Murray; Dr Gordon Lewis; Einion Thomas; Megan Thomas; Emyr Llywelyn Jones; Lord Elystan Morgan; Lord Dafydd Wigley; Lord Peter Brooke; Elfyn Llwyd; Sir Richard Stilgoe and former Capel Celyn residents, Aeron Prysor Jones and Eurgain Prysor Jones. For having so ably provided professional support and assistance with regard to the archival material, I would like to thank the staff team at the National Archives in Richmond; the staff team at the Gwynedd Archive/Archifdy Service, Meirionnydd Record Office in Dolgellau – especially Elaine Roberts; and the staff team at the Liverpool Record Office – especially Karen Wade and Paul Keogh. For having cast an eye over the text, I would like to thank the proof-readers: Paul Thomas (Sunday Times caption writer and former teacher); Gareth Wardell (the former long-standing Labour MP for Gower and chair of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee); and Sian Baird Murray (project manager). For editing the manuscript, I would like to thank Harri Roberts. For publishing Tryweryn: A New Dawn? and for providing his unremitting support with regards to this project and my two previous titles, I would like to thank Lefi Gruffudd at Y Lolfa. I would also like to acknowledge Carolyn Hodges at Y Lolfa and Catrin Stevens. Both Carolyn and Catrin have guided this project. Carolyn through her diligent approach to the publication process, and Catrin from the project’s inception in 2000 through to 2008. It is without exaggeration to state that without Catrin’s frank encouragement and tireless support – in her unenviable role as my third-year dissertation overseer and initial post-graduate supervisor – this book would not have been written. I owe each and every one listed above, and many others besides, a considerable debt of gratitude.

Dr Wyn Thomas

May 2023

Abbreviations

TNA The National Archives

NLW National Library of Wales

LRO Liverpool Record Office

GAS/MRO Gwynedd Archive Service/Meirionnydd Record Office

HC Debate House of Commons

HL Debate House of Lords

Newspapers

LDP Liverpool Daily Post

WM Western Mail

Newspapers and other publications mentioned intermittently, or with a one-word title, are included in the text in their entirety.

Useful information

It is worth noting that the North Wales county of Merionethshire, in which Cwm Tryweryn is located, was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972. Since this Act, it is more acceptable to use the Welsh spelling of Meirionnydd, which under the new Act became part of the district county of Gwynedd on 1 April 1974. The name of the county of Merioneth or Merionethshire, most notably in relation to Merioneth or Merionethshire County Council, is used in its correct historical background within the text.

The names of farms and dwellings

The names of the houses in Capel Celyn and the farms in Cwm Tryweryn are often spelt differently in accounts of the valley’s flooding. These may be viewed online and/or purchased. In view of this it was decided, following discussion with the publisher, that the spelling in the original text would be retained.

Introduction

‘Tryweryn will become a word of fateful significance for Wales. It may become as well known in Wales as a verb, as Quisling has become a noun.’

Gwynfor Evans.

¹

On Tuesday 11 October 2005, after being approached by the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno, Liverpool City Council announced that it had agreed the wording of a formal apology for its controversial flooding of Cwm Tryweryn half a century before. Predictably perhaps, reaction to news of the impending statement was divided. Speaking on BBC Wales’ flagship news programme Wales Today, Lord Roberts remarked: ‘The council today – and I’m happy to say it’s a Liberal Democrat council – has led the way in opening the tunnel again, in a real way, between Liverpool and Wales.’² Five days later, Emyr Llywelyn Jones, who was sentenced in March 1963 to twelve months’ imprisonment for carrying out what he believed to be a measured and symbolic explosion at the reservoir construction site earlier that year,³ gave his reaction to the news by stating:

‘You can’t apologise for things like that; individuals can apologise, can’t they? Because they have a conscience. Institutions and countries can’t apologise because it’s not in their vocabulary; it’s not something that belongs to the mechanisms of how they work and think. They don’t do consciences. It’s just a verbal thing; it doesn’t mean anything.’⁴

It was a point shared by an equally indignant Owain Williams. Also sentenced to a year’s imprisonment in July 1963 for undertaking militant protest over the Tryweryn issue,⁵ Williams remarked: ‘The people who were involved in the drowning aren’t apologising. Some of them are still alive. The people who suffered most in Wales are either buried or are too old to appreciate it.’ Williams then questioned the timing of the statement, denouncing Liverpool City Council’s ruling Liberal Democrats’ decision to issue an apology as ‘political correctness’. He declared: ‘I don’t scorn them, but the apology doesn’t matter.’⁶ However, not everyone was intransigent. Dafydd Evans, the son of former Plaid Cymru president Gwynfor Evans, voiced his own belief as to how his father would have reacted:

‘I think my father would have been pleased to hear that. He may have thought the gesture [Liverpool City Council’s apology] to have been empty in the sense that it offers no practical benefit. But he would still be pleased to hear the news, that would be my guess.’⁷

In a further demonstration that news of Liverpool’s apology had been greeted with enthusiasm across the Welsh political spectrum, Welsh First Minister, and Labour AM, Rhodri Morgan welcomed Liverpool City Council’s statement, describing it as ‘a very good step’. Plaid Cymru’s parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd also reacted favourably, asserting that the apology ‘should be accepted in the fulsome way it is being offered’,⁸ while Dafydd Elis-Thomas, the Presiding Officer of the Welsh Assembly, declared his intention to ‘seriously consider’ inviting the mayor of Liverpool to deliver his apology in person to Assembly Members. In the event, no deputation from Liverpool was received.⁹

Nonetheless, in a similar conciliatory frame of mind was Dewi Jones. In a letter published in the Western Mail, Dewi Jones, ‘a Welsh Republican’ who believed that ‘Tryweryn was one of the events which confirmed my political beliefs’, stated: ‘I feel that to offer an apology without there having been an on-going campaign pressuring them to do so proves their sincerity.’ He concluded: ‘My respect for the city of Liverpool has today increased dramatically.’¹⁰ It was not a view shared by Betty Watkin-Hughes, whose family was forcibly moved from Capel Celyn. Asked for her thoughts, she replied: ‘I think nothing of it. It is just a way to say goodbye and sweep it all under the carpet … They can keep their apology and start doing what’s right for the people who are left.’¹¹

As the news of Liverpool’s imminent declaration of atonement captured the attention of news outlets, others also questioned the relevance of Liverpool’s actions. Following a BBC Radio news bulletin, during which it was announced that Liverpool City Council was to apologise to the people of Wales for ‘insensitivity’ in flooding Cwm Tryweryn, the presenter was heard by listeners to tersely question the timing of the statement.¹² The remark, in all its ambiguity, somewhat encapsulated the seeming indifference with which the Tryweryn issue appears to be regarded by many in England. It is an insouciance quite at odds with the belief of those hostile to the flooding, particularly in Wales, that the drowning of Cwm Tryweryn amounted to an act of ‘ethnic vandalism’.¹³

On Wednesday, 19 October 2005, Liverpool City Council released its statement. In full it read:

‘The Council acknowledges its debt to the many thousands of Welsh people who have made their homes in the city. We know that Liverpool, especially in the fields of medicine and education, has been of real service to the people of Wales. We realise the hurt of 50 years ago, when the Tryweryn Valley was transformed into a reservoir to help meet the water needs of Liverpool. For any insensitivity by our predecessor council at that time we apologise, and hope that the historic and sound relationship between Liverpool and Wales can be completely restored.’¹⁴

If Liverpool City Council hoped that the statement would finally draw a line under the entire contentious episode, it was to be disappointed. The devil, as ever, was in the detail. While some in Wales called for the apology to be accepted, others remained steadfast in their belief that the wording of the statement related solely to the way the situation was handled, rather than being a specific apology for having in fact flooded the valley. One person quick to reject the announcement was Bala County Councillor Elwyn Edwards. In November 1956, Edwards had joined all but three of the Cwm Tryweryn community when it marched through the streets of Liverpool in protest at the proposal to submerge the valley. ‘They’re not apologising for drowning a part of another country,’ protested Edwards. Liverpool City Council, he added, ‘could make amends for its action by providing both an unequivocal apology and contributing funds towards a planned 28ft tall memorial sculpture to stand beside the lake’.¹⁵ It was a suggestion given short shrift by Owain Williams, who declared:

‘It’s prostituting ourselves as a nation to go cap in hand to Liverpool, as if everything will be alright if we get money for this memorial. The memorial is the lake itself. It’s there. If we want to raise a monument or something, we need to pay for it ourselves.’¹⁶

Despite perhaps the best efforts of Liverpool City Council to close the issue, the flooding of Cwm Tryweryn is an episode which many in Wales cannot, or are loathe to, forget. Much resentment stems from the fact that Liverpool had no use for all its newly acquired water provision, the downturn in demand having begun as early as October 1965 when the reservoir, named Llyn Celyn, amid much rancour and calculated facetiousness, was declared open. As a result, and somewhat ironically, Liverpool now had a problem of too much water.

But why did Liverpool not require all the water which the city subsequently received from Llyn Celyn? In the 1931 census, when Liverpool’s population peaked, it was recorded that the city was home to 846,101 inhabitants.¹⁷ In 1955, when Liverpool Corporation announced its intention to flood Cwm Tryweryn, the population had decreased to some 750,000. In 2022, Liverpool’s population had fallen still further and was estimated to be 435,500.¹⁸ Therefore, between 1931 and 2022, Liverpool’s population decreased by 410,610, or 48.53 per cent. As for the city’s water consumption, Liverpool’s total residential and industrial needs were calculated in 2006 to be 49,000,000 gallons of water a day.¹⁹ This fell some way short of the 65,000,000 gallons of water a day the city received from Llyn Celyn, which was only one of the sources of the city’s water supply when Liverpool Corporation’s Tryweryn Reservoir Bill was passed by Parliament in 1957.

Nonetheless, Liverpool’s declining population was not the only reason for the city’s water surplus. Such was the result of industry suffering a sharp decline on Merseyside and the failure of the much-heralded boom in heavy industry to materialise that for many years – until much of the area was subject to a regeneration programme – abandoned warehouses dominated Liverpool’s quiescent docks. However, despite the upturn in fortunes for Liverpool’s waterfront, so few industries in the area extract groundwater that, in 2022, the city faces a fresh concern of possible pollution and flooding.²⁰ Yet, in a further twist of irony, because of Llyn Celyn – which forms the backbone of the River Dee regulation system – the risk of flooding east of Bala has been markedly reduced. Furthermore, as Dŵr Cymru owns and operates a hydro-electricity plant at the reservoir, which supplies green electricity to the National Grid,²¹ perhaps some distance has been crossed in finally laying the ghost of Cwm Tryweryn to rest. It is perhaps wishful thinking, because sixty-five years after Liverpool Corporation’s Tryweryn Reservoir Bill was passed in Parliament, and some fifty-five years after Llyn Celyn was officially opened, the entire Tryweryn issue still appears in the eyes of many in Wales to be an open wound – and a wound, at least for the foreseeable future, which looks unlikely ever to heal.

---

1 Gwynfor Evans, We Learn from Tryweryn (Plaid Cymru, October 1957), p.24; also, Trevor Fishlock, Wales and the Welsh (Cassell & Co, 1972), p.103.

2 Wales Today. BBC Wales production, 11 October 2005.

3 Dr Wyn Thomas, Hands Off Wales (Y Lolfa, 2022), pp.20–67.

4 Interview between Emyr Llywelyn Jones and Wyn Thomas, 16 October 2005.

5 Dr Wyn Thomas, Hands Off Wales (Y Lolfa, 2022), pp.20–81.

6 Interview between Owain Williams and Wyn Thomas, 16 October 2005. Owain Williams: ‘If anybody came to me and apologised after forty, forty-five years, I think I would have an adjective for them I wouldn’t like to repeat on television, because it’s too late.’ BBC Wales Today, 11 October 2005.

7 Interview between Dafydd Evans and Wyn Thomas, 11 October 2005.

8 BBC News, 19 October 2005.

9 Wales Online, 20 October 2005.

10 WM, 18 October 2005.

11 BBC News, 19 October 2005.

12 BBC Radio News, 18 October 2005. Presenter Richard Allison remarked: ‘It’s just that it’s fifty years ago that’s all.’

13 Cambria magazine, Nov/Dec 2004, p.37.

14 LIVERPOOL’S APOLOGY FOR THE DROWNING OF THE TRYWERYN VALLEY – Early Day Motions – UK Parliament; also, The Guardian, 13 October 2005; also, BBC News, 19 October 2005. Owen Roberts, an historian at Aberystwyth University, said Liverpool City Council should also apologise for flooding Llanwddyn in north Powys in the 1880s. At the time of the Tryweryn statement, Liverpool was considering the Llanwddyn request.

15 WM, 20 October 2005.

16 Interview between Owain Williams and Wyn Thomas, 20 October 2005.

17 Demography of Liverpool – Wikipedia

18 Population of Liverpool 2022 | Liverpool population – statistics (population-hub.com) In 1961, Liverpool’s population was estimated to be 770,000, with 1,390,000 estimated to live in the Liverpool-Mersey metropolitan area. One reason for a decline in Liverpool’s population is the societal shift to smaller families.

19 The Drowning of a Village, SALEM Films production, BBC2W, 2006. 2003 saw the population of Liverpool rise for the first time in seventy years. Living in Liverpool, Real Estate TV, Sky, 2007.

20 Interview between Arthur Morris Roberts and Wyn Thomas, 12 November 2013. ‘All the industry has gone from Liverpool now. A lot of it anyway. They don’t need the water. Liverpool was getting money left, right and centre from the water from Celyn … Many years ago, I went to Liverpool and everything was done up nice there. The place had had a bloody face-lift! And I thought, Well, you wouldn’t have done that only for Celyn. And it made me angry. The water was all to sell … We were let down a lot.’

21 WM, 20 October 2005. The idea of generating hydroelectricity at the site was first proposed, the Liverpool Echo reported, on 20 December 1961. LRO. Llyn Celyn Reservoir. Hq352.6CUT.

Chapter 1

‘We’re thinking of drowning this valley’

16th century to mid-20th century

A brief historical background of Liverpool – and storm clouds gather over Europe, as Cwm Tryweryn receives a visitor

The links between Wales and Liverpool encompass much of the last millennium. In the early sixteenth century, Liverpool had a Welsh mayor – Dafydd ap Gruffydd.¹ The first generation of Welsh migrants seeking employment, or intent on creating employment opportunities, arrived in Liverpool in the seventeenth century. Many settled near the River Mersey, in an area that became known as ‘Welsh Town’.² As the economic fortunes of the Welsh improved, through their noteworthy involvement in building construction and as merchants, financiers and industrialists, the sociological status of the Welsh in Liverpool rose. This ensured that the city’s Welsh community, albeit in a collective sense, became a prominent feature of Liverpool’s burgeoning and comparatively affluent middle-class. Such was the standing of this blossoming Welsh middle-class, that its ‘influence reached far into the social, religious and economic life of the city’.³

Nonetheless, in 1844, evidence given to the Royal Commission on Municipal Councils suggested that 40 per cent of the inhabitants of Liverpool lived in slums: 20,000 in cellars, 40,000 overcrowded. While, somewhat striking to modern sensibilities, a number of the new housing areas were described as ‘planned slums’.⁴ This dreadful situation was exacerbated by the mass influx of migrants from Ireland. It is estimated that one million perished as a result of the potato famine which afflicted Ireland from 1845 to 1852. In a bid to escape the famine and its appalling repercussions of mass starvation and disease, thousands left Ireland to begin new lives around the world. By 1861, 600,000 Irish migrants had arrived in England and Wales.⁵

In January 1847, Liverpool appointed its first Medical Officer of Health, William Henry Duncan. The role was established to ensure that sanitary conditions were improved in order to stem the spread of disease. By June 1847, some 60–80,000 migrants from Ireland had settled permanently within the poorer ‘slum’ quarters of Liverpool.⁶ The following July, a specially appointed committee of magistrates estimated that the Irish comprised at least 100,000 of a total population of some 375,000. Its findings recorded that ‘the great mass of this Irish population consists of unskilled labourers.’ They lived in abject poverty in areas close to the Mersey, where it seems the Welsh had largely resided previously.⁷

If the experiences suffered by Irish migrants in Liverpool were in the main harrowing and arduous, the fortunes of the Welsh in Liverpool were altogether more favourable. The census of 1881 recorded that 9 per cent of Liverpool’s population of 552,500 were first-, second- or third-generation Welsh, living predominately in Everton, Toxteth, Kirkwall and West Derby – often in properties constructed earlier by their compatriots.⁸ Such was the importance of Liverpool to the Welsh diaspora that, in 1885, Lord Mostyn called Liverpool ‘the metropolis of Wales’. It followed the earlier comment of John Bright, the Quaker campaigner and Liberal MP, who referred to Liverpool as ‘the capital of Wales’.⁹ However, as the population of Liverpool continued to rise, so too, did the city’s demand for water.

In 1938, a sheep farmer walking the road above the village of Capel Celyn in Meirionnydd chanced upon a man with a tripod and levels – measuring equipment. Morris Roberts of Graig-yr-Onwy farm approached the man in search of an explanation. To his surprise, the man casually replied, ‘We’re thinking of drowning this valley’.¹⁰ More puzzled than alarmed, Roberts continued on his way. With the announcement made by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain’s declaration of war with Germany, in September 1939, the need to supplement the water provision of Liverpool was shelved, as the city and the country at large steadied itself for the battle ahead.

‘The lights go on again’ – Liverpool looks to rebuild as Britain’s ‘Welfare State’ is born

With the defeat of the Axis powers in May 1945, Britain emerged victorious – but exhausted, battered and bankrupt. For Liverpool, as across the United Kingdom, the sweetness of victory was tempered by the bitterness of struggle, as many were left grieving and traumatised. Having been the focus of heavy aerial bombing by the Luftwaffe, Liverpool was left with large areas of its docks and residential areas devastated. In 1941, during arguably the conflict’s bleakest period, Liverpool City Council began to investigate ways in which the decimated city centre might be redeveloped.

If the privations of war had united rich and poor in a shared and common purpose to secure victory, the end of the conflict signalled a new dawn for Britain. One wartime document which encapsulated the mood and aspirations of the average Briton was published in 1942 under the unpromising title: Social Insurance and Allied Services. Popularly known as the Beveridge Report, it was the blueprint for the kind of society which many hoped would emerge in post-war Britain. The report had been prepared for the coalition government by the economist Sir William Beveridge. It took as its starting point the principle that every working person throughout the UK should pay a weekly contribution to the state. In return, benefits would be paid to the unemployed, the sick, the retired and the widowed. It was a revolutionary concept, fuelled by a need for social justice in response to the crippling austerity, unemployment and suffering which had characterised much of Britain during the 1930s. But crucially, Beveridge’s ‘New Jerusalem’ society was based on equality not charity. It sought to establish a prosperous yet egalitarian social order.¹¹ When the Labour government was swept to power at the General Election in July 1945, the Beveridge Report became the basis for the Labour government’s far-reaching social legislation. New laws were soon passed in education, social services and housing, but perhaps the most momentous legislative change was the founding of the National Health Service in July 1948. Introduced by Aneurin Bevan, the Minister for Health, the NHS promised for all UK citizens free medical care ‘from the cradle to the grave’. Britain’s ‘Welfare State’ was born.¹²

The indomitable Bessie ‘Battling’ Braddock – and the factors which formed her character

Among those who entered Parliament as Labour MPs after the party’s landslide election victory in July 1945 was Bessie Braddock. Born in the Everton district of Liverpool on 24 September 1899 to prominent Liverpool socialists Hugh Bamber and his wife Mary (a staunch trade union activist), Elizabeth Margaret Bamber inherited much of her campaigning vigour from her mother.

In January 1901, when Queen Victoria died, Great Britain was the foremost economic nation in the world. The United Kingdom owed its unrivalled fiscal prowess and hegemony to myriad factors. These included: the nation’s industrial and technological ascendency, a stable domestic political system and a global empire that covered a quarter of the earth’s surface and to which a quarter of humankind belonged.

The patriotic pomp and splendour of the ensuing Edwardian period was for some in Britain an age of unbridled pleasure, but the opulent indulgence enjoyed by Britain’s rich contrasted sharply with the abject poverty in which one-third of the nation lived. It was a situation aggravated when Britain’s industrial mastery was successfully challenged by other global powers, most notably Germany and the United States. As each country’s economic trading strength increased, Britain’s domination of global trade was curtailed. The ‘knock-on’ monetary downturn was experienced throughout the UK. It was, however, Britain’s underprivileged who suffered the resultant hardship and nowhere was the economic disparity between those affluent and those impoverished felt more acutely than Liverpool. The port’s unskilled and semi-skilled workers were severely affected when, owing to trade through the port declining, ‘the wharves and the dock roads were silent’.¹³

With no proper financial relief for the unemployed, Liverpool’s workhouses were soon overflowing – and hunger held many of the city’s redundant labour force in its tight and unyielding grip. As the situation worsened, Mary Bamber, soon known by the underprivileged of Liverpool’s society as ‘Ma’ or ‘Mother Bamber’, was instrumental in providing a soup service for Liverpool’s deprived ‘underclass’. She was often assisted by her young daughter. It was an experience which Elizabeth would never forget. In Bessie’s autobiography, which was jointly written with her husband Jack and published in 1963, Bessie writes movingly:

‘I remember the faces of the unemployed when the soup ran out … for there was never enough soup for everyone … I remember their dull eyes and their thin blue lips. I remember blank, hopeless stares, day after day, week after week, all through the hard winter of 1906–7, when I was seven years old. I saw the unemployed … all over Liverpool … their faces white with malnutrition and cold, stood out tiny and perishable against the black enduring stone buildings … and these unemployed men, mentally and physically stupefied by unemployment, were actually ashamed of being out of work! They knew perfectly well that it was no fault of theirs. There simply weren’t any jobs. Yet they found it hard to believe that the people before whom they had always stood cap in hand could possibly have brought about their misery. They were not ready to break their traditional ties, and rebel … [And] right behind the fine offices of central Liverpool were the slum homes of those unemployed workers – miserable hellholes for the free citizens of the wealthiest democracy on earth. [As] a thousand of Liverpool’s seven hundred thousand people were dying of starvation … in the fashionable suburbs, the civic leaders, the bankers, the merchants and the captains of industry sat well-fed and well-housed and well-clothed and made no serious effort to ease the distress. It was the unemployed workers of Liverpool in 1906–7 who made me a rebel. It was their suffering that made me determined to do everything I could to alter the vast gap between the people who had nothing and the people who never went without anything.’¹⁴

Elizabeth Bamber meets and marries John ‘Jack’ Braddock

At the age of eleven Elizabeth joined the youth section of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), where she immersed herself in the political doctrine of socialism. It was not an education restricted to principles of theory, however, as Elizabeth was also busily engaged in a programme of practical humanitarian activities. Leaving school in 1913, Elizabeth found a post in the drapery department of the Walton Road Co-operative store. At the end of the First World War in 1918, she left the Co-op and took a clerical post with the Warehouse Workers’ Union. During her ILP activities, Elizabeth met and befriended John ‘Jack’ Braddock, ‘a wagon builder and union activist with a reputation as a firebrand’. He and Bessie soon developed a close emotional connection. By 1920, Jack Braddock and Elizabeth Bamber, by now known as ‘Bessie’ – to distinguish her from other Elizabeths within their socialist circle – had become disillusioned with the Independent Labour Party. It was born of a belief that the party lacked the necessary radicalism to march with the times. As a result, at its inception in 1920, Bessie and Jack Braddock joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). They quickly became disenchanted with the party’s dictatorial tendencies, however, and left the CPGB in 1924. In 1926, they joined the Fairfield Ward of the Liverpool Labour Party.¹⁵ By this point, Bessie and Jack were married, having ‘tied the knot’ on 9 February 1922 during a lunch break from Bessie’s clerical job with the Warehouse Workers’ Union.¹⁶ In the preceding months, Jack had asked Bessie to marry him on several occasions. Finally, Bessie agreed. However, in keeping with her no-nonsense and unremitting commitment to the principles of socialism, and indeed her approach to life itself, there was a proviso: ‘I will marry you Jack’, Bessie resolutely declared, ‘on the condition that we don’t have children. Our family will be the Labour Party.’ Jack’s reply is not recorded, but the couple enjoyed a long and, by all accounts, happy marriage – which remained childless.¹⁷

In the 1929 Liverpool council elections, Jack was returned unopposed as the Labour councillor for the Fairfield Ward. The following year, on 1 November, Bessie joined him as a city councillor when she was elected in the St Anne’s Ward.¹⁸ It was one of the most deprived areas of the city, where many of the inhabitants lived in appalling slum housing. Writing in her autobiography, Braddock later evoked a grim and disturbing picture. St Anne’s Ward, she wrote, ‘was a frightful place’, adding:

‘The houses were shocking and the cellars worse. If you ignored the front door, flanked by overflowing dustbins, and went down the steps beside them, you found hundreds of families living where perpetually burning candles or oil lamps fought the gloom. Many cellars had water grids, and in stormy weather the water rose into them from the sewers. They were always damp, of course.

The houses were enormous. They had been built a hundred years before by cotton and shipping bosses. When the rich moved farther out of the city, the Irish labourers who came to Liverpool during the potato famine took over. Sometimes there were as many as twenty rooms in one house: and there twenty families. A typical room contained a double bed, divided so that six kids could sleep on the mattress – three at one end, three at the other. When mother and father came home, they climbed over the children to the base of the bed, which they shared with the tiniest ones. Rest was fitful, for they had to listen for the nightman employed by Liverpool Corporation to go round [sic] after midnight, burst into rooms and count the occupants. The poor conspired to escape prosecution on over-crowding and morals charges by passing the news of his approach with special knocks on the walls and ceilings of the houses. At this alarm, dozens of sleepy kids would scramble from their beds and decamp into dark back-alleys to hide until he went away.

The walls of each room were decorated with red spots which gradually turned brown. These were the remains of bed bugs. The very bricks were full of them, and of lice too. There were no lavatories inside these houses. In the yards at the back there was one, or more often two – serving up to ten families each. In the centre of the yards was a tap, and I used to watch the kids come out with buckets, fill them, and cart them back inside the houses. There was no gas, of course. I spent a lot of time in these places, and the tenants were always afraid that I would pick up pests. They used to say in an embarrassed, half-hearted way, Mind, Bessie … and I would reply: You’ve got to live in it – don’t bother about me. And I never caught anything.’

Yet, if Bessie Braddock manages to convey the bleak and deprived anguish of St Anne’s Ward, the horror of one visit to the ‘home’ of a constituent, remains particularly and disturbingly shocking. Taking up the story, Braddock writes:

‘The woman I had called to see told me that I was wanted at another house across the road. I was asked in and taken into one of the rooms. In one corner was a coffin containing the corpse of an old woman. In another corner her daughter had just given birth. In the corridor behind me were three more children who had been locked out of their ‘home’ while the confinement took place. I can see that room now, and I will never forget the horror of it.’

As for the area’s voting pattern, Bessie Braddock continues by way of grim conclusion:

‘Eighty-five percent of the electorate of the ward were Roman Catholic, birth control was forbidden, and families were enormous. God knows how many children there were, but six to a family is a fair average. In the whole of Gerard Street, I don’t think there was one family clear of tuberculosis. The teeming life [of Gerard Street] was something never to be forgotten.’¹⁹

Bessie enters Parliament – and acquires a reputation

Having agreed in 1936 to stand as the Labour Party parliamentary candidate for the Exchange Division of Liverpool, Bessie Braddock secured the seat when Britain next went to the polls on Thursday 5 July 1945.²⁰ She made an immediate impact. During her maiden speech on 17 October, after taunting the Conservative opposition by claiming that she ‘filched’ the Exchange seat – the ‘prize Division of the [Liverpool] Tory Party’ – Bessie Braddock made an impassioned plea during a debate on the national housing shortage. Perhaps designed, at least in part, to capture the attention of the new Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, Braddock demanded the immediate introduction of measures to improve the slum housing conditions in Liverpool (and indeed throughout the country). Having declared that, ‘Housing has become a first-class emergency’, Bessie Braddock continued:

‘All my life I have been an agitator against the conditions, housing and every other sort, in which my class has been compelled to live, and I shall continue to agitate with every means and power I have, until the people whom I represent and to whom I belong are taken out of the miserable conditions in which they live. I make no apology at all for being an agitator … In fact, I am going to quote to the House some cases showing the conditions in which some people in my constituency have to exist … Many a time we on this side of the House are accused of over-estimating or exaggerating the conditions under which the workers have to live …[but] throughout this country, and particularly in industrial areas, people are living in flea-ridden, bug-ridden, rat-ridden, lousy hell-holes which have been allowed to develop throughout the industrial areas of this country. The backbenchers on this side of the House, and I think I can speak for most of them, will continue to agitate, and kick up a row, if necessary, until we are able to assure the people of this country, who have been compelled to live in conditions of this character, that this party has a policy to get rid of some of these evils that have been left to us as a result of having been represented for so long by the Conservative Party.’²¹

It is hardly surprising that, with her outspoken manner and bellicose nature, Bessie Braddock soon came to the attention of the national print media. In an assessment of the new MPs, the Daily Express described Braddock as ‘a character among the Labour women. [Who was] very forthright in her speech, strong in her Labour faith … [and who] never hesitates to call a spade a spade’.²² Perhaps Braddock’s media appeal was aided by her formidable and imposing physique – she admitted to weighing 15 stone (210 pounds, 95 kg) with her ‘measurements’ described as 50/40/50.²³ But if some regarded her robust and rotund frame as a cause for easy ridicule, it was dismissed with irritation in 2015 by Lord Elystan Morgan, the former Labour MP for Ceredigion. ‘Bessie Braddock,’ Morgan countered witheringly, ‘was a fighter for her tribe; a real Boadicea – that’s the point.’²⁴ Although Braddock never held office in government, she won a national reputation – and respect across party benches – for her forthright campaigns in connection with housing, public health and other social reforms. For instance, between 1953 and 1957, Bessie Braddock served on the Royal Commission for Mental Health, which led to the Mental Health Act being passed in 1959. In view of these advancements regarding the social care of British citizens, Elystan Morgan was asked to sum up Bessie Braddock’s contribution to the political progress of the day. With a degree of admiration, which nonetheless conflicted somewhat with his own Welsh nationalist credentials and sympathies, Lord Morgan concluded:

‘She was a woman who had fought all the cruel political battles. As a proud socialist, she fought ‘tooth and nail’ against capitalism during difficult and impossible days. She was toothless… also huge, a barrel of a woman. And she was raucous – blessed with a character which asked for and gave no quarter. She didn’t give a damn about anybody else’s point of view – if it clashed with her own. And that included opinion expressed from inside, or outside, the Labour Party. But she did love the Labour Party – and passionately believed in all it stood for. Following a debate on the nationalisation of the railways in 1947, she was reported in the press as having ‘danced a jig of celebration’ in the House of Commons. There was a libel action about it which, if I remember rightly, she lost, but nonetheless, she was an advocate for her people and she should be commended a great deal for her loyalty to those underprivileged in life. As Harold Wilson said of her: She was born to fight for the people of the docks, of the slums, of the factories and in every part of the city where people needed help. And for those qualities, I had a great deal of respect. Unfortunately, however, she had little understanding with regards the national identity and aspirations of the Welsh nation. I don’t believe that this was born of a lack of respect for Wales. It was simply because, I suspect, she regarded Wales as a far-off and distant land full of far-flung Liverpudlians.’²⁵

Aneurin Bevan looks to address Britain’s housing issue, but eyebrows are raised in Liverpool

In May 1946, Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health, declared that he ‘confidently’ expected that ‘before the next election every family in Great Britain will have a separate house’. Two months later, in Durham, Bevan again stated that ‘When the next election occurs there will be no housing problem in Great Britain for the British working class.’ No doubt fuelled by Aneurin Bevan’s flair for the dramatic, the Minister of Health’s excitable assertion was greeted with unease by more pragmatic members of the Labour Party. These included Bessie and John Braddock, who were aware that due to the country’s economic problems and its shortage of materials, Bevan was making promises the Labour Party could not accomplish.²⁶ Such a disparity over policy ensured that, from the early 1950s. Bessie Braddock moved steadily to the right-wing of the Labour Party. As she did so, Braddock became increasingly acerbic in her appraisal of those former colleagues who remained rigidly on the left of the party – including Aneurin Bevan.²⁷ Nevertheless, the formidable Bessie Braddock, by now MP for Liverpool Exchange, along with her husband, John, and other socialists in Liverpool, begin to consider ways to clear the city’s notorious slum housing. The decision by the Braddocks to modify their ideological standpoint broadly coincided with the 1950 City of Liverpool Health Report. This report, published annually, and written in 1950 by Liverpool’s Medical Officer of Health, William Mowll Frazer, revealed that:

‘Normal progress in regard to Slum Clearance [sic] ceased under the terms of the Ministry of Health Circular 1866, [on] 8th September, 1939. [Five days after Britain declared war on Germany].

During 1950, slum clearance has resumed and action taken in respect of 118 houses, but such action is controlled by the erection of new houses. In addition, 566 notices have been served under the provision of Section 9 of the Housing Act, 1936, upon the owners to execute such works as will, in the opinion of the [Liverpool] Council, render the houses fit for human habitation … The following number of dwelling-houses were represented by the Medical Officer of Health during the year 1950 as being unfit for human habitation and not capable of being rendered so fit at reasonable expense: Dwelling-houses – 26. Number of persons occupying the dwelling-houses – 122.’

In mid-1950, the estimated civilian population of Liverpool, as projected by the Registrar General, was 802,300. In connection with overcrowding, 18,810 visits to houses were undertaken by Liverpool Corporation officials, and some 3,624 houses were found to be overcrowded. As the slum-clearance policy and housing improvement agenda was resumed, 327 houses had been demolished and 1,536 persons displaced. As for the water supply in the (Liverpool and dependencies) area during 1950, while ‘no parts of the area’ were ‘dependent upon stand-pipes [sic]’, both in terms of ‘quality and quantity’ this was judged to be ‘satisfactory’.²⁸

The 1950 City of Liverpool Health Report coincided with a survey carried out in the same year by the Ministry of Health. The report published by the Ministry of Health in 1950 projected that by 1955 demand upon Liverpool Corporation for water would reach the point of consumption not previously expected until 1975. Much of the data contained in the Ministry of Health report later underpinned the argument for flooding Cwm Tryweryn as provided by Liverpool Corporation.²⁹ However, the 1952 Development Plan for 62,000 new dwellings in Liverpool estimated that the overall increase in water consumption would only be 10 per cent higher by 1956.³⁰

Asked to explain the significance of Liverpool’s slum clearance policy to the Tryweryn story, Steve Binns, the respected Liverpool City Council historian stated:

‘Labour won control of Liverpool City Council in May 1955 and shortly after, John, or Jack, Braddock was elected to lead the council. Now, Labour had been elected partly on the strength of its election manifesto pledge to clear the slums and provide improved housing for those who lived there. The general idea was to move people out to more outlying and suburban, or semi-suburban areas, while the city centre was partially cleared. Interestingly, however, this policy wasn’t always greeted with enthusiasm as sometimes, even when they understood the difficult conditions in which they lived, some people were still partial and attracted to the sense of community which those areas provided them. But it is a general feeling I have had from my research over the years that people underestimate how hard those years after the war were. 1945 to 1954, until rationing finally ended, was a hard and difficult time. Having secured victory in 1945, there was this idea that they had achieved something and yet, here they were in the post-war period, still struggling in the same old way. Employment was always a massive problem here [in Liverpool] and unfortunately, as is typical here, as soon as a war ended, unemployment started to come back. So, I think those years after the war were generally tough and whilst the clearance policy attracted much support, it is curious how, with a small c, ‘conservative’ people could be and how cautious they were about the break-up of their systems and their community structures … I’m sure, of course, there were others across the political spectrum who supported the policy of clearing the slums. But the policy was given considerable impetus when Labour was elected as the dominant political party on Liverpool City Council. And having seized control of the council, the Labour Party was determined to build high rise blocks of flats – which at the time were greeted with enthusiasm, but which are now generally denigrated by social scientists. But at the time, these tower blocks were seen as progressive and cost effective – and by flooding the Tryweryn Valley, which Liverpool Corporation ultimately decided was its best option, it was hoped that the social needs and demands of Liverpool could be met.’

Prompted to illustrate the slum areas in greater detail, and to throw light on how human life existed on a day-to-day basis, Steve Binns added calmly:

‘Life in the slums was a dreadful existence. It was governed by a lack of almost everything. The wearing of clothes for two or three years after they should have been thrown away; the failures of water, not so much the provision of water but problems over pressure and problems over supply and having to share. I mean, by the early 1950s, those who lived in the slum areas didn’t have to go to the street taps, but there was a still a great deal of sharing with regards a certain supply of water. The houses had not been touched for, well, since the late ’20s or early ’30s. Everything was stopped by the war. It led to a drab, smelly, awkward, struggle of a life – when people were under a different type of pressure. In fact, the people who think that they are hard-pressed today might be wise to consider how difficult it was for people at that time. I don’t want to say life was a day-to-day struggle for survival, because I think the very worst days had gone, once the National Health Service came in, in July 1948 – and chiefly because of Nye Bevan. So, to some extent, the very struggle to survive [had] ended, but even so, life in these slum areas was still one of drabness and difficulty I would say.’³¹

Liverpool looks to clear its slum housing – as more water is needed for the city

It is impossible not to be moved by the thoughts and appreciation of the torrid situation as provided by Steve Binns and the determination of socialists – and others who were similarly-minded in Liverpool with different political leanings – to remove the city’s areas of slum housing. Such aspirations were furthered with the publication in 1951 of the annual City of Liverpool Health Report. Liverpool’s medical officer of health, William Mowll Frazer, revealed that action had been taken ‘in respect of 74 houses’. In addition, ‘826 notices’ had been served upon the owners to execute such works as would, so believed Liverpool council, ‘render the houses fit for human habitation’. The number of houses demolished was 207 and the number of persons displaced was 943. With regards overcrowding: 83,074 visits were made by Liverpool council officials to houses in connection with overcrowding, and 4,756 houses were found to be overcrowded. The estimated civilian population of Liverpool at mid-year 1951, as projected by the Registrar General, was 784,800. As for the water supply in the (Liverpool and dependencies) area, while ‘no parts of the area’ were ‘dependent upon stand-pipes [sic]’ during 1951, both in terms of ‘quality and quantity’ this was again judged to be ‘satisfactory’.³²

In 1952, the number of individual homes represented as being unfit for human habitation was 92; the number of dwelling-houses deemed unfit for human habitation was 524, while the number of persons occupying the dwelling-houses totalled 2,350. As the slum clearance policy continued apace, 408 houses were demolished and 2,099 persons displaced. By way of evaluation, W. M. Frazer declared that ‘progress with slum clearance’ had ‘proceeded throughout the year’. The estimated civilian population of Liverpool at mid-year 1952, as projected by the Registrar General, was 791,500. As for the water supply in the (Liverpool and dependencies) area, this was once more considered to be ‘satisfactory both in quality and quantity’.³³

On 6 March 1953,