Do not let anyone see this letter

An awkward little letter written by Morgan in response to George’s message of condolence.

22 George St.

Swansea

June 3^rd 1880

Dr George

         

I received your letter this morning & was indeed pleased to hear from you.  I have been expecting a letter from you for a long time & at the same time was thinking of writing to you but could never make up my mind to do so you know what sort of man I am of a timid disposition still there is some acts of bravery about me one for, instance, Getting Married & that seems so far to answer pretty well indeed so that I ought to be incouraged & not feel so timid.

Well George it is all very well talking foolishly still I do not believe in going half way to meet troubles it is true enough when it comes.  You spoke about my sad loss yes a great loss when mother goes it almost speaks to me in words look out for yourself home appear broken up there appear no ruling shepherd to keep us all together because it always was Mother Mother  no one to say Morgan be careful over this or that no the voice is not to be again.  She hath done what she could for every one of us & her end was peace I hope everlasting.  

You refered to buisness in your letter. I do not know what to do but I think I shall make an attempt when I can get a suitable shop & in a propper position but I may have to wait for a long time.  If I cannot get a good situation I had better stay where I am I have no dout but I should do very well because as you know I am a respectable young man have a respectable wife & we are respectable connected infact we are respectable alltogether.  Buisness keeps very quiet there is no stir here whatever.  If it would revive a little it would give a man a little encouragement. 

I scarcly know what I have put on this letter in the first place.  I have been cutting the grass in the front of the house & triming the hedge that my hand is shaking very much & Jane have been talking all the time so you can take it as it is & will promise to do better next time. Jane is first rate now since she come to Swansea & Hannah is very well. 

Do not let anyone see this letter.

From yr aff.

                                                  Bro. & Sisters

                                                        J.H. & M. Bevan

A Curly Black Lamb

Overton

June 2^nd 1880

Dear Brother

We are very busy and have to work very hard.  Mother forgot to put Roberts letter with hers she thought that his and Eddy’s were folded in one another so you must not be surprised at the day of the Month on his letter.  Since he wrote it there has been an addition to the horses. Lester has got a colt and we expect one from Bright soon.  There is a prospect of a good crop of straw-berries this year by Harriet being so careful over them.  Robert and Eddy laughs about Hedley being a tinker and Eddy thinks about being an ironmonger.  We have had a letter from Hannah telling us something that you wrote to her.  Sill is going to write soon but mind you must send me a letter before you send him one.  It have been very wet here and we have to put on our long cloaks in the summer.  We are all very well except Robert who has had the headache.  We are just going to do our home-work so I must make haste.  We have begun to sow Swedes and expect to finish soon.

It is getting dark so I must conclude

Father & Mother and all the rest joins me In kind love to you all

                    I remain your

                    Aff. Sister Ellen M. Bevan

P.S. Georgie we have brought a black curly lamb Saturday last

We can do sums and write in coppy

George’s two younger brothers write to him, showing their prowess at arithmetic.  

Overton

May 24^th 1880

Dear brother 

Eddy and I have been very ill we are quite well now we have four cats, four cows, four horses, fifteen hens, sixty three chickens, forty six lambs, one hundread and four sheep, one dog, four ducks, twenty one geese and three pigs, seven cattle and th colt are gone to Muzzart.  I and georgey Went with them and we expect to sow Swedes in a couple of weeks.

mother and father send their love to you mother is going to write to you to night

rember me to gorge and hedley

 I remain

                    your affectionate

                                        brother

                              Robert Bevan

Overton

May 24^th 1880

dear brother

robert and I have been very ill we have had measles and had to stay in bed three days we are quite well now and mother lets us go out again, we washed the sheep as on friday and if the weather is fine we expect to shear them on tuesday your strawberys are in blossom georgy took the trap to killay station to meet jane and morgan on friday tell georgy and hedley we can do sums and write in coppy give our love to them and them them we hope to see them in gow soon.

                    I remain your affectionate brother eddy

  

May 24^th 1880

Dear George

I am glad to say the little boys are quite well again.  I had to keep them in Bed three days they were very tired the last day.  I have not sent them to school & this afternoon they have been writeing to you.  Eddy has sent you plenty of Ink.  Jane and her Husband went back to Swansea this morning they came down on a sad errand poor Mrs Bevan died so suddenly it is a great grief to them all.  I had had your drawers made but not the shirts the Dressmaker is gone from home for a week or so I will send them to you as soon as I can get them made we are glad that you are going to stay with your Uncle this year.  I hope you will get on well & may the Lord be with you in all your goings.  I have been up since 4 oclock & cannot write a long letter to night.  We expect to Shear the Sheep to morrow if it is fine the weather has been very cold for the last few days & rain is much needed.  Sill will write & Tell you all news & with our kindest love I remain Dear George your ever

                              afft. Mother.

George is to receive a salary of £20 a year

George discusses his future plans in an incomplete letter to Sill

Llandudno

May 10^th

Saturday night

Dear Brother

I am writing away we have only just closed shop and it is now nearly ten oclock and I must go and get my supper or I shall not have any.  I shall not post this letter until Monday as I have no stamps and shall not be able to get any until then.

Your letter duly arived and I expected with it a long eloquent exposition on the portion of Scripture referred to.  But behold my dissapointment when I opened it and found nil.  But happly for me the teachers were changed and our usual classes were all joined and formed a singing meeting to prepare hymns for our anniversary so my paper was not read and I was not sorry for it was but a poor affair.  My Teacher has it or I would send it you.

I should advise you to begin it in your class, let several of you bring a paper and you will see in what points you differ and thus promote a healthy discussion amongst the scholars, which will enlarge their mental capabilities create a more intimate knowledge of the scriptures and the truths that is by them contained.  I am glad to hear your young horse is free from vices and hope he is swift in speed and sound in limb for when I come home he will have to swift whether he is sound or not.

I have come to arrangements with Uncle I shall have £20 for the first year and my washing & mending.  I did expect £25, but he says 20 was what he got at first and I suppose he measures my value by his own.  He said he would be very glad for me to stop and advised me to do so because I was rather small and boyish to try to get another situation.  I do not think I shall stay another year without he promises to do as he said when I came her first for I can learn no more here and shall try to get larger experience elsewhere.

Ofcourse this decision of mine will be greatly influenced by the advice I get from home and the circumstances which may transpire during the year.  But I cannot see that I shall be justified in staying here in comparitive ignorance (even for good wages) when I could improve myself and learn more thoroughly elsewhere.  Though as I told them I had spent 4 years of my life very happley on the whole with them and never expect to spend 4 such happy ones again, even that should not detain me for gathering experience and improving my talents with due care.  Except he opens a Branch establishment in some neighbouring place and sets me there, as he used to talk about and brighten my day dreams with the thought.  Of course for that I shall be quite fit for it will be precisely the same class of trade as we have here.  I do not wish any one to know of this only Father & Mother for I would that Uncle & Aunt should hear about it yet.

(incomplete)

Views inside a traditional ironmongers shop courtesy of The Bygones Victorian Museum and J.B. Banks & Son Ltd.

The Bygones Victorian Museum, St Marychurch, Torquay

 J.B. Banks & Son Ltd., 13-14 Market Place, Cockermouth.

Congratulations from Rowland

‘Loss leader’ marketing tactics are obviously not a new phenomenon. George's cousin Rowland married his Lizzie in the early summer of 1882 in her home town of Leek in Shropshire, prudently waiting until he was making a success of his business.

R.T. Bevan

Ironmonger

17, The Hayes,

Cardiff

May 5^th 1880

My dear Cousin

I was exceedingly pleased to hear from you the other day for tis such a long time since any communication passed between us, allow me to congratulate you on the termination of your apprenticeship and I must say with all due diffedence to Uncle’s welfare, that I commend your determination to leave Llandudno at an early period, for I presume your position and experience have now somewhat the same as I passed through, and I found that I had to learn and unlearn a great deal, if Mr. Hern was now in business I should recommend you to spend six months or so under his tuition, for he certain made a man of me if a man I am.  

Well dear Cousin you see I am now fairly in the battle of life and I find the struggle hard and as yet somewhat uncertain for you and I have opened a new business altogether matters would be far different perhaps had I taken on an old established place, as it is you see I must be content with merely casual customers as they pass by, for I have not been long enough in Cardiff to be very severally known but I flatter myself that the majority of my customers will come again once they have been here, nevertheless we have done very well indeed and things are improving.  

We are in a very good position and quite opposite a large American meat market, but Cardiff is such a place for cheap goods and unless you can get your hand up being a cheap man you are nowhere so I have some things outside my door every day marked very cheap, (a sprat to catch a mackrel). 

Mother has been up here for some time putting me all square or round, but she is now gone home again and I am left alone in the cargo hould, the first night (Sunday) I was left alone I heard a great noise down in the shop and must confess to having felt rather nervous, however so far so good as to having a housekeeper I have not the slightest intention of having a permanent one for years to come but when I do I suppose it will be the one I met at dear old Llandudno, I saw her at Xmas and she is still very well and just the same Lizzie Stubbs as ever.  

I suppose you have heard something from Gower on the subject but I have not pleased them so will as to tell them the particulars I have told you and you need not do so for they never said a word to me about Jane my old sweetheart wedding nor even sent me a bit of wedding cake, of course is quite natural for them to suppose I am going to marry so do all the Cardiff people but I should not like to take anyone from a comfortable home until I had provided at least an equal one for her.  

I am glad to know dear Cousin you are still going on in the good old way and earnestly pray you may continue so to do, please give my love to Florey and all the family dont forget Sill and tell him I am not in immediate want of a tinman but may be in the not very distant future, tell him I have not forgotten my promise to write to him.

          With love

                    Your affectionat Cousin

                              R.T. Bevan

 The Hayes and other old images of Cardiff

Gowerian Farmers

Family letters are abuzz as George comes to the end of his apprenticeship and Sill wants him to read the marriage advertisements.

                                        Overton Gower

May 4^th 1880

Dear Brother

I received your letter duly but cannot comply with your request as I never attempted anything of the sort, and do not know what form you would require it in, please send me a copy of yours and then I shall see, and may try at some future one, such a plan has been proposed in Horton Sunday School, for some of the big scholars to prepare papers on the lessons, but I do not think it ever will be practised. 

Pitton tea meeting will be held on Thursday next & some two or three of us are thinking to go, if all is well.  I expect to spend the Whit Sunday & Monday in Swansea with Jane to rest a bit after working so hard sowing barley etc.  The crops are looking very promising about here & the dry fine weather, with yesterdays rain has done not a little to cheer the drooping hearts of the Gowerian Farmers.  Uncle George has had a misfortune, in losing one of his horses (Boxer) on Saturday night, they have one young one 3 years old, besides old Pedlar he is very feeble & I think Uncle is going to Swansea fair on Saturday to buy another.

Our Lyster & Bright are in foal this year, & Boxer is very quiet in saddle, harness being free from vice.  We are well in advance with out work.

I shall like to know whether you & Uncle have made any arrangements, and from what date you receive wages and the amount.

Father and Mother are gone up to Castle this afternoon, as the school board meets at Oxwich this evening & Father is an Hon: Member,

Hoping you & all are quite well again, with kindest love

                              I remain

                                        Your loving Brother

                                                  Silvanus Bevan

P.S. Don’t forget to look over the marriage advertisements in the Camb after the sixth time of asking

N.G. The letters you send to me that you don’t wish Father to see please address to _ _ Jun without which of coarse I cannot open them.

General Election April 1880

A General election in April 1880 returned a Liberal government after six years of Conservative rule. In the grip of both an industrial and agricultural depression, the country at large was disappointed and disillusioned with the Conservative government. With 112 seats and a majority of over 50, Gladstone was Prime Minister for the second time.

The promise of a reform of the property law to ease the burden on tenant farmers and with Joseph Chamberlain as President of the Board of Trade, modernisation became the buzz word of 1880 politics.

Silvanus and George continue the topical political debate in their letters. It is difficult to assess how much of the discussion is gentle banter between the two brothers, especially in the incomplete letter written by Silvanus on 27th April.

Overton, Gower

April 27^th 80

My dear Brother

We are all quite well at present and have been expecting to hear from you since your last, because Mother wrote about three weeks ago to enquire about the measurement of your drawers etc as I suppose you want new ones, please let us know per return whether you received her letter or not, we are not surprised at your delay in answering it, because it is characteristic of conservation to neglect home duties, for the brag and bunkum! Of her foreign policy, no doubt you are very despondent now you have suffered such an unparalleled defeat you certainly are valiant fellows with all your great and grand achievements in maintaining the integrity and raising the glory of our nation to be able, only to return 2 to members for the principality of Wales.  So you see your leader has had the sack.  Without a character the nation would not be led on in blindness any further.  You remember the secrecy brought to light through the publication of a confidential clerk, just before the Berlin congress & that we evidently would have been at war with Russia had not it been for the zealous efforts of the Liberals who brought such a pressure to bear on the turn of events that happily we escaped a disastrous war & now the country has gratefully repaid them for their untiring energy in attempting to protect her trade and commerce and general welfare & now we feel thankful that

          Once more the flow of manly fervour rules,

          And checks the bloody, fratricidal strife,

          Redeems our Manhood from the clutch of fools,

          And lightens up the peaceful charms of life.

I am verily grevied that you are so blindly mislead by Jingoism & would urge you to turn from the evil of your ways, for you are fast becoming (instead of your father’s pride and Mother’s joy) your fathers shame and mother’s sorrow, by your darkness through unbelief in ……. (incomplete)