| The depression and closure of the 1930's |
|---|
The news was devastating for Ebbw Vale and the surrounding districts, in particular for the workforce and dependants. This announcement came at a time when there were already socially unacceptable levels of unemployment in the valley towns. By October 1930 more historic iron works were shut down when Blaenavon Works, in the north-east of Monmouthshire and Dowlais Works, ten miles to the west in Glamorganshire, were both closed down forever, adding more people to the ever growing list of unemployed, spreading deprivation and misery throughout the area. The news of the Ebbw Vale Works' closure came as a great shock, since the Works represented the main source of employment in an area which was almost devoid of any alternative form of employment. The enormous growth in unemployment and subsequent deprivation led to north-east Monmouthshire being regarded as one of the most impoverished areas in the country and aroused much public sympathy. During 1775, long before industrialisation, the population of the area was approximately 120, and had risen to 850 when the first furnace was constructed in 1790, increasing to 21,200 a hundred years later and by 1921 had risen to its peak of 35,283 The problems faced by the district of Ebbw Vale at the time of the closure announcement in 1929 were, in some ways, a direct result of the successes of the Ebbw Vale Steel Iron & Coal Company decades earlier. The Industrial Revolution saw the Company grow from strength to strength attracting a workforce that resulted in an alarming increase in the local population. The rapid expansion of the iron and coal industries saw an increased demand for labour far beyond the area's natural population to satisfy these demands. The nearby rural areas, in particular the rural counties of Wales, supplied that demand. At the turn of the twentieth century, the urbanisation of areas within Wales in two decades caused over 320,000 people to migrate from the Welsh agrarian counties to the two industrialised counties of Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire. This growth in population was localised and essentially concentrated around coal mining and iron working activities. The concentration of population brought with it the problems that would be expected when the society changed from what was basically an agrarian economy to an industrialised economy in a relatively short space of time. The valleys became industrial conglomerates and developed from hamlets to villages to town with the accompanying population increases. The industrial areas of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire showed the greatest increases mainly due to the mining industry, and to a lesser extent the iron and steel industry. Unfortunately, as with many other 'instant' towns, the growth in population came in advance of the planning aspects of a community, which as a result caused many problems, not least with housing and health. Local and national governments were slow to act on any social implications of major population movement. The housing position, instead of improving, gradually got worse. In 1900 only 140,000 houses were built in Britain and this figure decreased Throughout the pre-war period house construction failed to keep up with demand and those constructed were two-roomed cottages shared by six people, which provides an indication of the social problems experienced by the general population. The housing problem remained a perpetual one for a number of years and was largely unresolved by 1914. Overcrowding and sub-letting became the norm when families encouraged their extended families to follow them from the rural areas to work alongside them in the growing industrial towns. The coal owners actively encouraged workers to travel to the valley towns with the offer of financial incentives, when in the same valley and indeed in the same colliery they could be paid different wages for doing the same job, which created resentment amongst fellow workers. The larger part of the Company's interests lay with the collieries which, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, suffered badly from serious labour disputes which plagued the South Wales Coalfield. The reason for the disharmony was due mainly to the method of payments to miners in North Wales which was disproportionate to those in South Wales. To resolve the issue the Miners' Federation of Great Britain suggested to the colliers of South Wales that they should strike. The colliers of South Wales and Monmouthshire, including the Ebbw Vale Company's colliers, were paid on a different scale, referred to as the 'Sliding Scale Agreement', which was related to the marketable value of the coal 'as sold'. Sales of the excellent metallurgical quality 'Ebbw Vale' coal were high and had a ready market, which in turn created high wages. The miners of Ebbw Vale decided to work to the existing system and continued to work despite being called upon to strike.' This led to confrontation between the three thousand miners of Ebbw Vale and those of surrounding districts when eventually some fifty thousand miners marched on Ebbw Vale leading to the military become involved.' The Ebbw Vale Steel Iron & Coal Company attitude to its workforce was more sympathetic than other companies situated in adjacent valleys. The Company would regularly refer to housing in its ordinary business transactions when 'Advances to Workmen's Building Clubs' would be the subject of discussion, confirmin that 'the workmen had kept up repayments on their loans provided by the Company and the workmen were very pleased with their houses'." These clubs were in the nature of small, 'friendly societies' formed by the workmen themselves from various departments within the Ebbw Vale Works, each club consisted of no more than twenty members. The Company advanced the money which was sufficient for each worker to build a house and the repayments were deducted from wages. The Company charged 4% interest on the amount advanced and leased the land at a moderate ground rent for a period of between eight and ten years, after which it would be owned unencumbered. The Company made loans of over £60,000 annually to 'friendly societies' and also made substantial short-term loans to builders for materials used in house construction, which were to be 'paid back quickly'. The clubs were very successful and popular with the workmen and the local government board. Initially, the Ebbw Vale Company had provided financial assistance with house-building schemes, but due to the demand for still more houses at the time of the population increase, private funding initiatives stepped in, and during a period of fifteen years no fewer than 1500 new 'Company' houses were built. The houses were small, unpretentious, white-washed cottages, although at the time were considered to be model dwellings. Withdrawal from housing schemes created problems due to the continuing demand and the Company decided to make land available for the erection of houses. It purchased the land and erected temporary wooden huts on the mountainside providing accommodation for sixty-four families, the Council provided a further fifty huts in the locality accommodating one hundred familes.' Clearly the Company was prepared to help with housing, so too was the Council, but land and finances were such that the housing in this congested valley was of poor quality and at a premium, tThe social problems which resulted from poor living standards, overcrowding, lack of clean water and inadequate sewerage, were associated with the spread of contagious diseases such as cholera and later diphtheria and tuberculosis. Poverty and the resultant living conditions also played a part in both the life expectancy and infant mortality rates. Life expectancy during 1901 in the Ebbw Vale area for a male was fortyfive years of age and for a female forty-nine years, reaching fifty-two and fifty-five respectively in 1914. During 1932 the figure had improved but only marginally; for a male fifty-three and for a female fifty-seven years respectively." The high unemployment levels created other social problems. The local death rate in the district of Ebbw Vale was 17.06% above the national average of 15.38%, and infant mortality rate in 1932 was 100 in 1,000 compared with the national average of 70 per 1,000.6 The life expectancy figure for adults is affected by the mortality rate of new-born children, measured as the 'infant mortality rate', which in 1900 was one hundred and forty per thousand births falling to sixty-three in 1930. In Ebbw Vale during 1922 ten children in every hundred died before the age of five; in 1932 seven, and in 1942 five. Overall the trend was improving mainly due to improved and enlarged nursing and midwifery services coupled with improvements which the Government had introduced in social services. The causes of death were grouped into the most common categories. Due to the state of medical science many were ill defined. At the turn of the century diseases such as cancer and heart disease and the circulatory system were rare or undetected, whilst parasitic diseases accounted for over a third. Deaths caused by sanitation, hygiene, living conditions and nutrition all contributed to premature deaths. An example which reflects well on the improvement of living standards is that of tuberculosis, which at the turn of the century was responsible for more than 80,000 deaths per annum in the U.K. compared with a figure of four hundred and forty in 1997. There were twenty deaths at Ebbw Vale in 1914 rising to twenty-two in 1921 and up to forty-eight in 1930 during the period of 'depression'. Infectious diseases were prevalent amongst children and accounted for a significant proportion of the total infant mortality figure. Approximately 50% of five to nine year olds died of such diseases in 1911. The area of Ebbw Vale was affected with outbreaks of cholera on three occasions during the nineteenth century, although there were no recorded cases during the thirties. The medical reports at the time identified raw sewage as the likely cause because of inadequate sanitation in the houses. Although sanitation had improved by the late twenties river pollution of valley rivers remained a concern. At the turn of the century the Rhondda Valley's Chief Medical Officer reported on the contamination of the local river which contained 'a large proportion of human excrement, offal, entrails from the slaughterhouse, the rotten carcasses of animals such as cats and dogs, and street refuse'." Such reports were commonplace. The Medical Officer of Health spoke of the River Ebbw that flows through the town as 'an open sewer'. From 1921 the coal, iron and steel industries of Britain entered a period of decline when outputs were curtailed and unemployment began to rise steadily. The colliery and iron and steel outputs after 1921 fell dramatically and resulted in up to 70% of the workforce become unemployed. The employment exchange was overwhelmed and besieged with anxious workers signing up for unemployment benefits. Employment benefit did not extend to those who had left or were leaving school; it only applied to those who were made redundant, and the payment remained in operation for a limited period. This obviously had a profound affect on the long term unemployed during the extended period of the Ebbw Vale Works' closure (1929 to 1936). The system of 'Poor Law Relief was introduced by government as a safety net to prevent unemployed workers becoming destitute and falling into starvation. The scheme was administered locally by Boards of Guardians. These Boards were made up of local politicians and town dignitaries who received funding from central government and local taxation. The General Strike affected areas almost completely dependant on the mining industry (Ebbw Vale) bringing the local social security system to 'snapping point'. Several defiant Councils and Boards paid 'relief at higher rates than that laid down by the Ministry of Health. Two Boards alone, viz: Chester-le-Street in Durham and Bedwellty, North Monmouthshire owed £2 million pounds from loans borrowed to pay benefits. The Government realised the problem and repealed the Boards of Guardians Act and replaced the administration of the social security benefits with government commissioners. The immediate action was to reduce the benefits to less than one third The unemployment fund was drained by some £150,000 per annum, which not only affected the money supply available to the community but was also reflected in the 'rates bill' which the Monmouthshire County Council was forced to impose on those in work and commerce. Local rates soared to over 65d. in the pound thus inflicting difficulties on local businesses, which included the Ebbw Vale Steel Iron & Coal Company. Between 1928 and 1938 at least one in ten British workers were unemployed which rose to one in five during the decade. One million workers were unemployed nationally in September 1929, rising to almost 2.7 million in 1932.9 Table 2 shows that between 1931 and 1932 the insured workers unemployment figures in Monmouthshire reached levels of 42% (Wales 37.5%, England 20.7%, Britain 22.2%). During 1932 Wales became one of the world's most depressed countries. This overall picture, however, was not truly representative of the actual situation existing in Ebbw Vale. At the peak of unemployment during the early thirties, 34% of colliers were out of work and 47% of steelworkers, not forgetting that the Ebbw Vale Company was involved in both these activities. In Ebbw Vale during 1931 there were 5,803 colliers and 1,442 iron and steel workers employed out of a total of 10,641 for all occupations. The figure does not include school-leavers, or those who had not found jobs or had been in occupations such as shop assistants, only those who had become unemployed from the major industriesAlthough disturbing, the figures in the following table do not give the complete picture. The overall result for Monmouthshire was further affected by a concentration of the workforce into the industrial mining and steel towns of Ebbw Vale, Tredegar and Blaenavon which made the unemployment levels even worse High unemployment levels also called upon the already stretched resources of the local authority and welfare organisations. The local authority was tasked with the function of providing social welfare, one aspect of which was the provision of free meals for adults and children entitled to benefits in Ebbw Vale and district during years of the 'depression' up to the time of reconstruction of Ebbw Vale Works. During the period of continued high unemployment the population of the county began to decline. In 1928 the Government established the Industrial Transference Board to retrain unemployed men from areas associated with the declining industries. A Government initiative under the Transfer Act prompted many of the unemployed to retrain and relocate to the more affluent areas of Britain associated with emerging new industries: white goods, manufactured electrical components and car production. By way of grants they were trained and encouraged to seek employment in the expanding industries such as chemicals and car manufacturing, and between 1928 and 1938 more than 275,000 males were transferred. Although the scheme was not considered to be a popular one it was the only government scheme available to attack the problems of unemployment. The scheme to move the unemployed to the more affluent areas did little to encourage industry to develop in the areas of high unemployment." Census results show that following the population peak in 1931 able-bodied, younger men and families moved away to the more affluent communities in the U.K: and sometimes as far as the U.S. The mass migration of the population from counties of Wales to overseas countries and the more affluent counties of England highlights the change that took place in the two main industrialised counties of South-East Wales; the combined total number leaving Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire between 1931 and 1938 amounted to nearly 400,000. Between 1931 and 1935 some 21,642 persons or 5.14% of the population migrated from Monmouthshire. II |
The Ebbw Vale Steel Iron & Coal Company continued to be involved with housing for many years. The financial position of the Company started to change in the 1920's when, after consultation with the local council, it prepared to withdraw from housing schemes. One of the last major social developments undertaken during 1921 was the construction of two 'Garden City' projects; one at the Ebbw Vale site of Victoria and the other at the Company colliery site at Abercarn, some eight miles south of the Works.