- South Wales had it's English Iron Masters and North Wales had it's Slate Masters as the Assheton Smith Family whose history is a fascinating look at a land grabbing Gentry building up their estates by shrewd use of Enclosure Acts. A study of this family at land grabbing enclosure of common land informs a little as to how parts of England lost it's land owning peasantry. They were to become then landless labourers or labourers employed by big farms and gentry estates, I dare say similar patterns existed in parts of Wales but what interests me here is the making of common people into quarry workers in association with slowly developing slate Industry in Gwynedd. Of particular interest here are the Faenol and Dinorwic Estates of the Assheton Smiths' Slate Masters, focusing attention on Llandeiniolen which witnessed Enclosure trouble of 1808 and disturbences of 1809. At Llandeiniolen Quarrymen of the area led by Foulk Evan and Richard Jones resisted being evicted from their cottages, the cottages were pulled down but upon being rebuilt by the Quarrymen Constables were called out to protect and oversee they being pulled down again. A crowd gathered and soon stones, mud, turf and hot water was thrown at the constables, as consequence a magistrate was called out to read the Riot Act and the disturbence quelled. Foulk Evan and Richard Jones along with four women women; Margaret Owen, Jane Jones, Margaret Hughes and Jane Evans of Llandeiniolen went on the run. The Men were captures and imprisoned but later released whilst the women had a five guineas price put on their heads requiring their arrest. Unfortunatly Assheton Smith was to win out and he gained poccession of the land and the Quarrymens cottages were awarded to Assheton Smith. The peasantry and workers, often living in Tai Unnos occupation of the commons and margins of waste land were not just fearing enclosure because of eviction alone. The majority lived a subsistance existance as a poor scrap of land owning underclass be it just an acre for growing a little food or use of waste for pigs and chickens and gathering of wood, nuts and berries. Denied this and they would indeed be reduced to poverty and have to go 'on the Parish' and be put in the work house or migrate away to seek work, an irony for in many rural areas in the late 18th and early 19th century the poor had been encouraged by the local 'powers that be' to occupy marginal land and build a Tai Unnos as a means of giving them opportunity to be a little self sufficient and of course not requiring parish relief. For further Information on Enclosures in Wales, see the book Before Rebecca, Popular Protest in Wales 1793 - 1835,david Jones, Penquin Publications.
Thomas Assheton Smith I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- 08:31By 1826 the Dinorwic Quarry was employing 800 men and producing 20000 tons of slate per year. Assheton Smith developed Port Dinorwic (Y Felinheli) as a port ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Assheton_Smith_I - Cached -Thomas Assheton Smith (q.v.) - The National Library of Wales ...
1752 , the son of Thomas Assheton of Ashley , Cheshire , he added the name ... and thequarries; he extended the harbour at Port Dinorwic and between 1834 ...
yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-SMIT-ASS-1752.html -Vaynol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
... is known for its slate production, and the Assheton Smith family profited greatly from slate quarrying, including ownership of the Dinorwic Quarry. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaynol - Cached -History of Llanddeiniolen, in Gwynedd and Caernarvonshire | Map ...
- 4 visits - 08:29The Dinorwig-slate quarries here, and in the contiguous parish of Llanberis, belong to the heirs of Assheton Smith, Esq., and employ a large proportion of ...
www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=5728 - CachedDinorwic Quarry Records
Administrative and biographical history: Slate quarrying at Dinorwig, Caernarfonshire, dates back to the 18th century. In 1787, Thomas Assheton-Smith ...
www.archiveswales.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?inst_id... - CachedDinorwic Quarry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A new business partnership led by Assheton Smith himself was formed on the expiry of ....Part of the film Willow was shot in the disused Dinorwic Quarry, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwic_Quarry - Cached -Quarry Proprietors - The Faenol Dynasty
- 08:33It was not until 1809 that Thomas Assheton Smith (1752-1828) took over the running of theDinorwig Quarry himself. Indeed, it is important to note the ...www.llechicymru.info/IQPFaenol.english.htm - Cached - SimilarLlanddeiniolen
- 2 visits - 02/12/2010small rural dwellings 2007
- 4 visits - 17:05- But enclosure assigned definite ownership to land, and afterwards encroachments ... Through the work of quarrymen on the lands of Thomas Assheton-Smith in ...
www.cadw.wales.gov.uk/.../small_rural_dwellings_20076655.htm - Cached Vaynol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- 17:02The family then extended their estate through enclosure, including the ... In 1847, it passed to Mary Astley, niece of Thomas Assheton-Smith of Vaynol, ... not be confused with the neighbouring National Trust land called Glan Faenol. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaynol - Cached - SimilarShipton Bellinger Village History: The 19th Century
- 2 visits - 17:07- 21 Sep 2005 ... Certainly in the tithe records of 1840, Thomas Assheton Smith of... After the Enclosure Act, Shipton was left without any common land and ...
www.shiptonbellinger.org.uk/SBHistory/C19_P1.htm - Cached - SimilarWiltshire Council - Wiltshire Community History Get Community ...
- 17:08This was in the time of Thomas Assheton Smith III, who was one of the country's leading foxhunters and cleared many square miles of land for hunting. ...history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom.php?id=223 -
ALSO SEE:George Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Penrhyn - Wikipedia, the free ...
Lord Penrhyn refused to recognize the union or its officials, though he was willing ... The strike went beyond a dispute between owner and worker to have ... A timely slump in the demand for Welsh slate ensured that Penrhyn had enough ...
en.wikipedia.org/.../George_Douglas-Pennant,_2nd_Baron_Penrhyn - Cached - SimilarSlate industry in Wales - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- The same year, Lord Penrhyn opened a new quarry at Caebraichycafn near ...
- G.Gruffydd
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
SLATE MASTERS: THE ASSHETON SMITH LAND OWNING GENTRY AND SLATE QUARRY CAPITALISTS and Their Enclosures of Common Land.
