Welsh Journals

THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN THE DIOCESE OF LLANDAFF, 1850-70 A Study of the Evangelical Movement in the South Wales Coalfield IT was not until the beginning of the Railway Age that south Wales experienced the full impact of the industrial revolution. When it began, to satisfy the increasing demand for iron and coal, the growth of the coalfield was sudden and dramatic. The columns of the Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian and the Swansea Cambrian of the middle of last century relate in exciting detail how the civilization of the coalfield quickly took shape, becoming each year more affluent in material wealth, more varied in cultural and political interests, accumulating, in the form of railways, houses, schools, libraries, chapels and churches, an astonishing amount of social capital, and bringing in its wake new social and political problems. In the making of the coalfield, the religious denominations played an essential and positive role. If the inhabitants of the coalfield looked to the ironmaster and coal-owner for employment, they looked also to the minister and the chapel for guidance in religious, social and often political matters. The returns made from the coalfield to the Registrar General in the census of religious worship held on 30 March 1851 provide evidence of the remarkable progress being made by the religious denominations in south Wales compared with other industrial areas.3 The most conservative calculation of the number of people attending a place of worship on 'Census Sunday' shows that the coalfield was the most religious part of the kingdom. It is estimated that of the 250,000 people who inhabited the coalfield and the ports of Cardiff and Newport, at least 100,000 had attended a non- conformist place of worship and that a further 17,000 attended one' 1 The Census of Great Britain, numbers and distribution of people, 1831-1871, shows a dramatic increase in the population of the diocese of Llandaff from about 200,000 in 1831 to 600, 000 in 1871. 2For example, Dr. Thomas Price, the Baptist minister of Aberdare, portrayed by Mr. Ieuan G. Jones in Welsh History Review, II, nos. 2 and 3. Unfortunately, there are few studies of comparable quality which would enable historians to make generalizations about the influence of the religious bodies in the coalfield. 3 P.R.O., H.0/129/576-585. A few of the original returns from the census of religious worship held in 1851 appear to be missing.