Welsh Journals

Therefore, before Glamorgan became enriched by a substantial amount of industry and trade and before the risks of investment (even in small amounts) had been reduced by such developments as the Companies Act of 1856, the substantial capital required for non-ferrous metal smelting had to come from outside the county [3]. There were in fact a number of groups elsewhere who were much attracted by the prospects in west Glamorgan. Such were the copper ore producers of Cornwall and Anglesey and, to a lesser extent, the manufacturers of and traders in copper and brass products of Bristol, Birmingham and London who set up smelting works in the region between 1730 and 1840. The inflows of entrepreneurship and capital from such quarters reflected the vital interests of the often powerful parties involved, and they contributed to the eventual high degree of concentration of the ownership and control of the copper smelting industry. In addition to the concerns whose origins were in mining or in manufacturing and trading, a number of firms were more diverse in character combining some stake in metals with mercantile, professional and financial concerns. The Firms (a) Established Pre-1750 Certainly disparate groups were involved in the development of non-ferrous metal smelting in the county before the mid-eighteenth century. The "Melting House" at Aberdulais near Neath, which was in production for a short period from 1584 onwards, belonged to a subsidiary partnership of the chartered Mines Royal Society, and those involved were merchants. Between the late seventeenth and the mid-eighteenth centuries there were half a dozen smelting concerns. The one established in 1694 near Neath Abbey appears to have been led by John Champion, probably a member of the Bristol family of copper and brass producers. Another at Melincryddan, Neath was operated from 1695 onwards by Sir Humphrey Mackworth and his family, who invested some of the returns of their landowning, and who also (by highly questionable methods) obtained infusions of capital from other sources through the Company of Mine Adventurers. (The business at Neath was