Welsh Journals

The above appear to the writer to be the chief of the decayed or decaying industries or callings in Powys- land, and they seem to show that rural depopulation in our midst has probably been less due to changes in agriculture than to the extinction of various industrial occupations. The industries referred to, however, are far from exhausting the list of all the dead or dying trades. There are numerous less important ones that could be mentioned. For instance, boot and shoe making might be included. Sixty years ago or so the writer has been told there were sixty working shoe- makers in Welshpool. Hat making was a local trade and it is interesting to recall that the village of Pennal was a famous place for the manufacture of the old beaver hats so much worn before silk hats were intro- duced. Fulling was a fairly general industry, fulling mills existing around most of the districts where weav- ing was localised, and at them the Welsh flannel was cleaned and bleached to a whiteness that had a good deal to do with the reputation Welsh flannel gained. Coopering was yet another industry which employed much labour in Powysland. But in the enumeration of these smaller and less localised trades which have more or less become extinct, one would not know were to finish if a complete list were attempted, and the object here is not to do that, but to give a cursory review of those principal industries of Powysland, which, after attaining much prosperity and importance, have declined to such an extent as to leave Powysland almost solely an agricultural area.