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The Wildes of Broseley (Shropshire), Merthyr (Glam.) & Tredegar (Mon.) The parish registers show that Wildes appeared
in Broseley parish, in the Severn
Valley in the county of Shropshire, in the late 1600s, and grew rapidly in
numbers. It was here in about that 1710 Abraham Darby discovered
how to smelt iron using coke in place of charcoal, thus setting in motion one of
the main driving forces of the Industrial Revolution. By 1750, the process was well-developed and the Broseley district
had become one of the earliest industrial areas, and the river Severn the main
means of transport from the Jackfield quays. By 1758 100,000 tons of coal per
year were shipped by the Severn barges from Jackfield and Madeley on the
opposite bank, in 250 vessels worked by 152 owners. The "Map & Admeasurement of the Broseley Hall Estate as surveyed in the year 1728 by Mr Meredith" (at Shropshire Record Office) consists of a series of maps which cover part of Broseley parish including the riverside hamlet of Jackfield. A number of tenants of properties are identified on the map. Among them, a George Wilde lived alongside the Jackfield railway in Mone Wood and Jonathan, Thomas and Robert Wilde occupied properties on the river bank at Jackfield.
There are baptism records at Merthyr (mainly at Penydarren) for eleven Wilde children of whom many died young (baptism and burial years, where known, follow): Mary 1784 - 1790; James 1787 - 1788; Ann 1790; George 1792 - 1815; Jemima 1793 - 1801; James 1795 - 1829; William 1799; Thomas 1800; Francis 1802; John 1804; and Robert (1807). In 1803 the first true steam locomotive hauled 25 tons at Penydarren.
By 1847 Robert (1807) had moved on to Ebbw Vale: in that year he married Ann OWENS in Bedwellty parish church, his address given as Victoria (named after the Victoria Iron and Coal Company works built in 1836, itself named after the queen who came to the throne the following year). His status is given as widower (a Robert Wilde had married a Jane Jones in Aberdare in 1824). Robert and Ann Wilde had at least five children of whom Jemima was born in 1850, followed by Jane (1851), Fanny (1854), Sarah (1857), and Robert (1861). In the 1860's work began on a new mine a few miles south of Tredegar at Troedrhiwgwair, which became known as Bedwellty Pits. In 1861 Robert Wilde was described as a pit banksman, his address Bedwellty pits. Six rows of terraced cottages, 96 in all, were strung out along the south side of the valley and they became known as Himalaya Range. Among the families settling there were the Careys, and in 1869 Jemima (1850) married Thomas CAREY at Saron chapel, Tredegar.
24/12/06 |
In 1781,
the year the Iron Bridge (early print, above, recent photo, right) across the Severn opened, George WILDE, a coal miner, married Jemima ARMSTRONG at St Leonard's
church, Broseley. Their first child John was baptised at St Leonard's in 1782, but shortly afterwards they followed the Homfrays (a family of
ironmasters) from Broseley to Penydarren, Merthyr, Glamorgan, where the same process of
iron and coal industrialisation was taking place. The Homfrays acquired the
Penydarren ironworks in 1783.
Left: the ruins of Penydarren ironworks,
1880.