The Cardiff Book of Days (44 page)

1775:
100,000 people were believed to have been killed in the Lisbon Earthquake. The tsunami caused by the quake later caused flooding in low-lying parts of Cardiff. (Wikipedia)

1886:
The old frigate
Hamadryad
was berthed in East Dock to serve as a seamen's hospital. She was later moved to her permanent site near the Glamorgan Canal's sea lock. The running of the hospital was partly financed by a voluntary levy of 2 shillings per ton of cargo paid by ships docking at Cardiff. In 1905 the hospital ship was replaced by the Royal Hamadryad Hospital in Ferry Road. She was later towed to Appledore in Devon where she was broken up. (John Richards,
Cardiff: A Maritime History
, The History Press, 2005)

1982:
The Welsh-language television channel S
4
C was launched. This had been put at risk by the election of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Believing that Welsh Nationalism was a dead cause, the Government announced that they would not honour the pledge to establish it. Two thousand members of Plaid Cymru promised to go to prison rather than pay for a TV licence and Carmarthen MP Gwynfor Evans vowed to ‘fast to the death'. The Government announced its change of mind in October 1980. (John Davies,
A History of Wales
, 1990 (in Welsh), 1993 (English))

1954:
‘I return my contract for Cardiff Castle unsigned. I shall be grateful if you could make out a cheque for the amount you were going to pay me to the fund for St Mary Aldermanbury. I am asking you as a protest against against the disproportion of your television fees. If I take part in that delightful programme
Where On Earth?
there is virtually no rehearsing and I am given a good meal free. Even if I am asked to appear on
Christian Forum
on the Isle of Wight, there is still virtually no rehearsing and I am offered eighteen guineas. Yet I had to make two visits to Cardiff in connection with the televising of the Castle, spend three nights in the city and rehearse almost the whole of Sunday. Between the final rehearsal at 6.15 and the programme at ten o'clock, I was offered not even a cup of tea. Only through the kindness of one of the local officials not appearing in the programme did I get a glass of beer at a club. I feel that the fee for the extra work and specialist knowledge required over Cardiff should be higher. Yours sincerely JB'. (Letter to BBC Television quoted in Candida Lycett-Green (ed.)
John Betjeman Letters 1951-1984
, 1995)

1927:
Floods engulfed Cowbridge Road and the adjacent main line but the trains kept running. Residents of this areas of Ely and Victoria Park had to put up with periodic inundations until the River Ely Flood Prevention Scheme remedied matters. This was not pleasant – the river was polluted with sewage from the industrial valley upstream and was not improved until the opening of treatment works in the 1980s at Miskin and Rhiwsaeson. In 2011 Cardiff Council was developing a cycleway, The Ely Trail, alongside the river. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
/ Wikipedia)

1945:
Cardiff, captained by Jack Matthews, took on New Zealand Services at the Arms Park. Among those watching was Wilf Wooller, only lately returned from a Japanese Prisoner of War camp. Another former Cardiff captain present was CSM Les Spence, both were veterans of the 77
^th
Heavy Artilliery Regiment (
see
September 11th). On the same day the Gunner Club at Artilliery House, 10 Pembroke Terrace (now Churchill Way), was officially opened by Major General D. Paige. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1910:
Aviation pioneer Ernest Thompson Willows made the first night crossing of the English Channel in his airship,
City of Cardiff
. He experienced serious difficulties, not least because his maps were accidentally dropped over the side. The landing at Corbehem near Douai at five o'clock on the morning of the 5th was very tricky. Repairs to the envelope were needed and he was not able to arrive in Paris until December 28th. He celebrated with a New Year's Eve flight around the Eiffel Tower. (T.D. Breverton,
The Welsh Almanac
, Glyndwr Publications, 2002 / Wikipedia)

1986:
The new Lisvane & Thornhill station on the Cardiff to Caerphilly line was opened, replacing the little-used Cefn-Onn Halt, originally provided for local golfers. (Don Gatehouse & Geoff Dowling,
British Railways Past & Present, Vol.27
, 1995)

1999:
Cardiff Bay Barrage was completed, creating a new lake. (
Western Mail
)

1854:
The 1
^st
Battalion of the Welch Regiment were in the thick of the Battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War. A memorial in the north aisle of Llandaff Cathedral commemorates those killed: Lieutenant Colonel George Carpenter, Captain E. Rowlands, Lt J.W. Swaby, Lt A. Taylor, Lt John Stirling (killed carrying the Colours), Assistant Surgeon J. Lamont, Sergeant Major James White, Cpl W. Shaughnessy and Cpl Thomas Jones. Although heavily outnumbered the Allied troops of Britain and France held their ground against the Imperial Russian Army. The memorial, ‘Erected by Past and Present Officers, NCOs and Men as a tribute to the devotion and courage displayed by the Regiment during the War with Russia, 1854-6' also refers to the 731 un-named private soldiers who died in the Crimea Campaign. (Llandaff Cathedral guidebook)

1963:
The meaning of the name of the Cardiff district of Gabalfa (‘place of the boat' in Welsh) became very apt when the area was flooded by the River Taff. (
South Wales Echo
)

1890:
Cab-driver Thomas Davies went before Cardiff Magistrates and successfully claimed £13 11
s
6
d
damages from a fellow cabman whose horse-drawn vehicle had injured Mr Davies's horse in a collision in Bute Street. Seamen on board a ship berthed at Penarth went on strike because the only food they were being offered was putrid salt beef. Coal miners accepted a 2 per cent pay rise offered by the mine-owners but a strike was threatening to close Cardiff Docks. (John O'Sullivan, ‘How Green Was Their Island' in Stewart Williams (ed.),
The Cardiff Book, Vol.2
, 1974)

1953:
The Royal Train was on show for a week at Queen Street station. Among the attractions at the Exhibition was the ‘bedroom' used at various times by Kings Edward VII, George V and George VI. The oldest carriage on show was one built for Queen Adelaide, widow of King William IV, in 1842. Her main claim to fame is that the city of Adelaide in Australia was named after her. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1896:
Final day of a six month-long Fine Art, Industrial and Maritime Exhibition which attracted visitors from all over the country. The Taff Vale Railway built a temporary station for the exhibition site in Cathays Park where the City Hall, Law Courts and Welsh National Museum now stand. As well as the more worthy exhibits there were plenty of side-shows to amuse and entertain. Particularly popular was the ‘African Jungle' which included lions, tigers, crocodiles and alligators. In the evening the exhibition was lit by 10,000 fairy lights. There were concerts by a 500-strong choir and the Santiago Opera. (Brian Lee,
Memory Lane, Cardiff
)