The Life And Times Of Mr J C Meggitt – Part 2
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MR J C MEGGITT – Part 2
In Part I, we learned how the 28 year old John Claxton Meggitt came from Wolverhampton and established a thriving timber supply business in Barry. Initially this was to supply the timber needed for “false works” in the construction of the Barry Dock and Railway, and subsequently for the construction of the “boom town” that naturally ensued. They also engaged in the business of supplying pit props to the coal mines.
With his brother-in-law, his business became Meggitt and Jones, then subsequently Meggitt and Price. Meggitt was not only a successful business man, but he became very active in both his adopted community and nationally in many spheres of public life. Here are some of those activities:
- Bristol Channel Timber Importers Association – President
- Public Administration – Alderman, Glamorgan County Council
- Barry Local Health Board – Member
- Barry Urban District Council (Successor to the above) – Its first Chairman
- Windsor Road Congregational Church, Barry – one of the founders and Superintendent of the Sunday School. Nationally, he was Chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in the late 1920s
In addition, together with his wife, he provided Barry’s first hospital, and if all of the above were not enough he was a Justice of the Peace for the County of Glamorgan for nearly 40 years!
As we have read in previous articles, J C Meggitt became quite wealthy from his involvement in the timber trade. At the age of 70 in 1928, he handed over day-to-day control of the company and set about travelling the world for the next decade. We are fortunate in having detailed accounts of his several voyages. He wrote these as a series of letters to the Western Mail which were subsequently published in booklet format. In these he records how he travelled by sea and rail (on the Tran Siberia railway) to visit and record his impressions of some 35 counties. In the 1931 volume he mentions that his travelling companion was Sir T P Thomas, in the other volumes no companion is mentioned.
Copies of these booklets were presented by Sue Culbertson to the Barry Library and are presently being digitized for posterity on the “Peoples’ Collection Wales” website. Ms Culbertson’s great aunt Doris Gooding (her maternal grandmother’s sister) was head housekeeper to the Meggitt family.
The octavo booklets are as follows:
- “Impressions of a World Tour” – December 1930 to April 1931”
- “Japan, Across Siberia, Russia and Germany” – 1935 (including impressions along the way of Yugoslavia; Suez Canal; Aden; Singapore, Ceylon; China and Hong Kong”.
- “South America (Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina), “Robinson Crusoe” Island (ie Juan Fernández Island), West Indies” – 1938”.
- “South America, South Africa and the West Coast of Africa”– January to March 1939”.
As well as the “touristy” aspects of what he witnessed, being a businessman at heart, he delved deeply into, and commented on the commercial and political environs where he was to stay for any length of time. Thus, these booklets are full of insights into the local economy and the lives of the local populations.
I cannot hope to do any sort of justice to the overall scope of the content of the many places he visited, instead I will provide a few of examples of the topics he covered in depth to give you an insight.
In Australia and New Zealand (1931) he pondered on whether British car manufacturers should produce vehicles better suited to local conditions, and drunkenness and the control of drinking establishments.
In Cape Town (February 1939) he wondered whether the former German Colony of South West Africa should be returned to Germany (No, because of the abysmal treatment they had previously meted out to the indigenous population)
From Valparaiso in Chile (1938) he took an excursion of some 345miles to the Juan Fernandez Islands. It was here from 1704 to 1709 that the Scottish seaman Alexander Selkirk voluntarily exiled himself. Based on the experiences he narrated to Daniel Defoe the novel “Robinson Crusoe” was written in 1719.
The pictures were taken in Chile: at a fox farm and a local mode of transport.
This series will continue with further notes about South America and his impressions of China, Japan, the Tran Siberia railway, Poland and Germany in the mid 1930s together with events surrounding his 90th birthday in 1947.
Tony Hodge