Immigration from north to south

[Daltonator86]

Hi there!
Following on from the thread I put up querying about immigration from other parts of Europe to the South Wales Coalfield during the late 19th Century, I was curious about the situation within Wales itself. North and South Wales are still rather disconnected from one another in many ways (it doesn't help there is a harsh series of mountains between Denbigh and Swansea. The dialects within North and South Wales are very different as well, and whilst there was also mining in the north, it was nowhere near as extensive and the minerals were slate, rather than coal. With that said, were there many examples of North Walians moving down en masse into Glamorganshire during the boom period (1880-1910)?

[jrainbrim]

A 3x grt grandfather of mine was a stone mason and moved from Merionithshire to Breconshire to work on new Bridges during the late 1800s.

[Mabel Bagshawe]

Yes certainly there was migration north to south, particularly when there were slumps or industrial strife in the slate industries, agriculture etc. The geography wasn't a major issue once the main railways were built.

My grandfather moved from North Wales to Newcastle Emlyn and then Swansea after WWI - he's not a great example as he was a bank clerk rather than a manual worker. I was talking to someone else whose family came from the same village and they spent some time in the South Wales coalfields at the start of the last century in order to work during a long running shut out at the local quarry

[Sam Swift]

During downturns in the slate industries in the 1900's and the strike at Penrhyn, workers did migrate. Some went to America for example from the Dorothea Quarries in Talysarn and from Blaenau Ffestiniog area. Some moved to quarries further south in the Aberllefeni area, before joining those who had already started the move south in the 1890's. The 1911 Census will give you an idea, with men from the same North Wales villages lodging with south Walian families. However in the 1921 coal strikes, those who had settled in South Wales moved back North to their families.

There was also quite a lot of movement within the South Wales coal fields when strikes ocurred or seams were no longer viable etc;  so generally until after WW1 there would have been no shortage of work. Language was not an issue and generally pits had their own Welsh terms.

[nestagj]

There was much to-ing and fro-ing between Morth and South Wales in my opinion.   My maternal ancestors failed from the Ffestiniog area… my grandparents one from Ffestiniog and the other from Garndolbenmaen met and married in the South .. he had moved there just before the 1st War and her family had moved there in the late 1890s as I followed the family through the censuses they were either in Ffestiniog or the Tonypandy area moving back and to .   Sone of my grandmothers sisters stayed in the South others moved up to the North as did my great grandmother’s siblings …. I foubd the best way to track these occurrences was to literally scroll through the census’ pages of 1900 / 1901 / 1911 looking at birthplaces.      If the parents weren’t moving the children were.   My mother’s older siblings were moved back and to from Clydach Vale to Ffestiniog (and Bala) and back again when tines were hard .   They all eventually moved back with the younger children around 1935 when there was no work and my great grandfather became ill.
fascinating