The Growth of Wrexham
Wrexham - the big town story
Jonathon Gammond of WrexhamMuseum describes the development of the town over the last 200 years: Wrexham - the big story Pictures courtesy of WrexhamCountyBoroughMuseum Collection
In 1800 Wrexham was 'a decayed genteel town' of under 3000 people. By 1900 it was 'an improved and improving commercial centre' of over 15,000 people. It was a century of change and the old ways were under pressure.
Wrexham faced many problems: poverty, appalling sanitation, crime and muddy, uneven streets. The Manorial Courts and the Parish Churchwarden struggled on, but they did not have the power or the means to tackle these problems.
The final straw was the threat of cholera in 1849. The town petitioned for a Charter of Incorporation - to create a Borough Council. There was much debate. Opponents said it would cost the town dear. In September 1857 Wrexham was granted Borough status.
The 646 burgesses, people with the right to vote, chose 12 councillors. There were two parties: the Whites (Liberals) and the Reds (Tories). The Councillors then chose four aldermen (councillors for life). At last, someone was responsible for all Wrexham - there was a lot of work to do.
Wrexham in 1833 - a town of 5,500 people. To the north the town reached only as far as Llwyn Isaf, to the east as far the Beast Market (now St George's Crescent) and to the west as far as King Street. Below the Parish Church of St Giles, the town's industries hugged the River Gwenfro. The town ended at Pentrefelin and Pen y Bryn, while Mount Street and Salop Street gave way to farmland and Eagles Meadow.
Wrexham's growing population and the rising expectations of its residents led the town to expand. Housing varied. Villas for the professionals along Grosvenor Road and in GrovePark. Cramped courtyard developments along Brook Street or the better terraced housing in Newtown off Bradley Road for working people.
The respected town planner, Patrick Abercrombie, was asked to plan Wrexham's growth in 1918. Garden Village, ActonPark, Spring Lodge and, later in the 1950s, Queen's Park were the cutting edge response to the housing needs of 20th century Wrexham. Development continues but without the idealism of postwar years.
Wrexham - a town situated where the Welsh hills meet the Cheshire plains - built its prosperity on trade. Wrexham's March Fair at the Beast Market was the climax of the business year. Eventually some traders built their own market halls in the town. Manchester traders sold textiles in Manchester Square and Birmingham traders sold hardware in Birmingham Square, both off Henblas Street, while the Yorkshire dealers operated from a square near Tuttle Street.
The railways heralded the end of the fairs and the arrival of the shopkeeper, who was able to sell the former travelling traders' goods throughout the year. New shops and businesses opened to cater to those people grown rich on industry and also the expanding mining village communities nearby.
The markets gained new life with the Butchers' Market (built 1848), the Butter Market (1879) and the Vegetable Market (1910 & 1927). In the 19th century the shoppers of Wrexham wanted the latest shops. They still do today and the town centre keeps changing as a consequence.
Norden's Survey 1620: "Upon Mundays and Thursdays, marketts are kept within the towne of Wrexham, and that there are three ffayers kept in the town yerely, viz: upon the Xiith of Marche, fifthe of June and the VIIIth of September"
Blacksmiths and wire workers; braziers and tin plate workers; tanners and skinners; curriers and leather sellers - all had workshops in Wrexham where they were close to their supplies and their markets. During the 19th century the successful workshops became great factories. Powell Bros & Whitaker's Cambrian Iron Works near the railway station produced farm machinery and engines, munitions during the First World War, and later motorbikes. The Cambrian Leather Works, off Salop Road, and Hugh Price & Co's Leather Works, off Bridge Street, and later Pentrefelin, continued the tanneries' link to the River Gwenfro.
Other cottage industries fared worse. The textile workers left behind only the name Tenters Square, off Pen y Bryn, near Tenters Field where once they stretched their woollen and linen cloths.
Wrexham valued its industries. The 1876 Wrexham Art & Industry Exhibition held on land between Hope Street and Rhosddu Road revealed the town's ambition to be one of the great industrial centres of the British Empire. The conversion after the Second World War of the Royal Ordnance Factory at Marchwiel into Wrexham Industrial Estate has ensured that Wrexham remains a trading and industrial centre up to the present day.
Entertainment
Religious disapproval rarely dampened the locals' love of entertainment. The March Fair was a highlight in the year and on Dydd Llun Pawb (Everyone's Monday) the streets were packed and the Beast Market crowded with fairground shows. Cockfighting and bull baiting were still in fashion at the start of the 19th century, but Wrexham's tastes were changing.
In 1818 Thomas Penson built the town's first theatre near the Beast Market. George Stanton, the manager, attracted the finest travelling companies and unfortunately rowdy audiences too. Demand for entertainment grew and in 1873 the Public Hall opened on Henblas Street as the venue for variety shows. The Glynn off Lambpit Street opened in 1910 as the town's first cinema. The Hippodrome though showed the first 'talkie' in 1926.
Wrexham people also made their own entertainment. Ross and Constance Wallis and Walter Roberts organised shows and pantomimes that kept the town laughing during the first four decades of the 20th Century. They did not just raise a laugh but also thousands of pounds for local charities. Elsewhere local amateurs formed the Grove Park Little Theatre. The Joy Centre on Willow Road, and dances at the Bodhyfryd Hut, Church House and the Miners' Institute also provided many happy memories.
Improving the health of Wrexham's residents in the 19th Century was the town's greatest challenge. Open drains, stinking middens and belching gas plants were all hazards to health. The Inspector from the Board of Health in 1849 stated "...the cesspools and the cottage pigstyes are among the chief evils of Wrexham."
George Cunliffe, the vicar of Wrexham, and his Sanitary Committee campaigned for change. From the 1860s the Corporation and the Wrexham Water Co. brought clean water and proper sewerage to the town. As a result the town's death rate was halved by 1900.
In 1833 Thomas Taylor Griffiths, physician and philanthropist, opened Wrexham's first dispensary on Yorke Street. Fundraising soon started for a purpose-built hospital. The Wrexham Infirmary, now the ArtCollege, opened in 1839. A combination of working men's subscriptions, wealthy patrons and charity events paid for an operating theatre in 1862 and a fever ward in 1866.
In 1918 the people of Wrexham decided to commemorate those killed in the First World War by building the Wrexham & EastDenbighshireWarMemorialHospital, now YaleCollege. Their fundraising tradition continues to this day.
In 1841 the town celebrated the fourth Sir Watkin Williams Wynn's coming of age for three whole days with a procession through the town and a great feast laid on in the High Street. However, the feudal era was coming to an end. The new Corporation shifted power to Wrexham's businessmen and professionals. They built their new villas, while the gentry struggled with the cost and inconvenience of their country houses: the Cunliffes left Acton Hall in 1905, Wynnstay was sold off in 1947 and Philip Yorke gave a run-down Erddig Hall to the National Trust in 1973.
The 1851 census provides a glimpse into the gap between rich and poor. Twelve housemaids, a butler and under butler, footman, ostler and errand boy attended to the needs of the Cunliffes at Acton Hall. On the other side of town by the Beast Market, Robert Roberts and his family shared their home with four other married couples, six bachelors and a family of Irish hawkers. Near Croesnewydd, the poorest endured the meanness of the Workhouse and its meagre charity. Hardly two miles between the three, connected economically yet worlds apart.
Wrexham was a well connected town: mail coaches went to London daily, while the Shrewsbury-Chester shuttle stopped here every lunchtime. Stagecoaches operated from the Feathers Inn and later from the Wynnstay Arms.
The arrival of the Shrewsbury and Chester railway in the 1840s ended Wrexham's reliance on the turnpike toll roads. The railways soon expanded their services: the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay lines headed northwards from 1866 and the Wrexham - Ellesmere line opened up the south in 1895 which took over from the Llangollen Canal, originally called the EllesmereCanal.
Local transport picked up speed: horse trams connected the people of Rhos and Johnstown to Wrexham in 1876. In 1903, the horses were put out to grass as the electric trams of the Wrexham and District Electric Tramway Company connected the mining villages with Wrexham General railway station and the town centre. In 1927 the buses symbolised locally by the Crosville Motor Services Company took over.
In 1950 Wrexham became a stop on the world's first scheduled helicopter passenger service. Demand for the service between Liverpool and Cardiff was low and flights ceased in 1951.
Since the 1960s, the car has dominated. The building of the A483 Wrexham bypass has made Wrexham as well connected as it ever was in the past, and has ensured its trading tradition can continue.
Wrexham was known for its beer from medieval times. The town had good underground water supplies and good water meant good beer. In the 19th century brewers and breweries dominated Wrexham. By the 1860s there were 19 breweries in the town. The brewers held positions of power; two of them, Thomas Rowland and Peter Walker, even fell out over who should be Mayor.
The breweries were in the centre of the town, along the River Gwenfro. The most famous was the Wrexham Lager Brewery. Founded in 1882, it was Britain's first successful lager brewery. A group of German immigrants started the brewery and Robert Graesser made its lager beer famous throughout the world.
Further downstream was Soames's Brewery. In Alfred Barnard's 1892 tour of British breweries, Soames's is singled out as making the best beer in Wrexham.
The 20th century was hard on Wrexham's breweries. During the Great Depression, Soames's Brewery had to merge with two local rivals forming Border Breweries to survive. Changing tastes and rationalisation led to the closure of Border Breweries in 1984 and Wrexham Lager Brewery in 2000.
