Shipyards, Scandal and Pigstyes
SHIPYARDS, SCANDAL AND PIGSTYES CHANGING Chepstow in the first world waR THE CHEPSTOW SOCIETY Chepstow High Street before the First World War At the start of the Great War in Works, beside the river, where several 1914, Chepstow was a small hundred people worked. Edward Finch, an iron merchant from Liverpool, had market town of some 3,000 established the yard in 1849 to build people. Brunel’s innovative Tubular Bridge, taking the railway across the Wye. It had been an important port before and during the Napoleonic Wars - but, a The works continued making dock gates, century later, it was best known for its masts, bridges, piers and other castle, for its salmon, and as a crossing structures, and, after Finch’s death in point between Gloucestershire and 1873, also built small tugs and barges. south Wales. Boats ran to Bristol on market days, and there were excursions In 1911, Tom Valentine Ellis – the son of by rail, boat and, increasingly, char-a- one of the founding staff of the yard – banc, up the Wye valley. became its managing director. By far the largest local employer was After war was declared in August 1914, Finch’s engineering yard, the Bridge the town responded to the call to arms. Many men joined up – and there were Another early impact of the war on the local issues to be addressed. town was the influx of refugees from Belgium. By October 1914, thousands of Within a week, a town meeting agreed Belgian refugee committees were set up to set up a convalescent hospital in nationally, and many men joined up to Chepstow, where less seriously injured help liberate “plucky Belgium” from its combatants could return to convalesce.
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