Mary Murphy and Pontypridd Urban District Council
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swinging in the ’60s To the LIbErals Mary murpHy and pontypridd urban DIsTrict Council At the beginning of the 1960s, the Pontypridd parliamentary constituency in south Wales was dominated by the Labour Party and the coalmining industry, although in some respects it was a disparate cluster of communities from Pontypridd in the north to Llantrisant further south, and including Cowbridge and Bonvilston in the Vale of Glamorgan. Steve Belzak examines the story of how a small group of Liberal activists, led by the redoutable Mary Murphy, set out to challenge Labour’s hegemony. 26 Journal of Liberal History 68 Autumn 2010 swinging in the ’60s To the LIbErals Mary murpHy and pontypridd urban DIsTrict Council n terms of local govern- Liberal support was dropping.3 It twenty of the twenty-seven seats, ment, Pontypridd’s constitu- is true that the 1964 general elec- with just one Liberal (two from ent municipalities made up a tion enabled the party to ‘break 1962 onwards), and a handful of patchwork of different areas, into new ground’ with a share Independents. The Council was including Pontypridd Urban of the poll, at 11.2 per cent, that divided into seven multi-member IDistrict Council, Llantrisant and was double its 1959 level, and nine wards with elections every year Llantwit Fardre Rural District MPs.4 However, the closeness of for a third of its membership for Council, and also parts of Cardiff the result brought with it fresh three-year terms. Rural District Council and Cow- problems, with a national squeeze Liberal membership of the bridge Rural District Council. from the two main parties, and, council in the early 1960s was The constituency came into with the exception of Roxburgh, concentrated in one four-mem- existence in 1918 and was held Selkirk & Peebles, a crop of disap- ber ward, Trallwn, which lies until 1922 by a coalition Lib- pointing by-election results in the between Pontypridd town centre eral, Mr T. A. Lewis, who lost subsequent parliament. and the mining village of Cilfy- it in a by-election to Labour in In Wales, the fortunes of Lib- nydd. It was, and still is, predom- 1922, who have held it ever since. eralism in the 1950s seemed to be inantly comprised of terraced Between 1922 and 1970 it was going in the opposite direction to houses built around the end of contested by the Liberals only at those of Liberalism in England. the nineteenth century, although the 1931 and 1938 by-elections Just as the latter was showing signs some houses on Pontypridd (and in the latter case it was by a of new life, the former suffered Common, on the eastern side of National Liberal), and in the 1931 the catastrophic loss of the Car- the ward, might be considered and 1945 general elections.1 marthen by-election to Labour. home to a wealthier professional However, as David Roberts points group. out, the new tide did, as the 1960s Until 1948 the ward was The Liberal situation in dawned, lap against Wales, with entirely Labour, but one seat was England and Wales at the successes in the local government won by a Liberal, Eddie Williams, dawn of the 1960s elections that year in Cardiff, in a by-election in November The sensational by-election result Neath and Llanelli.5 Neverthe- 1948, and held by him until 1954. at Orpington in 1962 gave an less, as J. Graham Jones notes, the The by-election was caused by the enormous boost to the fortunes Liberal position in Wales in the death of a Labour councillor. The of the Liberal Party.2 However, early 1960s remained ‘precarious’ ward Labour Party nominated a the sort of voters that the Liber- as the party prepared for the com- Mrs Milton, a longstanding mem- als in southern England were ing Westminster election, and ber of the party, to be its candi- appealing to at this stage were ‘ultimately there was no Liberal date, but her nomination was not the sort to be found in the recovery in Wales in 1964.’6 rejected by the constituency party South Wales industrial mining Cllr Mary Murphy because, at sixty-five years of age, communities. The latter were, in as Mayor of she was considered too old.7 The the main, the kind of working- Pontypridd Urban District Pontypridd in campaign of Eddie Williams, class voters who lived in terraced Council (PUDC) the mid 1960s a deacon and treasurer of a local houses and tended to vote Labour At the beginning of the 1960s, (photo by kind chapel, seized on this in a hard- at parliamentary elections. In any the council was overwhelm- permission of fought campaign in which he was event, Cook argues that the 1963 ingly dominated by the Labour Rhondda Cynon described as ‘a firm friend of the local election results showed that Party, which held more than Taf Libraries) old age pensioners, whose fight he Journal of Liberal History 68 Autumn 2010 27 swinging in the ’60s To the libErals: mAry murpHy and pontypridd urban disTrict Council supports.’8 Williams won against Mary Edwards, later to become between the official Labour can- the Labour candidate by 1,381 Mary Murphy, was a Pontypridd didate and an Independent Labour votes to 986 in what was described woman, the daughter of Mr candidate. Although the official as ‘one of the heaviest polls known Richard Edwards and Mrs Annie Labour nominee was returned in a by-election.9 It was a cam- Edwards of Taff Villa, Berw comfortably by 1,682 votes to 754, paign which had seen both the Road. She attended Pontypridd the result was described by the local Labour MP and the Labour Girls’ Grammar School and Ban- local press as a ‘jolt for Labour.’20 MP for Hartlepool (whose home gor Teacher Training College At least the Labour candidate in was in the ward) out canvassing, where she studied physical educa- the October 1964 general election but to no avail. Councillor Wil- tion. A fluent Welsh speaker, she was not returned unopposed, but liams’ agent described the result as was a member of Sardis Congre- his competition was provided by a conclusive proof ‘that the Trallwn gational Church, Pontypridd, Conservative only – there was no ward is Liberal’, while the Labour and returned to her native town, Liberal challenger. agent branded it as a victory for teaching first at Mill Street Sec- The 1965 round of elections ‘the combined forces of Liberals ondary School and then at Ysgol was to produce no real advance. and Tories in the ward.’10 Eddie Uwchradd, Rhydyfelin. She also After the elections there were Williams served as a councillor travelled widely, lived for a year twenty-three Labour councillors, for five and a half years until he in the United States and visited, two Liberals in the Trallwn ward, unexpectedly lost his seat in 1954 among other places, the Soviet and two Independents in the Tre- in what was described by the local Union (in 1958) although she told forest ward. Pontypridd was, in newspaper as a ‘sensational elec- the Pontypridd Observer that it was the words of the local newspaper, tion result.’11 Israel that impressed her most.16 ‘a Labour citadel.’21 The ward was then bereft of In the May 1963 elections, Liberal representation until 1960 Cyril Morgan failed by a con- when another Liberal, W. L Sim- siderable margin to win a seat in On the attack mons, defeated a Labour candi- Rhydyfelin, but Mary Edwards An interesting change appears date.12 Simmons was joined two won her seat in Trallwn by 1,183 to have taken place between the years later by Reg Price, and when votes to Labour’s 846.17 Labour early and mid-1960s in respect of Simmons announced that he was also gained a seat from the Inde- press coverage of PUDC meet- resigning from the council in pendents that year, two of whom ings. Reports in the earlier period early 1963, because he had moved had represented the Town ward. had all the quality of the old Soviet to Bideford, Price expressed his Liberal activity in the local Weekly. No doubt this was due not deep regrets. Within a fortnight, press began to pick up, with arti- to the local press currying favour the local Liberal Association, cles and letters on issues such as ‘The tragedy with the Labour administration, meeting in Pontypridd YMCA, how the Liberals would run the but because of the general lack of had decided to adopt two new town’s buses, and the party’s pol- of pon- opposition within the council. candidates – ‘two prominent local icy on housing. In April 1964, it typridd is The new style of Liberal oppo- residents’, in the words of the local was announced that, for the first sition was exemplified by the newspaper – for the May elec- time in many years, the Liberals that it is in Liberal attack on the all-Labour tions: Mr Cyril Morgan for Rhy- would contest the Town ward, composition of the Pontypridd dyfelin, and Miss Mary Edwards the candidate being a fifty-six the grip of Burial Board. They argued that for the vacant Trallwn seat.13 year old who had been a Liberal not all members of the Board were Mr Morgan explained his out- member since the age of eight- a monopoly entitled to be on it since they were look: ‘The tragedy of Pontypridd een.18 In the event, Labour won not ratepayers, as laid down by the is that it is in the grip of a monop- in the Town ward, unseating factor in the Pontypridd Burial Board Act of oly factor in the guise of the the remaining Independent, and 1892.