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The Barry Urban District Council, disaster relief funds and civic society, 1913–1934

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2020

Ann-Marie Foster Open the ORCID record for Ann-Marie Foster [Opens in a new window]
Ann-Marie Foster*
Affiliation:
Queen's University Belfast, 25 University Square, Belfast, BT7 1PB, N. Ireland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The early twentieth century witnessed some of the worst mining disasters the UK has ever seen. Towns and cities leapt to the aid of bereaved families, raising tens of thousands of pounds in aid. Yet, while the effects of disaster funds on the locality in which they were administered have been the focus of scholarly work, little attention has been given to how these funds were created in constituencies outside of the disaster zone. The Barry Urban District Council (UDC) responded to the call for help after the Senghenydd (1913) and Gresford (1934) disasters, opening relief funds to aid the affected. The funds blurred the line between charity and local government, with the Barry UDC reliant on functions of civic society to aid its philanthropic turn. Their reaction offers insights into the charitable role of UDCs, reflecting on how they used these opportunities to further civic activity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 685 - 700
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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Footnotes

†

My thanks go to the Society for the Study of Labour History, who provided a grant to cover much of this research, and to James McConnel, Michael Reeve, Rowan Thompson and the reviewers who all took time to read and comment on this piece.

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47 Ibid.

48 GA/BB/C/8/55, internal memo, 3 Oct. 1934.

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51 GA/BB/C/241, poster; committee meeting minutes, 10 Nov. 1913.

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78 GA/BB/8/C/55, sixth and final list of subscriptions.

79 BDN, 31 Oct. 1913, 5.