Williams Family Tree

 

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Sun, 3 May, 17:16 (20 hours ago)
to Emrys, Margaret

Hi Emrys

Thanks for this. I have attached a jpg of 2 freebees produced for the firm of J & I Williams for distribution in 1926/7. These are approximately 20cm by 9cm. As you can see there was a version for Jewish customers and a Christian version. Both have pink blotting paper on the back so would have been a useful desk accessory in 1927.

To go with them a bit of narrative about the partners based on a page of draft CV which escaped the destruction of Ivor’s papers by Vera on his death and conversations which I heard or took part in at various times.

JTW was secretary of the Methodist Chapel before moving to London. Ivor found hilarious that a man who had once preached against the “demon drink” and told his congregation that people who smoked “should have chimneys mounted on their heads” finished his days as a chain smoker who could get through 60 cigarettes and a bottle of whisky in a day. I suspect that the others members of the family were not so amused.

According to Ivor JTW had an office in the Leysian Mission building by the Old Street roundabout at one time. I would assume this was because of his Methodist connections. He also said JTW worked on renovations of buildings in the Threadneedle street area of London including the offices of major financial institutions and the Royal Exchange.

JTW seems to have been inclined to take his children to Wales and park them with various relatives. May talked about being left in Ystrydfellte and Ivor said he was also taken to Wales and left with someone. However JTW came back a few weeks later and took Ivor back to London. Ivor thought this was because the London school board had hassled JTW about removing a child from one of their schools.

During WW1 Ivor was living in Cefn, working first as a delivery boy for the local fishmonger (Ivor claimed he handled the first frozen fish sold in Wales ) and then as a miner’s boy

A few years later, in the interwar period, Haydn was also a miner’s boy . Haydn said to me “I didn’t see why I should be an office boy for five shillings a week when I could be a miner’s boy for seventeen and six” (For comparisonö at that time Ivor was paying time-served tradesmen 2 pounds 10 shillings a week.) However the Welsh mines were dangerous places . At the time miners were not paid by the hour but by the weight of large coal they cut, so they had boys to load their wagons and take the coal to the pit head to be weighed. Ivor said the most important thing for a boy was to stick close to his pony and run with it if it bolted for the ponies always knew when the roof was about to fall.

Later in WW1 Ivor went to the Ford Aerodrome to assist JTW. JTW had got the job of roofing the first hangars built there for the RAF. JTW was skilled in a technique which permitted the construction of a wide span roof using short timbers. The government had requisitioned a workshop for JTW. Ivor remembered it as the best fitted workshop he ever saw and said the owner cried when he and JTW came to take it over . Ivor continued to work for W C Chivers Ltd at the airfield until 1919 when he went to work with JTW in London.

JTW did not organise a formal apprenticeship for Ivor. Ivor wrote “I was not in service under indenture” however he did eventually make him a partner. They seem to have been quite progressive as they were describing themselves as ‘electrical engineers ‘ at a time when the national grid had only just been set up. Around 1924 they bought their first petrol driven vehicle, a 2 cylinder Swift chassis for which Ivor commissioned a coach built lorry body.

However it seems the firm ran out of money in 1929. Vera commented “you can’t run a successful business when one of the partners is drinking a bottle of whisky a day”. I don’t know if there was an official filing for bankruptcy. I think Ivor tried to find new partners. In the 1960’s I heard him talking with his brother Haydn about how Ove Arup had developed his firm in the 1930’s. Haydn asked Ivor “Could we have done the same if we had gone in with you?” and Ivor replied “You can’t tell.” I don’t know who was included in the “we” used by Haydn in this question.

For the next 10 years Ivor had jobs with various building firms and supplemented the family income with other ventures including selling Pomeranian puppies and hiring out self drive cars in partnership with Aneurin. They often worked late into the night repairing cars. Aneurin had a day job driving a petrol tanker and they used to siphon petrol from the tanker lock to fuel these cars ready for hire.

In 1940 Ivor went into local government working first as a surveyor for Popular Borough Council and then as a Clerk of Works first for Middlesex County Council and later for the Corporation of the City of London. In this final capacity he assisted the then Lord Mayor with the laying of the foundation stone of the City of London school for Girls –the last major project Ivor supervised.

JTW can’t have been an easy man to work with , even when sober. Ivor talked about the way he organised teams of men to carry large marble columns to the place where they would be erected (they didn’t dare ask to put the column down) and how he saw JTW sack a joiner on the spot because he had cut mitres that weren’t absolutely perfect. However when Ivor spoke of JTW it was always with affection and respect for his skills. JTW was skilled as a carpenter and joiner and also in drawing. Ivor said he could look at an ornate plaster cornice metres above their heads and draw the profile. Then, when they put up a scaffold to get to the cornice Ivor would find the profile exactly matched the drawing. Ivor Fielder also commented that JTW was an impressive cabinet maker who produced exquisite furniture

Vera said all Ivor’s Welsh connections were such strict tea totallers that the cousins who came to her wedding with Ivor couldn’t recognise red wine when it was served to them. One of the ladies asked Vera “What was that ink they gave us to drink?”. So I can well imagine that it was the whisky that lead to the breakdown of the relationship of JTW and Annie Watkins.

Hope some of this is of interest to you or Margaret

Delwen