The Making of a New ‘Welsh Metropolis’: Science, Leisure and Industry in Early Nineteenth‐Century Swansea

Abstract

This article provides a case study of the role of an urban institution in enhancing town status and identity in the first half of the nineteenth century. During this period, Swansea's scientific institution played a key part in establishing the reputation of the town both within Wales and beyond, as an important commercial and cultural centre, rivalling Bristol's well-established sphere of influence in south Wales by the middle of the nineteenth century. The Swansea example demonstrates that, even in a relatively small town, a successful urban institution could help enhance urban status and extend regional influence. This is of particular significance in the Welsh context given the smaller demographic size of the principal Welsh towns compared to those in England and Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century. In focusing on the role of an urban institution it also highlights an important area of common experience between Welsh patterns of urbanization and those elsewhere in Britain, where civic and cultural institutions were also to the fore in promoting urban identity.

Review of periodical literature published in 2003

“…The inclusiveness of scientific culture is also illustrated in Pacey’s brief biography of Joseph Dawson, Nonconformist minister turned Yorkshire iron master, who, from the 1790s, discussed the chemistry of iron making with fellow manufacturers and amassed a geological collection via an international network of scientists and Moravians. The success of Swansea's Science Institution (1835) in shaping ‘civic identity’, Miskell shows, reflected an inclusive appeal to ‘the middle and upper social ranks’ and its bringing together of Swansea's resort and leisure facilities, its distinguished resident scientists, and its science‐oriented, metalliferous manufacturers. Scottish intellectual life was more combative.…”