The Life of Amy Dillwyn through Archival Sources

The World's First Female Industrialist

Amy Dillwyn's correspondence, page 1, 12th August 1897. DC6/3/2. Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

Dillwyn & Co. History

Dillwyn & Co. originally started out in 1764 as Swansea Pottery, later called Cambrian pottery. Amy’s great-grandfather became a partner in the company in 1802, and they turned their focus to silver and zinc. By the 1880s the spelter works were one of the top four speltering companies across the globe. In 1853 Amy’s father established the site at Llansamlet with three furnaces, two calciners, a smelter and a slag dump.

Amy Dillwyn's diary entry, page 73, 19th December 1888. DC6/1/7. Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

Amy's Early Life

Amy’s industry-related experiences are snippets of her everyday life as an upper-class young adult, she recalls doing  bank accounts In the above diary entry Amy records her day with an indifferent tone. She very casually writes about non-specific ‘farming business’, doing algebra, reading in Spanish, German, and French, and preparing for the next working day. These are all activities that would have helped in her future at Dillwyn & Co. Amy acted as the family’s home farm Hendrefoilan as the bailiff for thirteen years. She believes her busy life is what is improving her various ailments which she calls her ‘great trouble'.

Amy’s public writing shows her limited knowledge of the gruesome reality of industry at the time, Therefore, the mentions are often inoffensive, instead used as plot devices. In her novel Jill and Jack she describes a character falling into a quarry with ‘the sound of a great rush of stones and earth falling down from a height’. Instead of details and real-life emotional consequences, it is quickly followed by the antagonist moving on to the discovery inside the quarry. Amy’s industrial life leads to a decline in her diary entries and complete absence of any further published novels, this may be due to her new closeness to the subject matter or simply be due to her demanding workdays.

Initial Struggles

On the death of her father in 1892 Amy realised that his debt to the bank impacted her as his ‘residuary legalee’. At the age of 47 Amy is forced to reinvent herself as an industrialist. To try and recover the spelter works back from bankruptcy, Amy is budgeting and living on ‘four-pence a day’. In 1902 she finally moved into her own property, a small and cheap home that she calls a ‘doll’s house’ at Tŷ Glyn, West Cross. While proud of sleeping in her own home since her father’s death, she calls it ‘a temporary abode’, however Amy lives the rest of her life in this house.

Amy Dillwyn's diary inner cover illustration. DC6/1/10. Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

Throughout this journey of recovery Amy’s concern is mostly for her workers, an ever-present topic in her industrial life. A more subtle hint at this is an illustration of the Mumbles horse-drawn transport that would have passed her on her way to the spelter works’ Cambrian Place offices each day. The advertisement for ‘Bryant Matches’ seems incompatible with the timeline of the railway, so this illustration is likely a critique of the infamous company that was – at the time of this particular diary – in the papers for their workers dying from phosphorous poisoning.

When Amy was struggling, it is evident in her diaries, her handwriting becomes inconsistent, the ink becomes smudged, and – in extreme cases – she destroys and burns her diaries and correspondence. Otherwise, her struggles are absent completely from her diaries – after her father dies her entries become irregular, separated by years. The example below is a letter to her sister Minnie, the content is distressing, they are concerned about their sister Essie’s posthumous legal documents. Mentally Amy expresses her loneliness as her family members seem to die off one after another.

Amy's Successes

Despite her struggles, Amy found pride in her hard work and showed off the spelter works to her friends. By 1896 she purchased her own Estate, officially became Dillwyn & Co., and joined the confraternity of Swansea Traders. The Llansamlet manager, Mr. Corfield, had acted as a guiding hand after Amy’s father had died, in 1898 she made him the fourth shareholder. This same year she sells the Drammen mine in former Jarlsberg, Norway. Only a year later in 1899, Amy had paid off all the remaining creditors on her father’s Estate, the deeds now being hers.

Amy Dillwyn's correspondence, page 1, 19th July 1896. DC6/3/2. Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

Amy Dillwyn's scrapbook, Daily Leader, 26th June 1906. DC6/4/1. Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

Amy’s industriousness has made her a local celebrity at the turn of the century, the Pall Mall Gazette shows pride in her ‘remarkable’ presence in Swansea. Her work ethic is displayed in the Western Mail as they explain how she walks from West Cross to Cambrian Place each day. It is clear Amy enjoys this fame as she keeps these articles in her scrapbook, and she – as she should – takes advantage of the opportunities provided to her by advertising her own political opinions. The illustration on the right was taken from an article from the Daily Leader impressed by Amy's capabilities discusses how the economy was always 'on the brain', and her financial budgeting and prowess turning Dillwyn & Co. around certainly proves it.

She converts Dillwyn & Co. into a Limited Company, and her nephew Rhys has taken up the Dillwyn name to continue the family line. Rhys is made Director of the company and accompanies Amy on her visit to Algeria for calamine ore. They visited the Portes de Fer mines in 1905 and needed an engineer to report 3000 tonnes of ore ‘in sight’.

Sale of Dillwyn & Co.

Dillwyn & Co. had been competing for ore since the discovery of an ore deposit in Broken Hill, Australia in 1888. They were no longer in as secure a position as they had been on an international level. An unexpected offer from a metal company from Frankfurt am Main in late 1905 made Amy consider the future of her workers. While she wanted to uphold the connection of her family to Swansea’s trade, Amy had 200 to 300 men ‘dependent upon her for signing the weekly wage-sheet’.

Ultimately Amy resigned as Director of Dillwyn & Co., she wrote that she ‘felt bound to look first at the interests of the company before considering my own inclinations’. Amy continues to act as a minor shareholder, and the Llansamlet site continues to function for another 11 years until 1926. The parent company has been absorbed and does still exist under GEA Group AG in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Amy Dillwyn's Will and Testament, page 1, 15th November 1932. DC6/4/2. Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

Legacy

By the end of her life in 1935, Amy had amassed £114,513 7s9d (over £5.8 million today) and she split her Estate between her nieces and nephews, friends and servants. Rhys, her nephew, was her ‘sole Executor’. She joined her brother, mother, and father in the family burial plot, pictured right.

Her family as a whole made a massive impact locally, and anyone would recognise the Dillwyn name on various street signs around Swansea, as well as other family branch names Mansel, Nicholl, and De La Beche. Amy herself inspired the establishment of The Amy Dillwyn Society that has set up two blue plaques in her memory. One on the site of her old home Tŷ Glyn, and a more detailed one opposite in her memorial garden.

Image of a family grave at St. Peter's and Paul's Church, Sketty, (2024) Eva Barker's photograph.

References

      Kirsti Bohata, 'Pioneers and Radicals: The Dillwyn Family's Transatlantic Tradition of Dissent and Innovation', Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (pp. 47-63)

      Kirsti Bohata and Alexandra Jones, 'Welsh Women's Industrial Fiction 1880-1910', in Women's Writing from Wales before 1914, ed. by Jane Aaron, (Online edn: Routledge, 2020) pp. 111-127.

      Amy Dillwyn, Jill and Jack, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1887)

      David Painting, Amy Dillwyn, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013)

      DC6/1/7, (1872-1917) Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.

            ⸺ DC6/3/2, (1883-97)

            ⸺ DC6/1/10, (1892-93)

            ⸺ DC6/1/11, (1893-96)

            ⸺ DC6/4/1, (1901-11)

            ⸺ DC6/1/12, (1902-05)

            ⸺ DC6/4/2, (1932-81)

by Eva Barker