In his book ‘Snapshots of Welsh History without the boring bits’ and on his BBC Wales Blog, Phil Carradice writes about Cardiff entrepreneur, Solomon Andrews. He was a self made man who was, Phil writes, ‘Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire in 1835, Solomon Andrews came to Cardiff equipped with just a wooden tray to sling around his neck and a stack of trinkets and sweets to sell in the street’. By 1856 he was able to lease a shop and began a bakery and confectionery business.

Longfield Trowbridge, early 20th century

Having been born in Trowbridge myself I was naturally interested in the early life of this fellow Trowbridgean. I found him on the 1841 census living in Mortimer Street, in a house built for workers in the local cloth factory in the 1820s. His mother, Charlotte, was a woollen weaver and he had 5 brothers and sisters aged between 1 and 13 years. A look in the Parish registers for the Church of St. James showed that four of the children – James ( 6yrs 7m), Caroline (4yrs 3m), Jacob (2 yrs 3m) and Solomon (3 months) were all baptised on 5 June 1835. This could well indicate that they were non-conformists which the majority of people were at that time (I later found they were Methodists), and had decided to have all their children baptised after the birth of Solomon. The parents were listed as John and Charlotte Andrews; John was a hemp and flax dresser. This was a slightly unusual occupation in Trowbridge at this time as much of the industry was the production of woollen cloth.

Had father John died recently or was he somewhere else? Solomon was in Cardiff in 1851 so had the whole family moved there by 1851? The 1851 census throws up more questions. The family, with father John, but without the 16 yr old Solomon are living in King Street, Carmarthen, and John has changed his trade and become a confectioner with his two eldest sons helping in the business. I could find no trace of Solomon on the 1851 census for England or Wales, but as he set up as a baker and confectioner 5 years later it is interesting that his father and brothers had taken that occupation. On the 1851 census John Andrews is said to have been born in Malmesbury (Malmesbury Abbey parish register states that a John Andrews, son of Thomas & Elizabeth, was baptised 24 May 1807, which would be the right age for our John), while his wife Charlotte was born in Stroud. Where was John in 1841?

Well, there was a John Andrews living in Church Lane, Carmarthen, who was born in 1807 and is described as a baker. Church Lane is off King Street and he was living there with David Richards (60) a bookseller and Elizabeth Jones (60) a laundress. John was said to have been born in the county but the answer to this question is often inaccurate in this early census.  Also living in Carmarthen at that time was a Mark Andrews, born in Wiltshire; the Andrews family were mainly settled in Brinkworth & Malmesbury at this time and must have had a link with Carmarthen, although the Great Western Railway did not reach Carmarthen until 11 October 1852.

At this point I thought I’d better talk to former County Archivist and fellow Trowbridgean, Ken Rogers. Any hope I had of finding something Ken didn’t know about Trowbridge was quickly shattered and he also had a copy of ‘The Story of Solomon Andrews and his Family’. I had found this on the web but the only two available copies were £50 and £94!

The book told me that Solomon was on the 1851 census for Cardiff – his name had been transcribed wrongly, and so I didn’t find him when I searched online. He was in 17 Tredegar Street staying with George and Charlotte Asher, both from Trowbridge and George being a baker and confectioner, and two more Trowbridge people, George Bailey, a baker, and Jane Potter, a servant. Later Solomon is believed to have lodged with Isaac Rutter, another baker from Trowbridge. Why did all these Trowbridge bakers and confectioners end up in the rapidly expanding city of Cardiff? At the moment I don’t know but I’m hoping to find out. We know that many Wiltshire farm workers (some of my own family among them) left the land for the mines and iron foundries of South Wales, but bakers?

Solomon was a tremendous success. He had an eye for the main chance and perceiving a lack of transport between the new residential areas of Canton and Roath with the Docks he obtained a licence to operate a horse drawn cab. He had eight by 1865 and is believed to have been a horse drawn omnibus proprietor by December 1866. He built up a flourishing business in Cardiff and other cities and had successful ventures in grocery stores, undertaking, furniture removing, coffee taverns, green grocery, drapery and clothing, mining and building. In Cardiff he built the Market Buildings in St Mary’s Street and David Evans Department Stores (also in Swansea). In Penarth he built the shopping arcade and many of the grander buildings in Windsor Road. He developed the north Welsh town of Pwllheli, including the Promenade, a public bandstand, a golf course and the West End Hotel.

His first wife was a Trowbridge girl, whom he married at Holy Trinity Church in the town, and Ken told me that in 1875 he bought the house in Trowbridge where it is believed he was born. I think that his mother and father were back living in the house at that time and were running a confectionary business, but by 1881 his father had died and his mother was living with her brother, a widower, in a house next door to the Greyhound in Mortimer Street.

A sentence in a book on Wales led me to this and I’m now intending to research Trowbridge bakers and discover why and how they moved into South Wales from Cardiff to Carmarthen.

Michael Marshman

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