Swansea

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

a seaport of Glamorganshire, South Wales, on the banks and at the mouth of the Tawe river, 45 miles W. N. W. of Cardiff and 216 W. of London. A municipal, parliamentary, and also (since 1888) county borough, it is the most important town in South Wales. Its rapid progress depends on the manufacture of tin plate here and in the neighborhood; on its harbor and docks which afford every convenience for the largest vessels and steamships afloat; and on its geographical position, on a bay affording a spacious, sheltered, and safe anchorage, several hours nearer the open sea than any other port of comparable size in the Bristol Channel. The Harbor Trust of Swansea, with a capital of $7,500,000 and an income of upward of $500,000 per annum, possesses docks constructed since 1847 covering an area of over 60 acres. There is annually manufactured in Swansea and the immediate neighborhood upward of two-thirds of the tin plates manufactured in Great Britain, representing a value of upward of $25,- 000,000. There is still a large direct export trade to the United States in tin and (the inferior) terne plates, though this branch of trade was much injured by the tariff legislation of 1890. The chief imports are copper, silver, lead, tin, and nickel, with their ores and alloys, iron and steel in various forms, iron ore, zinc, sulphur, phosphates, flour, grain, esparto, timber bricks, etc. The chief exports are tin, terne, and black plates, coal and coke, copper, zinc, and their ores, iron and steel, alkali, superphosphate, arsenic, etc. The charter dates from the days of King John and Henry III., renewed by subsequent sovereigns. The castle, of which a tower still remains, was founded in 1099 by the Earl of Warwick, but in the reign of Edward IV. passed by marriage from the Herberts to the Somerset family, and is still the property of the Dukes of Beaufort. The grammar school dates from 1682. Pop. (1919) 160,810.