The development of Aberavon 1835 to 1921.

1835. Aberavon and District 
Aberavon or Aberafon, is a small village in the parish of its name in the hundred of Neath,and County of Glamorgan,situated near the shoreof the Bristol Channel,where there is a haven for small vessels,employed in carrying copper.
iron,tin,etc,to Swansea,Bristol,and Chepstow,the produce of the works here,and those in the adjacent parishes,which are of a scale of great magnitude.There are also zinc and spelter works,and behind the village are mines of iron and 
coal.In 1831 the parish contained 573 inhabitants.

Post Office.Tyback.John Snook,Post Master.

Gentry and Clergy. 
Mr.William Llewellyn Aberavon.
Mr.Wm.Llewellyn [surgeon]  Tybach.
John Reynolds,esq. Pont y drefen.
Robert Smith,esq.Aberavon.
Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot,esq.Margam Abbey.
Rev.Daniel Thomas Aberavon.
John Vigurs,esq, Cwmavon.

Iron Tin and Copper Works.
H.James Allen. Zinc and Spelter Dyffryn Llinvi.
English Copper Company Tyback. William Jones Agent.
John Reynolds [Iron] Pont y drefen.
Robert Smith and Co.[Iron and Tin]Margam.
John Vigurs [Tin] Cwmavon.

Taverns and Public Houses.
Crown. Thomas Longdon. Aberavon.
Globe. Jenkin Savours. Aberavon.
Griffin. Edward Jones. Aberavon.
Red Lion.John Jones. Aberavon.
Ship. Samuel Jones. Aberavon.
Somersetshire House. Caroline Morgan.Tyback.
Swan.David Morris. Aberavon.
Walnut Tree Inn. Charles Charles. Aberavon.

William and Ann Davies master and mistress at thye National School

David Evans Blacksmith Tyback.
John Jones Blacksmith.
Phillip Jones and Co.drapers and grocers.
David Longdon. maltser.
Thomas Phillips.draper and grocer.
David Thomas. nailmaker.
Mary Thomas. retailer of beer.

1895.Directory.Port Talbot.Aberavon.Cwm avon.Taibach and Neighbourhoods.

1901.Census.Aberavon.

Vivians Row Sandfields.

15.May.1921. Aberavon Parish Magazine.William John Pitman bapt.2 Camp Terr.Port Talbot.
BMD gives his mother as Moore,and found a William Pitman marrying Alice Moore 1920 Neath.
Also William John Pitman died in  Torrevieja Spain May.2006 aged 85,wife was Phyllis.

David Roderick David was born in January 1842 at Tyisha, Brombil,Margam,he was a son of Llewellyn David a collier,and Ann nee Roderick his wife.
His grandfather Nicholas Roderick was a well known Margam grocer,and took D.R.D into his grocery trade.By the age of 23 in 1865 D.R.D.had  married Margaret Jenkins and had his own grocers shop at the village of Groes,Margam.
Margaret`s father was Thomas Jenkins b.1808 at Neath,he first settled  in Aberavon at the big house named Ty Mawr near Talbot Square in the early 1840`s.He went on to  erected the Avon Vale Tinplate Works at Aberavon in 1866.And
later in 1878 became the Mayor of Aberavon,soon after he took over the running of the Boro` Tinplate Works,which was said to have been erected by his father in about 1875.
Thomas Jenkins was a well known sportsman with a love of horses,and he devoted himself fully into the problems of Aberavon Town,the children of the town thought him a wonderful man,when he treated them all to a free circus visit in 
May,1879.

[ Mr Les Evans made an error in the above regarding his mother being a sister of David Roderick David, he should have said that David Roderick David married his daughter Margaret who we can see in the 1861 cenus on fathers notes, 
there it shows that she is a grocer`s assistant, which gives us an idiea of how the pair met ].
Cambrian    C10    DEATHS, DEATH NOTICES    10 April 1891    APRIL 6, TALBOT SQUARE, ABERAVON, MR.THOMAS JENKINS, LATE OF MARGAM & AVON VALE TINPLATE WORKS, AGED 83.

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A Window into the Industry Collections
Mark Etheridge, 22 December 2014
This month has seen quite a number of new additions to the industry collections. One of the most interesting are these two oil on canvas portraits of Thomas Jenkins and his wife Susannah. Thomas Jenkins was owner of the Avon Vale 
Tinplate Works (which opened in 1866) and Aberavon Tinplate Works (which opened in 1875), both located at Aberavon, Port Talbot. After his death in 1891, his shareholding was inherited by his two daughters, one of whom had married 
Colonel David Roderick David, one of Thomas Jenkins' co-partners in the Avon Vale Tinplate Works. The other married William M. Jones, a local ship owner whose vessel 'Sisters' is recalled by the family as having carried the works'
product for export.

Neither works are signed nor dated, but both are inscribed on the reverse by the sitters. The inscription states that they sat on their respective 71st and 66th birthdays in February 1879.

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Hello Marie 
Many of my family members have worked in the Tinplate Industry especially in
the Port Talbot area and I have a book entitled "Chronology of Tin Plate Works
of Great Britain 1665-1949" by Edward Henry Brooke. All entries within the
book have been verified by the Works themselves . Listed below are the names
of the tinplate works and dates of commencement in the Port Talbot area.

1822 Margam : 1825 CopperMiners (Cwmavon) : 1866 Avon Vale (Port Talbot) :
1873 Mansel (Port Talbot) : 1875 Aberavon (Port Talbot) : 1880 Ffrwdwyllt
( Port Talbot) 1926 Vivian (Port Talbot) 
On looking further into each of these works I have found the following JENKINS
references: 
AVON VALE TINPLATE WORKS 
1866 started by Messrs Thos.Jenkins (resident proprieter), Edward
Davies,Col.D.R.David.Richards Jenkins, David Grey & Robert Morgan 
1874 Mr T Jenkins retired from the partnership 
1880-81 Registered as Port Talbot Tinplate Co.Ltd with Mr Richard Jenkins as
Manager 
1892 Death of Mr R Jenkins . Mr T Allaway became manager. 
1895 Works closed. Plant dismantled four years later. 
ABERAVON TINPLATE & STAMPING WORKS (Boro' Works) 
1875 A one mill works erected by Messrs Thomas Jenkins who in 1866 had built
the Avon Vale Works. T.W.Jenkins and D.Lewis trading as the Glanwailia
Tinplate Company 
1882-1886 Traded as T.W. Jenkins & Co. 
1888 quotes a Mr R Cook Jenkins /Mr David Jenkins as starting a plant for
recovering tin from Dross 
1895 The works were inherited by a Mrs D R David and Mrs W M Jones the
daughters of Thomas Jenkins.
There are also a Philip (1726) & a Josiah R Jenkins (1875) linked to the
Mansel works and a Sidney Jenkins linked to the Aberavon Works

Jenkins was a prominent name in the tinplate industry including the
establishment of a "Jenkins Test" which is still operational today.

I hope some of these Jenkins fits your family!

All the best,
Pat Morris.
Wrexham
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THE LONDON GAZETTE, NOVEMBER 26, 1889.
In Parliament.—Session 1890.
Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway Company.(Construction of Railways, Quay, and Works in Parishes of Swansea, Aberavon, Margam, and Ystradyfodwg; Compulsory Purchase of Lands in those Parishes and Michaelston-super-Avon ;
Power as to Dredging at Port Talbot: Alteration
of Sidings, &c., of Swansea Harbour Trustees Quays and Docks, &c ; Tolls, Rates, and Agreements with, and Powers to, Swansea Harbour Trustees, Port Talbot Company, and Taff Vale Railway Company (including Money
Powers); Compulsory Facilities and Running Powers over Taff Vale Railway; Application of Funds; Additional Capital; Amendment of Acis, &c., &c.)
l^TOTICE is hereby gi\ren, that, application is JLi intended to be made to Parliament in the ensuing Session by or on behalf of the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway Company {hereinafter called " the Company ") for leave to
bring in a Bill for effecting the following objects, or some of them, that is to say:— To enable the Company to make and maintain with all necessary and convenient viaducts, rails, -sidings, junctions, turntables, stations, approaches,
roads, buildings, yards, jetties, banks, stages, cranes, lifts, coat staiths, tips, machinery, and other works and conveniences, the railways and works hereinafter mentioned, or some part or parts thereof, all in the county of 
Glamorgan,
that is to say:— (a) Railway No. 1, commencing at the quay wall on the north side of the Prince of Wales Dock, Swansea, at a point thereon eight chains or thereabouts eastward of the north-western corner of that dock, and
•terminating by a junction with the high level railway of the Swansea Harbour Trustees at a point thereon nine chains or •thereabouts north-eastward of the Midland Railway Company's coal tip on the said quay wall.
{&) Railway No. 2, commencing by a junction with the intended Railway No. 1, hereinbefore described, at or near the termination thereof, and terminating by a junction with the railway of the Company, authorised by
the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway Act, 1883, and therein referred to as Railway No. 1, at its termination. n The above railways will be wholly in the hamlet of St. Thomas, in the parish of Swansea.
(c) Railway No. 3, commencing in the parish of Aberavon on the Aberavon Burrows, at a. point adjacent to and on the southeastern side of the road recently constructed from Aberavou to the sea beach, 44chains or thereabouts, measuring 
along that road in a south-westerly direction from • the commencement thereof at Burgessgreen, Aberavon, and terminating in the parish of Margam by a junction with the Cwmavon Railway of the Company, at a
point on that railway 1\ chains or, thereabouts, measured in a south-westerly direction along that railway from the point at which the siding (which is carried by a bridge over the River Avon to the Avonvale
Tinplate Works) crosses the said Cwmavon Railway. (d) A Railway No. 4, commencing by a junction with the railway of the Company, at a point one and three-quarter chains or thereabouts, measuring along that railway in a
north-westerly direction from the southeastern end of the iron viaduct at Treherbert carrying the said railway over the River Rhondda, and terminating in a field numbered 276 in the parish of Ystradyf odwg on the
Ordnance map (scale -grVo), at a point three chaius or thereabouts south-eastward from the fence dividing that field from the field numbered on the said map 270 in the saidparish, and half a chain or thereabouts southwestward
of the River Rhondda. (e) Railway No. 5, commencing by a junction with the said intended Railway No. 4, at its termination above described, and terminating by a junction with the Taff Vale Railway, at
a point twenty-four chains, or thereabouts, measured along that railway in a southeasterly direction from the booking office at the Treherbert Station. The said intended Railways Nos. 4 and 5 will
be situated wholly in the parish of Ystradyfodwg. (/) A quay or wharf, wholly in the parish of Margam, commencing at the New Wharf, Port Talbot Dock, at a .point 1^ chains, .or thereabouts, south-westward of the cottage
known as the New Bank Cottage, Port Talbot, and extending thence in a northwesterly direction for a distance of 17 chains, or thereabouts, to the north-western side of the said dock, and there terminating.
(0) A diversion, wholly in the parish of Aberavon, of the public road leading from Aberavon by Blackwells to Cwmavon, such diversion to commence at a point 2 chains, or thereabouts, south-westward of the Blackwells
Footbridge over the Cwmavon Railway of the Company, and to terminate at a point 5^ chains, or thereabouts, north-eastward of the said footbridge.
To empower the Company to stop up and discontinue for public traffic, and to extinguish all rights of way and other rights in, over, or affecting any highway or road, the lands on each side of which may be acquired by the Company.
and especially so much of the aforesaid public road leading from Aberavon to Cwmavon as will be rendered unnecessary by the intended diversion thereof, and to vest in the Company the
site and soil of any highway or road so intended
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D/D BE/189-221
Title/description:
Teitl/disgrifiad:    Water Street (unnumbered) and Pembroke Terrace (unnumbered and nos. 4 and 6) (this was roughly speaking the site of the Aberavon Chemical Works, previously known as Wain Shon Shams and Pen or Cae Pen Issa Dre;
now the site of Ysguthan Road, Pembroke Terrace and Water Street) 1859-1959
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D/D LE/X 67
Title/description:
Teitl/disgrifiad:    Letters and accounts relating to the Avon Vale Tinplate Works and the Mansel Works. 1873-1900