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 The
Blackmores - descendants of Thomas
Blackmore (1758-1830) and James
Bartholomew (b1754) - were farm labourers from Somerset and it was
probably the prospect of working their own small holding that brought
James Blackmore (1835-1902)
and his new wife Ann
from the West Country to the Pembrey Mountain around 1859.
They remained in Llanelli for forty years until Ann’s
death in 1893 when James returned to Somerset but his children remained
– three sons and five daughters “the Blackmore beauties”, as they were
known. “The Blackmore were all good looking” according to my mother.
The golden age of the small shopkeeper was flourishing
in Llanelli before the supermarkets moved in. James
Montgomery (b1847) had a drapery shop in Station Road and Alice
Blackmore (1890-1956) kept a small drapery shop in the front room
of her home in Trinity Road. Gwyn
Knight had a greengrocers in New Dock road and his widow Grace ran
an underwear shop in the West End. John
Alan Evans (1935-1985) had a jewellers on Station Road.
Young ladies and gentlemen would parade along Stepney Street on Sunday
afternoons and it was there that John
Wells Roberts (1862-1932) met his wife Caroline
Martha Blackmore (1871-1960). It started to rain and he offered
the protection of his umbrella.
The couple shared an interest in politics. He was one of the first
members of Keir Hardie’s Labour party in Llanelli – she would insist
on all women in the family voting, as it was a privilege.
•Richard Dewsberry
(1841-1906) was one of the leading lights in Park Church, the chapel
set up to cater for the growing number of English speakers in the town
after the influx of pottery workers, and a leading member of the Liberal
Club which opened in the town in 1885. He was a god-fearing man and
a pillar of the community, unlike his curmudgeonly ovenman Thomas
Roberts (1833-1904) who enjoyed playing whist there. One evening
Mr Roberts arrived to be greeted by the unctuous steward who asked whether
he would like to make up a table with some members waiting for a fourth.
"Whose playing?" he said. The steward named names, and he
famously said in his broad Staffordshire accent – “What them? I'd rather
have me arse rubbed with a brick”
What would Richard Dewsberry have thought if he knew that eighty years
later his great grandson would meet Mr Roberts great grandaughter at
the Little Theatre in Llanelli and that they would end up husband and
wife? They are my parents
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