Glimpses of Margam Life 1830 -1918
Gamekeepers of Margam
Gamekeepers were essential outdoor servants. For over a century the position of Head Keeper to the Talbots was held successively by Isaac, William and John Stubbs, and the formal document appointing Isaac Stubbs to this position in August 1813, was signed by Michael Hicks Beach, William Hicks Beach and the Reverend Dr. John Hunt, vicar of Margam, trustees of the will of T.M. Talbot.
The trustees licensed the gamekeeper to kill hares, pheasants and partridges in the manors of Margam, Hadod y Porth, Higher Kenfig, Pyle, Kenfig, north Cornelly and Sker. They also authorised him to seize all guns, bows, greyhounds, setting dogs, lurchers and other dogs liable to kill hares or conies, ferrets, trammels, lowbels, lays and other nets, snares and other engines for the taking of game.
The allowances which they received in addition to their wages included rent-free accommodation in the keeper’s lodge, £5 a year in lieu of hay for their cow, clothes, shot, powder, and food for their dogs. In 1829 Talbot considered “that whoever made the original agreement with Stubbs engaged him at the most extravagant wages I ever heard a keeper receiving.” Isaac Stubb’s salary was 50 guineas a year plus perks, whereas Talbot’s uncle paid his keeper only twenty pounds.
Three keepers were employed at Margam, and several underkeepers; in 1830, on Talbot’s recommendation, George Stubbs, eldest son of the Head Keeper, became keeper to the Nicholls of Merthyr Mawr. In 1896 there were two beats, those of John Stubbs and John White, while the underkeepers were William Jones, Arthur Powell, William Fabian, Q. Empson, F. Smith, R. Cope, A. Ferguson, Richard Powell, Henry Powell, William Lamb and E. Elward. Among the keepers’ duties were the organisation of ‘shoots’, hiring of beaters, destruction of vermin, rearing of pheasants and preservation of nests (for which they received one shilling), night watching and the protection of game.
Punishment for trespass or for the removal of estate property was harsh by modern standards. William Stubbs attended court in 1835 to give evidence against David Lewis, who was convicted of poaching and given into the custody of the overseer for conveyance to the treadmill. In 1881 John Macgrath, caught cutting ‘bent’, probably reeds on Margam sands, was subsequently fined 10/6, and being unable to pay, was imprisoned for seven days. Even the cutting of beansticks could lead to a court appearance and a heavy fine. Meanwhile, an incentive towards securing a conviction was the keeper’s traditional reward of 10/-; john Stubbs received judgement against 20 poachers between October 1891 and December 1893, providing a substantial supplement to his income. The destruction of vermin provided a further boost to income in December 1897, when John Stubbs accounted for one hawk, 1/-; 2 crows, 6d; 4 cats; 1/-; 7 stoats, 1/9; 28 rats, 2/4; and 13 pigeons, 2/2, a total of 8/9. Estate concern over the activities of poachers even extended to the purchase of a licence from the Great Western Railway for keepers to walk their tracks in search of their quarry.
Rabbits were a perpetual problem on all estates, and the period 1880-1881 gives an idea of the keepers’ attempts to control these prolific breeders. Three thousand, three hundred and forty two were caught, William Stubbs accounting for 1,838, John Stubbs for 957 and William Phillips for 547; 338 of these were unfit for sale, and 157 were sent to Margam kitchen. In the accounts, the clerk calculated the average selling price at 11.64d. In the shooting season, 116 hares were sold at 3/- and 300 at 3/6; 1,180 pheasants went at 3/0; 13 at 3/6 and 30 partridges at 1/9. Among Margam’s noted mole catchers were Evan Edmund, Thomas David and James Brockie, the reward for the capture of these elusive creatures being 2/6 a dozen.
Swansea Coursing Club frequently held meetings on Margam Moors at the invitation of C.R.M. Talbot. The Head Keepers directed beating for hares which were abundant in an area considered one of the finest coursing grounds in the country. Talbot attended one such meeting in 1874 and was recorded as bounding along like a youth of twenty.
The keepers’ watchfulness whilst on duty and their alert pursuit of determined and habitual poachers brought many threats of reprisal, while unexpected encounters often resulted in injuries. William Stubbs had been shot at, and on one occasion, when caught by poachers, was tied to a tree head downwards and given a good beating.
The most tragic incident was the murder of Robert Scott, second keeper to Miss Talbot, who was shot by Joe Lewis on the mountain top between Cwm Philip and Cwm Cae Traherne on the evening of June 8th, 1898. Scott was accompanied by a young underkeeper, Robert Kidd, when he left his neat stone cottage next to Margam Post Office at six o’clock, having arranged to meet Constable Hawtin en route to the coverts where shots had been heard on previous evenings. After conferring, the three split up, having spotted the poacher in the distance; he was armed with a double-barrelled shotgun. When confronted by Scott who was armed only with a blackthorn stick (it was rule of the estate not to carry firearms), Lewis made for a gap in the drystone wall. Cornered, and probably recognised, he shot the keeper in the face, a second discharge in the shoulder killing the man outright. At his trial, lewis pleaded self defence, maintaining that the second shot was an act of compassion “to put him out of his misery.” The jury were also informed that he was a deserter from the Welsh Regiment, having served in India.
After hiding his gun, Lewis was seen by a number of estate workers, and spent the night in one of the now demolished Salt Lake Houses at Taibach. When the body was discovered on the following day, he was arrested, but let off for lack of evidence. Attention then focused on Henry Jones, a collier, but he was soon eliminated from police enquiries. Eventually it was Lewis’s own talkativeness that made suspicion a certainty. He was rearrested and sent for trial, convicted of a particularly brutal murder, and subsequently hanged at Swansea Gaol.
Three and four day shoots were a feature of Margam life, and estate workers and boys from local schools were used as beaters, the Groes School logbook for December 4th, 1890 recording “49 boys absent beating game coverts.” In January 1910 the Margam estate, which for centuries had been noted for its variety and profusion of game, was shot over by royalty in the person of Prince Arthur of Connaught, grandson of Queen Victoria who, together with a distinguished company, was the guest of Miss Talbot. Although it was the first time that royalty had participated in the great sport provided by the Margam coverts, it was not he first royal visit since the building of the new mansion, since the Prince and Princess of Wales had been entertained there in 1881, planting a Wellingtonia in the Orangery gardens. The four-day shoot, organised by Colonel Miller, began on January 6th, with John Stubbs in charge of 49 beaters; 400 pheasants were accounted for by lunch, which was taken at Caegarw Farm. Although the day was damp and misty, by late afternoon the total bag was 596 pheasants, 36 hares, 4 woodcock and several rabbits and wood pigeons. Succeeding days were spent on Margam Moors, an area renowned throughout the country for its wild geese, and in the area around Graig Goch, the West Lodge and the Great Wood, the total bag being some two thousand pheasants.
One of the more novel arrests for poaching occurred in 1891, when the driver of the bank engine used to assist night trains up the Stormy incline spotted a body lying on the tracks near the plantations on Margam Moors. J.S. Gaden, the Pyle stationmaster, was informed and hurried to the scene, accompanied by Signalman price; but the body had disappeared. As poachers were suspected, the area was thoroughly combed, and when the searchers were on the point of giving up, they encountered three men who had difficulty in remembering their names and addresses. Two bolted, but the third was forced on to the train, transported to Port Talbot, and locked in the signal box until the arrival of the police.