England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Swansea St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Swansea lies in western Glamorgan forming a stretch of the county's coastline with the outer Bristol Channel, Swansea consists of 2 parishes with St Mary the original and St John created in 1797. Swansea is located roughly 45 miles west of the city of Cardiff and some 210 miles west of London, it sits at the intersection of several major A-roads arriving from Cardiff, Neath, Pontarddulais and the Gower Peninsula. Swansea is a major port, market town and regional centre for western Glamorgan. Swansea was first important through the establishment of a castle in the 12th century, that castle being attacked on numerous occasions by the insurgent Welsh was finally reduced to ruin along with the incipient town in 1260. Swansea was further depleted by the cause of Owain Glyndwr and reduced to near ruin again in Tudor times. Through the later medieval period Swansea was a small port and market town mainly concerned with exporting coal and the manufacture of straw plait. Swansea grew substantially as a consequence of two main factors, the improvement in the port meant larger vessels could be docked and the growing industrialisation of the interior of the county meant Swansea became an industrial town in itself. Not for nothing was Swansea renowned as "Copperopolis" as it became the major centre for the processing and smelting of this metal in the land. Such was the extent of the furnaces that Swansea became renowned also for the poor quality of its air. By the middle of the 19th century Swansea was refining almost 200,000 tons of copper ore per annum. In the meantime Swansea's port grew to become the largest in South Wales importing and exporting a wide range of goods across the globe. Supporting this operation came the usual trades of ship-building, rope-works and sail making whilst tanneries and breweries also employed many in the town. Swansea remained the regional market for trade and support of specialist skills. Today most of the heavy industry has gone and Swansea has modernised itself accordingly with redevelopment of dockland areas into high quality residences, Swansea is also only one element in an urban area stretching inland as far as the M4 motorway and engulfing neighbouring parishes in the process. To its west there is the more gentile coastal resort of Mumbles serving as a holiday destination for mainly weekenders. Modern developments have arrived in abundance with railways snaking away from the town in many directions including to London whilst several of the approach roads are upgraded to fast dual-carriageway highways in particular those connecting with the M4 motorway which bypasses to the north. As a coastal town at the mouth of the Tawe river Swansea has many channels to the sea. Swansea is sited between sea level and 130 metres in its higher suburbs, it sits on a gentle coastal plain at more or less that height until rising into the fore-hills of the Brecon Beacons. The parish of St Mary Swansea covered around 6,500 acres and would have supported a population of close to 19,000 by the close of this transcript period, the volume of marriages recorded here would indicate an average population of closer to 11,000 during the period covered. Like most of Wales Swansea is not mentioned in Domesday Book which did not cover this area.

The Church

St Mary's church sits at the heart of old Swansea within its own dedicated square, St Mary's Square, amid the commercial area of the town and only a few hundred yards from the sea. This is a church which has met with at least two major disasters which have resulted in major rebuilding work such that the original church has long been superseded. The nave of the church collapsed in 1739 and required complete rebuilding from the ground up. The church was also almost completely rebuilt as part of a very intensive Victorian restoration in a lengthy phase from 1894 to 1898. In addition the church suffered major devastation as a consequence of the intense bombing which Swansea received during the Blitz which almost destroyed the church once gain and required a further, and hopefully final rebuild. Like most urban churches St Mary is one to visit on foot after first finding a town car park. The square is rather too full of trees to make life easy for the photographer requiring careful choice of viewpoints to adequately record this church,