BIRTH
John Davies was born in 1784 in Llanwrthwl parish, north Breconshire. His family was poor and his father scraped a living as a labourer. Little is known of his early life except that he received very little schooling and at some time he left his isolated rural area for Swansea.
WORK
From Swansea he went to sea for several years, during which time he learned to read and write, self-educating himself in English, Welsh, a wide range of knowledge, and in book-keeping skills that were to give him plenty of employment later in Tredegar. His father had died during his time at sea and in the meantime, his mother and brothers had moved to Tredegar.
At the start of the available diary period John was married to Margaret Morgan and was a bookseller and publisher in the town. He was also a promoter of friendly societies, the Oddfellows in particular, and an office holder in some of them, either as secretary or treasurer.
DIARIES
He was an inveterate diary keeper and some of his diaries have survived. They are written almost wholly in Welsh, and can be read in the Cardiff Central Library. Unfortunately, the surviving diaries do not cover the first twenty five years of his life in the town. Nor are the four volumes which do exist continuous as there are gaps for some years, but they do span from 1831, by which time he was already into middle age, to just before his death in 1864. The diaries amount to over two hundred pages of handwritten entries from a time when Tredegar was very much growing and prospering.
The diaries reveal that he kept the books for savings clubs and several businesses in the town, and earned small amounts by various writing tasks for others. This was a time when the majority of the population were illiterate, yet would have relatives in other parts of Wales that they needed to keep in contact with. In particular, there were significant number of the town’s sons and families who had emigrated to America having learned their industrial skills in Tredegar, and wanting letters from home.