ABSTRACT
The major elements of the material manifestation of industrial society in Britain in 1750–1850 included workers’, managers’ and employers’ housing; the development of workers’ settlements and employers’ estates; workers’ Nonconformist chapels and employers’ Anglican churches; works and schools. However, workers’ settlements, works schools and institutes were structure types that were definitely specific to industrial districts. All of the most influential locally resident coppermaster dynasties in Swansea were Anglican: the Morrises, Vivians and Grenfells. In fact, this was not a great change from the domination which the established Church had had amongst influential local families who had also started the large-scale coal-mining that underpinned the later copper industry. The Swansea area was becoming the world centre of two metals industries, copper and then tinplate. Between 1843 and 1890 the greatest sums recorded in The Builder for chapel building outside Swansea were £6,000 at both Colwyn Bay and Wrexham.
