In March 1839 one Thomas Gaunt of 7 Upper Smith Street, Northampton Square was readmitted to the Bar along with eighteen other gentlemen. Gaunt had been made bankrupt on November 17th 1837 following a remarkable career as an early industrialist. An Ironmaster and Coal owner in the Pembrey area, Gaunt is described as the attorney of another early industrialist, George Bowser, but at the age of 18 is likely to have been part of a family business.
From around 1814 we find Thomas Gaunt living at New Lodge which was built in 1728 and later included a carriage drive, woodland, walled garden and a summerhouse. It remains now on the A484 entering Burry Port from the east. As well as helping Bowser organise his financial affairs and bring some stability and rationale into his projects, Gaunt saw the opportunity for industrial enterprise and, with Bowser, Charles Bonner and John Calthorpe, both from Lincolnshire, set up the Pembrey Iron and Coal Company. For a time he also operated from his London office.
One of his early ventures was to reopen the ironworks which were established by Farquharson and Simons in 1810 with a single iron furnace near Gwscwm (Gwscwm Park today). It was this furnace that Thomas Gaunt took over and developed with one square and one round furnace and five mine kilns for roasting the ore to remove impurities. Coal was brought to the ironworks by tramroads from a number of mines Gaunt had opened.
It was Gaunt’s company that built Pembrey harbour in 1819 giving more opportunity for exporting coal from mines such as Gwscwm and Cwm Capel. Bowser had already established a shipping point called Carreg Edwig, a rocky outcrop, and now it was to be developed with an outer tidal harbour and flushing reservoir offering deep and safe waters. The two piers housed a lighthouse and loading points and a wall with sluice gates which flushed out the silt.
On the 14th August 1819 Gaunt posted in the Cambrian newspaper that the “Proprietors of the Pembrey Harbour beg to inform masters of vessels that the new harbour is now completed …and possesses 12 feet of water at the lowest neap tides”. However, it was the perennial problem of silting and the inability of the harbour to cope with the demand of the coal exports which led to its demise.
Gaunt’s vision was similar to that of other industrialists of the time – an integrated system which included possessing mines, tramroads, canals and harbour and shipping. Gaunt used the existing Kidwelly and Llanelli Canal to bring coal from the Gwendraeth Valley and built another to link with his harbour in Pembrey and ending at Glo Caled, near the golf course today. Yet, although Gaunt was advertising for shipping and furnace men in 1825 by 1829 his business empire collapsed – probably from a combination of poor business acumen, poor local management, a slump in copper and iron trades and an over-ambitious project.
George Bowser and Thomas Gaunt were often at loggerheads and their partnership eventually collapsed, yet it was the context for a remarkable industrial adventure in which Gaunt was often the driving force. In November 1824 the Cambrian newspaper published an article declaring that the company “under the superintendence of their most indefatigable acting partner, Mr Gaunt, …in less than nine years performed wonders in this parish: they have taken an excellent harbour … out of a mere rabbit warren; they have opened extensive quarries and established an iron manufactory … which afford employment and maintenance to a considerable number of distressed families, by which they have raised a poor neglected, insignificant spot to such a state as to enable it to make a respectable figure in the commerce of south Wales.”
For other articles about Pembrey and Burry Port heritage see: pembreyburryportheritage.co.uk
