Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - Chains at Penarth Dock - Macey, Mules and Wallace Family History . . .

3b) Tom Wallace

Thomas William Wallace was my grandfather. He was born in 1881 at 80 Plassey Street, Penarth. In 1899, aged just 17, he went to sea, just like his father had done and worked on merchant ships. On one trip, he was in the estuary of the River Plate (Rio de la Plata - river of silver), on the south east coast of South America. He fell overboard in rough seas, but was able to swim back to the ship. The Captain congratulated him, and said that being a good swimmer probably saved his life.

After serving in World War 1, Tom’s civilian life revolved around boats. He began as a ships rigger, looking after boats when they were in harbour. The job needed physical strength and concentration. He then worked for boat builders. For some time, he worked for Neale and West, boat builders and trawler operators. Neale & West had set up the business at Bute Dock, Cardiff in 1888. In 1898, the firm helped set up another boat building business at Penarth Dock with Harold Clayton. Harold built 3 boat sheds there, and made boats for Neale and West amongst others. This is where my father worked.

In 1920, with the firm making money, Howard K. Neale and his family moved to a big house in Paget Place above Penarth Dock called Northcliff. Business was brisk. Neale therefore began to build boats in the billiard room of Northcliff. The front wall had to be removed to get them out. The boat yard was later taken over by Andrew Anderson. Andrew was from Denmark. His real name was Andreas Jacob Knutz Andressen. He worked there with his son, Johnny (Johann). The yard closed in the 1950’s.

My grandfather built a boat for his sister, my great aunt Lucy Edith Jane, and her husband Fred Peterson. Fred was also a Scandinavian. His real name was Frithjof.

Just three generations after Penarth flourished with the coming of the docks, hard times came to the area. It started with the General Strike in 1926. The Economic Depression of the 1930’s followed.

Work in Penarth became short. If there was nothing in the boatyard or the docks, my grandfather said that he would look for work as a rigger on ‘tramp steamers’. These were freight ships with no fixed schedule and no home port, unlike freight steamers. The ships moved from port to port looking for work. Most tramp steamers were constructed on the Clyde.