This book has taken me months to research and write. It is a compilation of old newspaper articles from papers long extinct and gives a glimpse in to life in Pontypool in Victorian times. I decided to write it as many of my ancestors lived in Pontypool and surrounding villages. My 3 x great grandfather, Thomas Lewis, was born in 1834. He probably lived to see much of what my book includes. Although only 5 at the time, he may have witnessed the night of the Chartist disturbance, the opening of the railway line and the very first steam engine to travel to Pontypool. By the time of his marriage in the 1850's he would have lived through the Cholera outbreak, diphtheria outbreak and crippling poverty that the ordinary person lived through every day. In the year 1890 he would have been 56 and if still around would have witnessed the Llanerch Colliery disaster, where, he may have lost friends and relatives. But the book isn't just about my family, there are about 190 pages in the book, full of stories and characters, such as poor Mr Rowberry, who had a great trade driving his carriages to Newport, until the coming of the trains, then he lost everything and was found one morning lying dead in George Street!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victorian-Pontypool-carol-Ann-lewis/dp/1491296437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379277609&sr=8-1&keywords=victorian+pontypool
