This is one of a unique group of portraits of workers commissioned by the industrialist Francis Crawshay in the 1830s. The portraits – all male – include both skilled and unskilled workers from the ironworks at Hirwaun, and the tinplate works at Treforest.
It was unusual for industrial baron to commission individual portraits of their workers, but Francis Crawshay was not your typical industrialist. He built his own cottage instead of living in the grand family home, and was indifferent to the Crawshay way of working: his father apparently complained of him ‘spending my money as a devil of a pace’. The only Welsh speaker of the family, he was apparently more likely to be found chatting with the workers than ruling over them. The workers fondly called him ‘Mr Frank’.
In the early 1830s, Francis was put in charge of Hirwaun Ironworks, which his father had acquired in 1819, and a new tinplate works at Treforest, near Pontypridd. The portraits of his employees were commissioned around 1835, and are attributed to W J Chapman, a travelling artist. The group passed by descent in the Crawshay family, and may originally have been ever larger. One other figure is recorded, but now seems to be lost.
