History Talk: Lady Charlotte Guest
Olveston Methodist Church
Olveston Parish Historical Society History Talk: Dr Victoria Owens will tell us about the astonishing life of Lady Charlotte Guest.
At the age of 19, she left her aristocratic life in London and married ironmaster John Josiah Guest of the Dowlais Ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil. That was one of the parent companies of local aerospace company GKN (Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, as it used to be called) and it was founded in 1759.
In the 1840s, Dowlais became the most important ironworks in the world, supplying iron to Brunel for his railways and ships and supplying rails to railroad companies in the USA, Germany and Russia. Lady Charlotte Guest was an active assistant to her husband and knew all the ins and outs of the company, particularly its accounts.
When he died in 1852, she was a widow, aged 40, with 10 children. She took over the reins of the company for three years. Under her management, Dowlais became the world’s largest manufacturing company.
This was after she had learned Welsh, in order to be able to speak to their workforce, and translated seven volumes of medieval Welsh tales into English, and founded local schools and a library, and arranged for clean drinking water to be piped to workers’ cottages…
… and after doing all that, she reinvented herself yet again. Come and hear her story. The new year’s a time to be inspired.
All meetings take place in the Methodist Church, The Street, Olveston BS35 4DR at 7.30pm, with refreshments served before the start of the meeting.
Visitor fee is £3, payable on the door - includes refreshments. All welcome!
