Place:Port Talbot, Glamorgan, Wales

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Port Talbot is a town in the "County Borough" of Neath Port Talbot, Wales. It had a population of 37,276 in 2011. It is best known as the home of one of the biggest steelworks in the world, which currently employs an estimated 10% of the town's population. The steelworks has had a number of owners since the 1980s and for many years been under threat of closure (written in 2016).

History

The name 'Port Talbot' first appears in 1837 as the name of the new docks built on the southeast side of the River Afan by the Talbot family. Over time it came to be applied to the whole of the emerging conurbation. The borough of Port Talbot was created in November 1921, incorporating Baglan, Margam, and Aberafan. It was therefore 85 years after the phrase 'Port Talbot' was first used that it became officially recognised as the town's name.

The area of the parish of Margam lying on the west bank of the lower Afan became industrialised following the establishment of a copperworks in 1770. The Afan was diverted and a dock was opened in 1839 named for the Talbot family, local landowners who were related to the pioneer photographer, William Henry Fox Talbot. The Talbots were patrons of Margam Abbey, and also built Margam Castle. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890) (Liberal Member of Parliament for Glamorgan from 1830 until his death) saw the potential of his property as a site for an extensive ironworks, which opened in early 1831.

The town is built along the eastern rim of Swansea Bay in a narrow strip of coastal plain surrounding the River Afan estuary. Swansea is visible on the opposite side of Swansea Bay. The local beach is known as Aberafan Sands and is situated along the edge of the bay between the River Afan and the River Neath (which marks the northeastern edge of the town). The other beach in Port Talbot is Margam Sands, popularly known as Morfa Beach. The Port Talbot Steelworks is inland from Margam Sands. The Wikipedia article on Port Talbot has a good map of the town.

Governance

Port Talbot was part of the historic county of Glamorgan. The 1974 county council re-organisation split Glamorgan into three new counties, and Port Talbot became one of the four "districts" of West Glamorgan. Following the demise of West Glamorgan County Council in 1996, Port Talbot borough council was merged with the Neath District and part of Lliw Valley District to create the new unitary authority of Neath Port Talbot County Borough.

NOTE: A Vision of Britain through Time names Port Talbot as a "municipal borough" from 1837 to 1974, but does not provide any gazetteer description for Port Talbot until Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles of 1887. Aberafon was an urban district until 1922 when the wider area was placed in one administration named Port Talbot. Municipal boroughs were abolished when historic counties such as Glamorgan were replaced by the new administrative counties such as West Glamorgan in 1974.

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