and may have established a small settlement at the estuary of the Tawe. The earliest known form of the name is Sweynesse, which occurs in a charter granted by William earl of Warwick some time previous to 1184; in King John’s charter (1215) it appears as Sweyneshe, and in the town seal, the origin of which is supposed to date from about the same period, it is given as “Sweyse.” An attempt has been made to derive the name from Sein Henydd, the Welsh name of a Gower castle which has been plausibly identified with the first castle built at Swansea, but that derivation is etymologically impossible. The Welsh name, Aber Tawy, first appears in Welsh poems of the beginning of the 13th century. The town grew up round the castle which Henry de Beauchamp (or Beaumont) on his conquest of Gower about 1099, built on the west bank of the river. The castle passed with the lordship or seigniory of Gower, of which it was the caput, into the hands of the De Braose family in 1203 (by grant from King John) and eventually it came by marriage to the Somersets and is still held by the dukes of Beaufort, whose title of barons de Gower dates from 1506. The castle was frequently attacked and on several occasions more or less demolished, in the 12th and 13th centuries by the Welsh under the princes of Dynevor. It was visited by King John in 1210 and probably by Edward II. in 1326, for, after his capture, the chancery rolls were found deposited in the castle and were thence removed to Hereford. It was finally destroyed by Glendower, was a “ruinous building” when seen by Leland (1536) and has since wholly disappeared. In the Civil War the town was royalist till the autumn of 1645 when Colonel Philip Jones, a native of the adjoining parish of Llangyfelach and subsequently a member of Cromwell’s upper house, was made its governor. Cromwell stayed in the town in May 1648, and July 1649, on his way to Pembroke and Ireland respectively, and later showed it exceptional favour by giving it a liberal charter and parliamentary representation.
The town claimed to be a borough by prescription, for its only known charters of incorporation are those of Cromwell and James II., which were never acted upon. It probably received its first grant of municipal privileges from William 3rd earl of Warwick some time before 1184. By a charter of 1215 (confirmed by Henry II. in 1234, by Edward II. in 1312 and Edward III. in 1332), John himself granted the burgesses the right of trading, free of all customs due, throughout the whole kingdom (except in London), a right which was previously limited to the seigniory. By 1305 the burgesses had become so powerful as to wring a most liberal grant of privileges from their then seigneur William de Braose (fourth in descent from his namesake to whom Gower was granted by King John in 1203), and he bound himself to pay £500 to the king and 500 marks to any burgess in the event of his infringing any of the rights contained in it. By this charter the burgesses acquired the right of nominating annually two of their number for the office of portreeve so that the lord’s steward might select one of them to exercise the office, an arrangement which continued till 1835; the bailiff’s functions were defined and curtailed, and the lord’s chancery was to be continually kept open for all requiring writs, and in Gower—not wherever the lord might happen to be. A patent of murage and pavage—from which it may probably be inferred that Swansea was a walled town—was granted by Edward II. in 1317 and another by Edward III. in 1338. Cromwell’s charter of 1655, though reciting that “time out of mind” Swansea had been “a town corporate,” incorporated it anew, and changed the title of portreeve into mayor, in whom, with twelve aldermen and twelve capital burgesses, it vested the government of the town. The mayor, ex-mayor and one selected alderman were to be justices of the peace with exclusive jurisdiction and the mayor was the coroner. Four annual fairs were appointed, namely on the 8th of May, 2nd of July, 15th of August and 8th of October—the first, however, being the only new one. In 1658 the protector by another charter granted the town independent representation in parliament, At the Restoration, Cromwell’s charters lapsed, but in 1685 James II. granted another charter which contained the arbitrary proviso that the king by order in council might remove any officer or members of the corporation. This charter was not adopted by the burgesses.
De Braose’s charter of 1305 bears some evidence to the importance of the shipping of Swansea even at that date, for by it there was granted or confirmed to the burgesses the right to take from the lord’s woods sufficient timber to make four great ships at a time and as many small vessels as they wished. Coal was even then worked in the district. Cromwell in his charter of 1655 recognized Swansea as “an ancient port town and populous, situate on the sea coast towards France convenient for shipping and resisting foreign invasions.” Its status was only that of a “creek” in the port of Cardiff till 1685, when it was made an independent port with jurisdiction over Newton (now Porthcawl), Neath or Briton Ferry and South Burry, its limits being defined in 1847 as extending from Nash Point on the east to Whitford Point on the west, but in 1904 Port Talbot, which was included in this area, was made into a separate port.
From about 1768 to 1850 Swansea had a somewhat famous pottery. Beginning with earthenware which twenty years later was improved into “opaque china,” it produced from 1814 to 1823 superior porcelain which was beautifully decorated with landscapes, birds, butterflies and flowers and is much prized by connoisseurs. During a short period (1845–1850) an imitation of Etruscan ware was also produced with figures of rich red colour over a body of black.
See Lewis W. Dillwyn, Contributions towards a History of Swansea (1840); Colonel G. Grant-Francis, Charters Granted to Swansea (1867), and The Smelting of Copper in the Swansea District (2nd ed., 1881); S. C. Gamwell, A Guide to Swansea and District (1880); Lieut.-Colonel W. Ll. Morgan, R.E., An Antiquarian Survey of East Gower. (D. Ll. T.)
SWANWICK, ANNA (1813–1899), English writer and philanthropist, was the youngest daughter of John Swanwick of Liverpool, and was born on the 22nd of June 1813. She was educated partly at home and partly at one of the fashionable boarding-schools of the day, where she received the usual education of accomplishments. Dissatisfied with her own intellectual attainments she went in 1839 to Berlin, where she took lessons in German, Greek and Hebrew. On her return to London she continued these pursuits, along with the study of mathematics. In 1843 appeared her first volume of translations, Selections from the Dramas of Goethe and Schiller. In 1847 she published a translation of Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans; this was followed in 1850 by Faust, Tasso, Iphigenie and Egmont. In 1878 she published a complete translation of both parts of Faust, which appeared with Retsch’s illustrations. It passed through several editions, was included in Bohn’s series of translations, and ranks as a standard work. It was at the suggestion of Baron Bunsen that she first tried her hand at translation from the Greek. In 1865 she published a blank verse translation of Aeschylus’s Trilogy, and in 1873, a complete edition of Aeschylus, which appeared with Flaxman’s illustrations. Miss Swanwick is chiefly known by her translations, but she also published some original work. In 1886 appeared Books, our Best Friends and Deadliest Foes; in 1888, An Utopian Dream and How it may be Realized; in 1892, Poets, the Interpreters of their Age; and in 1894, Evolution and the Religion
of the Future. Miss Swanwick was interested in many of the social and philanthropic movements of her day. In 1861 she signed John Stuart Mill’s petition to parliament for the political enfranchisement of women. She helped in the higher education movement, took part in the foundation of Queen’s and Bedford Colleges, and continued to take a sympathetic interest in the movement which led to the opening of the universities to women. Her work was acknowledged by the university of Aberdeen, which bestowed on her the degree of LL.D. She died in
November 1899.
See Memoir, by Miss Bruce (1904).
SWARTZ, OLOF (1760–1818), Swedish botanist, was born in 1760. He commenced his botanical studies in Upsala, under
