Chappell, Edgar L. (Edgar Leyshon), 1879-1949

Person

Chappell, Edgar L. (Edgar Leyshon), 1879-1949

• Chappell, Edgar Leyshon, 1879-1949

Alderman Edgar Leyshon Chappell (1879-1949) was born at Ystalyfera, Glamorgan, the son of a shoemaker and commercial traveller. He was educated at local schools. From 1898 to 1900, he received training as a teacher at University College, Cardiff, and by 1910 he was headmaster of an elementary school at Rhiwfawr, Pontardawe, Glamorgan. A year later he gave up teaching to work full time as a campaigner for housing reform and other social problems, initially assisting figures such as Prof. Henry Stanley Jevons with his investigations into the economic conditions in south Wales and the Garden Village movement. A pamphlet of Chappell's early work on housing, Gwalia's Homes, was published in 1911. During the First World War he was appointed to serve on a number of Government inquiries, including the Industrial Unrest Commission for Wales in 1917 and the Ministry of Agriculture's Enquiry into Wages and Conditions in South Wales in 1918. From 1918 to 1921 he was an Inspector for the Ministry of Health's Housing Committee and in 1921 was appointed Secretary of the South Wales Regional Survey Committee of the Ministry of Health. Together with A. J. Lovat-Fraser, he published a pamphlet entitled Pithead and Factory Baths in 1920. From 1912, Edgar Chappell was Secretary of the Welsh Housing Association, later called Welsh Housing and Development Association. He edited the Association's Yearbook, 1916-1918, and published pamphlets on housing and town planning. He also lectured on these subjects and contributed numerous articles to the press. Edgar Chappell was a life-long Socialist and was active in local government. In 1921 he was elected to represent Whitchurch as an independent member on the Cardiff Rural District Council, and, in 1930, he became its Chairman. The following year he was elected to Glamorgan County Council and later became an alderman. He wrote several pamphlets on local government in Wales, among them The Government of Wales and Wake up Wales: a Survey of Home Rule Activities in 1943. He had a keen interest in local history, and published The History of the Port of Cardiff (1939), Historic Melingriffith (1940), and Old Whitchurch (1945). In the course of his research he collected papers relating to Melingriffith Tinplate Works, Whitchurch, Glamorgan, and to Sir Daniel Lleufer Thomas (1863-1940) for a biography (Thomas was a magistrate for Rhondda and Pontypridd, with interests in the history of Carmarthenshire, housing and town planning).

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