The Celynen Collieries Workmen's Institute, Newbridge, Caerphilly

Image: © Jeremy Bolwell Taken: 4 Mar 2012

Dated 1908 this building is a workmen's institute, one of many built around the turn of the 20th century in working class communities UK wide. The drive came from the maturing of what had been in the second half of the 19th century new and rapidly expanding communities that often lacked traditional hubs, amenities and focus. Social improvement and education were very important to the working man, who although they often lacked schooling, training or qualifications were highly intelligent, motivated and enlightened and wanted successive generations to benefit from opportunites denied to them by the accident of their birth and class. Thus in 1898 interested parties within the local community elected a committee tasked with providing an institute for Newbridge and after a decade of hard fund raising the building was completed, ready to be opened by the local mineowner. It housed a library and a reading room, where men could research politics, history, philosophy, religion or whatever interested them, educate themselves and meet likeminded fellows. After discussing Marx, Engels or Darwin they could unwind with a game of billiards or lobby to get themselves elected onto the committee which met in a committee room to focus further on upgrading community facilities, engendering community cohesion and making Newbridge a place where people wanted to stay and contribute to.

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