Welsh place names: Malvern

13 September 2008

Malvern

There are at least ten places in Wales that have Malvern as part of their name:
Malvern, Bethel Road, Caernarfon, Gwynedd
Malvern, Limekiln Rd, Pontnewynydd, Pontypool, Torfaen
Malvern, Wellington St, Aberaeron, Dyfed
Malvern, The Beacon, Rosemarket, Milford Haven, Dyfed
Malvern, Peter St, Rhosllanerchrugog, Wrexham
Malvern, Crundale, Haverfordwest, Dyfed
Malvern, Carway, Kidwelly, Dyfed
Malvern, Rhostrehwfa, Llangefni, Isle of Anglesey
Malvern, Freystrop, Haverfordwest, Dyfed
Malvern, Penparc, Cardigan, Dyfed

Named after The Malvern Hills, close to the Welsh border in England, Malvern was originally settled by Welsh settlers in the 1600s. William Penn sold them the land for ten cents an acre, along with the rest of the land on the Welsh tract, or the Main Line. Malvern was incorporated as a borough in 1889, from portions of Willistown Township.
Malvern is the last stop of the original Main Line railroad into Philadelphia. Today, the railroad has expanded several more stations west of Malvern, but none are associated with the Main Line, and Malvern is still considered the end of the Main Line.

The median income for a household in the borough was $62,308, and the median income for a family was $79,145. Males had a median income of $45,281 versus $39,129 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $35,477. About 0.9% of families and 2.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.8% of those under age 18 and 3.2% of those age 65 or over.

The borough has a website.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Welsh were added later

The Welsh Tract, also called the Welsh Barony, was a portion of Pennsylvania settled largely by Welsh-speaking Quakers. It covers 40,000 acres to the west of Philadelphia. The original settlers, led by John Roberts, negotiated with William Penn in 1684 to constitute the Tract as a separate county whose local government would use the Welsh language, since many of the settlers spoke no English. Notwithstanding this agreement, by the 1690s the land had already been partitioned into different counties, despite appeals from the Welsh settlers, and the Tract never gained self-government.
The Roberts and other Welsh families became influential in the area, through the building of mills and the eventual introduction of the railroad. It is the railroad that gives the best-known part of the area its current name — the Main Line, referring to the main track of the now-defunct Pennsylvania Railroad.
The area is now part of Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. Many towns in the area still bear Welsh names. Some, such as Bala Cynwyd, Radnor and Haverford Township, are named after places in Wales. Others, such as Tredyffrin or Uwchlan, have independent Welsh names. Some communities in the area that formerly comprised the Welsh Tract were subsequently given Welsh names. Among these were Gladwyne, formerly "Merion Square" (which was given its new name in 1891 in order to imitate the stylish Welsh names of adjoining towns, although the name is meaningless in Welsh), and Bryn Mawr, formerly "Humphreysville" (which was renamed in 1869). An additional Welsh settlement included Bala Cynwyd which originated as two separate towns that have grown together.
A more successful attempt at setting up a Welsh-speaking colony occurred two centuries later, in the Chubut Valley of Patagonia.

Unfortunately, the Cymry-fication of the Main Line was, for the most part, a public relations ploy by the railroad to make the area more 'quaint' and 'historic', rather than an actual naming process. True, there were many Welsh settlers in the area in the 1700s, but the entire 'Welsh Nation' gambit didn't work out like they'd hoped. Only a few of the towns had Welsh names from the beginning, like Malvern and Radnor; the rest were changed, like Athensville to Ardmore, later...

Welsh place names

13 September 2008

Malvern

No comments:

The Welsh were added later

Links

Blog Archive