The Odd Fellows and their Welsh Mining History

  This newspaper clipping about my Great-grandfather Brown has been in my family tree collection for many years. In a previous blog, I wrote about my Great-grandfather's connection and love of the Odd Fellows Lodge. Seth Crook of Scotland, who is a descendant of the Price branch of the family tree, did a little research and explained to me that Isaac's love of the lodge and it's principles are deeply rooted in his Welsh heritage. This is what he wrote:

"I thought I would just add a bit after reading blog on Isaac Brown on the Oddfellows. It may help illuminate what was going on. I suspect (don’t know, only suspect) that the connection with the Oddfellows pre-dated the arrival of Isaac’s family in the U.S. The society was not simply a fraternal society amongst others, but was a society greatly intertwined with welsh miners in the late 19th century and early twentieth century.

 They were very active in providing mutual aid and healthcare amongst miners. I think you might be interested to look at a site that can be found if you type in “Llewellyn jones, my welsh ancestry”. There is no family connection to the person here, but the site describes – photographs and further information – some of the activities of the Oddfellows in the mining valley of the Garw Valley in the late and early 19th century.

 But there is a family connection. Margaret Bush’s uncle was John Price. When she will have been a child, she and her brothers will have known her uncle and cousins (his children) because they lived in the same spot. One of those cousins was of course a miner, Thomas Price, who by 1901 had moved to the Gawr Valley in a mining boom town. I think it quite likely that many of the miners of the family, on the side of both Margaret Price your ancestor and her brother will have been involved in what was effectively a very influential group for the rights of miners to health care and insurance. If you glance at the site I think you will see the world that would have shaped the views he grew into as a young man. I think it may shed more light on what was really involved in your family connection to the oddfellows..more light than can perhaps be shed by going back to the 18th century. The oddfellow connection is intertwined with the welsh mining past."