Cardiff's Tiger bay

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Barry & Wales at Heart
Sheree Conibear.

Cardiff's Tiger bay



Tiger Bay - Cardiff's dockland district - is Wales' oldest multi-ethnic community. Sailors and workers from over 50 countries settled here.

Some of the largest communities included the Somalis, the Yeminis and Greeks. Residents of many races and backgrounds socialised together and intermarried, creating a distinct community.

Tiger Bay was also notorious. A slice of red-light district and gambling dens between Cardiff's city centre and its docks, and home to a rich mix of multi-racial communities, it had a powerful character of its own. Its most famous former residents are former rugby star Billy Boston and singer Shirley Bassey, who were both born in Tiger Bay.

The 1960s saw the wholesale destruction of large areas of the Bay and displacement of the community.

The 1970s and 80s saw a new influx of refugees from conflicts around the world, and the 90s saw the birth of the renewal of the area as a leisure and business hot-spot and the founding of the National Assembly for Wales.

Today, the Cardiff docklands area is known as Cardiff Bay and it has been transformed by the Cardiff Barrage that impounds the Rivers Taff and the Ely to create a massive fresh-water lake.

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Cardiff Ships and Tiger Bay seafarers took a heavy toll in WW1.

Butetown and Tiger Bay seafarers took a heavy toll during WW1.

The boarding houses of Butetown and Tiger Bay have long provided lodgings for seafarers when ashore.

During WW1, the number of overseas seafarers grew as the British men were called up to fight and many African, West Indian, Arabian and Asian seamen were hired to fill the jobs.

319 overseas seafarers that lost their lives to U-boat attack in WW1 were shown as having lodgings in these boarding houses.

The list records their last known address, name, status, age, date of death, name of vessel and place of birth.

On the eve of the Great War, Cardiff’s trade in coal was at record levels of 10.5m tonnes per annum; there were more than100 coal exporting businesses and around seventy firms managing over 300 ships. Losses over the course of the war - principally from German U Boat attacks - saw more than 200 of these ships sunk. The sinkings took place not only around the coast of Wales and the British Isles but also in the Mediterranean and off Norway. Cargoes included, wheat, sugar, iron ore,steel, oil military/government stores and, not surprisingly, coal. Tragically there was great loss of life among the crews of these ships. During WW1, the number of overseas seafarers grew as the British men were called up to fight and many African, West Indian, Arabian and Asian seamen were hired to fill the jobs. It was thought that being recruited from regions of the world with hotter climates, the new crewmen would be better able to tolerate the back-breaking work and the searing temperatures of the ship’s engine room and so the recruits were largely used as firemen, trimmers and donkeymen. Whether or not that thinking was true, they were certainly less able to withstand a torpedo or mine as it was the engine room that was the most vulnerable part of the ship in U-Boat attacks. Many of these were in lodging in Tiger Bay. Analysing our lists of sailors lost to U-boat attacks, we find 319 overseas seafarers that were shown as having lodgings in the many boarding houses in the Butetown and Tiger Bay areas. More than two-thirds of these were employed in the engine room .