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High praise indeed for the Iron Tsar from South Wales
6/24/2011 2:17:04 PM
Author Roderick Heather believes trailblazing industrialist John Hughes proved himself “the second greatest Welshman of all time”.
Mr. Heather, an Englishman with close ties to Wales, came to this conclusion after researching the life of John Hughes and writing a book to document the remarkable achievements of the man he dubbed The Iron Tsar.
In an interview conducted during a recent visit to Sydney, Mr Heather had no difficulty in demonstrating that John Hughes, born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1815, was an extraordinary man with astonishing vision and a huge intellect.
A self-made man who became a highly successful industrial expert, Hughes was also an adventurer, an inventor and an entrepreneur without peer. Although he was only semi-literate, such were the man’s talents that by the age of 36 he was running a complex foundry in Newport.
By 1870 he had accumulated the experience and attracted enough investor capital to sail for Russia with equipment and 100 British workers in six ships to build a modern iron and steel works in a remote, undeveloped part of Ukraine.
Despite a terrible first winter, Hughes persevered with a project that saw his company become an important foundation stone in the industrialisation of Russia. In the process he built the iron works, coal mines, roads, railways and all the infrastructure needed by “Hughesovka”, the town he founded on the open plains
Today that town is Donetsk, a city with a population of more than one million, whose citizens still recognise the achievements of the man who created Hughesovka.
A visionary he may have been, but John Hughes was, above all, a practical man. Furthermore, although he was certainly a capitalist, he had a uniquely well-developed social conscience which led him to build quality homes for his workers along with the infrastructure to ensure their welfare, including hospitals, pharmacies and clinics with qualified doctors. Nor did he ignore the cultural needs of his workforce, inaugurating a Welsh choir and a theatrical group.
Mr Heather’s book makes a fascinating read. It came about after he visited Donetsk and became aware of the exploits of a man of whom many of today's Welsh citizens would be blissfully unaware.
“Conducting research into the life and times of John Hughes was essentially a labour of love,” he told Llais. “The more I learned about him the more I came to admire his vision and tenacity.
”Presuming many people would nominate Owain Glyndwr as the greatest Welshman, I think Hughes certainly deserves the accolade of second greatest.”