Family’s dramatic flight to safety as revolution swept Russia in 1917
While World War I raged elsewhere in Europe, one Welsh family who had just had their second baby dramatically escaped the Russian Revolution in 1917 as the country became increasingly unstable. Using information from the Hughesovka Research Archive, Glamo
IN THE latter years of the 19th century, Merthyr Tydfil man John Hughes and 100 workers and families sailed in eight ships to Russia where they built an iron works and collieries.
They established a new town called Hughesovka, now Donetsk in Ukraine.
Mr Hughes was an experienced engineer and iron master and the Russian Government needed his expertise and management skills to capitalise on the raw materials – iron ore, coal and water power – to be found in the Donbass region of Russia.
For his part, Hughes saw the opportunity to build a business empire in the form of the New Russia Company, established with his four sons.
The Cartwright family from Merthyr Tydfil were one of many that travelled from South Wales to work there.
Percy Cartwright was the son of a printer from Dowlais. A talented scholar, his name appeared frequently in local newspapers as a prize winner in exams and competitions run by the local Sunday School at the Elizabeth Street Methodist Chapel in Dowlais.
He was a keen sportsman and a committee man at both the Dowlais cricket club, the Lilywhites, and the local football club.
Rather than follow his father into the printing trade, Percy had a talent for science.
By 1901, at the age of 22, he was the scientific adviser at the local steel works.
Percy left for Hughesovka in 1903 and worked for the New Russia Company as a metallurgical chemist, initially as the company’s assistant chemist and subsequently as chief chemist.
He was to live in Hughesovka for the next 14 years, returning to South Wales in 1911 to marry Gwladys Morgan, a 26-year-old school teacher.
Gwladys, also from Dowlais, lived close to the Cartwright family.
Her father, Tom, was the local grocer and the family attended the Elizabeth Street Chapel.
Their first child, a daughter named Ella, was born in Hughesovka two years later in 1913.
The New Russia Company made provisions for housing, hospitals and schools, meaning the Cartwrights and others from Wales enjoyed a privileged lifestyle in a large company house with an extensive garden, servants and horse-drawn carriages for the summer and sleighs for the winter.
They also retained close ties with family and friends in Wales with reports from Hughesovka often appearing in the Welsh newspapers.
For example, Percy had a talent for amateur dramatics and there are accounts in the Western Mail in 1914 of plays staged in Hughesovka with Percy in the lead role.
But all of this was to change in 1917.
Following the outbreak of the First World War, a number of the young men had left to travel back to Britain to enlist, but life for many of those in Hughesovka continued.
The factories were charged with the production of munitions and steel to fuel the Russian war effort.
By 1917, however, after three years of heavy losses of men and territory, the war was going badly for the Russians with morale rapidly disintegrating and the economy on the verge of collapse.
Matters were brought to a head early in the year with disorder and riots in the capital Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) fuelled by severe food shortages.
The Tsar, appreciating that he could no longer rely on the Army, abdicated and power was passed to a Provisional Government of liberal Duma politicians.
If, however, the families in Hughesovka thought that this might lead to an improvement in their situation, they were sorely disappointed.
Minister of War Alexander Kerensky’s decision to continue the war was unpopular and increasingly the Provisional Government competed for power with the Petrograd Soviet.
The flames of revolution were further fanned in April by the return to Russia of the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.
Faced with the breakdown of government, the families in Hughesovka would have felt increasingly isolated and threatened.
As relatively wealthy individuals and symbols of foreign ownership, they were a target for both revolutionaries and brigands.
The Cartwrights and many others began to consider their options.
Leaving behind their lifestyle and most of their possessions would have been a difficult decision but, by the summer of 1917, their options were severely limited.
Many families had already left or were hurriedly preparing to leave.
It may well have been the news of the first Bolshevik uprising that was the deciding factor in the Cartwright’s decision to quit Hughesovka. c o b a a s i t P t n t b t t t s f t t c