The True Story of a Welsh Godfather
episode 8 of 11
Most readers like to read short pieces with some photos. So, this article on a Welsh mafia godfather is published on Medium dot com/@davidjames-55685
As well as on my website, www dot MattOwensRees dot com
For professional photos on Thai traditions and people culture, I strongly recommend looking at www dot LodeEngelen dot be
the images often support the articles on my own website.
Some photos of the Godfather’s workers loading pitprops at the docks.
In November 1934, Sir John Hope Simpson, who had agreed to Williams’s suggestion that the settlement be named after himself, returned to England to meet with officials at the Dominions Office. It had become apparent that J. O. Williams had lost his government’s support.
When the Dominions Office found out that the 400 houses were not being built at Port House Simpson and money had effectively been borrowed under false pretenses on Simpson’s say-so, it brought about a complete change in their attitude towards Simpson and Williams.
Simpson faced a reprimand for not insisting that Williams repaid his debts. He countered by saying that he feared that Williams would carry out his threat to pull out of Labrador and Newfoundland altogether. Williams was calling the government’s bluff.
By using borrowed government funds, J.O. proceeded to make money hand over fist from 1934–1940. At the time, few people saw that he was doing that. When they did realise what was going on, it was already too late.
Efforts to Control J.O.
By 29 January 1935, it was clear that the Labrador Development Company was taking maximum advantage of exploiting the woods in an unregulated way. This state of affairs carried on from 1935 to 1940. It was only after a government director was appointed to its board in 1940 and a Public Enquiry into its affairs ordered in 1944 that Williams’s activities were finally controlled.
On 4 June 1935, in a confidential letter marked “secret and personal”, Sir John Hope Simpson wrote that 200 families were being settled at the Alexis River site. Less than two weeks after Simpson wrote that letter, the government took over complete financial control of all properties in both of Williams’ companies.
In a letter on 5 July 1935 to the Dominions Office, he told senior officials, Bridges and Clutterbuck, that J.O. was planning a permanent settlement. Simpson wrote that the loggers were earning great wages of about $3.00 per day. In fact, they were only earning about $1.30 per day.
By September of that year, Simpson revealed he was looking for excuses to leave the scene in Newfoundland altogether. But, he was too entrenched in the family and gaining so much financially. He did not leave.
By the end of 1936, the Company had arranged for the men to build themselves about 60 small houses for rent, but most Labradoreans chose not to live in company housing due to the high rental costs, living instead about a quarter of a mile away on the opposite side of Black Water Brook.
Thomas Lodge, the Commissioner of Public Utilities who had so emphatically praised William’s abilities after meeting him on board the S.S.Sylvia, was sacked in 1937 and the publication of his book “Dictatorship in Newfoundland in 1939” put him out of favour in London. Nevertheless, he became a government director of the Labrador Development Company in 1940!
The Blame Game Begins
Lodge concluded that it had been the Secretary of State for Canada who had failed to give guidance to the officers of the commission. In his view, they were a collection of individuals running their own departments as an experiment in a dictatorship.
He claimed he left his post because he could no longer carry on working with people who completely failed to agree on a positive policy and because he could not convince the Secretary of State to adopt his own point of view. So, was he dismissed by the Dominions Office, or did he leave for his own reasons?
Disaffection with the Labrador Development Company representatives on site quickly set in whilst J. O. Williams was 3,000 miles away in Britain living in luxury in Cardiff city centre next door to his son, Eric.
To justify the good works done by Williams, his counsel emphasized, at the public enquiry in 1945, that the company had rendered every possible service at considerable cost to himself to provide work for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
