Jenkins, Thomas

Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales; cabinet maker (b.1814-d.1870)

Thomas Jenkins, son of Thomas Jenkins, was born in Llanedi, Carmarthenshire and brought up on a farm at Bynmaen, Llanddweibrefi, in the Teifi valley. In 1834 his family moved to a cottage in Carmarthen, by which time he had already begun woodworking without any formal training. While still on the family farm he had made a boat and several violins, the second of which bears an inscription recording its making in 1833. Most of the information on Jenkin’s career comes from a diary which he kept between 1826 and 1870. From 1834 he began to work in the building and carpentry trades, and in June 1838 he fitted out the new shop of Mr Williams’ Druggist in Llandeilo. The 167 feet of mahogany for the job was bought from Isaac Davies of Carmarthen. He moved to Llandeilo where he rented a house and workshop and in 1840 he was recorded as employing one workman. Slater’s Directory of 1844 listed Jenkins as a cabinet maker and the following year he took apprentices and workmen and mover to larger premises. Although not formally trained he appears to have been acknowledged as a cabinet maker and was regularly asked to carry out inventories and valuations with other cabinet makers, including the probate inventory of Lord Dynevor made in conjunction with the cabinet maker James Fuller. In time he served as a Parish Constable, Constable of the Leet Court and as a juror. Jenkins was an autodidact; he co-founded the Llandeilo ‘Mechanic’s Mutual Instructing Institute’. He invented and built machinery including a lathe with circular saw attachment and in 1852 made ‘a direct-acting steam engine’ to drive it. For the 1851 Great Exhibition he made ‘2 wax figures for William Lewis, Llandyfan, from models of his son and daughter… dressed in Welsh costume’. Despite the very detailed information contained in the diary, it is difficult to get the measure of Jenkin’s work as a furniture maker. He may never have had a showroom, and seems to have acted equally as an agent, merchant, surveyor, builder, engineer and woodworker. He did, however, take on a number of apprentices and workmen, including Peter Jenkins (1841), Lewis Lewis, John Jenkins (1841), Ebenezer Morris, Edward Price (1841), David Williams (1855), William Lloyd and Thomas Demelton. In the 1840s his workmens’ rates varied from 10s. to 18s. per week.  His son James was also a woodworker who in 1862 went to Swansea to assist in building the ‘Sailor’s Home’ there. No furniture by Thomas Jenkins has so far (2020) been recorded.

Source: Bebb, Welsh Furniture (2007), II, pp. 235-8, 224 & 272.