William Weston Young - Wreck-Raising, Surveying & Thomas Mansel Talbot's Tomb

Wreck-Raising, Surveying & Thomas Mansel Talbot's Tomb

In 1806 Young conceived of an improved "grab" or "forceps" mechanism to be used in wreck-raising and set about a wreck-raising business, retrieving sunken vessels in the Bristol Channel. His first commission to raise the freight ship Anne and Teresa, salvaged a cargo of copper, making him enough money to establish himself comfortably in the village of Newton Nottage, Glamorganshire as a wreck-raiser, merchant and farmer. In 1811, the death of established local surveyor John Williams of Newland, near Margam, Glamorgan, enabled Young to add surveyor to his list of occupations, filling the niche that Newland left in the region for the next decade.

It was during his work as a surveyor, that Young, an amateur geologist too, discovered the potential of a limestone found at Mumbles, Swansea, Glamorganshire being fashioned as marble. In 1814, Thomas Mansel Talbot (1747–1814) (father of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890)) died at Penrice, Gower, Glamorganshire and Young was commissioned to design Talbot's tomb using locally-sourced minerals. The tomb is a large and elaborate edifice, deploying Penrice alabaster and Mumbles marble, and took a whole six years of design and modelling before its completion in February 1820 in the nave of Margam Abbey Church, Margam, Glamorganshire.