Name: George Williams

Author: William David (Bill) Jones

Born 2 December 1879 at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, the son of Frederick and Mary A. Williams, he was educated at Haverfordwest Grammar School. From 1920 to 1945 he was in business as a builder’s merchant and he was also a managing director of numerous companies, among them Williams and Borgars Ltd., Camrose Estates Ltd. and Whitehead’s Electrical Inventions Ltd.

During the 1930s he was to the fore in the efforts to attract new industries into south Wales to alleviate the unemployment created by the decline of the staple heavy industries. He served as chairman of the National Industrial Development Council of Wales and Monmouthshire from its inception in 1931 and was the author of the scheme which led to the formation by the Government of the Special Areas Reconstruction Association and the building of advance factories. The Treforest Trading Estate was largely his idea and he also wrote numerous press articles on contemporary industrial and economic affairs.

The other major concern to which he devoted his public career was the city of Cardiff. First returned as a Liberal Councillor for the Penylan Ward in 1928, he became an Alderman in 1948 and served as Lord Mayor 1950-51. He chaired the Chamber of Trade, the estates committee and the airport committee, and he played an important part in the city’s acquisition of Cardiff Castle and Pontcanna Fields. A leading champion of Cardiff’s claim to be recognised as the capital of Wales, he purchased Parc Cefn Onn and later donated it to the city. He was made a C.B.E. in 1938.

In 1904 he married Margaret Jones (died 1942) and they had two sons and two daughters. He died at Cardiff, 7 October 1951.