In the course of my PhD research, I made my way to the Ceredigion Archives in June 2021 to dig into the papers of Sir David Owen Evans, the Liberal M.P. for Cardiganshire between 1932-45. Compared to other politicians, Evans’s papers are not exactly extensive. But there was one thing that caught my eye. Or, to be specific, the one file of newspaper cuttings. Each article came from various British and Canadian newspapers and magazines from 12th June 1945 and recorded Evans’s death and the same basic information about him. One example from the Calgary Herald recorded that Evans had died on Monday (11th June) due to ‘a heart ailment’, having been knighted the previous week by King George VI (1). The short article went on to state that Evans had been vice-president of the International Nickel Company of Canada and ‘was credited in 1929 with effecting the world’s biggest nickel merger, a $544,500,000 deal which brought virtually all the nickel resources of the world under British control.’ With minor variations, each article conveyed what was essentially the same information. Since my research is focused on the parliamentary opposition to appeasement, it was not immediately relevant. However, I have gotten into the habit of keeping a note of various things that do not seem significant on the off chance that it may prove useful. In this case, it has certainly proved so.
As it was, I had quite forgotten about this titbit until reading the memoirs of Lord Chandos, the wartime president of the Board of Trade and trusted ally of Winston Churchill (2). Chandos, then plain old Oliver Lyttelton, had worked for the British Metal Corporation and had a distinguished career in the City of London by trading in non-ferrous metals (not containing iron). As such, Chandos had some dealings with the International Nickel Company in the 1930s since it also produced large quantities of copper. In 1935, when Italy invaded Abyssinia, Lyttelton met with the Director of Army Contracts at the War Office to discuss their requirements for copper, which was used in all kinds of military equipment, and invite tenders (3). As it transpired, with the threat of war on the horizon, the British government estimated that it needed 50,000 tons of copper but wished to acquire it without alarming the public and their international rivals, or moving the market price. In order to avoid this, they wished to do it discretely, so Lyttelton agreed to do it through the British Metal Corporation, as such a large order could be dismissed as either building up their own stocks or to increase sales. As it was, they had only bought up a small quantity before the Abyssinians surrendered and the order was cancelled.
Even so, this had raised Lyttelton’s stock in government circles and so, when Germany invaded the rump of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he was informed that, if it came to war, he would be offered the post of Controller of Non-Ferrous Metals (4). In preparation for this, Lyttelton devised a plan for the purchase and allocation of the four principal non-ferrous metals: copper, tin, lead, and zinc. Copper and zinc would be especially important for use in cartridge and shell cases, both of which were made of brass, an alloy of copper and zinc. For some time, Lyttelton had been urging the Government to build up its copper stocks and warning of the abnormal increase in Germany’s purchase of copper on international markets. When these were rebuffed, he began to take private measures including persuading Robert Stanley, the president of the International Nickel Company, to hold their working stocks in Britain and warned that, if war broke out, those stocks would certainly be requisitioned (5). As a result, Stanley built up the Company’s stocks to 15,000 tons of copper in short order. Though even this was nothing by what would be needed to fight a modern war. After the outbreak of war, Lyttelton was officially appointed, and the British Metal Corporation nationalised.
Reading this prompted me to dig out the notes I had taken from the cuttings about Evans’s death and then to look into the International Nickel Company. There had been nickel mining in Ontario since 1902 and the Company had been formed as a joint venture between the Canadian Copper, Orford Copper, and American Nickel Works in New York that same year. It was here that Evans becomes relevant to this story. Born in Penbryn in 1876 to a farming family, Evans was educated at Llandovery College and then the Imperial College of Science, London. In 1896, he went to work for the Inland Revenue as a civil servant, where he began to study law. He was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1909 and practised as a barrister. In 1916, on the advice of the industrialist and politician Sir Alfred Mond, he joined the Mond Nickel Company, which had extensive operations in Canada and South Wales (6). After becoming a director, Evans oversaw the merger, in 1928-29, of the Company with the International Nickel Company when each began mining the same bodies of ore in Canada. As part of the merger, Evans became vice-president of the new company and, in 1932, was elected as Liberal M.P. for his native Cardiganshire.
As an M.P., Evans spoke on a variety of issues. His maiden speech was on unemployment, and he could be found speaking on topics as diverse as civil service examinations in Welsh (1934), the merchant marine (1938), agriculture (1941), and economic warfare (1943) (7). Evans was also involved with local institutions, including the National Library of Wales, the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the Council of the National Eisteddfod. He was also loyal to the Liberal programme of free trade, cutting costs, and supporting the League of Nations (8). In 1938, he was one of the Liberal M.P.s who, outraged at the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, voted against the Munich Agreement, even though it seemed hugely popular with the public. However, it was Evans’s work in merging the nickel companies that paid unexpectedly handsome dividends. By the middle of the 1930s, this huge mining firm was playing a crucial role in feeding global demand for nickel and copper, as well as being part of Lyttelton’s plan for stockpiling in preparation for war.
Between 1935 and the outbreak of war in 1939, the International Nickel Company’s sales exceeded £200 million a year and it provided more than 80% of the world’s copper (9). It was also in this period that Finland’s extensive nickel deposits became ‘a bargaining chip in the Great Powers’ political game’, in which the International Nickel Company played a role in competition with Germany’s I.G. Farben (10). In the Second World War, Evans’s work bore fruit when the Company’s Frood Mine, the ore field that had led the two to merge, produced 40% of the nickel used in artillery by the Allies. Through the course of the war, the Company provided more than 1.5 billion pounds of nickel, 1.75 billion pounds of copper, and more than 1.8 million ounces of platinum metals to the Allied war effort (11). Its role in providing the necessary copper for the war effort is, I think, best demonstrated by the fact that there was such a short supply that the U.S. Mint limited its use of copper in coin production throughout the war (12). Back in 1929, Evans achievement, apparently so notable that every obituary felt it should be mentioned, seemed nothing more than a successful business transaction. Ten years later, it proved itself absolutely vital to the Allied war effort.
Blog by Ewan Lawry
Footnotes
[1] Calgary Herald cutting, David Owen Evans Papers, Ceredigion Archives, Acc. 1216 ADX/460
[2] Oliver Lyttelton, Viscount Chandos, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos (London, 1962)
[3] Lyttelton, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos, p.149
[4] Lyttelton, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos, p.150
[5] Lyttelton, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos, p.151
[6] T. Maelgwyn Davies, ‘Evans, Sir David Owen (1876-1945), barrister, industrialist and politician’, https://biography.wales/article/s2-EVAN-OWE-1876, accessed 26/4/22
[7] Hansard, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/people/mr-david-evans/index.html, accessed 26/4/22
[8] Cardiganshire Bye-election 1932 parliamentary election address, https://syllwr.llyfrgell.cymru/5116745#?c=&m=&s=&cv=54&manifest=https%3A%2F%2Fdamsssl.llgc.org.uk%2Fiiif%2F2.0%2F5116745%2Fmanifest.json&xywh=-1301%2C332%2C5782%2C4695, accessed 26/4/22
[9] J. Eloranta, I. Nummela, ‘Finnish nickel as a strategic metal, 1920-1944’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 32:4 (2007), p.325
[10] Eloranta, Nummela, ‘Finnish nickel as a strategic metal’, p.337
[11] Our History, http://www.vale.com/canada/EN/business/mining/nickel/vale-canada/history/Pages/default.aspx#:~:text=1939%E2%80%931945%20%E2%80%93%20International%20Nickel%20delivers%201.5%20billion%20pounds,as%20it%20did%20in%20the%2054%20preceding%20years., accessed 26/4/22
[12] ‘A Penny for Your Thoughts’, http://www.nww2m.com/tag/copper/, accessed 26/4/22
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