So what were Bysshe and Harriet Shelley doing in Tremadoc of all
places? Traveling across Wales in 1812, they visited the port town of
Portmadoc, where they discovered what Holmes calls “the site of an enormous building
operation” in progress.[1] It was
actually a land-reclamation project, and workers were building and reinforcing
an embankment (called the Grand Cob—cob
meaning here a pile or heap[2]) that
allowed the existence of Tremadoc, a community planned and being built by
William Alexander Madocs, a visionary investor, who had been living on the site
in a house he’d called Tan-yr-allt (under-the-hill).
Immediately smitten by the project, Bysshe decided he would stay,
that he would invest, that he would raise funds from others to support the
project.
And better yet? Madocs, in financial difficulty, was in the
process of selling Tan-yr-allt, and Bysshe swept in to buy it—or, at least, to
obtain a lease. Bysshe, hounded by creditors, nonetheless convinced the locals
of his intended generosity. He decided he would go to London to see about
raising funds and supporters for the project.
And while he was there, he met for the first time one of his
literary heroes, a man he had not been all that certain was even still alive at the time—William Godwin, father
of you-know-who. On the evening of October 4, 1812, Bysshe and Harriet dined at
the Godwins’. But young Mary Godwin, who had just turned fifteen, was still in
Scotland, staying with the Baxters. But the London Godwins were so thrilled
with Bysshe and Harriet that it was not long before Mary began hearing, via
letter, about this wonderful young couple who had come into their lives. Godwin
knew his bright and talented daughter would just love the Shelleys.
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