Cory Brothers

Sir Clifford John Cory, 1st Baronet (10 April 1859 – 3 February 1941) was a Welsh colliery owner, coal exporter and Liberal Party politician.

Clifford John Cory was the son of John Cory (1828–1910), a South Wales coal broker and philanthropist. He was educated privately in Wales and on the continent. On 25 January 1893 he married Jane Ann(e) Gordon Lethbridge, the daughter of an army officer from Somerset. They only lived together for three months and Lady Cory later applied for a judicial separation.

In 1886, Cory was appointed lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, (Militia) the Welsh Regiment but his principal career was the coal trade following the example of his father and his uncle Richard Cory. Frank Owen described him as one of the 'rising young coal kings of South Wales whose market was indeed the world [and who] wanted to be freed of the trammels on trade'. At the time of his death in 1941, he was chairman of Cory Brothers Ltd. colliery proprietors and coal exporters of Cardiff. At one time he had been chairman of the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association and of the Welsh Coal Trade Conciliation Board. He was also President of Cardiff Incorporated Chamber of Commerce, in 1907 and 1908 and sometime Chairman of the South Wales and Monmouthshire Schools of Mines

Cory was a typical example of the Welsh-born, nonconformist, capital owning, elite Liberal, although this background was becoming less and less relevant in politics with the rise of class as the principal determinant of political allegiance.

Nevertheless, in the 1890s the coal-owners were still at the top of the social hierarchy in South Wales even if politically they were less inclined to involvement. Cory was something of an exception however (as he later proved to be in national Liberal politics over the issue of Home Rule). He was sometime President of Cardiff Liberals. Cory was elected to Glamorgan County Council in 1892 as member for Ystrad. He ousted the sitting member, David Thomas, the only working man who served on the previous council. Cory retained the seat until 1910, the only substantial coal owner to keep a prominent political profile in the Rhondda during this period. Cory was also High Sheriff of Monmouthshire for 1905. He also served as a Justice of the Peace for Glamorgan and Monmouthshire and was a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Glamorgan. He was created a baronet in 1907, the Cory baronetcy of Llantarnam Abbey. Cory had the abbey the Reginald Blewitt who had restored it in 1836.

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