Gareth Mills started work as a boy of 15 with the Alexandra
Towing Company at Swansea. A keen photographer, encouraged by the company’s
local manager Tom Richards, he began to keep a photographic record of the
many ships visiting Swansea Docks, and also of the day-to-day activities of
the Alexandra Towing Company’s tugboats.
Throughout the following decades, Gareth – always a well-known and popular
figure on the dockside – went on to take countless photos of ships and
cargoes at Swansea and Port Talbot, as well as accumulating a substantial
collection of old docks photos, prints and documents from a variety of
different sources.
On
the following pages, with Gareth’s kind permission, we have reproduced a
selection of photos representing just a small fraction of his extensive
collection, the whole of which has now been donated to the Swansea Museum.
