Brynmawr Experiment

The Brynmawr Experiment was an effort led by the visionary idealist Peter Scott to address issues of poverty and unemployment in Brynmawr, South Wales, between 1929 and 1939. Initially a relief project response of the Quakers in South-East England, it grew first into an effort to set up small industries and finally an ambitious utopian subsistence agriculture project for unemployed workers.

Having received large amounts of money from government and private donations, the projects barely made a profit throughout their existence and finally closed in 1939. The official reason for their closure was that unemployment was wiped out due to the opening of local armament factories in the wake of the Second World War, but credit and government loans were also not extended which meant that the projects could not continue.