George Thomas Clark (1809-1898) was one of the great figures in the iron industry in Victorian Wales. Initially a railway engineer, in 1850 he married Anne Price Lewis, a descendant of one of the original partners in the Dowlais ironworks. When the master of Dowlais, Sir John Josiah Guest, died in 1852, Clark was his executor and trustee, and took on the overall management of the firm, supported by Guest’s widow Charlotte. Careful financial control, reinvestment, and innovation brought a revival in the company’s fortunes.

Clark was profoundly interested in antiquities. He also wrote extensively on castles and local history. In 1865 Clark purchased a property called Tal-y-garn, 2 miles south of Llantrisant. He was engaged in extending and decorating the house—to his own designs and using virtuoso Italian craftsmen– for the rest of his life. The Merthyr sculptor Joseph Edwards made many portraits of the great of Victorian Wales.