Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The Penarth Harbour, Dock & Railway Co. dispute with Messrs. Smith, Knight & Co. . .

Mr. S. Batchelor said the accounts had never been audited by the auditors whose names appended to them.

The Chairman : You are going too far.

The meeting proceeded in much the same disgruntled manner until at the close:

"The Chairman : As one of the three directors whom you have re-elected, I don't thank you for it. You ought to thank me, for doing the work here. I have been here nine years, and what have I done? I have put a great deal of money in it, and had very little out of it; and as for any remuneration for being a director, I have had scarcely anything. I have not even paid my cab hire from Cardiff to this place.

Mr Page : Then you ought to. Is that what the cabman is waiting for outside?

The preceding account was edited from the Cardiff Times [019] of the 3rd March 1865.

1865 (June) - ". . . The contract for the construction of the dock and the dock railway was taken in 1858 by Messrs. Smith and Knight. In the course of the work disputes arising between the company and the contractors, the Board of Directors took possession of the works, after application to the Court of Chancery, and from the autumn of 1861 the work has been carried forward to completion by the directors without the intervention of the contractors. To the interruption occasioned to the progress of the works by Messrs. Smith and Knight, mainly, is to be attributed the delay which has been experienced in the completion of the dock. . . " Cardiff Times [019] 9th June 1865.

1866 (May) - The Penarth Company and Smith, Knight and Co. - The second annual meeting of the shareholders of Smith, Knight, and Co. (Limited), was held on Tuesday, at the London Tavern ; Mr. Ommanney in the chair."

The Chairman said he still had some hopes of retrieving the company from the position in which it had become placed, aided by the continued forbearance of the creditors. Before referring to the accounts some shareholders would be surprised at finding that there had been an adverse balance brought down of £80,000. But this had merely been done to bring the accounts into balance. . .

The Chairman then read the following document:- 'Proposals for settlement of a claim (disputed) of Smith, Knight and Company (Limited) against Mr. Smith, in respect of calls made on the 10,000 shares standing in his name, and against Mr. Knight in respect of 10,000 shares standing in his name,