These were mainly Welsh-language congregations. Anglicanism in south Wales became autonomous from the Church of England with the Welsh Church Act 1914, but the immediate demise of the denomination feared at that time has not taken place in the Church in Wales. There are a number of Brethren Assemblies in Cardiff and in the Swansea area and Free Presbyterian Churches in Rhiwderin, near Newport and at Merthyr Tydfil. The Roman Catholic community, despite systematic persecution, survived in the 17th to 19th centuries, especially in Brecon and among minor gentry such as the Vaughans of Welsh Bicknor, on the Monmouthshire–Herefordshire border. Among members of foreign origin of later urban Catholic congregations were the Bracchi, Italians in the café and catering trades often from Bardi in the Apennines