Merthyr Tydfil

This is an umbrella name used to cover the mines opened to feed the Cyfarthfa Works. They started to move away from just supplying the works and to exporting coal in 1866. They included; Benny’s, Canal, Coedcae, Colliers Row Upper & Lower, Cornely Wain, Cwm, Cwm Canal, Cwmdu, Cwmfelin, Cwmglo, Gellideg’s, Glyndyrus, Gutter, Mountain’s, Pen Machine, Pig & Whistle, Pond, Rhydycar, Taskers, Twyn, Wain, Wern, Winch Fawr, Beynon’s, Bwllring, Duke, Gellideg, Jenkin’s, Jones, Middle, Morgan’s, Coedcae, Davies, Ynysfach, Griff Evans, Pond. They mainly worked the Upper-Two-Feet-Nine, Lower-Two-Feet-Nine, Twenty Inches, Bute, Gellideg, Upper Yard, Upper-Four-Feet, Six-Feet, Seven-Feet and Nine-Feet coal seams plus the Little Blue, Black Pins, Big Blue, Rosser, Big and Upper Black Pins ironstone veins.

The 1842 Royal Commission into Women and Children in the Mines informed us that Henrietta Frankland worked at the Cyfarthfa Pits. She was 11 years of age and a drammer. Her job was to draw drams carrying 4 to 5 hundredweights of coal from the coalface to the main road, she did this 48 to 50 times a twelve-hour shift at least six days a week. The work, she reported was very hard and the long hours fatigued us much. The mine was wet and the roadways were only 30 to 33 inches high.

The entrance to a canal-operated level is listed at SO 0428 0534.

Some of those who died in these mines:

 

  • 6/10/1852, John Williams, aged 48, labourer, crushed in Jones’ Pit.
  • 18/4/1856, William Lewis, roof fall.
  • 5/11/1857, John Howells, aged 30, roof fall.
  • 14/11/1857, Moses Callen, aged 25, roof fall.
  • 12/6/1856, George Robbings, aged 12, boy, run over by trams.
  • 11/4/1858, Thomas Williams, aged 24, collier, roof fall.
  • 7/7/1858, Thomas Rees, aged 12, boy, roof fall.
  • 3/8/1858, William Davies, aged 50, collier, explosion of gas.
  • 24/8/1858, David Williams, aged 30, collier, roof fall.
  • 10/11/1858, Rees Rees, aged 66, mason, crushed by trams.
  • 10/6/1859, John Hill, aged 12, boy, fell down the shaft.
  • 26/7/1860, John Morgan, aged 17, collier, roof fall.
  • 14/9/1860, Lewis Lewis, aged 60, collier, roof fall.
  • 16/7/1861, David Williams, aged 12, door boy, crushed by trams.
  • 2/9/1861, John Charles, collier, roof fall at Coedcae Level.
  • 1/11/1861, Walter Lloyd, aged 55, collier, roof fall.
  • 16/1/1862, Evan Hopkins, collier, roof fall.
  • 12/2/1862, Isaac Price, aged 12, door boy, roof fall.
  • 23/10/1862, David Ingram, aged 11, door boy, roof fall.
  • 31/10/1862, John Higgnet, aged 33, collier, roof fall.
  • 13/3/1863, David Jenkins, aged 19, collier, roof fall.
  • 28/7/1862, Philip Rees, aged 50, overman, roof fall.
  • 31/7/1862, David Lewis, aged 38, collier, roof fall.
  • 11/9/1863, William Hughes, aged 12, haulier, run over by trams.
  • 11/4/1864, David Thomas, aged 25, miner, roof fall.
  • 24/5/1864, Evan Griffiths, aged 13, collier, roof fall.
  • 21/6/1865, Thomas Rees, aged 8, collier, fell off the carriage whilst descending the shaft. The colliery manager was summoned for employing him at 8 years of age but no fine was imposed as a certificate had been produced by the father purporting that he was 10 years of age.
  • 21/8/1865, John Sullivan, aged 50, labourer, roof fall.
  • 30/1/1866, John Jones, aged 40, haulier, crushed by trams.
  • 17/3/1866, Thomas Morris, aged 20, sinker, fell down shaft.
  • 1/10/1866, John Jones, aged 14, haulier, run over by trams.

 

Information supplied by Ray Lawrence and used here with his permission.

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