Merthyr Tydfil

There was a Plymouth Level opened by Morgan and David Joseph in 1803 that employed three colliers. Almost every Monday morning between 1805 and 1815 there was an explosion of gas at this mine.

This was an umbrella name for the pits and levels worked by the Plymouth Iron Company to feed their Works. They were situated approximately two miles to the south of Merthyr Tydfil and were split in the middle of the mineral take by the Church geological fault which runs from the northwest to the southeast. This fault threw down to the west from 36 yards in the north and considerably more as it travelled southwards. The seams on the east side of the fault were not as thick as those on the western side.

In the early days “Day Levels” belonging to the Company worked on the east side of the fault into the No.1 Rhondda seam which outcrops near the hilltop, it was 48 inches thick. Eighty yards below this seam was the No.2 Rhondda but this seam was geologically disturbed and not worked. The No.3 Rhondda was 28 inches in thickness and cropped out 182 yards below the No.1 Rhondda, it had a “splendid” rock roof. The deeper pits had a total vertical thickness of 63 feet of coal to exploit, of which 41 feet were in seams of 24 inches and over. The Two-Feet-Nine seam was 32 inches in thickness and 271 yards below the No.1 Rhondda seam.

On the west side of the fault, it thickened to 63 inches. The Upper-Four-Feet seam was 279 yards below the No.1 Rhondda and was around 60 inches thick. It was divided into three beds by thin layers of clod. The Upper-Six-Feet seam was 299 yards below the No.1 Rhondda and was 26 inches thick with a strong rock roof. The Lower-Six-Feet was between 3 to 10 yards below the Upper and was around 39 inches in thickness. The Red Vein (30 inches thick) and the Nine-Feet seam (8 feet 5 inches) had merged into one seam except towards the north and east they part to up to 20 yards. Around 454 yards below the No.1 Rhondda seam. The next seam down was the Bute which had split into two a varied in thickness tremendously. Sometimes it merged with the Nine-Feet while in other places it worked on its own at 28 inches in thickness. The Yard seam was 25 inches thick on the east side of the fault and 41 inches thick on the west side of the fault. It was 480 yards below the No.1 Rhondda and very disturbed. The Gellideg seam was also called the Lower-Four-Feet and was 24 inches thick on the east side. To the west, it varied between 28 to 40 inches at a depth of 510 yards below the No.1 Rhondda rising rapidly to outcrop 1.25 miles to the north.

In 1763, Isaac Williams and John Guest agreed to a lease of 99 years at a payment of £60 per annum on lands belonging to the Earl of Plymouth. For some reason or other they did not develop the site, and in 1765 sub-leased to Anthony Bacon who constructed the Plymouth Iron Works. Anthony Bacon died in 1786 and his second son, Thomas, leased the Works to Richard Hill for a term of 15 years at an annual rent of plus another £268 per annum for the leaseholders. Richard Hill then formed the Hill’s Plymouth Company.

These collieries figured prominently in the 1842 Royal Commission Enquiry into the employment of children underground:

  • Susan Reece aged six years had been employed underground for six or eight months
  • Phillip Phillips aged nine years had a scarred face, “nearly a year ago there was an accident and most of us were burned. I was carried home by a man. It hurt very much because all the skin was burnt off my face.” 
  • Mary Davies aged six years: “I sometimes fall asleep and I think the rats stole my bread and cheese.” 
  • Thomas Joseph the mineral agent for the company stated “Children are employed as air doorkeepers at five years of age.” 
  • Evan Gray was 16 years of age but had worked underground since he was seven years old, he then worked as a collier and had lost two toes in an accident.
  • Henrietta Frankland was aged 11 years and dragged carts loaded with 4/5 hundredweights of coal from the coalface to the roadways ready for the horses to take out, she made 48 to 50 journeys per shift, “the work is very hard…long hours…the mine is wet and 30 to 33 inches high… A horse had fell on her and she has been idle for two months.” 
  • Mary Reed aged 12 years opened and closed an air door to let the coal wagons through for five years and did not like the work.
  • Susan Reece was another door girl and was aged 6 years. Her brother John Reece was a coal filler at 8 years of age.

At that time the Plymouth Collieries employed 90 boys under the age of 13 years, 25 girls under the age of 13 years plus 80 women. The coal was worked mostly by levels but also by three shafts that were 72 feet, 150 feet and 240 feet deep, five coal seams were worked, two were 36 inches thick, one was 48 inches, another 84 inches and one was 8 feet thick.

Richard Hill died in 1818 and ownership of the Works passed to his sons, Anthony and Richard, Richard Junior died in 1844. Anthony Hill died in 1862 and the Plymouth Iron Works was sold to Fothergill, Hankey and Bateman who worked it until closure in the 1880’s. In 1896 a Plymouth Level employed one man opening it. The Hill’s Plymouth Company continued to work their mining interests after the closure of the Works and employed 3,000 miners in 1907.

In 1908 there was also a Plymouth Level working that employed four men.

The company was bought out by Dr. Llewellyn in 1927 who formed Llewellyn (Plymouth) Limited which in 1935 employed 1,780 men producing 500,000 tons of coal from seven collieries. The last of the collieries to work, the South Duffryn, was closed as a production unit in November 1940. Accident records show that in 1870 an eleven-year-old boy was killed while working at the Plymouth pits.

Some of those who died in these mines:

  • 12/2/1864, Thomas Evans, William Howells, miners, shotfiring.
  • 2/3/1864, Thomas Phillips, miner, explosion of gas.
  • 2/3/1864, David Thomas, miner, explosion of gas.
  • 2/3/1864, Rhys Thomas, miner, explosion of gas.
  • 2/8/1864, Thomas Walters, aged 23, miner, roof fall.
  • 27/1/1865, S. Lewis, aged 27, collier, roof fall.
  • 1/5/1865, Thomas Thomas, aged 23, engineer, roof fall.
  • 16/12/1865, William Rees, aged 13, collier, roof fall.
  • 17/3/1866, Thomas Meet, hitcher, crushed by the cage.
  • 27/7/1866, Samuel John, aged 60, collier, roof fall.
  • 21/1/1872, T. Lloyd, aged 40, collier, shaft incident.
  • 6/8/1874, T. Wranklyn, aged 13, door boy, roof fall.
  • 5/11/1874, H. Humfrey, collier, roof fall.
  • 26/10/1875, L. Windsor, aged 28, collier, roof fall.
  • 29/11/1875, D. Thomas, sinker, shaft incident.
  • 14/9/1876, Ivor Davies, aged 14, collier, roof fall.
  • 12/12/1876, R. Jones, haulier, run over by trams.
  • 25/2/1880, David Arthur, aged 64, airway man, roof fall.
  • 4/10/1880, John Jones, aged 24, collier, roof fall.
  • 9/9/1890, Henry Evans, aged 39, shotfirer, shotfiring.
  • 20/9/1890, Henry Jones, aged 27, fan engineman, caught in machinery.
  • 9/11/1890, David Lewis, aged 25, engine man, fell down the shaft.
  • 10/11/1890, Thomas Boundy, aged 38, contractor, roof fall.
  • 23/12/1890, R. Jordan, aged 16, labourer, crushed by trams.
  • 23/1/1891, John Jones, aged 20, collier, roof fall.
  • 25/2/1891, H.J. Griffiths, aged 25, collier, crushed by trams.
  • 10/4/1891, William Thomas, aged 31, collier, roof fall.
  • 10/4/1891, Lewis Knott, aged 35, bricklayer, fell down a chimney.
  • 23/8/1891, John Morgan, aged 36, collier, explosion of gas.
  • 23/8/1891, Joseph Morgan, aged 21, collier, explosion of gas.
  • 18/12/1891, Griffith Francis, aged 30, collier, roof fall.
  • 30/12/1891, William Lewis, aged 55, collier, roof fall.
  • 7/4/1892, Edward Rees, aged 31, haulier, roof fall.
  • 26/5/1892, Samuel Leonard, aged 40, road man, run over by trams.
  • 24/8/1892, Johnathan Griffiths, aged 62, labourer, run over by trams.
  • 9/10/1893, Thomas Davies, aged 16, collier boy, roof fall.
  • 19/7/1894, Evan Evans, aged 33, collier, roof fall.
  • 6/2/1895, John Power, aged 29, wagon shunter, crushed by wagons.
  • 26/2/1895, Walter Edwards, aged 22, labourer, roof fall.
  • 4/4/1895, William Williams, aged 41, collier, run over by trams.
  • 18/4/1895, Thomas Edmunds, aged 56, collier, crushed by trams.
  • 25/10/1895, William Walters, aged 28, ripper, roof fall.
  • 24/3/1897, George Jones, screenman, aged 41, was run over by wagons.
  • 26/4/1897, James Evans, aged 59, collier in Penyard, crushed by trams.
  • 9/6/1897, Samuel Thomas, aged 49, a contractor in No.1 level, was run over by trams.
  • 3/8/1911, Charles Smith, aged 28, wagon repairer, crushed by wagons.

 

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

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