Fernhill Colliery

In 1869 Ebenezer Lewis started to sink the Fernhill Nos. 1 & 2 Pits which reached the Six-Feet seam in 1871, in that year he sold the pits to a partnership of Messrs. Crowley, John and Oldroyd who completed the sinkings to the Four-Feet seam in 1872. In l877 Fernhill was sold to George Watkinson and Sons. George Watkinson Senior was a wool-stapler of Halifax, along with his sons, George and Samuel, while the other son, John, was a colliery owner in Flintshire. The manager in 1878 was Jno. Tudor and in 1884 it was John Rosser. Also in 1869 George Locket, James Marychurch, Herbert Kirkhouse and Rees Jones started to sink the North Dunraven (Blaenrhondda) pit about three hundred yards to the north-west of Fernhill Colliery. They struck the Four-Feet seam in 1875 and promptly sold the pit to the London and South Wales Coal Company Limited. In 1893 it was bought by George Watkinson and Sons and merged with Fernhill Colliery. In 1893 Watkinson formed a public liability company and called the concern the Fernhill Collieries Limited. There was another change in ownership in 1910 when a consortium that included D,A, Thomas of Cambrian fame, J. W . Beynon a coal owner and coal exporter in Monmouthshire and a Leonard W. Llewellyn acquired the company.

The No.1 Pit was the downcast ventilation shaft it was elliptical in shape measuring 17 feet six inches by 11 feet six inches. The No.2 Pit was 132 feet to the south of the No.1 and was the upcast ventilation shaft, it was also elliptical in shape, measuring 16 feet by 11 feet. It was sunk to the Lower-Six-Feet seam which it found at a depth of 922 feet 9 inches. The No.3 Pit (92500069) was sunk to the Upper-Nine-Feet seam which it found at a depth of 1,131 feet 5 inches, the headgear for this pit was made of timber. It could raise 3 tons of coal per wind.

No.3 Pit Height above O.D. 844 feet, seams cut:

• Abergorky: 378 feet 1 inch
• Gorllwyn: 570 feet 5 inches
• Two-Feet-Nine: 814 feet 5 inches
• Four-Feet: 889’ 8 inches
• Upper Six-Feet: 938 feet 8 inches
• Lower Six-Feet: 958 feet 7 inches
• Red Vein: 1,007 feet 1 inch
• Upper Nine-Feet: 1,131 feet 5 inches

The No.5 Pit was sunk to a depth of 1,239 feet in 1923.

No.5 Pit, Height above O.D. 873 feet, seams cut:

• Abergorky: 500 feet 2 inches
• Gorllwyn: 688 feet 8”
• Two-Feet-Nine: 928 feet 0 inches
• Four-Feet: 956 feet 0 inches
• ?Upper Nine-Feet: 1,054 feet 0 inches
• ?Bute: 1,158 feet 0 inches
• Sunk to1,239 feet 0 inches

This colliery was in the news in November 1874 when it prosecuted a ‘little girl’ called Margaret Jones for taking coal from the rubbish tip. Despite the company asking the magistrates to be lenient, and her father’s plea that she was too young to understand that she was doing wrong, she was fined 10s. plus costs, a sizeable amount in those days.

In 1881 this colliery was ventilated by a Schiele type fan which was 13 feet 6 inches in diameter. In 1896 the manager was D.R. Jones, in that year the Pits employed 469 men underground and 68 men on the surface and the Levels 83 men underground and 8 men on the surface. In 1898 the colliery was served by the Taff Vale Railway and had a siding capacity for, 58 full wagons, 182 empty wagons and 56 other wagons. In 1908 the manager was D.R. Jones.

In 1910 three pits were winding coal from the Six-Feet seam; the No.1 from 285 yards, the No.2 from 302 yards and the Dunraven No.1 from 321 yards, plus four levels that were working in the No.2 Rhondda seam. One level was by that time 1,500 yards into the coal seam. Annual output of coal was reaching 360,000 tons and the company was confident enough to sink a trial pit another 154 yards which successfully proved the Red, Nine-Feet, Bute, Five-Feet, Lower Five-Feet and Gellideg seams. New pits were then sunk, the old pit bottoms were enlarged and new headgears, winders, pumping equipment and haulages were installed at a value of around £350,000. Four pits were to be used for winding coal estimated to rise to 700,000 tons a year with a manpower of 2,000 men. In 1913 the Fernhill and North Dunraven pits employed 1,197 men, and the North Dunraven levels 537 men. The manager at that time was R. Lloyd and in 1916/19 and 1930 it was T.L. Davies and in 1938 W.J. Oliver.

In 1913 the company advertised itself:

Fernhill Collieries Ltd.. Registered Offices: Merthyr House, Cardiff Proprietors of Fernhill Merthyr Smokeless Steam Coal, also of Dunraven No.2 Rhondda Coal The latter is one of the very best Bunker Coals, and is extensively used Without Admixture by leading Shipowners Sales Agents: T. Beynon & Co.Ltd.. Cardiff, Newport and London Shipping Ports: Cardiff, Penarth, Barry, Newport, Port Talbot and Swansea.

By October of 1914, 10% of the men working at this pit had volunteered to join the fighting in France. By 1915 the colliery had a mineral take of 2,500 acres which stretched three miles from east to west and was one mile wide. The coal was worked on the old longwall system which in the Gorllwyn and Two-Feet-Nine seams meant that the stalls were driven in at a width of 42 feet and cut off at 150 feet. In the Yard and Six-Feet seams the stalls were 33 feet wide. In 1915 the South Wales Coal and Iron Companies book published by the Business Statistics Company reported that the Fernhill Collieries Limited had made a profit of £43,990 in 1913 and a profit of £32,008 in 1914. Its collieries were worth £344,548 and the board of directors consisted of; D.A. Thomas, Chairman, J.W. Beynon, L.F. Beynon, L.W. Llewelyn and Captain J.C. Kirk. The last pit to be sunk, the No.5 was completed in 1923 on the site of the old Dunraven Colliery.

In 1929 the company became part of the newly formed Welsh Associated Collieries Limited, which in turn was merged with Powell Duffryn in 1935 to become Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries Limited which retained control of the colliery until Nationalisation in 1947. In 1934 the subsidiary Fernhill Collieries Limited was based at Merthyr House, Cardiff with a board of directors that then consisted of; Sir John W Beynon, L.F. Beynon and Trevor L Mort.

It was in the 1930s that the Fernhill Lodge of the South Wales Miners Federation spawned a militancy that was to last until the closure of the colliery forty years later. Amongst some of the major strikes and disputes at the colliery were; a strike in 1934 against the ‘scab’ South Wales Miners Industrial Union in which safety men in the Coalfield were withdrawn from work for the first time since the 1926 strike. In 1936 a dispute arose over twelve men who had not received a minimum wage payment for filling small coal, this resulted in 64 men staying down the pit for a ‘world record’ of 292 hours. In 1969 the local NUM Lodge was at the forefront of the unofficial strike over surface men’s wages, and again in the wages strike of 1972, the Lodge was one of the first to withdraw safety cover against the advice of the NUM.

On the 15th of October 1934, the 1,700 men working at Fernhill walked out in protest over the employment of 15 non-unionists. This dispute was resolved after a day when most of the non-unionists agreed to join the South Wales Miners Federation. Another three week long strike was settled on the 14th of April 1935, when the hauliers working at the pit returned to work after a settlement to their claim for extra money for working in wet conditions. On the First of January 1936, a stay-down strike lasted for about 12 hours before they came up the pit. In August 1936, twelve men were involved in a dispute over payment for producing small coal. The Lodge Committee of the SWMF advised the men to carry on working until the disputes procedure had been completed but on the 29th of August, 300 men held an underground meeting in the Nos.3 & 4 Pits, they then sent the older men and young boys back up the pit with 75 men staying down. The afternoon and night shifts refused to work resulting in the whole colliery closing down. It was only on the previous Wednesday work had resumed at Fernhill following six weeks lay off due to lack of orders. By the 1st of September, there were still 64 men in the stay-down strike. They had spent 80 hours underground. They returned to the surface on the 9th of September 1836 with the guarantee that the matter would be settled by discussion. In November of that year, 22 of the strikers were summoned to appear at the magistrates court on charges of intimidating the officials of the mine. 18 men were found guilty with fines ranging from £1 to £4 plus costs of £35. One of the leaders of the men, Thomas Lewis, stated that he would not pay the fine and would take the alternative two months in prison.

Mr. T.E. Thomas wrote a poem describing this stay-down strike:

September 1936 in Fernhill Colliery, despair hung in the air.
Angry eyes reflected in the helmet lights as rats scurried into the darkness.
They had arrived in the horses’ feed and seemed well-suited to life underground.
Horses shuffled restlessly, facing their onerous task,
And reminiscing of their annual break in the bright sunshine,
Just a short freedom, from life’s drudgery, in delicious fresh air.
No-one spoke.

And the dripping water echoed throughout the long, narrow tunnels.
Although everyone knew,an attack on the few was an affront to all,
Silence remained, as an invisible wall threatening speech.
It had been a long, hard struggle as Capital would shit on Labour,
And much had been gained by acting as one.
Now a few were threatened again – only twelve denied the minimum wage,
Only a few – but past rights had been won by the shedding of blood and tears by all.
‘Tommy-My-Boy’ stroked the large, black V-shaped facial scar,
The black bite of a roof collapse.

He spoke in quiet Welsh tones as if gentle waves lapped the underground passages,
‘When man does not stand up for principles, rights or beliefs, he’s no longer a man,
And sometimes he has to die for them’.
All nodded.
None abstained.

On the pit bottom they would stay and nothing would move either way.
All sixty-four agreed, men would always have to fight in order to be free.
Cyril Rees started singing his favourite Welsh hymn,
Dick Young and William Evans followed the lead,
And soon sixty-four voices in harmony lit the darkness,
As it vibrated along the coalface.

Men whose hardened muscles were honed in the earth’s filthy bowels,
Have voices of angels that caress the soul.
But money and wealth are vicious foes,
With no holds barred in a labour war.
And ‘they’ controlled the air flow.
First, unbearable heat – air so foul to break one’s heart.
Then air so cold – gnawing fingers of hate, freezing sweat and weakening resolve.
But time became blurred.

Here there is no day or night and tricks would not work.
They remained united and would not break.
After 292 hours in one long, so endless night,
Without fresh air or the sun’s delight,
The point had been made.
So, for all concerned, a returns to the surface.
Honour was saved.

Black, haggard men emerge blinded by the unaccustomed light,
Unshaven and lousy as a result of the fight.
They had given their all to loosen the chains but knew they would be fighting again and again.
It was only a skirmish in the battle ‘gainst wealth,
But in this short time they had sacrificed their health.
Now it’s long past and memories fade.
Will we remember the sacrifice made?

In 1943 the colliery employed 971 men working underground and 282 men working at the surface of the mine. W.J. Oliver was the manager, and the No.1 Pit was working the Four-Feet and Nine-Feet seams, the No.2 Pit worked the New Vein, the No.3 Pit worked the Two-Feet-Nine seam and the No.4 Pit worked the Four-Feet and Two-Feet-Nine seams.

This colliery was doing reasonably well and was producing 10.7 tons per face worker per week, giving a profit of 12.5 pence on every ton raised. On the 29th of April 1955, the Duke of Edinburgh made an underground visit to this pit. In 1955 although the coalface tonnage per man dropped to 9 tons, the profits raised to 75 pence per ton of coal produced. The main concern expressed by the NCB during this period was the number of unofficial stoppages which numbered 48 in two years.

At the opening of the new baths at the colliery, the Area General Manager for the Rhondda warned

The time has come when someone has got to tell you at Fernhill that you cannot always be at the receiving end. The potential at Fernhill are second to none, not only in the Division but in the country as well. All it requires is the will to pull your weight.

The output per man shift in 1954 was less than in 1947 despite £300,000 worth of investment. £120,000 of that was for the new bath complex which was opened by the NUM Lodge Secretary, Morgan Thomas Jones. It cost £7,000 to maintain. In 1955 the NCB carried out some modernisation at this colliery with all coal being raised at the No.2 Pit installing 2.5 tonne skips in this shaft and driving a 320 yards long roadway between the Nos. 2 and 4 Pits. This was the first time that this type of winding had been installed in the South Wales Coalfield. Further improvements consisted of widening and deepening the No.4 shaft and deepening the No.5 shaft and a complete surface re-organisation totalling £5.5 million. In 1955 this colliery employed 415 men at the coalfaces, this figure gradually increased during the late 1950s until there were 436 men at the coalfaces in 1956, and 455 men at the coalfaces in 1958. In the NCB report on power-loading coal faces carried out in 1957 one at Fernhill was working in the Four-Feet seam which had a thickness of 66 inches and a face length of 360 feet. Coal cutting was carried out by Anderton disc with 52 men employed on the coalface and a daily advance of 48 inches which was about average in the report. In January 1957, Evan Williams a fireman at Fernhill retired after working in the mines for 52 years, 48 of them at Fernhill.

The Colliery Guardian of the 11th of April 1957 reported that there were ten workable seams and that the workable reserves were ‘considerable’. In all the estimate was 88,541,000 tons, with most of the reserves in the Nine-Feet seam (19,360,000 tons) followed by the Six-Feet and Five-Feet seams (over 10 million each, the Four-Feet (9,984,000) the Red and Bute with over 8 million each, the Yard, Seven-Feet and Gellideg at around 6 million tons and the Two-Feet-Nine seam with 3,332,000 tons. The report continued to state that the pit was currently working the Four-Feet, Nine-Feet and Bute seams which were classified as dry steam coal and were in great demand for domestic purposes. Daily output was approximately 1,400 tons.

In 1961 this colliery was still in the No.3 Area’s, No.4 Group, along with Glenrhondda and Park collieries. The total manpower for this Group was 3,320 men, while total coal production for that year was 603,293 tons. The Group Manager was J. Murphy, while the Area Manager was G. Blackmore. In 1961 this colliery lost £344,000 with the NCB stating that the labour relations at this colliery were the worst in the area. Output per manshift was only 13 hundredweights.

In 1966 Fernhill Colliery was merged with Tower Colliery and the Nos.1, 2 and 4 pits were closed. Its output was diverted by an underground roadway to Tower. In April 1970 the NCB stated their dissatisfaction over performance at the Fernhill end of the complex, from a position in 1967/8 where it made a profit of £18,000 by 1968/9 it had lost £663,000, while in January 1970 alone it had lost £57,600. The NCB highlighted an absenteeism rate amongst the men of 23.1%. During the overtime ban in December 1973 which led to the successful 1974 national strike for an increase in wages, Don Bundock, the NUM lodge secretary, gave these surprising facts about the ages of the men working at Fernhill Colliery:

We are doing the government a favour, men are pouring out of mining to get better paid and safer jobs in factories, there are 380 men in this pit, and 170 of them are over 50, only one man is under 25. If the miners don’t get better money, there won’t be an industry in a few years.”

By 1975 the Fernhill section was again doing so badly that it was decided to send in a joint NCB/NUM investigation team. Output per manshift was down to ¾ of a ton and losses were running at £10.39 per ton or overall £692,870. This section of the mine was working the Nine-Feet seam which was reached by man-riding for 1,500 yards and then walking for a further 2,000 yards. The 97’s coalface was 129 yards long, and the 99’s coalface was 132 yards in length. The seam was nine feet thick but only the bottom six feet was extracted. The coalface was undercut and the coal was filled by shovel onto a conveyor belt. Roof supports were wooden posts and flats.

The Fernhill section of the mine continued to work at a loss until it was finally closed on July 25th 1978. Fernhill Colliery extensively worked the combined Lower and Upper Five-Feet seams which varied up to 51 inches in thickness. The Bute seam was extensively worked at a thickness of between 36 inches to 54 inches. It was called the New Seam at this colliery. The Nine-Feet seam was also extensively worked and had a thickness of up to nine feet. This colliery’s coals were generally classed as type 201A Dry Steam Coal, usually non-caking and low in volatility. The ash content varied from between 5% to 9%, and the sulphur content from between 0.6% to 1.5%. Its main uses were for steam raising in boilers for ships, locomotives, power stations etc.

Some of the early fatalities at these mines:

Dunraven pits and levels

• 17/4/1867, William Thomas, aged 16, collier, roof fall.
• 19/4/1867, David Howells, aged 22, collier, roof fall.
• 15/5/1869, James Rees, aged 53, collier, roof fall.
• 28/5/1869, David Rees, aged 50, hitcher, shaft incident.
• 11/10/1869, D. Jones, aged 36, collier, roof fall.
• 3/4/1871, P. Jones, aged 55, hitcher, roof fall.
• 10/4/1872, William Harvard, aged 41, collier, roof fall.
• 16/8/1872, D. Jones, aged 15, collier, roof fall.
• 30/6/1873, Evan Llewellyn, aged 15, haulier, roof fall.
• 16/9/1874, G. House, aged 50, collier, run over by trams.
• 5/10/1875, J. Dawkins, labourer, run over by trams.
• 26/12/1876, J. Morgan, collier, roof fall.
• 19/5/1877, Thomas Hughes, aged 25, collier, scalded.
• 9/12/1877, E. Radford, aged 44, furnaceman, fell down the shaft.
• 22/1/1880, David Roberts, aged 13, collier boy, roof fall.
• 8/4/1881, Joseph Thomas, aged 15, collier boy, roof fall.
• 2/12/1882, Evan Edwards, aged 26, rider, run over by trams.
• 17/8/1883, W. Watkins, aged 22, haulier, run over by trams.
• 24/11/1883, W. Thomas, aged 23, collier, roof fall.
• 28/12/1883, J. Williams, aged 41, collier, run over by trams.
• 25/7/1884, Henry Clarke, aged 37, hitcher, run over by trams.
• 7/1/1885, Thomas Davies, aged 49, labourer, run over by trams.
• 7/3/1885, David Hicks, aged 51, haulier, run over by trams.
• 28/11/1885, Sidney Davies, aged 27, hitcher, crushed by trams.
• 5/1/1887, William Buckland, aged 24, hitcher, crushed by the cage.
• 14/6/1887, Thomas Jones, aged 48, collier, roof fall.
• 6/10/1886, John Evans, aged 27, collier, roof fall.
• 10/10/1886, David Rees, aged 49, fireman, fell down the shaft.
• 26/1/1887, David Davies, aged 24, collier, roof fall.
• 31/5/1887, Ebenezer Evans, aged 68, collier, roof fall.
• 2/8/1887, Gower Morris, aged 18, rider, crushed by trams.
• 24/6/1888, John Williams, aged 27, engineman, roof fall.
• 30/6/1888, James Williams, aged 17, haulier, crushed by trams.
• 21/2/1890, Daniel Price, aged 20, engineman, machinery.
• 9/9/1889, W. R. Evans, aged 15, collier boy, roof fall.
• 26/3/1890, Thomas Walters, aged 62, smith, machinery.
• 6/8/1891, Thomas Bowen, aged 50, fireman, fell down the shaft.
• 6/8/1891, Frederick Smith, aged 39, ripper, fell down the shaft.
• 27/8/1891, William Saxon, aged 20, haulier, run over by trams.
• 2/9/1891, John S Thomas, aged 13, collier boy, roof fall.
• 22/1/1892, John Walters, aged 18, collier, roof fall.
• 17/10/1892, William Morgan, aged 74, labourer, roof fall.
• 1/12/1892, Samuel Samuel, aged 57, collier, roof fall.
• 23/2/1894, William Thomas, aged 24, collier, roof fall.
• 27/3/1895, David Price, aged 57, collier, roof fall.
• 22/12/1898, Thomas Pole, aged 60, collier, roof fall.
• 29/7/1899, Henry Dobbs, aged 41, collier, shotfiring incident.
• 15/4/1910, John Owen, aged 51, collier, roof fall.

Fernhill

• 14/9/1874, D. Jones, H. Lloyd, sinkers, fell down shaft.
• 15/5/1879, Samuel Williams, aged 42, labourer, shaft incident.
• 18/6/1879, William Evans, aged 14, door boy, run over by trams.
• 18/4/1881, William Hitchings, aged 15, door boy, run over by trams.
• 2/5/1882, Richard Jones, aged 29, assistant hitcher, shaft incident.
• 22/2/1884, William Wesley, aged 34, collier, run over by trams.
• 3/9/1884, Evan Evans, aged 22, collier, roof fall.
• 16/7/1885, John Evans, aged 40, collier, run over by trams.
• 31/7/1885, John Jones, aged 15, collier, roof fall.
• 26/3/1886, John Owens, aged 28, collier, roof fall.
• 9/6/1888, John Clarke, aged 51, collier, roof fall.
• 18/7/1888, William Howells, aged 55, coal trimmer, crushed by wagons.
• 21/11/1888, George Francis, aged 31, collier, roof fall.
• 1/2/1890, Thomas Morris, aged 45, fireman, fell down the shaft.
• 25/3/1891, William Bees, aged 54, collier, roof fall.
• 25/11/1891, Thomas Thomas, aged 15, collier boy, roof fall.
• 19/1/1892, Patsy Neale, aged 21, steeplejack, fell off the chimney.
• 21/6/1892, Richard Williams, aged 22, Urbane Phillips, aged 21, colliers, fell down the shaft.
• 8/4/1893, James Edwards, collier, roof fall.
• 4/4/1894, John Coslett, aged 26, haulier, run over by trams.
• 21/4/1894, Isaac Williams, aged 46, collier, roof fall.
• 16/1/1896, John Davies, aged 20, collier, roof fall.
• 18/4/1897, John Jones, aged 50, timberman, roof fall.
• 15/4/1910, John Owen, aged 51, collier, roof fall.
• 11/8/1910, John Evans, aged 58, miner, roof fall.
• 24/2/1911, Morgan Jones, aged 28, collier, roof fall.
• 8/7/1911, Rowland Jones, aged 46, timberman, roof fall.
• 12/9/1911, Michael Davin, aged 41, labourer, roof fall.
• 27/10/1911, Lewis Adams, aged 18, collier, fell down the shaft.
• 12/1/1912, Abel Hughes, aged 29, rider, crushed by trams.
• 15/7/1912, Thomas Toombes, aged 35, sinker, roof fall.
• 17/10/1912, John Griffiths, aged 32, collier, roof fall.
• 24/2/1913, John Clarke, aged 21, collier, roof fall.
• 21/5/1913, Howell Morgan, aged 32, collier, roof fall.
• 18/5/1914, David Jones, aged 17, haulier, roof fall.
• 19/6/1914, David Williams, aged 24, collier, crushed by trams.
• 22/8/1914, Morgan Rees, aged 32, fireman, roof fall.
• 24/10/1914, David Richards, aged 36, collier, roof fall.
• 30/11/1914, John Thomas, aged 62, waterman, run over by trams.
• 3/2/1925, Isaac Davies, aged 44, haulier, crushed by trams.
• 9/11/1927, George Rees, aged 23, collier, roof fall.
• 12/6/1929, Charles Thomas, aged 57, collier, roof fall.

 

Some Statistics:

• 1899: Manpower: 506
• 1900: Manpower: 597
• 1901: Manpower: 654.
• 1902: Manpower: 627.
• 1905: Manpower: 854.
• 1907: Manpower: 709.
• 1908: Manpower: 770.
• 1909: Manpower: 770.
• 1910: Manpower: 1,529.
• 1911: Manpower: 846.
• 1912: Manpower: 1,308.
• 1913: Manpower: 1,724 (including 537 at North Dunraven levels).
• 1915: Manpower: 1,197. Output: 500,000 tons.
• 1916: Manpower: 1,197. Output: 500,000 tons.
• 1918: Manpower:1,285.
• 1919: Manpower: 1,920 (including 540 at Fernhill/North Dunraven levels).
• 1920: Manpower: 1,450.
• 1921: Manpower: 1,127.
• 1922: Manpower: 1,450.
• 1923: Manpower: No.1 Pit: 569. No.2 Pit: 320. No.3 Pit: 73. No.4 Pit: 401. North Dunraven: 174. Surface: 259. Output: 650,000 tons.
• 1924: Manpower: 1,450. North Dunraven: 550.
• 1927: Manpower: 1,532.
• 1928: Manpower: 1,655.
• 1929: Manpower: 1,900.
• 1930: Manpower: No.1: 566. No.2: 320. No.3: 73. North Dunraven: 174. Surface: 259. Output: 650,000 tons.
• 1933: Manpower: 1,604.
• 1934: Manpower: 1,655. Output: 500,000 tons.
• 1937: Manpower: 1,603.
• 1938: Manpower:1,719.
• 1940: Manpower: 1,640. Output: 650,000 tons.
• 1944: Manpower: 1,300.
• 1945: Manpower: 1,253.
• 1947: Manpower: 1,141.
• 1948: Manpower: 1,120. Output: 390,000 tons.
• 1949: Manpower: 1,130. Output: 340,000 tons.
• 1950: Manpower: 1,113.
• 1953: Manpower: 1,038. Output: 305,600 tons.
• 1954: Manpower: 934. Output: 230,060 tons.
• 1955: Manpower: 884. Output: 203,451 tons.
• 1956: Manpower: 922. Output: 246,937 tons.
• 1957: Manpower: 987. Output: 263,029 tons.
• 1958: Manpower: 987. Output: 217,238 tons.
• 1959: Manpower: 1,047. Output: 230,275 tons.
• 1960: Manpower: 1,060. Output: 223,826 tons.
• 1961: Manpower: 1,015. Output: 183,162 tons.
• 1962: Manpower: 980. Output: 157,999 tons.
• 1963: Manpower: 969. Output: 163,277 tons.
• 1964: Manpower: 911. Output: 152,904 tons.
• 1965: Manpower: 736. Output: 144,638 tons.
• 1967: Manpower: 860. Output: 250,000 tons (with Tower).

 

This information was supplied by Ray Lawrence and is used here with his permission.

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