Tredegar Iron and Coal Company facts for kids
- For the ironworks in the US state of Virginia, see Tredegar Iron Works.
The Tredegar Iron and Coal Company was a very important company in Wales during the 1800s. It was an ironworks, which is a place where iron is made. This company was located in Tredegar, Wales. Because it needed a lot of coke (a type of fuel made from coal), the company also became a big developer of coal mines. It played a huge role in the Industrial Revolution and coal mining in the South Wales Valleys.
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How It Started
In 1778, two men from London, Thomas Atkinson and William Barrow, built a furnace in the Sirhowy Valley. A furnace is like a huge oven used to melt iron. To power this furnace, they hired people to dig for coal nearby. This was the very first small-scale coal mining in the area. However, this first business didn't last and closed down in 1794.
The Sirhowy Ironworks
In 1797, a new furnace was built by Samuel Homfray and his partners, Richard Fothergill and Matthew Monkhouse. They called it the Sirhowy Ironworks. They rented the land from the Tredegar Estate in Newport.
In 1800, the company changed its name to the Tredegar Iron Company. This new name honored the Tredegar Estate, which included Tredegar House and Tredegar Park in Newport. In 1818, another company, the Harfords of Ebbw Vale, took over the Tredegar Iron Company.
The ironworks grew a lot between the late 1830s and early 1840s. It made a huge amount of iron rails, mostly to be sold to other countries. In 1873, the Tredegar Iron Company Limited bought the works. Nine years later, in 1882, they started making steel instead of just iron.
Life at the Ironworks
The company's ironworks were all built in one large area. This area later became known as Whiteheads. By 1850, the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company was a massive employer. It had 9 furnaces, mills, shops, and other buildings. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people worked there!
However, working at such a large factory had its challenges. In 1831, John Gooch, a manager from another iron factory, came to work at Tredegar. He described the town as a tough place to live. People, even children, worked very long hours in the smoky and dirty factories. Accidents could happen, and molten metal was dangerous.
Workers were often paid in special coins made by the company itself. They could only spend these coins in the company's own shops. This meant the company controlled what workers bought and how much they paid for food. Because so many people lived in a small area with poor sanitation, diseases like cholera spread easily. There were several cholera outbreaks in the town during the 1800s. A special burial ground was even created for cholera victims at Cefn Golau.
From Iron to Coal (1875-1946)
In 1875, the company changed its name again to the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company. This new name showed that they wanted to focus more on developing coal mines.
By 1891, the company stopped making iron completely. They focused only on digging coal. The old Tredegar Ironworks were left empty. In 1907, another company called Whiteheads took over the southern part of the site. However, Whiteheads also closed their operations in Tredegar in 1931 and moved everything to their works in Newport.
The Tredegar Iron and Coal Company kept developing coal mines and working pits until 1946. At that time, the coal industry in Britain was taken over by the government and became part of the National Coal Board. The last chairman of the company was Henry McLaren, 2nd Baron Aberconway.
Today, most of the old ironworks site has been rebuilt. But if you look closely at the area around OS grid reference SO 155093, you can still see traces of the old terraced land where the works once stood.
Mines Developed by the Company
The Tredegar Iron and Coal Company developed many coal mines over the years:
- 1806: The Dukes Pit, Tredegar (named after the Duke of Beaufort)
- 1806: Pwll Mawr, Neath
- 1834: Trist No.1 and No.2 pits
- 1841: Upper Ty Trist Pit
- 1850: Bedwellty Pits
- 1868: Trist No.3 Pit
- 1876: Witworth Colliery
- 1876: Pochin Colliery
- 1898: McLaren Colliery
- 1907: Oakdale Colliery
- 1908: Waterloo Colliery
- 1910: Markham Colliery
- 1926: Wyllie Colliery
