Ferndale Colliery
| Ferndale Colliery | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
| Mining technology | Underground mining | ||
| Information about the mining company | |||
| Start of operation | 1857 | ||
| End of operation | 1959 | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Hard coal | ||
| Greatest depth | 365 m | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 51 ° 39 '27.6 " N , 3 ° 26' 45.2" W | ||
|
|||
| Location | Ferndale (Wales) | ||
| local community | Rhondda Cynon plate | ||
| Unitary Authority | Rhondda Cynon Taff | ||
| Country | United Kingdom | ||
Ferndale Colliery , also Blaenllechau , was the name of a coal mine in the Rhondda Valley in Wales . It was founded in 1857 by mining pioneer David Davis .
history
Construction of the mine
The businessman David Davis began building a coal mine in the upper Rhondda Fach valley in 1857 . The construction of the mine was difficult because the remote, high valley was not accessible by road and all machine parts and equipment had to be transported by pack horses from Aberdare . His attempt to break seam No. 3 Reaching Rhondda failed. Davis son Lewis Davis took over the further construction of the mine, he reached a depth of 254 m in 1862. The coal found there exceeded the quality of the conveyed in Aberdare coal, so that the shaft 1 further drilled was, were opened up two more seams. In the meantime, the Taff Vale Railway had been extended to Blaenllechau , so that in 1862 the first coal could be transported from Ferndale to Cardiff .
Over the next few years, the Ferndale miners' settlement was built around the mine . In the first few years in particular, there were numerous, often fatal, accidents among the miners in the mine. In addition, the mine was hit by two major disasters in which a total of 231 miners died.
The accident of 1867
On November 8, 1867, two serious mine gas explosions occurred in shaft 1, killing 178 miners, including children and young people. It took a month to recover all of the bodies. According to the investigation by the mining authority, negligence on the part of the operators was responsible for the disaster. Openly burning miner's lamps , contrary to the regulations, probably triggered the explosion. Since many families in the small mining settlement had more than one death to mourn, a support fund for the bereaved was set up under the direction of MP Richard Fothergill .
The accident of 1869
Less than two years after the first accident, another serious mine gas explosion occurred on June 10, 1869 in shaft 1, in which 53 miners were killed. The investigation by the mining authorities could no longer determine the cause of the accident. As safety regulations had been tightened after the first disaster, the authorities suspected that the high quality of the mined coal, which exceeded that of the other mines in the region, was responsible for the high level of mine gas. The gas would have collected in a seam that was not in operation and then flowed into a deeper seam that was in operation, where it had exploded. Although the safety regulations had been improved, the mine operators criticized the management because not all the recommendations made after the first disaster had been implemented. In particular, the ventilation of the mine was not sufficient and probably caused the second accident.
As a result of the two disasters, shaft 1 of the mine became the shaft with the most fatal accidents in the entire Rhondda Valley, and the previously prosperous mine had a bad reputation among the public for many years, so that the mine owner Lewis Davis himself moved to Ferndale monitor operations. After that, the mine was spared further disasters, but there were also numerous other accidents in the following years. In the course of 1896 alone there were thirteen fatal accidents in the mine. In 1908 the miner Thomas Chester , who was one of the surviving soldiers of the battle for Rorke's Drift in South Africa in 1879, had a fatal accident in the mine.
Another story
By 1889, five shafts were built, in which in 1908 almost 3,500 miners were employed. The closely spaced shafts 1 and 5 reached a depth of more than 360 m. In 1930 the mine was merged with other mines to form the Welsh Associated Collieries , which were dissolved in Powell Duffryn in 1936 . In 1946, like all Welsh mines, the mine was nationalized. Mining in shafts 2 and 4 had already ceased before the Second World War, and the mine was finally closed in 1959.
To commemorate the victims of the mining accidents, a memorial was erected on the site of the former shafts 1 and 5 in 1988.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Grace's Guide to British Historial Industry. David Davies and Sons. Retrieved September 11, 2015 .