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By the early twentieth century, Abertillery had become the second largest town in the county of Monmouthshire, exceeded only by Newport. In 1921, its population had grown to just a few hundred short of 40,000, an incredible figure considering that just 40 years before it was little more than 6,000 (1881 census - 6,003).

This massive increase arose from those seeking work in the town's coal mines, both from other parts of Wales, both industrial and rural, and from the west of England, particularly Somerset and the Forest of Dean. As they flooded in and settled in the area, so the town grew creating a scarred, ravaged, industrial landscape wildly different from that described by local writer Edmund Jones in 1779 and then Archdeacon Coxe on his travels through Wales some twenty years later.

A HISTORY OF ABERTILLERY

Abertillery  1925 - The view north east over the town and up the Tyleri valley

Jones wrote: "And of the three valleys, the valley of Tileri on the East side of the parish is the most delightful. The trees which are the chief glory of the Earth, especially the beech trees, abounding about rivers great and small, the hedges and lanes make these places exceeding pleasant and the passing by them delightful and affecting; so that well built houses with gardens, trees and wall buildings about them in these warm valleys, with the prospect of the grand high mountains about them would make very delightful habitations."

At this time there were about 30 stone houses in the Tyleri valley and about 150 habited dwellings in total in the whole parish of Aberystruth (covering modern day Abertillery, Cwmtillery, Blaina and Nantyglo, and some of the eastern slopes of Ebbw Vale) with a population of about 500 (Edmund Jones, The History of Aberystruth, 1779).

Cwmtillery was still essentially rural in its setting when Archdeacon Coxe described it upon his travels through the area in 1799: "An extensive district well peopled, richly wooded, and highly cultivated, almost rivalling the fertile counties of England.... we looked down with delight upon numerous valleys which abound with romantic scenery..."

The ancient church of St. Illtyd situated on the mountainside high above Abertillery
For more details on this beautiful ancient monument go to the Friends of St. Illtyd website (click here)

Until that time, it was relatively difficult to gain access to the area with few paths traversing through and over the densely wooded mountains. The area had essentially been used from the late twelve century for sheep and subsistence farming, administered by the Cistercians monks of Llantarnam Abbey, some fifteen miles to the south east. They had built the ancient church of St. Illtyd in 1213, thought to be on the site of a 5th century shrine.

Unlike some of the neighbouring valleys, the lower Ebbw Fach and Tyleri valleys remained largely unaffected by industrialisation in the early 1800s such that by 1840 very little had changed from the scene encountered by Archdeacon Coxe over 40 years earlier. Whether this was due to the difficult terrain in the vicinity of Abertillery where the mountainsides were steeper and more wooded is debatable, but certainly the area was less accessible than the heads of valleys where towns and villages, such as Merthyr, Blaenafon, Nantyglo and Beaufort had started to develop in the late eighteenth century due to the burgeoning iron industry.

Abertillery - 1840 tithe map (right)

The map shows the meeting, or confluence, of the rivers, Afon Ebwy Fach and Afon Tyleri, which gives the town its name, situated just below the field marked on the lower centre left of the map 1132. Note the very few houses.

INDUSTRIALISATION STARTS: 1840-1890

The end of the 1830s coincided with the end of Abertillery as a predominantly rural area. Small coal levels had opened in the late 1700s and early 1800s in the area, such as that by Thomas Powell at Blaencyffin Uchaf at Llanhilleth, and some further collieries were developed, but there was nothing of real significance.

Both the 1840 tithe map and apportionments and the 1841 census returns show mostly a small number of farms owned mainly by people born in the area, such as the Rogers family at Clynmawr Uchaf, indicating the essentially rural character of the vicinity.

However, the industrial revolution was about to hit Abertillery as shown by the presence of a small ironworks at the confluence of the Tyleri and Ebwy Fach rivers, and the search for deeper, more substantial reserves of coal, indicated by the presence of sinkers and coal agents in the census.

At the time of the Chartists' uprising, the owner of the ironworks in Blaina was Thomas Brown and in the early 1840s, he started his search for coal further south. In 1842, on Tir Nicolas farm close to the mill in Cwm Tyleri, Brown found coal in the the Elled seam at a depth of 130 yards, which was proclaimed to be the richest coal seam yet found in south Wales.

In 1850, the South Wales Colliery (later renamed as Cwmtillery Colliery) with two shafts was opened and the first real industrialisation of the Abertillery area began.

PRE-1840

By the 1830s, the harsh conditions of working under ironmasters such as the Crawshays and the Baileys led to unrest amongst the workers in south Wales. In 1831 in Merthyr, there was an uprising in which soldier was shot. Richard Lewis, or Dic Penderyn as he is more usually known, was wrongly arrested and eventually hanged at Cardiff Gaol, becoming the first real Welsh working-class martyr. By 1839, the focus of unrest had switched to the valleys of western Monmouthshire culminating in the November with the Chartists' march on Newport. One of the major centres of this revolt was just a few miles to the north at Nantyglo where the leader was Zephaniah Williams, keeper of the Royal Oak Inn.

At this time, Abertillery was still a collection of just a few houses and a small ironworks (see 1840 tithe map opposite), but according to evidence at the ensuing trials there was a small rebel group located there. The Chartists march on Newport from the Ebbw Fach proceeded from Nantyglo and Blaina west over the mountain and down through the Ebbw Fawr valley to Pont Aber Big (Aberbeeg) where the two Ebbw rivers (Fawr and Fach) form the Ebbw itself, and then onto Newport.

Despite its small contingent, the Tyleri valley unfortunately did not avoid the tragic consequences of the Chartists' ill-fated march for workers' rights. Of the twenty rebels who died in the fighting outside the Westgate Hotel in Newport with soldiers of the 45th Regiment sent across the border from Bristol, one was William Williams of Cwmtillery.

A further major impetus for this development came in December 1850 when the railway opened from Blaina through Abertillery (with a branch to Cwmtillery) past the Monmouthshire Canal wharf at Crumlin and down to Newport. Now coal, goods, and people could be much more easily transported to and from the area. Further coal mines were opened at Llanhilleth, also in 1850, and a year later in the Tyleri valley, where the Jaynes Tillery Colliery Co established the Tillery Colliery, later renamed Pen-y-bont Colliery.

Unfortunately, the development of the mines was not without human cost as demonstrated by the death of thirteen men on May 27th 1857 in an underground explosion at the South Wales Colliery. Such incidents however did nothing to halt the search for more coal and a year later there was a further sinking at the colliery.

Another major development in the area at this time was the building of Crumlin Viaduct to connect the Pontypool and Neath railway lines, which was started in 1853 and opened on Whit Monday 1857. (click here for the Crumlin Viaduct website and full story of its design and manufacture)   

'View of Nantyglo Ironworks'
probably by Henry Gastineau, c. 1829
The works were four miles north of Abertillery

Abertillery Tinworks (1854)
by John Pritchard
The work  shows the view looking south with the tinworks in the middle right of the picture just behind Abertilery farm. The main building centre left is the original Bush Inn (later Hotel) whilst behind it are the (still remaining) houses of what became Temple Street, now Chapel Street.

The steady growth in population in these early industrial years necessitated a provision for education for the children in the district and in 1856, both the British and National societies had opened new schools. A new church, St Michael's was also built to meet the needs of Anglican worshippers, opening in 1854 whilst new non-conformist institutions were also established, e.g. the Baptist Church situated in what was to become King Street. However, industrial development faltered in Abertillery in the mid 1870s and the growth experienced in the previous 30 years or so came to a halt such that people who had moved into the area started to move away. The most likely reason for this was the Great Depression of 1873 which saw the British economy grind to a halt, largely owing to competition from foreign goods, especially American and German, which undermined exports and forced down prices of industrial products. 

David Morgan, who was to found the renowned department store in Cardiff, opened his drapery shop, better known later on as the Pontlottyn Store, in the town in 1875, but wrote to his Aunt in Australia a year later "Trade is getting very bad here now, never was worse since I have known the hills" (source; David Morgan 1833-1979 by Aubrey Niel Morgan  - Starling Press, Risca, 1977). More evidence for this downturn in the fortunes of the locality comes from a report on the religious revival in Abertillery in 1877, which was deemed "desirable, in consequence of having lost many of its members through leaving the locality because of the intense depression in trade, to make a special effort, with a view to the salvation of souls." (source: Christian publication, The Treasury, 1879, pp.172-3).

St. Michael’s Church
Architect’s Impression for the new church in the town in the mid 1850s

History continues here