Part Two - INDUSTRIALISATION STARTS; 1840s-1880s

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.

Cwmtillery Colliery
circa 1920

This was the first deep coal mine in the area and opened in 1850 after Thomas Brown first found coal in the Elled seam some eight years earlier. With its opening, the area changed forever.

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.

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)  

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.

There was still little structure to the town by the 1860s with individual and small collections of houses springing up and it was described in the Morris Directory of 1862 as follows: "Abertelery is a small village about 2 miles from Blaina on the Western Valley’s Railway". By the early 1870s, there had been a steady flow of migrant workers into the area from the adjoining counties of Wales and the west of England, in particular from the Somerset coalfield where reserves had started to dwindle. In 1872, the Rose Heyworth colliery was opened. 

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).

Continues - click here