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THE LADY WHO HAD A PIT NAMED AFTER HER!
The Story of Rose Heyworth
Neil Milkins and David Llewellyn
Neil Milkins is looking to
produce a book on the story of the Rose Heyworth area. If you
have further information or photos on the Heyworth family or the
Rose Heyworth area especially the colliery, the avenues and the
club, or Arael View, please contact Neil via
kiowa@dackjaniels.co.uk
The pictures of the Heyworth
family were supplied to Neil Milkins by various members of the
Heyworth family including Wenllian Hacket Payne, and Steve
Kennard and Lawrence Kennard, descendents of Lawrence and Rose
Heyworth.
Rose Heyworth
Colliery was closed on October 9th, 1985 following the miners'
strike. Yet the name lives on the area, e.g. the local primary
school is Rose Heyworth Millennium Primary School and indeed the
whole area adjacent to where the colliery was situated has been
known by the name Rose Heyworth for many years especially since
the building of the nearby Rose Heyworth avenues in the 1940s
and 1950s. So where did the name Rose Heyworth, now such an
integral part of Abertillery life, come from?
The Rose
Heyworth Colliery was sunk in 1872 by the South Wales Colliery
Company who already owned Cwmtillery (South Wales) Colliery
and its first coal was raised in 1874.
Its
opening came at a time of economic stagnation in the development
of Abertillery, which had started in 1850 with the sinking of
the first deep mine at Cwmtillery. Strangely, and perhaps
uniquely, the pit was named after a woman - Rosina (Rose), the
wife of Lawrence Heyworth, an army officer who was the Managing
Director of the South Wales Company.
Lawrence and Rosina (Rose)
Heyworth pictured at their residence, Risca House at Waun Fawr
between Risca and Cross Keys in about 1870.
Lawrence
Heyworth was born on 15th February 1831, the youngest son of
Lawrence Heyworth, a merchant, land and railway proprietor and
Member of Parliament for West Derby in Liverpool, who resided at
Yew Tree Manor, Walton-on-the-Hill, Lancashire.
One of the
other Heyworth children, Lawrencina married Richard Potter and
one of their daughters was
Beatrice Potter, who became a famous social reformer.
Detail from an oil painting
from the 1830s showing some of the Heyworth children including
Lawrence as a baby
Like
Lawrence Heyworth Junior,
his wife-to-be was from a wealthy background. Rosina Kate
Mortimer was born on 19th August 1844 and baptised just under a
month later at the army's Chaplin's Station in Mercara (now,
Madikeri), in India, an area some refer to as the Wales of India
with its misty hills, lush forests, and breathtaking views.
Her father John
Basterville Mortimer was a Lieutenant in the British Armed
Forces and after he died, her mother Susan (nee Payne) married
banker and magistrate, John Bates in 1855.
In 1861,
Rosina lived with her mother and stepfather at 6 Royal York
Crescent in Clifton, a very well-to-do address and in late 1864
she married Lawrence Heyworth Junior who had carved out a career
in the army. By 1871, the couple were living at Risca House in
Monmouthshire where Heyworth is listed in the census as a JP and
a captain in the Royal Glamorgan Militia, later ascending to the
rank of Lieutenant Colonel in what became the 3rd Battalion,
Royal Welch Regiment.
Several
years earlier he had become chairman of the South Wales Colliery
Company, which had been established by John Russell, who had
developed Cwmtillery Colliery and whose daughter Ellen had
married John Selwyn Payne, Rose's uncle. Quite what Rose thought
of having a colliery named after her can only be a matter of
intriguing speculation.
Many of
the original workers at Rose Heyworth colliery were housed in
new cottages designed by Lawrence Heyworth. These were called
Clyn Mawr Cottages, named after Clyn Mawr Canol farm on whose
land they were built, later becoming known as
Newtown
and finally Blaenau Gwent Rows, as they are today. Others lived
in the so-called Wooden Houses just down from the rows (click
here for the story of the Wooden House by Arthur Jones who
lived in them).
Whilst Heyworth clearly showed benevolence towards his workers
with the provision of these purpose-built houses, it was equally
clear he took a dim view of workers' actions that disrupted the
running of the collieries.
In 1868, he
took action against a four-month long strike at Cwmtillery as he
recounted on a poster he put up in public houses in
Staffordshire seeking workers to break up the strike.
A poster
written on by Lawrence Heyworth who tells of how he broke the
strike - "hardly out of bed after severe operation, I went to
Bilston and there engaged personally the men at a small public
house enlisting them as I would have done soldiers - made
arrangements for a special train to take them without stopping
at any station straight up to the colliery at Cwmtylery.
200 men
were ultimately engaged and transported by special train direct
to Cwmtylery where they worked and thereby broke up this
determined strike of four-months duration.
By the
1880s, the Abertillery area had overcome the stutter in its
economic growth and in the next thirty to forty years its
population exploded from just about 6000 to over 40,000, with
migrants workers flocking in, to become a major commercial
centre and the second biggest town in Monmouthshire after
Newport.
In addition
to Cwmtillery and Rose Heyworth Collieries were Pen-y-bont,
Gray, Vivian and Arael Griffin (Six Bells) and these collieries
produced coal that helped power the continuing industrial
revolution.
Rose
Heyworth Colliery - 1910
In 1881, the Heyworth family
were still living at Risca with their children some of whose
names were derived from ancient Saxon and Germanic saints and
nobility:
Lawrencina Rose
Ethel Tholga
Winifred Dagmar
Hildegarde Elfreda
Thyra Halgarde
Eanswith Elstrith
Heyworth Potter Lawrence
Another child arrived, Beatrice
Gundreda whilst they were living at Risca in 1884 and sometime
later, the family moved to Ormsby Hall in Lincolnshire, England
where in the 1891 census they were living along with Rose's
mother, Susan.
Right -
Lawrence Heyworth in the 1890s.
Lancaster's Steam Coal Company took
over the colliery in 1888, and worked it until nationalisation of the
industry in 1947.
For many years, Rose Heyworth was connected for pumping and ventilation
to the South Griffin Colliery just further up the Ebbw Fach valley past
Bournville, with Rose Heyworth being the downcast shaft and South Griffin No. 3 pit
the up-cast. A connection also existed with Cwmtillery, which ventilated
some of the Rose Heyworth workings.
In 1896, there were 1625 men producing
coal from the Old Coal, Three Quarters, Big, and Elled seams at Rose
Heyworth whilst by 1918 the joint workforce at Rose Heyworth and Cwmtillery
collieries stood at 2,760. Thereafter, problems in the coal mining
industry and the general economy led to a decline
in fortunes such that by 1938, only 804 men were employed at Rose Heyworth,
which fell to 754
in 1945.
 After
the war, Rose Heyworth's fortunes recovered following nationalisation.
A new estate was planned with many of the houses and
maisonettes built in so-called Cornish style and named after local and
national politicians, hence Attlee Avenue (Clement Attlee, British prime
minister 1945-50), George Daggar, George Barker and Brace Avenues (after
local MPs). It is unclear however whether Lawrence Avenue was named
after Lawrence Heyworth or a politician.
In 1959, Rose Heyworth mine was integrated with
Cwmtillery to become Abertillery New Mine after a new drift mine was driven
1,200 yards at a 1 in 5 gradient to raise the coal from the two pits.
Coal from Blaenserchan Colliery was also brought to the surface for
washing and preparation using the same drift.
In the late 1960s, there was more pressure to
house people in the area in new housing and more farmland just
to the north of the pit and the existing avenues was identified.
In 1970, construction of the Arael View estate
began, building just under 100 new houses in what was considered
a radical architectural style.
The local grammar school under comprehensive
education reorganisation in 1971 became Rose Heyworth Junior
Comprehensive School which it continued to be until the
mid-1980s when it was shut under yet more reorganisation with
pupils moving to Abertillery Comprehensive in the Tyleri Valley.
The mid-1980s also saw the loss of another "Rose Heyworth"
institution, this time the colliery on October 9th 1985
following the miners' defeat by the Thatcher administration.
The name Rose Heyworth as far as schools were
concerned was resurrected however in 2000 when the
Rose Heyworth Millennium
Primary School was built and opened just to the south. At the
time of writing this, it appears that another institution
bearing the Rose Heyworth name might be coming to an end as the
future of the Rose Heyworth Club, which in the 1970s
particularly built up a reputation for live music, is in serious
doubt.
Nowadays, the name Rose
Heyworth, that of a woman who was born in the heat of India in
1844, has given itself to schools and houses as well as that
general area of Abertillery but in most minds the origins have
been lost in the mists of time. The Heyworth name has also lived
on elsewhere. Descendents of the Heyworth family were later to
achieve fame in other fields, e.g. Harvey and Jim Heyworth
became Rolls Royce chief test pilots as detailed in Robert
Jackson's book, Men of Power (ISBN-10: 1844154270) whilst it
appears that distinguished British actor, Jude Law (David
Jude Heyworth Law) may be another descendent.
TYLERI TALES
Contents:
 THE
ROSE HEYWORTH STORY
THE
HORROR OF 1921 - THE HAROLD JONES MURDERS
THE
FOUNDING FATHER OF DRUG METABOLISM - the story of Professor RT
Williams, FRS
THE
BLAINA RIOTS OF 1935 - Desperation and unrest in the Ebbw Fach
valley (by Martyn Thomas)
THE
MODEST, HARD MAN - Jim Webb, Wales rugby star of the Golden era
THE
MAN WHO BOWLED W. G. GRACE FOR A DUCK - Abertillery cricket
memories of the 1890s
THE
WAR HERO WHO TESTED THE BRITISH H-BOMB - Air Vice Marshall
Wilfred Oulton
THE
MARIE STOPES CONNECTION - Britain's first-ever hospital birth
control clinic opens at Abertillery
THE
REDOUBTABLE DAGGARS - A remarkable tale of an extraordinary
Abertillery family (by David Daggar)
THE
ABERBEEG GHOST
HEROES
OF WORLD WAR ONE
THE
"LIB" CLUB - BRITAIN'S BEST SNOOKER TEAM
(by Graham Bennett)
CAMERA'S
GREATEST MAGICIAN - the humble beginnings of Angus McBean
Coming
soon:
THE
TRAGEDY OF SIX BELLS - the terrible pit disaster of 1960
A
CHARITABLE ACCIDENT - Eddie Price, founder of the Tenovus
charity
THREE
LIONS IN THE SHIRT - Pask, Morgan, and Lewis, stars of the Green
& Whites
THE
MEN WHO BECAME SAINTS
THE
MAN IN THE MIDDLE
AHEAD
OF HER TIME - The extraordinary story of Beatrice Green
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