Porthmadog - Economy

Economy

At the 2001 census 44.3 percent of the population were in employment, with 11.5 percent self-employed. The unemployment rate stood at 5.3 percent, whilst the proportion retired accounted for 20.4 percent of the inhabitants. Of those employed, 33.0 percent worked in the distribution, hotel and catering trades, with 23.5 percent in public administration, education and health.

Porthmadog expanded rapidly as a slate exporting port. Welsh slate was in high demand as a construction material in the English industrial cities, and was transported to the new port by horse drawn tramways. The Ffestiniog Railway, opened in 1836 as a gravity railway, horses hauled the empty slate wagons back up to the quarries, was converted to steam operation in 1863, and trains ran straight onto the wharves. By 1873 116,000 tons (117,800 t) of slate were being shipped out of Porthmadog, and other trade was being developed. The Carnarvonshire and Merionethshire Steamship Company had been formed in 1864 and purchased the Rebecca to carry stores from Liverpool to supply the growing town. The First World War marked the end of Porthmadog's export trade. No new ships were built, several were sunk by enemy action, and most of the surviving fleet was sold. The arrival of the LNWR, in 1879, and the GWR, in 1883, at Blaenau Ffestiniog was responsible for the steady decline in the slate traffic carried by the Festiniog Railway and by Portmadoc shipping. Some slate had been carried via the Festiniog Railway, the Croesor & Portmadoc Railway and the Cambrian Railways after the latter's line had been opened between Barmouth and Pwllheli in 1867; this traffic was diverted to the exchange yard established between the Festiniog Railway and the Cambrian Railways at Minffordd in 1872. By 1925 less than five percent of Ffestiniog's slate output went out by sea. The final load of slate, delivered by rail, left by sea from Porthmadog in 1946 and two months later the railway ceased commercial operations.

Before the construction of the Cob in 1812, ships had been built at a number of locations around Traeth Mawr. As the town developed, a number of the shipbuilders from the Meirionnydd side moved to the new port, building brigs, schooners, barquentines and brigantines. After the arrival of the railway there was a reduction in trade, but a new type of ship, the Western Ocean Yacht, was developed for the salt cod industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. Shipbuilding came to an end in 1913, the last vessel to be built being the Gestiana, which was lost on its maiden voyage.

In the 19th century Porthmadog had at least three iron foundries. The Glaslyn Foundry was opened in 1848, and the Union Iron Works in 1869. The Britannia Foundry, opposite Porthmadog Harbour Railway Station, was established in 1851 and grew rapidly as the town's prosperity increased. The business produced slate working machinery and railway equipment, supplying goods to all but one of the slate quarries operating in England and Wales. A lucrative sideline was the production of large numbers of drains and manhole covers for Caernarfonshire's roads.