South Wales Valleys - History

History

Until the mid-nineteenth century, the South Wales valleys were lightly inhabited. The industrialisation of the Valleys occurred in two phases. First, in the second half of the 18th century, the iron industry was established on the northern edge of the Valleys, mainly by English entrepreneurs. This made South Wales the most important part of British ironmaking until the middle of the 19th century. Second, from 1850 to the outbreak of the First World War, the South Wales Coalfield was developed to supply steam coal and anthracite.

The South Wales Valleys were Britain's only mountainous coalfield. Topography defined the shape of the mining communities, with a 'hand and fingers' pattern of urban development. There were fewer than 1000 people in the Rhondda in 1851, 17,000 by 1870, 114,000 by 1901 and 153,000 by 1911; but the wider impact of urbanisation was constrained by geography - the Rhondda remained a collection of villages rather than a town in its own right. The population of the Valleys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was disproportionately young and male, often migrants drawn from other parts of Wales or further afield. The new communities had extremely high birth rates - in 1840, more than 20% of Tredegar's population was aged under 7, and Rhondda's birth rate in 1911 was 36 per thousand, levels usually associated with mid-19th century Britain.

Merthyr Tydfil, at the northern end of the Taff valley became Wales's largest town thanks to its growing iron works at Dowlais and Cyfarthfa Ironworks. The neighbouring Taff Bargoed Valley situated to the east became the centre of serious industrial and political strife during the 1930s, especially in and around the villages of Trelewis and Bedlinog which served the local collieries of Deep Navigation and Taff Merthyr. The South Wales coalfield attracted huge numbers of people from rural areas to the valleys. This meant that many rows of terraced housing were built along the valley sides to accommodate the influx. The coal mined in the valleys was transported south along railways and canals to ports on the Bristol Channel, notably Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. Cardiff was soon among the most important coal ports in the world and Swansea among the most important steel ports.