Pioneers of the Cardiff Coal Trade by E. D. LEWIS

In October 1775, and again in 1782, the Customs Officer at Cardiff reported: "We have no coal exported from this port, nor ever shall, as it would be too expensive to bring it down here from the internal part of the country''.l Half a century later, in 1830, the intermittent trade in coal from Cardiff was still so small, in comparison with the commercial importance of Swansea to the west and Newport to the east, as to be trifling.2 Yet during that half century the coal output of Cardiff's hinterland was considerable: it has been estimated at approximately two million tons per annum. This output had grown concurrently with the growth of the Merthyr iron trade, calculated as manufacturing over 40 per cent of the iron produced in the United Kingdom at the time. Occasionally, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the coal output of Merthyr's integrated iron-coal concerns expanded more rapidly than was warranted by the demands of the iron trade and this led to a sporadic effort to find other "sale" outlets for surplus coal. Thus, in 1809, Richard Crawshay, owner of the extensive Cyfarthfa ironworks, sent small consignments of coal via the Glamorganshire Canal from Merthyr to Cardiff.3 But the venture at this time was exceptional and apparently unsuccessful. Until the eighteen-thirties the value of the coal produced in Cardiff's hinterland contillued to be regarded almost solely from the viewpoint of its conversion into coke for use in the smelting process and not for export.

l. Custom House Records Report of Cardiff's Customs Officer to the Custom House,

London, 14 October 1775.

2. In 1827 it is reported that the exports of coal and culm from South Wales

ports were:

Newport 473,283 tons

Swansea 349,307 tons

Cardiff 62,466 tons

3. Report of the Select Committee on the Petition of South Wales Colliery Owners

1810.

By the middle of the century, within the short period of twenty years, Cardiff, with its coal exports exceeding three-quarters of a million tons, had completely over-shadowed its neighbouring ports, Newport and Swansea. Half of this coal was exported to widely scattered markets overseas, and thus Cardiff had not only broken away from the traditional coastal traffic in Welsh coal but was now quickly developing connections with new markets capable of rapid growth in the future. In the second half of the century, Cardiff's rise as a coal port was meteoric. Its exports, roughly doubling in each decade, reached a maximum of 10,577,000 tons in 1913, which made Cardiff the foremost coal-exporting centre in the world.4

In tracing the story of the emergence of Cardiff's coal trade to 1850, regard must be paid to the percipience and resolution of a group of shippers and proprietors of small "sea-sale" collieries in the Rhondda and Aberdare Valleys. For the first two decades of the nineteenth century, coastal trade in coal from Cardiff suffered in comparison with Newport through the privilege the latter enjoyed under the Monmouthshire Canal Act of 1797 of being able to dispose of its coal exports east of the Holms without payment of the usual duty. This made it impossible for Cardiff to compete with Newport in supplying coal to Bristol and Gloucester. The wider markets, at home (including London, the most important domestic market in Britain at the time) and overseas, continued to be regulated by the North-East Coast Committee of the Vend.5 As early as 1824 Richard Edington had commented that "although it appears that the Almighty has been more bountiful to the Welsh coal mines than those of other places . . . I cannot help observing that all Government contracts have been advertised to be let to the highest bidder, but are granted solely to Newcast]e and Sunderland and none to Wales."6 To remove the duty paid on coal carried coastwise from Cardiff, and to penetrate the Vend monopoly in the more extensive markets would call for considerable enterprise and fierce persistence, especially when it is borne in mind that at that time coal markets were acquired not on the analysis of specimens according to the formulae of an exact science, but by rough and ready results ascertained by

4. Finlay A. Gibson, Compilation of statistics in the coal mining industry

(Cardiff, 1922).

5. Graham L. Rees, Britain's commodity markets (London, 1972).

6. Richard Edington Historical account of the various coal mines of South Wales

(London, 1824).

each customer. The mining and marketing of coal therefore had to be an integrated activity, and everything depended on the primitive method of the coal shipper getting into direct contact with the consumer. Among these early pioneers in Cardiff's coal exports, four names predominate: Walter Coffin and George Insole, shippers and proprietors of the first "sea-sale" collieries in the Rhondda Valleys, and Thomas Powell and John Nixon, foremost in the early shipment of Aberdare steam coal. Whereas the significant part played by the latter, especially in the growth of overseas markets, has been the subject of detailed description in the case of Powell 7 and of a comprehensive biography in the case of Nixon,8 the part played by Coffin and Insole has not received the attention it undoubtedly merits. Walter Coffin(1785-1867) was the first entrepreneur to open a "sale" colliery (i.e. not connected with ironworks) in the hinterland of Cardiff with the sole and novel object of the substantial export of coal from that port. Coffin was descended from an old and wellknown Bridgend family, the Prices of Ty'n Ton, into which his grandfather, the owner of an estate at Selworthy, near Porlock, Somerset, had married.9 Educated at Cowbridge Grammar School and at a private academy at Exeter, it was Walter Coffin's intention to enter the Bar but, discouraged by the disabilities then imposed on dissenters, in 1804 he returned to Bridgend to help with the family tanning business. It seems that he cared little for it and shortly his shrewd business mind began to consider the subject of the successful sale of Welsh coal.l0 His father, also named Walter Coffin, had invested in land, purchasing several farms in the parish of Llantrisant. In 1801 he bought from William Humphries the Dinas Uchaf farm in the north-west corner of the parish and eight years later, in 1809, Walter Coffin the Younger gave notice to Lewis Robert Richard to terminate his tenancy of Dinas Uchaf Farm and, financially supported by his father, determined to prospect for coal on this estate in the lower Rhondda.11

7. See series of articles by W. W. Price in The Powell Duaryn Review 1942-43.

8. J. E. Vincent, A memoir of John Nixon (London, 1900).

9. H. J. Randall, Bridgend: the story of a market town (Newport, 1955), p. 49

Caroline E. Williams, A Welsh family (London, 1893.

10. Charles Wilkins suggests that Coffin was possibly influenced by the success of

the Gwaun Llanharry level, a "sale" colliery working successfully on Llanharry

Common at the beginning of the nineteenth century. C. Wilkins, The South

Wales coal trade (Cardiff, 1888).

11. County Record Office, Cardiff, Land Tax Assessments Parish of Llantrisant

1801 and 1809.

This was indeed a hazardous enterprise for a young man of twenty-four. The coal measures which Coffin sought had never been proved or worked on business lines at Dinas. Mining experience in the area was limited to the working of diminutive levels, so that skilled Labour would have to be imported. There was no local market and the gateway to the projected coastal market—the sea lock of the little port of Cardiff—was sixteen miles distant. Somehow that gap, which hitherto had proved to be an effective barrier to the development of any significant "sale coal" trade from the port, would have to be bridged. Even when this was achieved, the market, as we have seen, would be coastal and limited.

Coffin's first level to the Graig Vein (later No. 1 Rhondda seam) near Dinas Uchaf Farm was not successful for the seam was thin and of inferior quality. His second level, opened in 1809 to the Old Vein (No. 2 Rhondda), located a seam of good quality some three feet in thickness, and this success prompted Coffin to extend his mineral lease and sink a vertical shaft. It was at this Dinas Lower Colliery, opened in 1812 by sinkers brought from the long-worked mineral district of Llansamlet, that the Bodringallt Vein (or No. 3 Rhondda) was found at the depth of forty yards, a seam that was ultimately to make Coffin's fortune. First marketed as "Dynas No. 3" but soon to be known as "Coffin's coal", this seam established Walter Coffin's reputation for mining the finest bituminous coal in South Wales.

Coffin's next task was to link his Dinas Levels and Dinas Lower Colliery to the seaboard. In 1794 the Glamorganshire Canal, constructed for the transport of iron, had been completed from Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil. One of the earlier proprietors of the Canal Company was that shrewd speculator, Dr. Richard Griffiths, who in 1809, when Coffin commenced his first prospecting at Dinas, leased part of his Hafod estate to that adventurous industrial pioneer Jeremiah Homfray, for the opening of a small coal level.12 Griffiths immediately constructed a "two mile tramroad or improved railway'', l3 from this level to Denia (Pontypridd) and, after bridging the Taff, gained access to the canal at Treforest by opening his own short length of private canal (known in the early nineteenth century as "The Doctor's Canal and Tramroad-'). The scheme was

12. County Record Office, Cardiff, Land Tax Assessments Parish of Llanwynno

1800-1810.

13. J. G. Wood, The principal rivers of Wales (London, 1813).

completed on 29 September 1809 and terminated at Gyfeillion some three miles below the Dinas Levels.14 Within three months of this date Walter Coffin was meeting the Commissioners of the Glamorganshire Canal Company to discuss rental terms to be paid to neighbouring landlords in his project for a tramroad to link the Dinas Levels to Griffiths' tramroad.l5 The link was achieved by the end of 1810 and the two men entered into an agreement which ensured that virtually all coal raised in the lower Rhondda would have to be carried over their inter-connecting lines.l6

But the indispensable prerequisite for success was markets and Coffin realised that the proprietor of a small sales coal venture at Dinas would only succeed by also acting as sales agent. His objectives were, firstly, markets geographically adjacent to Cardiff— the ports of the Bristol Channel and the south-west as far as Plymouth, and secondly, the ports of Ireland, south of Dublin. To gain a foothold in the coastal market, Coffin would have to compete with bituminous coal from the Mynydd Islwyn seam successfully shipped at Newport. His first aim then was to abolish "Newport's infamous monopoly"— the partial exemption from customs duties enjoyed by coals exported from that port—"a privilege which is unjust and an injury to other collieries to the east and west of the Canal at Monmouth." Tn the months of February, August and September 1810, a series of meetings was held by the owners of small independent collieries in Glamorgan to protest against the exemption clause, and Walter Coffin and Jeremiah Homfray, the first two Rhondda coalowners, were appointed as members of a committee of six to present evidence. Coffin did not appear before the Select Committee set up by the House of Commons to report on this issue, but elsewhere gave his opinion that "this bounty indefensibly derived, operated in the most severe manner against my colliery undertaking in North Glamorgan, since coal from the latter place stood little chance of competing fairly with duty free coal from Newport.''l7 The petition was rejected, as were similar petitions from coalowners and from

14. The tramroad and river bridge were completed at this date (Cambrian 20

October 1809) but disputes with the Glamorganshire Canal Company delayed

the opening of the Doctor's Canal until 1813.

15. Cambrian 22 December 1809 and 13 January 1810

16. County Record Office, Cardiff, Memolandum of agreement between Richard

Grifiths and Walter Coffin for use of tramroad 1 December 1809.

17. Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea. The exemption from duty on coal

and cvlm (Bristol, 1810), pamphlet.

the corporation of Cardiff in 1818, and two decades were to elapse before the duties were repealed.

Undaunted, Coffin began his quest for markets for his No. 2 and No 3 Rhondda seams of "Dynas coal", concentrating largely on southern Ireland. He did this by advertisement and by personal interview.18 He established his coal wharf below the South Gate, Cardiff, for in September 1810 the Glamorganshire Canal Company allocated 'a piece of land 190 feet in length near the sea-lock to Mr. Walter Coffin for a term of 21 years.''19 He purchased several barges and obtained the permission of Griffiths" to make a small dock at my own expense on the canal".20 Shortly he bought the brig Brothers of 79 tons, the first of his coastal vessels for use exclusively in the coal trade, and in this way cut out the middle man—the ship's master— from his part in coal sales.21 By 1820 Walter Coffin was the second largest shipper of coal on the Glamorganshire Canal, exporting 10,564 tons, a figure only exceeded by J. Bennet Grover with 15,481 tons from his Maesmawr Colliery, Llantwit Fardre.22

Coffin had now overcome most of his initial production and marketing difficulties with the No. 3 Rhondda variety of bituminous coal, "known as the best in this part of the kingdom for either coking, gas or smith's work."23 At the Dinas Lower Colliery the extraction of this seam was being prosecuted with increased vigour whilst the Irish market continued to expand. James Green's Report on Cardiff harbour in 1828 lists the coal shippers as follows:

Walter Coffin 23,662 tons

Charles Smith 10,660 ,,

Rev. George Thomas 8,888 ,,

B. Grover 7,585 ,,

C. James 2,447 ,,

Morgan Thomas 2,200 ,,

Mr. Llewellin 1,175 ,,

Total 56,617 tons

18. Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to take

consideration of the State of the Coal Trade in the United Kingdom 1830.

19. Minutes of the Glamorganshire Canal Co., vol. 2, 22 September 1810.

20. County Record Office, Cardiff. Memorandum of agreement between Richard

Griffiths and Walter Coffin. op. cit.

21. The Brothers a Cardiff-built ship (1788), sailed regularly between Cardiff and

Cork. Another vessel, the Alert, a brig of 107 tons, owned in equal shares by

Walter Coffin and M. Hayes of Waterford, made regular journeys carrying

Dinas coal from Cardiff toWaterford. (Lloyd's Register of British and foreign

shipping 1826.)

22. Cambrian 3 February 1821.

23 Insole MSS, Letter Book, 1l December 1829).

With the trade revival in the closing years of the decade, Coffin dominated the Cardiff coal market exporting a total of 46,446 tons in 1830. Still, Cardiff's growth was slow at this time for, with its coastal markets limited, it shipped little more than a quarter of the coal loaded at Newport.

In 1831 the exemption from coastwise duties allowed to coals shipped at Newport and carried east of the Holms was withdrawn, but the immediate effects must have been a disappointment to Coffin. It was he who had been the foremost protagonist in the determined and protracted struggle to secure the withdrawal of a privilege which virtually gave Newport the monopoly of the coal trade to the Bristol Channel ports. It was he who had presented to the Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1830 the statistical evidence showing "the pernicious effects" of the privilege on the coal trade of Cardiff. The returns of the Glamorganshire Canal Company for the year ending 31 December 1839 show that Cardiff's chief coal shippers were:

Thomas Powell 27,076 tons

Thomas Powell and Co. 34,841 ,,

Walter Coffin 51,100 ,,

George Insole 23,444 ,,

Morgan Thomas 14,924 ,,

Lucy Thomas 17,097 ,,

John Edmunds 14,073 ,,

Duncan and Co. 13,386 tons 24

Several reasons explain the slow, steady but unspectacular progress in Coffin's coal exports during the decade 1830 to 1840. By 1833 he was already complaining to the marquis of Bute that "despite the removal of Newport's exemption clause, the limit of the coal trade at Cardiff is fixed not by the quantity that could be brought down to the port, but by the quantity which other ports, particularly Newport, would relinquish from their present trade to make

24. Capt. W. H. Smyth, Nautical observations on the port and maritime vicinity of

Cardiff (Cardiff, 1840).

way for an increased vend at Cardiff".25 In the early 'thirties Cardiff's coal shippers still found it difficult to compete with Newport coals in Bristol Channel ports, since Monmouthshire factors had enjoyed thirty years of unchallenged trade during which to establish firm connections and markets.

In the 'thirties, too, several new rival producer-shippers of bituminous coal had appeared at the Canal wharf, Cardiff, notably Thomas Powell and George Insole. Powell, owner of a small mine at Aberbeeg, Monmouthshire, in November 1829 sank two shafts to a six-feet thick vein at Gelligaer, Glamorgan.26 He connected his colliery by tramroad to the Glamorganshire Canal and in March 1830 leased a 318-foot wharf at Cardiff from the marquis of Bute. He then completed a jetty head at the western end of the wharf and this enabled him to load coals directly into coastal ships in the river.27 Powell was a formidable rival, for by the mid-'thirties, some years before he became Cardiff's chief exporter of steam-coal, he had reduced Coffin to second place in the port's table of coal shipments. George Insole, owner of the Maesmawr Colliery, Llantwit Fardre, since 1833, as we shall see, was soon canvassing for orders in southern Ireland, under-cutting Coffin in a market which the latter had long regarded as his own.

The expansion of coal traffic, together with the considerable export trade in iron and the import trade in iron ore and cinders, led to great congestion and delays on the Glamorganshire Canal. So frustated was Coffin that in June 1834 he left the canal committee and in October became a member or the provisional committee formed to inaugurate the Taff Vale Railway (T.V.R.). Although the foremost object of the new railway was the conveyance of iron from Merthyr to Cardiff, the Taff Vale Railway Act of 1836 incorporated a clause for the construction of a branch railway to Coffin's pits at Dinas. The railway was opened from Merthyr to Cardiff in April 1841, with a branch line from Newbridge to Eirw in the lower Rhondda. In June 1841 the Dinas or "Coffin tramroad" was linked to the T.V.R at Eirw and the direct rail link from Dinas to Cardiff had been forged.

25. Memorandum by Walter Coffin, 1833. Bute Estate archives miscellaneous

papers.

26. Cambrian 21 November 1829.

27. National Library of Wales, Bute MSS, Box 31 X.

It had long been realised that the natural docking facilities at Cardiff were poor, the river Taff being unsuited to all but the smallest ships. Charles Hadfield has described the congestion at the sea-lock pound in the ' thirties: "Vessels of 60-70 tons loaded in the upper part near Cardiff where the depth was 8-9 feet,and those of 100-160 tons at the bottom end in up to 14 feet of water. Those at the upper end had to move down when two-thirds loaded to take on the rest of their cargoes. Coal was transferred from canal boat to collier either from the boat to a stage rigged halfway up the bigger ship's side, then to the deck and then into the hold, or it was unloaded from boat to wharf and then put into the ship."28 Bigger ships still had to be loaded outside the sea lock by lighters. This increased handling, of course, meant increased costs and a greater amount of breakage.29 Due largely to the imagination, resolution and financial resources of the second marquis of Bute, the Bute West Dock was opened in 1839 and, although constructed to facilitate the export of iron, it gave a considerable impetus to the coal trade. With the completion of the T.V.R. and the opening of the Bute West Dock, Cardiff, coal shippers were ready to meet the vastly increased demand for Welsh coal —steam more than bituminous—which was to be the outstanding feature of the port's trade returns in the late eighteen-forties.

Walter Coffin also encountered serious production difficulties at Dinas in 1832. His neighbour at Llandaff, the mining engineer Robert Beaumont, recounts how the miners at the Dinas Lower Colliery working the No. 3 Rhondda seam northwards, met a major fault running right across Coffin's Craigddu property.30 This fault— subsequently known as the Cymmer (Dinas) Fault—lowered the seam to the west by about 40 yards. In order to recover the seam lying to the north and west of the fault on the twenty acres still unworked, Coffin sank a new shaft, the Dinas Middle Colliery, about 600 yards up the valley. This proved to be a costly venture. Beaumont reported in 1846 that the pit was 80 yards deep, that because of difficulties with soft soil and water the shaft was bricked for 60 yards and that the total cost—together with the machinery and airways— could not have been less than £7,000. The expenditure of what was regarded at the time

28. Charles Hadfield, The eanals of South Wales and zhe border (Cardiff, 1967).

29. Cardiff Central Library, Bute MSS Statement of Lieutenant Dornford R.N. (Dock Master) of the expenses of loading in the Glamorgan Canal.

30. Cardiff Central Library, Bute MSS 46 VII (7).

as this large sum, prompted Coffin to extend his mineral field. In February 1832 he renewed his lease of 507 acres of the adjacent mineral property to Dinas at Brithweunydd, and from 1833 the No. 3 Rhondda seam was worked under this property from the Dinas Middle Colliery and from the Brithweunydd Level, opened in 1839. Subsequently in 1846 Coffin opened the Gellifaelog Colliery on the Dunraven estate at Tonypandy and his first colliery, the Dinas Lower, ceased production. In 1840, the 301 men and 113 boys employed by Coffin at Dinas produced 50,913 tons of bituminous coal, making his concern the largest single sale-coal enterprise in the uplands of Glamorgan.31 Meanwhile, despite the efforts of producer-shippers such as Powell, Coffin and Insole, the growth of Cardiff's coal exports in the eighteen-thirties had been extremely slow, still lagging far behind those of Newport and the ports of West Wales. This is clearly shown in the following table:

Coal shipments (tons) from Welsh ports in 1840

Coastwise Foreign

Cardiff 162,283 3,826

Newport 482,398 7,256

Swansea 460,201 33,089

Llanelli 192,769 19,275

Milford 76,768 411

Total 1,374,419 63,857

From 1840, however, the potential of Cardiff was quickly realised and the day when Cardiff would be the premier coal shipping port in Wales was fast approaching. The rate of progress in coal shipments began to quicken in the early years of the decade, but after 1845 there was a dramatic increase, reaching the high total of 731,329 tons (coastal and foreign) in 1850. There was also another noticeahle feature which was to alter the whole pattern of Cardiff's coal trade. In 1840 some four thousand tons only had been exported foreign by 1850 some two hundred and fifty thousand tons were destined for the foreign market. It

31. Royal Commission on Employment of Children in Mines l842.

was the steam coal of the Aberdare Valley, exported by Powell Nixon and others, that played the outstanding part in this rapid expansion of shipments, but two producer-shippers of Rhondda bituminous coal, Coffin and Insole, contributed in no small measure.

By the mid-eighteen-forties Walter Coffin had extended his markets in two directions. His substantial contract to supply coke "made from coal called Dynas or Coffin's Number Three Vein" to the Great Western Railway Company secured an important internal market from 1841. Of greater importance was the successful attempt to secure new overseas markets for Rhondda coal, especially in France. It was John Nixon, as his biographer tells us in detail, who "created the trade in steam coal between Cardiff and France"32 when, in 1842, he took his first cargo of Four Feet steam coal from Thomas Powell's "Old Duffryn" pit in the Aberdare Valley to the sugar refiners of Nantes. Between 1842 and 1850 a number of new and large collieries were opened in rapid succession in the Aberdare Valley, and this clearly was a reflex of "the preference that dry smokeless Aberdare steam coal is obtaining all over the world for Steam raising purposes."33 It has been estimated that of the threequarters of a million tons of coal exported from Cardiff in 1850, half-a-million tons came from the Aberdare Valley and most was destined for the French market. Coffin, whose new wharf at the Bute Docks was near to that of Thomas Powell and actually adjoined that of George Insole, was, of course, fully aware of these significant changes in the coal trade.34 It might have been expected that Coffin would have been tempted to test the opinions of contemporary mining engineers, W. S. Clark, Robert Beaumont and W. P. Struve, that "the Aberdare steam coal seams would be found at a workable depth in the Rhondda" (Clark). There is evidence that in 1846 Coffin did penetrate to the "No. 4 Vein" at Dinas, but he made no attempt to reach the steam coal seams, being convinced that these coals lay too deep for successful working.35 Nine years were to elapse before that momentous day, 21 December 1855, when the first train load of 38 wagons of Rhondda steam coal was dispatched from the Bute Merthyr Colliery, Treherbert, to Cardiff.

32. J E. Vincert, op. cit. p. 134

33. The Railway Times, 23 August 1845.

34. Cardiff Central Library, Bute MSS Xl (50) May 1842.

35. The steam soal seams were found and worked at Dinas in 1869 at the

considerable depth of 300 yards.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the revival of trade after 1845, Coffin concentrated on increasing sales and finding new overseas markets for his

''celebrated" No. 3 Rhondda coal, the quality and reputation of which was assured. There was little competition from the Aberdare Valley in the sale of bituminous or coking coals since denudation and geological influences had removed these upper seams in most parts of that valley. The export of 48,920 tons in 1845 showed the slow if steady nature of Coffin's sales, for this was little more than the 46,446 tons dispatched in 1830. Between 1845 and 1848, however, there was a substantial increase in the amount of Dinas coal sent to the Bute West Dock. This is clearly reflected in the weekly T.V.R. traffic returns for these years. For the week ending 20 February 1845 Coffin paid the T.V.R. £144 5s. 4d. for coal freightage from Eirw to Cardiff; in the corresponding week in 1848 the amount paid was £249 ls. 9d 36

In 1845 Coffin's shipments of coal and coke were directed to his two well-established markets, namely the coastal towns of the Bristol Channel (above all, the port of Bristol) and especially the ports of southern Ireland (such as Waterford and Cork). The Bute Docks ships register records no foreign shipment by Coffin until 5 August 1848, when he sent 116 tons of No. 3 Rhondda to Nantes. This was the precursor of a particularly flourishing overseas trade, because before the end of the year Coffin was dispatching regularly some five to eight ships a week from Cardiff to Nantes. The cargoes were small, between 100 and 150 tons, whereas the usual slze of Powell and Nixon's coal cargoes was 400 tons, but the trade was so regular and, by 1850, so well-established that the aggregate was considerable. At the half century, although there were occasional shipments to Charente, to Bordeaux and to Venice, it was exparts to Nantes that completely dominated Coffin's foreign sales. These were years of thriving trade and buoyant prices. The Cardiff press, reviewing "the growth of our staple trade, the export of coal" commented with pleasure on the very considerable increase of our foreign trade which is capable of even much greater if not unlimited expansion."37 It illustrated this viewpoint by listing French shipments, adding that the Bute West Dock and the Glamorganshire Canal were so densely crowded

36. Until the extension of the T.V.R. to Dinas in May 1849 Coffin continued to use

his own private tramroad to Eirw.

37. Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, January 1850.

with ships bound for France "that our coal shippers have experienced great difficulties in carrying out their trade." Because of this congestion, business had to be suspended for three days from 25 January 1851. Coffin had played no part in the development of the steam coal market which was the main reason for the striking growth in Cardiff's foreign coal exports to 249,001 tons in 1851, but he had created an extremely profitable French demand for his own bituminous or coking coal.

Walter Coffin was now an important figure in the industrial and commercial economy of South Wales. The proprietor of three flourishing collieries, the Dinas Middle, the Brithweunydd, and the Gellifaelog; the owner of considerable property in the lower Rhondda;38 a substantial shareholder in the T.V.R.; the possessor of several collier ships—"he had made large profits for several years."39 In 1853 he decided to withdraw from an active commercial life in order to extend his interests in public affairs both local and national. His shipping interests at Bute Street were transferred to Richard Parry, while William Ogle Hunt of 10 Whitehall, London, took over all his mining interests in the lower Rhondda.

On the death of his father in July 1812, Walter Coffin gave up the family house at Nolton, Bridgend, and moved to Llandaff Court, Cardiff. Early in the 'thirties he was appointed a justice of the peace and his letters to lord Bute, the lord lieutenant of the county, reflect his wide-ranging interests in Glamorgan affairs at that time. In 1835 he was made an alderman and in 1848 filled the position of mayor of Cardiff under the terms of the Municipal Corporations Act. He subsequently became the chairman of the QuarterSessions, chairman of the Board of Guardians and chairman of the subscribers of the Cardiff Infant School, among other posts. His home at Llandaff soon became a centre of Liberal opinion in politics and religion, and that at a time when Liberal views were unpopular in Cardiff and in the county. Coflin fearlessly campaigned for the removal of the remaining civil disabilities imposed on dissenters, the extension of the franchise and free trade. In 1852, in response to a request signed by 400 of Cardiff's 1,000 electors that he should represent their growing commercial interests, he

38. William James, Wyth ar hugain o hen gymeriadau hynod Cwm y Rhondda

(Tonypandy, 1905), "Walter Cofhn owned everything at Dinas, except men's

souls" (trans.).

39. Cardif Times, 28 February 1867. "The late Walter Coffin" (obituary notice).

agreed to stand as a Liberal in the General Election. His opponent was the Rt. Hon. John Nicholl of Merthyr Mawr who, with the powerful support of the Bute family, had been the member for Cardiff since 1832. A hard-fought and bitter conflict ensued and Walter Coffin was elected by 26 votes. He proved to be an ineffective member, never addressing the House, although he served on several committees. He did not seek re-election in 1857 and moved to Prince's Gate, Hyde Park, London, where he died in 1867 at the age of eighty-two, and since neither he nor his brother John, nor his two sisters, Mary and Sarah, ever married, the Coffin family became extinct. 40

When Walter Coffin began his first speculation in mining and exporting Dinas coal in 1809, it appears that his mother strenuously opposed him, proclaiming that "Walter has married a black wife who would bring him no fortune.''41 But his inherited wealth, his shrewd business capacity, his indomitable perseverance and his sanguine temperament enabled this Unitarian to meet and overcome all obstacles. By the time of his retirement his name had become a household word—"Coffin's Coal" was famous in Cardiff, in the ports of the Bristol Channel and Ireland, and in France. Looking back on his early struggles, especially the protracted effort to remove the various restrictions on the full export of Cardiff coal, Coffin remarked, "I dragged a dead horse by the tail for forty years." A more fitting verdict on his business career is that recorded in the Report ol the Welsh Land Commission of 1893, "It was Walter Coffln almost single-handed who fought the battles of free trade in Glamorganshire in the first half of the Nineteenth Century."42

If the beginnings of Cardiff's trade in bituminous coal were due to the entrepreneurial flair of Walter Coffin, without question the pioneer of the port's trade in steam coal was George Insole (1790-1851).

40. Walter Coffin was buried in the family vault at the Unitarian Church

graveyard, Park Street, Bridgend. In 1972 the Church Trustees removed the

tombstone and covered the grave with tar macadam. This led to an outcry in

the local press, and the Bridgend Town Council Planning and Development

Committee investigated possible "unauthorised development". It was found

that the Church Trustees had not infringed planning regulations, but much

concern was expressed that "an important historical relic had been lost."

Western Mail, 12 April 1972.

41. H. J. Randall, op. cit..

42. Report of the Welsh Land Commission 1893.

While playing a significant part in Cardiff's established coastal and Irish markets for bituminous coal, it was Insole who, in the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century, for the first time exported steam coal from Cardiff to London, to scattered overseas markets from Malta to Alexandria, and who supplied the British Admiralty.

In the summer of 1827, George Insole, a wood merchant of Worcester, moved with his wife and two children to the extra-mural district of Crockherbtown, Cardiff. He had just entered into a partnership with Richard Biddle of Merthyr as a timber merchant and brick dealer with a small yard at St. Mary's, Cardiff. Three years later the partnership was dissolved when Biddle was declared bankrupt "having defrauded me by every means in his power' (Insole). Henceforward Insole would concentrate solely on the trade in coal.

His early sources of supply were two-fold, firstly, house or bituminous coal from several levels, such as John Davies' Level ("Gelliwion coal") and David Morley's Craig-yr-Allt Level in the hinterland of Cardiff, and secondly, steam coal from Robert Thomas' Waun Wyllt Level, Abercanaid, near Merthyr. As a coal dealer the first market was purely domestic—a weekly supply to Cardiff's foundry, brewery, hotels (the Bute Arms, the Angel, the Cambrian, the Bell) and to upper-class houses and farms in the neighbourhood where "domestic" coal was sold at nine shillings per ton. It was in February 1830 that Insole acquired a wharf on the Glamorganshire Canal and a store-yard near the sea-lock, preliminary to setting up business as an independent coal shipper. He then advertised to the captains and owners of sloops, schooners and brigs for the sale of bituminous coal to the coastal markets of Devon and Cornwall, and more especially to the ports of southern Ireland. The practice of selling to ship's captains was the usual feature of Insole's commercial organisation during these early years when he was building up connections. Later he was to appoint his own agents in the main markets. The masters of these carriers, small sloops or brigs of 150 or 200 tons, were almost always English, although occasionally a Welsh vessel such as John Davies' Thetis of Cardigan is recorded in the sales accounts. Irish sales flourished from the outset, especially during the spring and summer months. Thus he sent in the last fortnight of May 1830: on the 14th,40 tons of Gelliwion coal to Henry Crawleyof Drogheda; on the 17th, 172 tons to William Douglas, Belfast; on the 18th, 115 tons to John Elianon, New Ross; on the 19th, 80 tons to Duffey & Co., Distillers, Dundalk: on the 22nd, 83 tons to J. Taylor, Kinsale; on the 27th, 90 tons to Paul Swinney, Cork, and on the 29th, 145 tons to the Waterford Coal Co.43. In the same month smaller quantities of Gelliwion, "excellent for smith's work, gas or coke". were dispatched coastwise to Bideford and Penzance. Little wonder that Insole could comment in the next year, "The demand for coal from Cardiff I believe was never so great as this summer . . . and we cannot cope with more than 600 to 800 tons of shipping at a time . . . Since I have had anything to do with Gelliwion coal, I have sold more than any other individual that preceded me."44

The complaints he had received concerning the breakage of Gelliwion coal in transit, increasing demand, and the removal of exemption from customs duties on coal exported from Newport (1831) prompted George Insole to become a producer as well as a marketer of bituminous coal. He had shipped Maesrnawr coal, "a brown ash coal, entirely free from dead slack, superior in quality to any in this neighbourhood", according to his advertising notice, in Dccember 1831. At this time J. Bennet Grover, owner of the Maesmawr Colliery was in dire straits financially and could not find enough money to pay his workmen. Output fell from 15,481 tons in 1820 to 6,594 tons in 1830 and Grover's name disappears from the returns of the Glamorganshire Canal Company in the next year. On 12 October 1832 we find George Insole, immediately on his return from a successful visit to southern Ireland, enquiring from the mineral landlord, Rev. John T. Casberd, penmark, what terms and rent were required "for the old Maesmawr Colliery, Llantwit Fardre . . . since my enquiry is made on behalf of a relation of mine, a Gentleman of Property, who is inclined to treat for the same" [sic]. The Merthyr mining engineer, William Harrison, surveyed the property, and in November 1832 Insole reopened the Maesmawr Level, and at the considerable cost of £3,000 opened the Maesmawr pit to "the four foot vein". At the same time he offered "to take any seam or veins of coal that may be lying under the Maesbach Estate belonging to the Most Noble the Marquis of Bute, to work thirty tons a day and as much as may be disposed of".46 The enlarged scale of operations—the Maesmawr and Maesbach collieries employed 157 men and

43. County Record Office, Cardiff, Insole and Biddle, Day Book, June 1827-

September 1830.

44. Insole MSS, Letter Book, 30 .August 1831.

45. ibid,, 26 December 1832, letter to Edward Priest Richards.

boys45—doubled his output from 12,943 tons in 1833 47 to 23,444 tons in 1839.

Insole, the small shipper turned coalowner, was then able to assure his customers of an ample supply of "a superior bituminous coal, for if Maesmawr is not the largest coal shipped here it is the most rubbly coal, not having any slack in it and will retain that state much longer than any other Cardiff coal. As to its burning it is well known here that where one ton of any other coal is consumed in this neighbeurhood there is at least twenty of Maesmawr".48 In the late 'thirties he was making spirited attempts to extend markets, both old and new. The established trade with the ports of the West Country —Minehead, Bideford, Truro, Penzance and Plymouth— continued to flourish and new orders were successfully canvassed in Bristol, London and southern Ireland. His letters in the early 'forties illuminate in graphic detail the extremely competitive nature of the coal trade. Yet, despite the fact that he was selling Maesmawr at ls. a ton cheaper than "Coffin's Coal"—and personally pushing sales by visiting the ports of southern Ireland each summer—he was at every turn made aware of the preference felt for No.3 Rhondda in his main market.

This turned his attention to mineral speculation in the lower Rhondda where, despite Coffin's undoubted success at Dinas, few other coal prospectors had ventured. Insole had visited this secluded pastoral valley at periodic intervals since 1838, and was the sole shipper of the small amounts of No. 2 Rhondda sent in carts to the Glamorganshire Canal by Richard Lewis of Cymmer Level. On 19 November 1844, in reply to complaints received from F. G. Armitage, Dublin, a distributor in the Irish market, Insole wrote, "We appreciate your remarks as to the reputation Mr. Coffin has created for his present vein of coal, as the writer has found on personal interview with his customers in most parts of Ireland. At the same time we do not despair, knowing as we do, that we have as good an article to offer. The coal we shall shortly have will be highly bituminous and suitable for Ireland; allow us to state again that we shall soon have the same vein of coal to offer as is now shipped by Mr. Coffin of this place, a vein of coal that is known as the best in the Kingdom for either coking or smith's work".49

46. Royal Commission on the Employmenf of Children . . ., op. cit.

47. Cambrian, 11 January 1834

48. Insole MSS., Letter Book, 20 November 1832.

49. ibid, 19 October 1844.

This variety of coal, of course, was the No. 3 Rhondda seam. a month previously George Insole and his 23-year-old son, James Harvey Insole, had leased the mineral rights of 375 acres of Cymmer land, adjacent to the Dinas property of Walter Coffin. Immediately, the South Cymmer Level was opened to the No. 2 Rhondda seam, and in 1847 the No. I Pit or Cymmer Old was sunk to the No. 3 Rhondda seam.60 Insole was confronted with great difficulties in meeting orders at this time for the seams at Maesmawr were reaching exhaustion and 1,499 tons only were exported from this colliery in the year ending 30 June 1844. Once the No. 3 seam had been located at Cymmer, mining operations proceeded with a fierce intensity and ever-increasing quantities were sent daily for export at Cardiff. Initially there were considerable transport difficulties, for the Rhondda branch of the T.V.R. terminated at Eirw some 900 yards below Cymmer, and Coffin adamantly refused freightage on his private tramroad to any other coal owner. Consequently Insole had to construct his own tramroad from Cymmer to the "Old Mill". A wooden bridge was erected over the mill brook and coal, loaded into carts, was taken over the circuitous parish road to the T.V.R. at Eirw.51 Such inconvenience, of course, was intolerable to Insole who,

throughout the years 1844 to 1846, kept up a barrage of appeals and complaints to the directors of the T.V.R. requesting them to extend the branch line to Cymmer. These clamorous letters reveal Insole's confidence in the industrial potential of Cymmer "for if you will accommodate us by extending the line now asked for, we will guarantee to bring down 100 tons of coal per day as the minimum quantity, but we do not hesitate to say that quantity shall be increased three times in twelve months after the road is made, independent of the traffic made by other parties."52

The T.V.R. (Rhondda Branch) reached Cymmer by the end of 1846 and by the December of the following year annual production there surged to 23,656 tons. The Cymmer undertaking was proving extremely profitable and soon the mineral property under lease covered 1,300 acres worked by two additional shafts, the Upper Cymmer (1851) and the New Cymmer (1855). Three varieties of coal were worked Low Main No. 9 Rhondda, "unrivalled in excellence as

50. For full account see E. D. Lewis, The Rhondda Valleys (London, 1959).

51. Transacrions of the Cardiff Naturalists' Society, vol. 15, 1883.

52. Insole.MSS, Letter Book, 12 December 1844.

smelting and forge coal": No. 3 Rhondda which already had a wide reputation as a coking coal; and "Through and through", most of which was shipped. The expenditure of £1,440 on thirty-six coke ovens at the Old Pit brought swift returns, for Cymmer coke was soon supplied overland to Crawshay Bailey's ironworks at Aberaman, to the Aberdare Brick Company, to the Gadlys Brick Company and to the Woolwich Arsenal. By sea, substantial amounts of Cymmer coke were sent to the Royal Dockyards and to railway companies. For example, Insole had a contract beginning on 1 November 1852 to ship "not less than 190 tons and not more than 230 tons of coke (made from coal heretofore called Dynas or Coffin's No. 3 vein) per week to the Great Western Dock at Bristol" for the bristol and Exeter Railway Company.

But the overwhelming bulk of Cymmer coal was sent via the T.V.R. to the Bute West Dock for shipment. Like Coffin, George Insole's bituminous coal sales underwent a quantitative and directional revolution after 1848, but unlike Coffin, at the same time Insole was stimulating a growing market in the steam coals of the Aberdare Valley. In 1847 his bituminous sales accounts reveal the same pattern as fifteen years previously: the shipping of small cargoes of 100 tons to 150 tons to three markets, namely, the coastal towns along the Bristol Channel (especially to Bristol and Gloucester), the Cornish ports (St. Ives, Penzance, Fowey) and the distributing ports of southern Ireland. Sales to Limerick, Dublin, Youghal, Waterford and Cork predominate, especially after the appointment of F. G. Armitage, Dublin, in 1845 "to carry out their instructions, promote their interests and extend their connexion to the utmost of his ability" in Ireland for the ensuing three years in return for a salary of £120 a year and 20 tons of coal.63 So buoyant in fact were Irish sales at this time that from his new office at 3 Bute Crescent, Insole replied to Henry Morgan, an old customer, "We beg to assure you that it would give us great pleasure to ship you a cargo of our new coal, the Cymmer Coal, at once, had we that much to spare. This may require some explanation—the fact is, the demand here is so great and vessels arriving faster than they can be dispatched that it really makes it a task to please everyone''.51 As was the case with Coffins the Bute Docks ships register records a significant change of direction in Insole's coal sales accounts for 1848,

53. Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, 27 July 1850.

54. Insole MSS, Letter Book, 4 December 1848.

for the trade that hitherto has been coastal and Irish now becomes foreign and soon world-wide. The dynamic was the search for new outlets for the sale of "dry smokeless Aberdare steam coal", and it is now time to recount the pioneer efforts of George Insole to establish the sale of Welsh steam coal in the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century.

In 1824 Robert Thomas, a native of Llansamlet, after working for some years in the Cyfarthfa Colliery of William Crawshay, decided to open a colliery of his own—the Waur Wyllt or Abercanaid Level, near Merthyr . The terms of the yearly tenancy obtained from the earl of Plymouth contained one vital provision: that the colliery should be worked for "sale" purposes only, which meant that the lessee was precluded from erecting a blast furnace near his

works and from selling coal to any of the iron masters. The seam worked was the "Waun Wyllt" or Merthyr Four Feet seam of steam coal and small quantities were sold to the local foundry and to the householders of Merthyr Tydfil. On 10 February 1829 the Day Book of the Insole and Biddle timber firm, St. Mary's, Cardiff, records: "Paid to Robert Thomas for two boat loads of Waun Wilt coal the sum of £14-0-0". By this date Thomas had at last overcome the implacable opposition of William Crawshay "the Iron King", to his use of the Glamorganshire Canal. A short tramway was built from Thomas' level to the Canal and 10,476 tons of "Waun Wilt" or "Murthyr" coal was carried to Cardiff in 1830. George

Insole, now an independent coal shipper, acted as agent for Thomas and small cargoes of this coal were dispatched to coastal towns in Devon and Cornwall and to Drogheda and Clonnel in Ireland. Item 69 in the Insole Day Book for 20 April 1830 is of arresting significance, for Samuel Welsford, London, is credited with an order for 'Wain Wilt" coal to be delivered within three months. It was not

until 12 November that a small cargo was loaded and cleared for London per the ship Mars of Shields (of 87 tons register, Master Capt. W. Wright) the vessel being "partly loaded in the canal and then taken outside the Sea Lock, together with three canal boats, to finish her cargo." The profit on the transaction is recorded as £19 11s. Od., "barely enough to pay the freightage", as Insole

complained.55 The smokeless quality and steam-raising power of the coal,

55. The writer was shown the framed bill of sale in 1938 by W. North Lewis,

"The Orchard ^ Lisvane, Cardiff, then managing director of GeorgeInsole &Son

Ltd.

however, attracted attention on the London Coal Exchange and in the following year Insole entered into a contract to supply Messrs. Edward Wood and Co., Northumberland Wharf, Strand, with 3,000 tons of Waun Wyllt coal.

Insole was not the first to dispatch Welsh steam coal to London, the most important domestic market in Britain at that ime. J. H. Morris and L. J. Williams have shown how, in 1824 far example, the Llangennech Company, a group of London merchants, had entered the London steam coal market, hitherto the exclusive preserve of the Newcastle "Vend". It was this partnership, in fact, that was to constitute "the largest single Welsh supplier of steam coal to the London market for the twenty years before 1846."56 But it was George Insole who had the initiative and drive to push the sale of steam coal from the port of Cardiff to London, and having secured a foothold, to foster and develop this crucially important market. It has been customary to describe Lucy Thomas, the widow of Robert Thomas, as the "mother of the Welsh Steam Coal Trade" largely on the basis that Waun Wyllt coal was dispatched to London in 1830. 67 This is a myth. The Insole Letter Books show that until the death of Robert Thomas in February 1833 letters from Insole were directed to him; that in 1833 Insole's transactions were carried on with his son, William; and that the accounts with the Glamorganshire Canal Company were not transferred to Lucy Thomas until 1834, from which date Insole directs his correspondence to her. In any case it was Insole who initiated the first shipment of Waun Wyllt steam coal from Cardiff to London and the financial risks were undertaken by him.

In 1831 Insole took two further steps to widen the horizon of Cardiff's infant steam coal trade when H.M.S. St. Pierre bunkered with Waun Wyllt coal in Penarth Roads and a small cargo was "shipped foreign"—to Malta. By the mid-thirties eargoes of "Myrther" coal were sent to new markets such as Brighton and Ramsgate, to Ireland, and significantly, single cargoes to Quebec and Alexandria. Nevertheless it is sales by sea to Lcndon that dominate the Insole

56. Morris and Williams, The South Wales coal industry 1841-1875 (Cardiff,

1958),

57 Charles Wilkins, op. cit.,; Elizabeth Phillips, Pioneers of the south Wales coalfield (Cardiff, 1925). In 1904 the Lady Lewis pit at Ynyshir, Rhondda, was named after the granddaughter of Lucy Thomas, who had married Sir William Thomas Lewis.

Sale Books at this time. On 23 July 1831 Robert Thomas is informed "I have received the most satisfactory account of Wain Wilt being a far superior coal to Pemberton's 'Llangennech', so much praised hitherto in the London Market". This is followed by a complaint "that Mr. Noble, Mr. Pryde and Mr. George Lockett Junior) are being allowed to ship your coal as well as myself, after you had agreed not to let any other person ship your coal as well as myself."58

The Insole letters for the early 'thirties clearly illuminate two leatures of the coal trade at that time—it was uncertain and highly competitive. Thus in Ju]y 1832 Robert Thomas was informed "that demand has been very steady during these summer months, so much so that if I could have obtained five times the quantity, I could have sold every ton in London",69 but after the Autumn storms in November, "I must ask you to stop sending Wain Wilt for a little while because it will be impossible to sell much coal during the winter months,—four boat loads a week is a, much as can be stowed."60 In 1833 he complained of competition from rival Welsh steam coals—Llangennech, Guest's Dowlais and Newport coals— all selling to Edward Wood at a cheaper rate than "Murther" coal. The market continued buoyant, for in 1834 he urged Mrs. Lucy Thomas to send down greater quantities, "for I have not at the moment more than four boats of your coal in stock and all that bespoke, whereas I want four to five thousand tons. You are not sending me anything like enough coal to supply the London House with the quantity they could sell." "There is coal shipping now at Newport very much like the Wain Wilt'," he warned. "Customers will take this because they cannot get Wain Wilt from me and in the end this may beat your coal out of the market.''61 His fears were ill-founded for, with the success of the steamer in river and coastal services, Insole opened up a new steam coal market. We learn that in 1835 "much Myrther coal is used by Government Steam Packets at Woolwich and is found to answer extremely well", and in the following year "the great superiority of the intermediate or Steam Packet coal of South Wales is now well ascertained . . . our Wain Wilt or large engine coal, now sold at 8 shillings a

58. Insole MSS, Letter Book. 27. August 1831

59. ibid., 24 July 1832

60. ibid., 3 November 1832.

61. ibid., 13 January 1834.

ton being preferred by London steamers in preference to any other".62 By the end of 1836 the price of Merthyr coal was being quoted with Pemberton's 'Llangennech" in the returns of the London Coal Market, reported in the mining press.63 Nearer home, on 29 February 1836, Insole agreed to supply the Cardiff and Bristol Steam Packet Company with 21.5 tons of "Prime Wain Wilt steam coal" weekly for use in their two cross-channel steamers The Prince of Wales and the Lady Charlotte.

Slowly the merits of Merthyr steam coal were being realised in London and in 1840 it was reported that an association was being formed—"The Cambrian Coal Owners' Society"—for the encouragement and protection of the trade.' 4 Yet despite the efforts of George Insole and other exporters, among them the Aberdare Coal Company and Lucy Thomas, the export of "Myrther coal" from Cardiff to London in 1840 was not large (9,771 tons) and could not compare with the tonnage of the Llangennech Company (17,692 tons).65

The great increase in steam coal exports from Cardiff in the 'forties indicated a marked switch in the balance of South Wales coal sales from west to east Glamorgan, for in 1850 Cardiff's shipments of about 750,000 tons had completely overhauled Swansea with 392,000 tons. Even Newport, which in 1840 shipped three times as much coal as Cardiff, now lagged behind (603,000 tons). We have already seen how Cardiff's coal exports had been influenced in the early 'forties by improved docking and transport facilities. The opening of the Bute West Dock (1839) and the Taff Vale Railway (1841) with an extension into the Aberdare Valley (1846) raised coal exports from 166,000 tons in 1840 to 274,000 tons in 1843. But the two factors which more than doubled this total by 1850 were the great development of the steam coal market to meet the demands of the Royal Navy and the mercantile marine, and the vindication of the claimed superiority of Welsh steam coal over all rivals in the triple experiments carried out by Sir Henry de la Beche and Dr. Lyon Playfair for the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. This increased demand led to the

62. ibid., 22 February 1836.

63. Mining Journal, 12 November 1836.

64 ibid., vol. x, p. 359. No evidence has been found as to whether this Society

was actually brought into existence.

65. The Aberdare Coal Company shipped small cargoes of steam coa to London from 1837. Its agent was Edward Wood.Lucy Thomas had moved from the Waun Wyllt Level to the neighbouring Graig Level by 1840. The number employed in that year was 50 men and boys.

opening in rapid succession of a number of new, large steam coal collieries in the Aberdare Valley,66 and ultimately to the acquisition of new overseas markets by two of the successful coal owners, Thomas Powell and John Nixon.

The Letter Books of George Insole (now senior partner of the family firm of George Insole and Son) for the mid 'forties show that he was acutely aware of the increasing demand for steam coal, realising that "much more could be sold if available".67 Doubtless Thomas Powell, who had just acquired a new wharf near Insole at Cardiff's Bute West Dock. had made him aware of the potential of the steam coal resources of the Aberdare Valley. Insole had no steamcoal resources of his own and, having committed himself since 1844, as we have seen, to the large-scale exploitalion of bituminous coal at Cymmer in the lower Rhondda, had no further resources to participate directly in mining ventures elsewhere. His Account Book for January 1848 shows that an inventory of fixed plant at Cymmer Old alone amounted to over £5,000. It was in these circumstances that he became the shipper of "Aberaman Merthyr Steam Coal" mined by David Williams in the Aberdare Valley.

David Williams (better known by his bardic title of "Alaw Goch") was one of the first to realise and exploit the mineral potential of that valley. He made his first attempt at mining steam coal by opening a short drift to intersect the Four Feet seam at Ynyscynon, Cwmbach in 1847. This was a successful but diminutive venture and shortly afterwards a lease obtained from Crawshay Bailey enabled him to sink a pit at Treaman, Aberaman. Quantities of "dry smokeless steam coal" from this colliery were sent along the T.V.R. to Insole at Cardiff for shipment. Sales were considerably extended with the publication in 1848 of the first of the trials of different varieties of coal carried out by de la Beche and Playfair for the Admiralty.68. On 4 March 1848 Insole received notice from R. Dundas (Storekeeper General) "that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have directed that Aberaman Merthyr Steam coal be added to the list of those specified in Naval Command." A month later, on 5 April 1848, Insole was informed hy James Meek, Controller of Victualling of Her Majesty's Navy, that

66. In 1841 the coal output of the Aberdare Valley was 500,000 tons; by 1860 output had surged to 1,754,813 tons.

67. Insole MSS, Account book, 19 December 1845.

68. Reports on coals suited for the Steam Navy.

" after receiving a Report of the Aberaman Merthyr Steam Coals delivered by you at Deptford Victualling Yard, I have to acquaint you that their Lordships have been pleased to direct that this description of coal be added to the list of Welsh Coals required for the service of this department in future". Such authoritative statements had enormous publicity value to a small independent shipper of steam coal, as was Insole at this time, for instead of holding their own trials, steamship companies and home and foreign buyers were coming to be guided by the results of these trials. In a special pamphlet, To the purchasers and consumers of steam coal, published in 1848, Insole quoted from the above letters and advertised that "Welsh steam coal far exceeds that of the North of England in every requisite quality, and to nearly every port, freights are much lower from Wales, particularly foreign". He proceeded to advise (in italics), "In procuring coal best suited for steam purposes great care should be taken to select that which has the highest evaporative power, contains the least sulphur, emits the least quantity of smoke, leaves the smallest amount of ash and residue, does not make clinker or cinder or burn the bars or boiler. The Aberaman Merthyr Steam coal shipped at Cardiff by Messrs. Geo. Insole and Son possesses all these qualities and is in great and increasing demand."

The great influence of the de la Beche-Playfair trials on the growth of the steam coal exports of the relatively little-known family firm of George Insole and Son, still under the necessity of having to advertise itself widely, reveals itself in a pertinent extract from the report:

oVcll?lev (~~f the coal enwployed in the e .vperinxents

A bcraman M erthyr

Ebh~~^~~ Vale

Thomas s or %'ood's Merthyr

l'oxnell s Dufl'ry

N ixon's MerthyL

_ Econsmic _

evaporatil e

pO11'CI- Ol'

t?O. of Ibs.

of Ivate

fi om 2/2°b

llb. of coal

10 75

10 21

10 16

10 14

9')6

Colte~~-ia (}

poweJ of

coals

(percentage

of large

f f)6z/)

74 0

45 5 57 5

56 '

64 5

lkeig/:t in

Ibs. of I cu.

ft. of coal

z~~.seblffw}

ft~~el

48 9 .

48 9

53 0

53 22

51 7

_ _

Pfwrc~~}E7t~~1gt)

ef

carbos

90 94

89 78

90 12

S8 26

90 27 _

ph,}(f~~ZZ,Z,s,~~2

eJ

slulpXllll

_

I lS

I ()2

O SS

1 77 1 20

The table compares the best coals—in terms of evaporative power— from South Wales and from other coal fields in Great Britain. The report also made observations on each type of coal and these features, good and adverse, were included by Insole in the advertising pamphlet (the "Aberaman Merthyr' is described as "a superior coal . . . the specimen examined was brilliant and granular in structure") The suitability of Welsh coals for naval purposes is indicated by a further extract:

Table showing the average value of coals from different localities.

The two main consequences of these reports on thr growth of the firm of George Insole and Son became clear between 1848 and 1851. Sales of steam coal were dramatically increased by Admiralty orders and by the developing market in the mercantile marine once it was found that "Aberaman Merthyr" coals were eminently suitable for small tubular marine boilers. Insole was soon supplying some of "the first Steam Packets Companies in the world . . . including the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and the Peninsular and Oriental Packet Company." The other consequence was its massive publicity value to Insole in his drive for new overseas markets for steam as well as bituminous coal. It has been indicated already that up until 1847 Insole's markets were coastal and Irish: subsequently they became foreign and world-wide.

His first large-scale venture in foreign trade was to participate in the export of "the excellent dry steam coals" of the Aberdare Valley to the northern and western ports of France, a trade successfully initiated by Nixon and Powell. In June 1848 Insole shipped his first cargoes of "Aberaman Merthyr" to Brest and to Nantes. He then translated his advertising pamphlet into French and, during the last six months of that year, cargoes were dispatched to Calais, Marseilles, Corsica, etc.

The weekly "Shipping Intelligence" published in the Cardiff press indicates that the foreign sale of steam coal by George Insole and Son reached new proportions and new destinations in the year 1849. Shipments were sent to the Mediterranean (as many as four cargoes a week were sent regularly to Malta), to the Near East (where the chief receiving ports were Alexandria, Constantinople, Beirut and Smyrna); to South America (to Montevideo, Rio Grande, Rio de Janeiro) and single shipments were dispatched to the distant ports of Coquimbo (Chile) ard Singapore. By the middle of the nineteenth century sales which a few years previously had been mainly coastal had now become mainly oceanic. Insole was helped at this time by three factors. His sources of supply increased considerably after 1848—bituminous coal from the furiously-worked Cymmer Old Pit in the lower Rhondda, and steam coal from the four-feet and recently discovered nine-feet seams at Williams' Pit at Treaman, in the Aberdare Valley. In 1850 David Williams embarked upon his most ambitious venture—the sinking of the Deep Duffryn Colliery at Mountain Ash. His early difficulties were daunting, but helped financially, it is claimed, by George Insole, an excellent seam of steam coal was won and soon 150 tons were sent daily for shipment at Cardiff.69 Overseas demand was considerably helped too by the repeal in 1845

69. Charles Wilkins, op. ( it., p. 119. What is certain is the purchase of £6,000 worth of shares In Deep Duffryn by James Harvey Insole in 1852 (lnsole MSS, Day Ledger, June 1852). George Insole and Son made no attempt to win the steam coal seams until 1862 when, following the success of the Bute Trustees at Treherbert and of David Davies at Ferndale, a trial pit was opened at Cymmer (Insole MSS, Day Ledger, 14 November 1862).£500 was spent on this venture

before it was abandoned. On 2 June 1862 J. H. Insole purchased the Abergorchi Level for £7,000 and in the following year sank a pit to the steam coal seams. He renewed his efforts at Cymmer in 1875-1877 and four splendid teams of steam coalwere won. By the end of the Century Insole and Son Ltd. had once more become one of the foremost exporters of steam coal m SouthWales.

of the export duty of 2s. a ton on coal carried in British ships. The only export duty that remained was that of 2s. a ton on coal shipped in the vessels of countries that did not have a reciprocal treaty with Great Britain. The repeal of the last of these Navigation Laws in 1850 removed the final restraint on the export trade in British coal. In what Sir John Clapham has called "the open fighting trade"70 that then developed between Cardiff and the coal exporters of the North of England, Insole, like other Cardiff shippers, soon realised that the Bute West Dock had a distinctly advantageous geographic position for foreign sales. Whereas Newcastle enjoyed a locational and freight advantage for trade with the Baltic and North Sea ports so complete as to exclude Cardiff coals from this area, the position was reversed when exporting coal to Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Near East and South America.

George Insole died suddenly on New Year's Day 1851." Walter Coffin ceased active control of his industrial and shipping enterprises in May 1853. Cardiff had now emerged as the leading coal port of the South Wales coal trade, its exports in 1854 exceeding a million tons, and in the same year foreign tonnage surpassed coastal traffic for the first time.72 Since 1851 work had begun on a second dock—the Bute East Dock—the promotion of which had gained the vigorous support of both Coffin and Insole.73 In assessing the part they played in this dramatic growth, it would be wrong to overstress the volume of their coal exports. It was Thomas Powell who was still the largest coal shipper from the port of Cardiff at this time. The real emphasis must be placed on the pioneering efforts of Walter Coffin and George Insole in laying the foundations of this trade, and in fostering that trend which was to dominate the port's coal exports in the second half of the nineteenth centurv—the remarkable development of the overseas market. By 1850 the period of beginnings and consolidation in Cardiff's coal trade ended and growth on a phenomenal scale followed.

70. J. H. Clapham, An economic history of modern Britain (London, 1932), vol. 2.

p. 301.

71. George Insole was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Roath, Cardiff. A

memorial brass records that he and his wife were " . . . . buried, previous to

the rebuilding of this Church, in a vault near the site of this wmdow." (The

window displays an effigy of St. Margaret and the picture of her

martyrdom). Cardiff Records, ed. J. H. Mathews (Cardiff, 1898-1911), vol. 3,

pp. 548-549. Cardiff's coal exports in 1854 were: foreign tonnage 576,205;

coastal tonnage 464,552; total 1,040,757 tons.

72. The first section of the Bute East Dock was opened in July 1855 (Cambrian,

20 July 1855).

ACKNOWNLEDGEMENT

In 1938 the writer was allowed to peruse and make extracts from the Letter Books, Day Books, Account Books, Inventory Books, Royalty Assessments Contracts and Leases of the firm of George Insole and Son Ltd. at 3 and 4 Bute Crcscent, Cardiff. Unfortunately, in 1940 when the firm closed down most of these valuable industrial records were destroyed.