Cambrian Colliery, Clydach Vale,
post.1914.
This photo was taken from the valley's cul de sac behind the
colliery.
The shafts shown from this viewpoint are in the order, from the left 1, 2,
4 and 3.
NGR SS970927 Google Map
The sinking of No.1 shaft at Cambrian Colliery began in 1872 by Samuel Thomas & two brothers Osborne and John. Riches & Co. Ltd. No. 2 shaft was sunk in 1874. By 1896 the Cambrian Collieries Ltd. became the new owners.
From the Inspector of Mines list 1896, Cambrian Navigation No. 1 and No. 2 pits employed 2,488 men underground jointly, with a further 340 employed on the surface.
An explosion occurred here on Friday the 9th of March 1905 killing 33
miners. Many of the victims were so badly burned it made identification
impossible some were only recognized by their brass lamp checks.
Although the cause of the disaster was never proven there was a theory
that a fall had occurred, which left a cavity in the roof were gas
accumulated, the fireman David Enoch was erecting a brattice sheet in
order to deflect the airflow into the cavity to disperse the gas, when
there was another fall of rock, which damaged his safety lamp and in doing
so exposing the lamps naked flames to the explosive mixture of gas and air
with disastrous results. The damaged lamp had been found near to the
remains of the unfortunate fireman thus backing up this theory.
A snippet of information relating to the Cambrian Colliery from 1913.
"No. 4 shaft, which is now being sunk to the lower steam coal measures and
will probably be working before the end of the year will be the largest of
the shafts and at an early date will increase the current output of
between one and one quarter million tons to nearly two million tons".
In 1918 the workforce was 4.033.
From a list 1923, Cambrian No. 1 employed 1,933 men, producing from the Pentre, Lower Five Feet and Coronation seams. No. 2 workforce numbered 1,253 working the Nine Feet seam. No. 3 worked the Pentre, Lower Five Feet and Coronation seams and at No. 4 produced from the Bute, Two Foot Nine and Yard seams.
Sometime later the running of the mine was taken over by the Powell Duffryn Company.
Work ceased at the Cambrian No. 3 in 1936.
In 1947 the remaining Cambrian pits employed 1,346 men.
On the 17th of May 1965 another explosion occurred at this fateful
colliery killing 31 miners. The number of deaths might have been even
greater if it was for the fact the colliery was being run down in
readiness for closure and half of the 800 workforce had already been
transferred into other collieries. Many of the victims died as a result of
carbon monoxide (after-damp) poisoning, the rest died from multiply
injuries.
At the inquiry it was revealed an electrical flash from a switch, which
had been left uncovered caused the explosion. It was also noted there was
a sense of complacency within the mine concerning ventilation.
The colliery closed shortly afterwards.
The following Cambrian information has been researched, written and provided by Bill Richards, extracted from his Cambrian books, mainly "Cambrian Colliery and Connections"
The colliery comprised four shafts producing steam coal of which No.3 was the return (stale) air up-cast. Nos. 1 & 2 were sunk to the Six Feet seam between 1872-5 and later deepened to exploit the lower steam measures; the sinking of No3 commenced May 1889 and was completed on June 6 th , 1891 and whilst the sod above No.4 shaft was known to have been cut on May 12 th , 1912 the actual year in which the sinking was completed is undetermined, but probably in 1914. Nos. 1 and 4 shafts were exploited until the colliery's closure on 24-9-1966; No.2 had ceased production in 1956 and No.3 (the deepest Cambrian shaft at 1577 feet at the lower Five Feet / Gellideg level) ceased production in 1936, but remained as an up-cast airshaft for No.4 pit until closure. From the 1950s No.1 shaft's return air was conducted to the surface by an up-cast shaft at Maindy Colliery, Ton Pentre, over 2,600 yards away!
In the early 1870s Samuel Thomas and two brothers, John Osborne Riches and Osborne Henry Riches, jointly owned the colliery. When Thomas died in 1879 and Osborne Riches in 1887, control of the colliery passed to Thomas' sons, John Howard and David Alfred who ran it privately until January 1 st , 1896 when the undertaking passed into the hands of Cambrian Collieries Limited, with a capital of £600,000. In 1905 David Alfred Thomas began to implement his aim to control and regulate the steam coal trade in South Wales and this lead to the formation of the Cambrian Combine whose policies would in 1910 spark off the Tonypandy riots. He died in 1922, and in 1929 Cambrian Collieries Ltd. merged with Welsh Associated Collieries Ltd; six years later another merger saw that alliance unite the Powell Duffryn concern and become Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries Ltd., the largest mining company in Europe.
The colliery worked all the main seams from the Pentre down to the lower Five Feet / Gellideg, and produced prodigious quantities from all except the Four Feet seam, which was not worked after 1893, probably because of exhaustion of its limited presence. As large as Cambrian was there were even larger collieries in Rhondda but there is little doubt that proportionally it was the most productive, with a production high of around one million tons per annum in the 1920s and other years; one would expect a commensurately large workforce and this peaked in 1925, evidenced by the entry of that year in the Coal Trades Directory which stated there were 4100 men below ground and 798 on the surface, a total of 4898! This was in sharp contrast to its lowest point of 781 during the last full financial year of 1965-66 when a meagre 187,600 tons of coal was produced.
In its 94 years life Cambrian experienced three major explosions; one of steam on the colliery surface on Sunday, November 11 th 1900, when four men died and two underground explosions of firedamp, on Friday, March 10 th 1905 and Monday, May 17 th 1965. The firedamp explosions, which respectively occurred in the Six Feet and Pentre seams of No.1 shaft, took 33 and 31 lives. In the 1905 explosion the devastation to the whole of the Six Feet seam workings was of enormous proportions, at one time even the No.3 up-cast shaft was on fire, but thankfully the explosion occurred between shifts when relatively few were underground - an hour earlier there were around 330!
Sixty years later the second explosion occurred in P26 district, caused by bad mining practices, which are outlined in the following summary. The explosion, severe in human terms, was minor in physical aspects when compared to its 1905 predecessor, so much so that two hours after the explosion the district could have resumed production. The violence of the blast was contained entirely within the P26 district; there was not an adjoining district but had there been its ventilation would have been unaffected. In the previous year of 1964 several hundred men had been transferred to other collieries and some of these were able to say without contradiction that had they not been transferred they would have died in P26 that fateful day. Sections of the media seized on this information and published it in an irresponsible way, claiming that an even greater disaster might have occurred; the truth was quite different, for on that day P26 face was fully manned and there were also several infrastructure projects underway elsewhere, meaning there were more men in the district than usual. Those of us who knew the district knew that no more men would have died, even though some of the names on the fatality list would have been different.