The English translation of Penygraig would
be top or head of the rock. The original settlement in
this area, as shown on the 1840's tithe map was known as
Ffrwd Amos, a relic of which still exists in the name of
today's street Amos Hill. However the first mine in the
area was called Pen-y-Graig, which quickly became the accepted
name of the village that grew up around it.The beginnings
of Penygraig as a village, in common with most of the Rhondda,
stem from the advent of mining in the area. Before this it
was already existed as a religious centre for Welsh Baptists
in Mid-Rhondda prior to the sinking of its first pit. According
to ‘Soariana' The History of Soar
Welsh Baptist Church published in 1905, a Mr. William David
started the Baptist cause in Penygraig and Dinas. Upon moving
to the area in 1811, as overseer of Dinas Colliery and as
publican of The White Rock, he gave a room at White Rock
Terrace for the purpose of holding religious meetings. Meetings
were held both here and later at Penygelli School, then in
May 1830 a parcel of land at Ffrwdamos was acquired and the
building of Soar Chapel commenced. The chapel was officially
opened in February 1832, having cost £300 to build.
It was subsequently rebuilt in 1858 and extended in 1875,
finally undergoing another rebuilding in 1903.
Above: Penygraig Circa 1900
Coal mining at Penygraig began in 1857when
Thomas Ellis sank a drift mine in the district to the bituminous
coal seam. Then in 1858 Moses Rowlands and Richard Jenkins
found an outcrop to the No.2 Rhondda Seam at the Penygraig
level. Rowlands then joined with William Williams, William
Morgan and John Crockett to form the Penygraig Coal Company,
which sank a pit, The Penygraig Colliery. This pit, sunk
to the No.3 Rhondda Seam, prospered and by 1870 production
reached nearly 100,00 tons annually. Subsequently the Naval
Colliery Company opened a new shaft at Penygraig, known as
the Pandy Pit it succeeded in reaching the steam coal measures
in 1879. After a number of setbacks the pit was sold to The
New Naval Colliery Company in 1887. This company extended
the existing leases and sank three new collieries, The Ely,
Nantgwyn and Anthony Pits. The company eventually went on
to become a part of the Cambrian Combine.
It was at the Ely Colliery Penygraig that the strike known
as the Cambrian Colliery Dispute, one of the bitterest in
British industrial history, which eventually led to the unrest
known as ‘The Tonypandy riots', began. The dispute began
over prices for working a new seam and escalated when management
locked out all workers at the Ely Colliery leading eventually
to strikes throughout the Combine's mines. The collieries
at Penygraig suffered a number of disasters that emphasised
the dangerous nature of the mining industry. On December
the fourth 1875 water flooded the mine drowning two workers
and endangering the lives of many others. Then in December
1880 a major disaster occurred at the Naval Colliery described
by the official report into the disaster thus:
‘One hundred and one lives were lost in an explosion which occurred at the Naval
Steam Coal Colliery at Penygraig belonging to Messrs. Rowlands and Morgan about
1.30a.m. on the morning of Friday 10th December 1880. Only five men of all who
were in the colliery survived.'
Again in January 1884 another explosion at the same
colliery led to the death of fourteen men, eleven from
the explosion and three from suffocation. Then in August
1909 a shaft accident involving two cages, one of them
full with men about to begin their shift, led to the deaths
of six men and serious injury to eighteen others.
Penygraig also housed one the Rhondda's first and most successful Co-Operative
societies, as well as a station on the Great Western Railway line which was
opened in 1860 linking Penygraig level to Llantrisant and the main South Wales
line.
Right: Soar Chapel
PENYGRAIG INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY
Above: Old Co-operative building, Tylacelyn Road circa
1988
The origin of the Cooperative movement began with the
Rochdale Pioneers in 1844, and was based on a few simple
principles. Every member must invest in the Society by buying
shares, and all goods sold in its stores would be sold at
a fair price with all profits being returned to the society
and also to its members via a dividend based on the amount
purchased. Each branch of the Society was part of a cooperative
network but would be set up and run locally.
In 1941 The Penygraig Industrial Co-Operative Society produced a booklet marking
the fiftieth anniversary of the Society's founding in the village. This booklet
outlines the early years of the society in Penygraig and the struggle of the
pioneers of the Society to make it a success. The origins of the Society in
Penygraig date back to 1891 when at a meeting at The Butchers Arms public house
Morgan Thomas, Obadiah Williams, and David Williams amongst others declared
their intention to, ‘initiate the movement of staring a Co-Operative Society'.
This intention met with a great deal of resistance from many of the people in
the locality, some of whom had lost money in a failed attempt to start such
a society nearby in Tonypandy only a couple of year previously
Due to a number of objections to holding their
meetings in a public house subsequently the Society's meetings
were held at Fosters Coffee Tavern. Initially 46 members
agreed to join the Society and Morgan Thomas became its first
chairman, with Obadiah Williams its Secretary and David Williams
its Treasurer. Shop premises were purchased for a sum of £950
pounds from Moses Rowlands (the sum loaned from the father-in-law
of the Society's first manager) and Evan Treharne was appointed
manager at a wage of ‘£8 per lunar month', with his
wife also receiving £2. A trademark of a bee was chosen,
advertising handbills were distributed, dividend and shop
books ordered and £250 worth of goods to stock the
shop was purchased With its rules and regulations approved
the Society was officially established on August 8th 1891.
The first years of the Society were a struggle, by 1901
membership had only reached 120 and weekly sales were only
about £100. This was to change with the appointment
of a new manager, William Job, who during his tenure oversaw
a great expansion of the enterprise so that by the time he
died, in 1937, membership was 6,200 and turnover over £6,000
per week.During his tenure as manager the Society opened
a new bakery in Penygraig as well as branches in Tonyrefail,
Gilfach Goch, Coed Ely and Williamstown as well as moving
from its original premises to Tylacelyn Road.
It was during the bitter Cambrian Colliery dispute and lockout that the true
benefits of belonging to a Co-Operative Society were really shown. At the beginning
of the dispute the Management Committee granted its striking members goods to
the value of 15 shillings per week to ease their families hardship, and as the
strike continued it appealed for donations from ‘co-operators' throughout the
country enabling it to give 4 shillings to each members family, plus six pence
for every child in the run up to Christmas. Additionally staff were instructed
to,'exercise a careful but kindly discretion over members debts', and the Society
supplied provisions to the Miners Committee for their ‘soup kitchens' at cost
price.
After the strike was over the Society's attempts to alleviate
the hardships suffered by the miners was rewarded with a
doubling of its membership in the followin three years. Similarly
during the strike of 1926 the Society granted credit to its
members totalling 2/3 of their average weekly shopping bill
for the first four weeks, then half of their bill for the
following month, falling to 2/5 for the next thirteen weeks
and 3/10 for five weeks. This then was reduced to a fifth
until the end of the lockout, thus ensuring miners would
have at least the ability to put some food on their families
table. As well as its role in terms of monetary matters,
the Society also played a social, cultural and educational
role. Through its educational committee, classes were made
available to members and members' children, choirs were formed,
concerts and eisteddfods were organised, educational grants
made and lectures and film shows organised.
Thus the Society prospered and in 1931 it was described as being ‘the busiest
place in Penygraig', with people; making Dividend and Share capital withdrawals,
collecting tickets for hospital treatment, making savings bank deposits and a
host of other services offered by the Society.
ELY COLLIERY, PENYGRAIG- PIT DISASTER 1909
At 5.50 am on the 27th of August 1909 at the Ely Pit, one
of three pits owned by the Naval Colliery Company,
28 men were descending to the pit at the start of their
shift, when a disaster occurred that would kill seven
of the miners and injure twenty-one others. The cage
the men were descending in instead of slowing down
as it reached the bottom of the shaft continued to
speed up and landed at the bottom of the shaft with ‘some force'. This caused the ascending
empty cage to shoot up the shaft into the headgear breaking the rope and subsequently
descending the shaft partly landing on the other cage killing some of it's
occupants. As the Rhondda Leader of the time describes: ‘ Five of those in
the upper deck (of the cage) being instantaneously killed, while the more seriously
injured died soon after they were released. Two of the killed were severely
mangled, whilst another was almost decapitated. Those in the lower bond bared
better than their unfortunate comrades, and all of these escaped with their
lives though some were badly injured sustaining fractures of limbs and body.'
A rescue team led my Mr. Trevor Price the assistant general manager (Mr. Leonard
Llewellyn the general manager being on holidays in Scotland at the time) and
including Drs. Llewellyn and Weichart descended to the injured men. This had
to be done via the neighbouring Pandy Pit, owned by the same company. Due to
the damage caused to the winding gear the dead and injured had to be conveyed
through the mine workings to ascend the same way. In a scene all too common in
the Rhondda during it's mining heyday news of the disaster quickly spread and
hundreds gathered at the pithead waiting for news of friends and loved ones.
The newspaper contains detailed firsthand accounts of the disaster from the survivors.
One such account was from Phillip Pascoe, who was only slightly injured himself
and luckily was a trained Ambulance man, and who was praised for his ‘noble conduct'
in helping the other victims of the disaster. He describes how after a ‘jerking
of the cage' followed by a sudden stop the cage preceded to descend ‘like a stone
to the pit bottom'. After the crash in the pitch blackness all he could hear
was the groans of the injured and debris crashing down the shaft, followed by
the empty cage ‘hurtling past us'. He says how they were stuck in the pitch-dark
sump below the shaft for about an hour before rescuers managed to pass lamps
into the ruined cage through a small hole in the planks surrounding the sump.
Pascoe managed to help ‘the boy Fry' through the same hole, followed ‘with great
difficulty we succeeded in getting young Noah Matthews, who had broken his leg,
through the same hole.' When the newspaper reporter asks if he himself could
have escaped the same way Pascoe explains that it may have been possible but
that, ‘I decided to remain in order to give what assistance I could to the other,
whose groans were terrible'. Eventually with the help of James Vaughan and others, ‘among
whom were Tom Rowlands, Edward Hodge and Idris Roberts, Trealaw: David Lewis,
Stephen Davies and Tom Connel, Penygraig who rendered great aid at great personal
risk to their lives' all the men were removed from the cage. Pascoe was the last
to be helped out of the cage and walked home only then discovering that he himself
had suffered a cut and sprained leg and hip. Another man singled out for his
heroism following the accident was James Vaughan a hitcher who was in charge
at the pit bottom when the accident occurred. As soon as the accident occurred
he immediately ‘ set about to procure light to extricate the victims from their
imprisonment'. He then released those in the upper deck of the cage and then ‘ proceeded
to those who were in the lower deck.' To do this he had to remove the planks
on the sump standing in the open shaft exposing himself to danger from falling
debris. ‘He..set about his work without thought of himself, and assisted by others
he eventually managed to release all the men in the lower bond, who were handed
to him by Pascoe through the aperture made by removing the planks.'
The funerals of the victims of the disaster were reported in the local newspaper
the following week, the actual wording of the report being:
‘The funeral of the victims of the Ely Pit disaster took place on Tuesday last,
the remains of T.H.Brown, Alf Watkins, Morgan Evans, and the boy Reginald Jenkins
being interred at Llethrddu Cemetery, Trealaw whilst those of Gideon Chapman
found a last resting place at Tonyrefail. The new arrangements under the Eight
Hours Act enabled the workmen of various pits to attend the final obsequies in
large numbers. Contrary to the usual practice in Welsh funerals, there was no
singing, the cortege being headed by the Salvation Army Band playing the ‘Dead
March' in Saul. The whole locality showed signs of mourning, all business premises
being closed as the cortege passed. Short services were held at the private homes
of the deceased, conducted by the Revs. H. Parry, J. Richards Pugh, G. Evans
and Emrys Jones. Who also officiated at the graveside. Amongst the mourners were
Mr. Leonard Llewellyn general manager of the Cambrian Trust, representing the
directors. Mr. Trevor Price, sub agent, and Mr. Hollister, manager of the Naval
Pits with Drs. Llewellyn and Weichart. The coffins were covered with beautiful
flowers sent by sympathetic relatives and friends. Large crowds lined the route
as the long procession filed by.'
At the inquest into the accident it was deemed that the cause of the accident
was the breaking of the reversing spanner of the cage mechanism, which had been
seen to be cracked previously but which had been repaired rather than replaced.
