Tylorstown is named after Alfred Tylor a Londoner who purchased the mineral rights
of Pendyrus farm in 1872 and sunk the first colliery in the village, also
called Pendyrus. In common with the majority of the valley at that time the
1847 tithe map shows only scattered farmhouses, meadows, fields and vast
tracks of Oak woods.
As stated the beginnings of mining in Tylorstown, and hence the beginnings of
the village of Tylorstown itself date back to 1872. It was at this date that
Alfred Tylor of Newgate Street, London purchased the mineral rights of Pendyrus
Farm and began the second large colliery concern in the Rhondda Fach. However
great difficulties were encountered in the sinking of this first pit and thus
it was not until 1876 that the steam coal seams were reached, at a depth of
333 yards. The first steam coal was despatched via the Taff Vale Railway to
Cardiff in 1877 and from then on the development of Pendyrys Colliery (as it
was then known was extremely rapid, going from 3,252 tons in 1877 to 241,061
tons in 1893. David Davis and Sons Ltd. eventually purchased the Pendyrys Colliery
in 1894.
In common with many of the villages of the Rhondda
the sudden influx of workers led to overcrowding, and poor
housing conditions, with the first workers at Pendyrys
Colliery housed in crudely constructed wooden huts. Initially
only the bare minimum of community facilities were provided
and as E.D. Lewis describes in his work, ‘The Rhondda Valleys, ‘…in many
of these hastily erected townships of the Rhondda in the
early days of the ‘coal rush', life bore a strong resemblance
to the frontier townships of the United States.' The extent
to which the workers of Tylorstown were tied to the local
colliery is shown by the fact that in the early days even
the water supply to houses in Tylorstown was entrusted to
Tylor and Co. Tylorstown also had it share of tragedy when
in 1896 an explosion killed 57 miners.
Llewellyn Street Circa 1900
The rate of development of Tylorstown is best illustrated
by contrasting this image of a ‘frontier town' of the 1870's
with the description given of the town less than thirty
years later in the 1906 Kelly's Industrial Directory.
Here the town is described as a ‘hamlet 7 miles north-north-west from Pontypridd'
it has its own train station on the Taff Vale Railway. It has its own church, ‘The
Holy Trinity' built in 1883 at a cost of £1,400,Post Offices and telegraph
office, which was also open on a Sunday.
It had in total thirteen places of worship, conducting services in both English
and Welsh, including English and Welsh Baptist, Calvinistic Methodist, Congregational
and Wesleyan. Commercially it boasted amongst others, a wine and spirit merchant,
a boot warehouse, watch and clock maker, milk vendor, china dealer, fried fish
dealers, drapers and outfitters, a branch of the London and Provincial Bank,
Tylorstown band Musical Institute, Tylorstown Conservative Club and Institute,
Tylorstown Library and Institute, as well as numerous general stores, butchers,
grocers etc.
Thus Alfred Tylor and his successors had completely transformed an isolated,
virtually unpopulated rural hamlet to a thriving mining township.
Cynllwyn-Du Colliery Officials
THE TYLORSTOWN COLLIERY EXPLOSION MONDAY
27TH JANUARY 1896
The Rhondda Chronicle newspaper of the time
describes how,' After only a few years immunity from the
devastation of colliery explosions, the Rhondda has once
more become the centre of very sorrowful and melancholy interest'.
It goes on to describe how, ‘the Angel of Death had been
at his dread task mowing down the colliers who were finishing
their nights work in the Tylorstown colliery'. The report
also details the thousands of people from Merthyr, Aberdare
and Rhondda Valleys who congregated at the pit-head to wait
anxiously for news of those ‘ entombed in the dark depths
of the mine'. The newspaper also describes the ‘considerable'
number of funerals and the large attendances accompanying
them, both in the burial grounds of the district ( Llethrddu
Cemetery, Maerdy Cemetery and Llanwonno Churchyard) and also
those bodies taken away by train for burial in Aberystwyth,
St.Clears, Cheltenham and Welshpool.
The explosion at Tylorstown took place at approximately 5.30 am, a time when
most of the night shift had ascended to the surface at the end of their shift
and before the day shift descended into the mine. Thus the eventual death toll
of 57 would have been much greater if the explosion had taken place at a time
when a full shift, which consisted of over 300 men, was working below ground.
An inquest into the explosion took place between the 18th and 25th February and
the jury returned the verdict,
‘…the cause of the explosion was the firing of a shot in gas in Daniel William's
stall in No.8 pit and that the air passing through the faces was charged with
gas….and the explosion was accelerated by coal dust. Also that no one now living
was responsible for the explosion'.
Additionally Robert Woodfall and J.T. Robson, Inspector of Mines for the South
Wales district wrote a Report into the explosion. They described the mine, owned
by D. Davies and Sons Ltd. part of the Ferndale Coal Company, as dry and dusty
and criticised the effectiveness of the watering of the mine. The mine was also
describes as ‘fiery' necessitating a locked lamps policy with no naked flames
except at lamp stations, and no shot firing being allowed during a shift. There
was frequent presence of gas in the mines, however no standing gas was left to
accumulate. In fact gas had been detected and dispersed from Daniel William's
stall, where the explosion of the 27th January was thought to have originated,
as recently as the 10th January. The Inspectors in their report concluded that
the cause of the explosion was the fault of a fireman who had fired a shot in
Daniel William's stall negligently, as he should have been aware of the presence
of gas in the stall and immediate vicinity.
