The 1842 Tithe Apportionment Map of Llanwonno
Parish and its accompanying schedule provide valuable information
on the origins of the village of Hopkinstown. From it we
can see that no dwellings were located where the village
later developed. Rather, the whole area was part of the fifty-one
acre Ty Mawr Estate owned by Evan Hopkin. However, by the
end of the decade a transformation had occurred. Gyfeillion
Colliery and the old Ty Mawr shaft had been sunk and coke
ovens, chemical works and an iron foundry built. The development
of industry created a need for housing. Hopkinstown began
to develop as a single row of houses known as Rhondda Road
on the 1851 and 1861 census. Not until the 1871 did the name
Hopkin's Town, as it was spelt then, first appear on the
census. We can assume therefore that the village of Hopkinstown
takes its name from the aforementioned Evan Hopkin, owner
of the Ty Mawr Estate at the beginning of the 1840s.
Hopkinstown's population grew quickly throughout the second half of the 19th
century. By the 1891 census we see that additional streets had been built to
the previously one street village. Its population had almost reached 1500 inhabitants.
Ten years later, Hopkinstown's population had doubled and its size further increased.
Indeed, the layout of the village a hundred years ago remains remarkably similar
to today.
Hopkinstown Rail Disaster
A significant event in Hopkinstown's past
was the rail accident that occurred on the Taff Vale Railway
on January 23rd, 1911. Throughout their histories, mining
villages of South Wales experienced death and tragedy. Indeed
the loss of eleven lives as a result of the Hopkinstown railway
disaster was relatively small in comparison to the loss of
life seen in many mining disaster. However, the incident
attracted considerable attention and sympathy for the victims
as a result of the graphic accounts that appeared in the
press of the time. Huge crowds gathered on Graigwen Hill
to witness the scene of carnage. Furthermore, prominent figures
had been amongst the passengers. Members of the South Wales
Miners' Federation were travelling to a special conference
of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain being held in
London.
The accident occurred at a point where ten sets of rails
were about to merge into two. Two signal boxes, one at Gyfeillion
Lower and a second at Rhondda Cutting, controlled the rail
traffic on this particular section of track. At 9.48 am a
passenger train travelling in the direction of Pontypridd
passed Gyfeillion Lower signal box under clear signals with
about a hundred passengers aboard. However, as it was rounding
the curve immediately before the Rhondda Cutting signal box,
the train collided with a coal train that was stationery
on the same line. The effect of the sudden retardation caused
the body of the leading carriage to part from the underframe.
The underframe rode up under the impact and pierced the following
carriage at seat level. Several of the other carriages were
derailed. The driver of the passenger had a remarkable escape
as his engine had left the rails but managed to stay upright.
The scene of devastation
Shortly after the collision a train travelling up the
valley arrived and stopped allowing a number of passengers
to alight and provide assistance. Fortunately it was unobstructed
by the wreckage. The train then continued to Trehafod bringing
the first news of the disaster. A large detachment of troops
and metropolitan police, stationed at Pontypridd in
the aftermath the Tonypandy riots and general industrial
unrest, were despatched to the scene. The dead were moved
to a nearby engine house that was used a mortuary while the
injured were placed on a special train to the nearest hospital,
Cardiff Royal Infirmary.
A preliminary inquiry was conducted the day
after the accident at the New Inn Hotel, Pontypridd where
several workmen and officials were interviewed. The coroner's
inquest was opened at Pontypridd Police Court on the following
Thursday. It heard conflicting evidence regarding the signalling
of the coal train between signalman Hutchings at Gyfeillion
Lower and signalman Quick at Rhondda Cutting. The jury was
unable to apportion blame and so returned an open verdict.
However, the jury went on to pass a strong vote of censure
to the driver of the coal train for not promptly complying
with Rule 55. This rule required that the fireman of any
train standing on a section of line be sent to the appropriate
signal box to confirm its position. Less than a month after
the disaster, Pontypridd Cottage Hospital was opened on February
16th 1911.
Hopkinstown Coal Industry
John Calvert, a railway engineer from Yorkshire,
was one of the pioneers of the coal industry in the Rhondda.
He was contracted to lay the Taff Vale Railway for Brunel
but quickly noticed the vast profits of the emerging coal
industry. He sank his first pit, Newbridge Colliery, in 1844
and became the first engineer to use steam power to raise
coal. It's his machine that can now be seen in front of the
old Forest House on the University of Glamorgan campus. Four
years later he sank Gyfeillion Colliery. Taking three years
to reach the coal seam, it was the first pit to be sunk deeper
than 100 yards. After leasing the pit for three months the
Great Western Railway Company purchased the colliery in 1854.
Following ten very profitable years the company sold it back
to Calvert. In 1866 he once more decided to sell the colliery.
It was purchased by the Great Western Colliery Company Limited
and became known as the Great Western Colliery.
A period of expansion followed and by the late 1870s three
more shafts had been sunk. (No 2, No 3 and the Hetty Shaft)
It's also likely that the Old Ty Mawr Shaft was sunk around
this time although it's early history remains unclear. During
the 1880s, the Great Western Colliery became the largest
pit in the Rhondda for manpower and output. By 1913 the No
2 pit employed 603 men and the No 3 Pit employed 206 men.
However ten years later both shafts as well as the Old Ty
Mawr Shaft were abandoned. A new Ty Mawr shaft (known as
No 1) was sunk and the Hetty Shaft retained to provide pumping
and ventilation.
Left: The winding engine at Ty Mawr Colliery
The Powell
Duffryn Steam Coal Company Ltd later purchased Ty Mawr Colliery
and owned it until nationalisation. In 1958 the National
Coal Board invested £1.2 million in a surface and
underground reorganisation to merge Ty Mawr with the Lewis
Merthyr Colliery. All coal winding at Lewis Merthyr ceased
as Ty Mawr was used for bringing the coal to the surface,
with materials going down Lewis Merthyr. Production ceased
at the Ty Mawr/ Lewis Merthyr Colliery in 1983.
Great Western Colliery's greatest disaster occurred on
April 11th 1893 when an underground fire killed 60 miners.
Sparks from the wooden brake blocks of a haulage engine set
fire to nearby brattice sheets. Water was carried from the
stables and men beat the flames with whatever came to hand
in an attempt to extinguish the fire. However, the strong
ventilating breeze fanned the fire causing timber supports
and coal dust to ignite. Dense clouds of smoke and fumes
were generated. The death toll would have been much greater
had it not been for the brave action of Thomas Prosser, the
21 years old district fireman. He ventured into the dense
smoke and by opening a set of air doors, he diverted the
noxious fumes out of the mine.
The Great Western Colliery
Two much smaller collieries in Hopkinstown
were Lan Colliery, situated on the south bank of the Rhondda
River, and Typica Colliery. The Lan Colliery was opened by
the Lan Coal Company pre 1870 and was closed in 1907 while
Typica Colliery was worked between 1875 and 1879 under the
ownership of the Typica Coal Company.
