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Home » Industry » Coal industry » Coal miners

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  • This engraving was made by R. Roffe from an oil painting by A. R. Burt. The painting was commissioned by the owners of the Pentre Fron colliery, Minera, Denbighshire, to mark the extraordinary story of John Evans. In September 1819, a group of eleven men became trapped underground at the pit following a sudden inrush of water. Two of the men were rescued and another six managed to escape, but two were drowned and the remaining man, John Evans, was given up for lost. After thirteen days the water was pumped out and searchers went underground to look for his body. A coffin and shroud had been especially made and were ready on the surface. When the searchers arrived at the high ground near the spot where they thought the body might lie they were startled to hear a voice calling them. It was John Evans, feeble but by no means dead. He had kept himself alive for twelve days and nights by eating candles. He insisted on taking the coffin home and kept it in the house as a cupboard for many years.
Engraving of John Evans by R. Roffe from an oil painting by A. R. Burt
  • Somerset Street was named after the Somerset miners brought into the area by the mining engineer Thomas Dyne Steele in the 1850s.
Somerset Street, Abertillery - named after the Somerset miners
  • The Somerset Miners were brought to the Abertillery area by the mining engineer Thomas Dyne Steele. These miners had had experience of the 'long wall' system which was a more efficient method of working a coal face than that traditionally employed by the local Welsh miners. On witnessing the success of the new method, local opposition to the technique dissolved.
Somerset miners, brought to Abertillery to work the 'long wall system' in the coal mines, 19th century
  • Colliers exhibiting a fragment from a fossilized tree found during coal mining.
Fossilized tree from Britannic Pit, Gilfach Goch
Election ballot for a checkweigher, Penrhiwceiber colliery, 1914
Election ballot for a checkweigher, Penrhiwceibr colliery, 1914