Wales Had 250,000 Coal Miners in 1913 — So Where Did the Money Go?

In 1913, the South Wales coalfield was the most productive in Britain. Nearly a quarter of a million men worked underground, Cardiff exported almost eleven million tonnes of coal in a single year, and the price of the world's coal was set in a trading hall in Cardiff Bay. So why are so many of the valleys that produced that wealth still struggling today? Where did the money go? In this documentary we walk one terraced street in the Rhondda through a hundred years: the children who went underground before 1842, the docks built by the Marquess of Bute, the coal owners who became lords, the riots at Tonypandy, the morning at Senghenydd when 439 men and boys died and their lives were valued at five and a half pence each, the nationalised pits, and the 239 miners who bought the last deep mine in Wales with their own redundancy money. If you have Welsh roots, subscribe to Black Gold Wales. SOURCES Museum Wales (Big Pit National Coal Museum, National Waterfront Museum), People's Collection Wales, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, National Library of Wales, UK Parliament (Hansard), University of Wolverhampton Coal and Community project. Archive images come from public domain or royalty-free collections; some illustrations have been digitally recreated. #wales #welshhistory #coalmining #documentary #rhondda #cardiff #senghenydd #valleysA small nation once powered the world. Welsh coal fuelled the ships of an empire, Swansea smelted copper for the globe, Welsh slate roofed half of Britain and the first million-pound deal was signed in Cardiff. So where did all that money go? Black Gold Wales tells the true stories of the Welsh economy: the miners and the mine owners, the drovers who carried England's money, the towns that boomed and the valleys that were left behind, and the taxes and decisions that shape life in Wales today. Researched from Museum Wales, the National Library of Wales, the Senedd and the Welsh Government. For everyone with Welsh roots, at home or anywhere in the world. Long, calm and detailed: made to be watched slowly. New documentaries regularly. Subscribe and dig deeper with us.