Volume Two - The Era of Optimism, Investment & Development - Developments at the turn of the 20th century . . .

Commonly the deceased suffered from “debility”, “old-age” or “atrophy”. Clearly, the cause of death was not diagnosed, unknown, or ill-defined because medical knowledge and resource was limited at that time. With the continued growth of diseases introduced through the maritime connection with the rest of the World, coupled with local unsanitary conditions and overcrowding it was found to be necessary to build an isolation hospital of the island of Flat Holm in the 1880's and also to construct a new “Dead House” close by the hospital ship “Hamadryad” to deal with the numerous outbreaks of cholera, smallpox, diarrhoea, typhus and tuberculosis and the high mortality rate which ensued. It is thought that by 1900 there were at least ten millionaires living in Penarth including coal tycoon John Cory. They lived in luxury less than a mile distant from the docks where, at the other end of the spectrum, coal was loaded by gangs of “tippers” and “trimmers” backed up by the railway “shunters”.

The foreman was in charge of about six men and hired the gangmen who were required to pay an entry-fee to the foreman. The gang of trimmers were paid an agreed sum per ton of coal tipped and they worked below in the hold and were tasked firstly with the removal of ballast, the inhalation of coal dust, and with raking, pushing and shoveling the piles of coal level, and into the corners of the hold. The objective was to ensure that the ship’s centre of gravity was kept as low as possible and to trim the ship stem to stern and port to starboard. The result was constant conflict and dissatisfaction in the rates paid and the indiscriminate use of casual labour. The whole system was once described as “a system of sweating and blackmailing which has no equal in this country.”

The Weekly Mail [067] reported on 25th August 1900:- "Tippers Cease Work at Penarth Docks. At a meeting of tippers held at Penarth Dock on Monday it was decided to tip all the coal now standing at the dockside, and afterwards to drop tools until the differences between the employers and the men had been settled."