Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Trials of Welsh and Mixed Coals . . .

1888 - Welsh Coal and the Russian War - The demand for Welsh coal was so great during the Russian war that a good deal of mixture was used. Engineers slept on their engines. Drivers and stokers had high wages, and worked day and night, and one can scarcely wonder that with the large and incessant demand, the "mixture" became, as time went on, not quite so good as it should be.

At the close of the war, Newcastle took advantage of the rumoured depreciation in the character of Welsh coal, and petitioned for trials at the hands of the Admiralty. These were granted. A series of experiments followed on board the Isabella, screw steamer, in the Bute Docks, witnessed by Taplin and Lynn, two engineers sent by the Admiralty, when the results showed strongly in favour of Welsh as against Hartley coal.

Failing in this, Newcastle urged the trial of a mixture. The first experiment was made April, 1860, on board H.M.S. Cumberland, Sheerness, when the result showed a quicker consumption of the mixed coal by three hundred and twenty-eight lbs. in three hours than the Welsh coal. In these experiments, and in the successful vindication of the coal of Wales, Messrs. Vivian and Fothergill took an active part. - [The South Wales coal trade and its allied industries, from the earliest days to the present time / By Charles Wilkins... Cardiff : D. Owen and co., 1888.]

1845 - Maiden Voyage of Brunel's steamship 'Great Britain' - An interesting fact taken from a fine book of the history of the vessel [1395] is that on her maiden voyage she was nearly delayed at Liverpool awaiting delivery of coal from South Wales due to a becalmed collier. Claxton reported that the 'Great Western' (Brunel's previous vessel) consumed only 23 tons of Welsh steam coal a day opposed to between 35 and 40 tons when the coal came from Lancashire, Scotland or Picton, Nova Scotia.