Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - The River Ely Iron Ore Wharf . . .

An Overview of the Iron and Steel Industry in South Wales

The iron industry in South Wales commenced c.1760, about 100 years before our Penarth Dock story begins, at the northern outcrop of the coalfield where limestone, ironstone and coal were abundant.

Iron is the forth most common element in the Earth's crust and limestone acts as a flux, assisting in the removal of silica, sulphur and acidic impurities from the molten iron.

Coal was mined in the area to serve the thermal energy needs of this iron industry which initially used coke (made by heating coal in the absence of air).

Merthyr Tydfil, Aberdâr, Ebbw Vale, Rhymni, Blaenavon, Tredegar and Hirwaun were the main centres of growth in iron in South Wales.

Later, migrant workers settled in these manufacturing centres including Spanish iron workers as well as Russians, Poles and French. Merthyr Tydfil had a population of 7,705 by 1801, c.22,000 by 1831 and c.46,000 by 1851 ; hence it was by far the largest town in Wales and South Wales had become the greatest and most productive iron-producing area in the world! c.1840 - The Dowlais Ironworks near Merthyr Tydfil.

Iron, ingenuity and commerce begat industrial technological advances and the need for coal, to fire the steam engines of our new industrial world, later outstripped the ironmasters' energy requirements. Initially the output from these works was Pig-Iron.