Industry - Workshop of the World

William Logan, 1856

The Forest Works near Swansea 1792 by John 'Warwick' Smith (1749-1831).

Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855) by Sir George Hayter (1792-1871).

Henry Thomas De la Beche (1796-1855), founder of the British Geological Survey, about 1841.

William Edmond Logan was one of the leading geologists of the nineteenth century and is recognized as Canada's most important scientist of all time. It was in Wales that his geological career began.

Swansea: copper town

In the mid nineteenth century, around half of the world's copper was being produced in Swansea, with copper ores being imported from around the world to be smelted with south Wales coal.

Swansea controlled the world price of copper and came to be known as 'Copperopolis'. Fourteen copper works were in operation in the Swansea district in the 1830s. One of these was the Upper Forest Copper Works at Morriston, opened in 1752. Here, William Edmond Logan began his career as one of the great geologists of the 19th century.

W.E. Logan (1798-1875)

William Edmond Logan was born in Montreal in 1798. His parents had emigrated from Scotland. At the age of 16, Logan was sent to school in Edinburgh and then briefly attended classes at the university there. After a year, in 1817, he moved to London to work for his uncle's accounting business.

During the 1820s, Logan became interested in geology, collecting fossil shells on his uncle's estate in Suffolk and on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. In 1831, Logan's uncle acquired a share in the Upper Forest Copper Works at Morriston and sent his nephew to Swansea to manage the company's accounts.

Swansea: a centre of science

Science flourished in Swansea in the 1830s and 1840s, largely under the leadership of the naturalist and local MP, Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855). He was the founding President of the Swansea Philosophical Institution which, within a few years, became the Royal Institution of South Wales. Logan, too, was a founding member and served as the Institution's Honorary Secretary and Honorary Curator of Geology from 1836.

Coal and copper

In 1833, Logan became joint manager of the Upper Forest Copper Works. The following year, he spent several months in France and Spain in search of new sources of copper ore. He was also keen to establish reliable supplies of local coal, so in 1835 he began a study of the local coal seams around Swansea by recording their outcrops onto maps and sections.

"I attend to nothing else but the making of copper and digging of coal from morning to night." W.E. Logan.

The Geological Survey comes to Swansea

In 1835, Henry De la Beche (1796-1855), a geologist from Lyme Regis in Dorset, was given government funding to make a geological survey of Cornwall - the beginnings of the British Geological Survey. Two years later, De la Beche moved to Swansea in December 1837 to map the rocks of the South Wales Coalfield.

De la Beche became involved in the Swansea Philosophical Institution through his friend Lewis Weston Dillwyn. He met Logan and was impressed by the quality of his mapping of the Swansea coal seams, commenting that Logan's map was "beautifully executed [and] of an order so greatly superior to that usual with geologists".

De la Beche used Logan's work on the official Geological Survey map. Logan continued mapping with the Geological Survey in South Wales until 1841.

The geological map of Swansea

The first Geological Survey map of the Swansea district was published in 1844, based on the 1830 Ordnance Survey topographic map on the scale of one inch to one mile. It covers the area from Kenfig in the east to Kidwelly in the west. The geological mapping is credited to W.E. Logan and Sir Henry De la Beche.

John Cornwell was a freelance photographer who took many photographs of collieries, mostly in south Wales and the English Midlands, both underground and on the surface, during the 1970s and early 1980s. He perfected a method of underground photography using the standard colliery lighting and was able to photograph coal faces, roadways, shafts and equipment with amazing clarity. In addition to photographing working mines he also recorded abandoned mine workings, above and below ground.

John Cornwell was also well respected in the broader field of industrial archaeology. He published a number of books on Welsh and English collieries.

The copyright of his south Wales images is now owned by National Museum Wales.

John Cornwell: Colliery photos

Tirpentwys Colliery 1979

Six Bells Colliery, 1979

Oakdale Colliery, electric locomotive near the pit bottom, c.1978

Oakdale Colliery, coal conveyor attendant, c.1978

North Celynen Colliery, 1975

Markham Colliery yard, 1977

Marine Colliery, 1980

Marine Colliery, 1974, a 'Western' class locomotive - the 'Western Consort'.

Llanhilleth Colliery, the lattice headframe on the No.2 shaft, 1975.

Hafodyrynys Colliery, electric locomotive at the entrance to the drift in 1968.

Cwmtillery Colliery, decorative brickwork on ventilation fan building, 1980

Cwmtillery Colliery pit bottom, 22 November 1977

Celynen South Colliery, 1978.

Blaenserchen Colliery pit bottom in 1979 with supplies and a dram of waste.

Blaenserchan colliery in 1973.

Coegnant Colliery 1978, prop and bar face.

Wyndham Colliery, c.1975

Wyndham/Western Colliery, turntable near pit bottom, c.1979

Treforgan Colliery with the afternoon shift waiting to descend 1979

St John's Colliery, Anderson Strathclyde shearer, c.1979

Overmen inspecting a shearer on the Six Feet Seam, Brynlliw Colliery 15 December 1977

Modern concrete viaduct linking the mine with the washery, Blaengwrach Colliery, c.1977.

Graig Merthyr Colliery, line of drams in the Graigola Seam - note the unsupported sandstone roof, c.1977

Graig Merthyr Colliery yard in 1977 with a long journey of drams waiting to be run into the mine.

Garw Colliery in 1977, with village in the background.

Cefn Coed Colliery, 1973, engine house and downcast shaft headframe.

Cefn Coed Colliery engine house for the Markham engine on the upcast shaft 1973.

Aberpergwm, 1972, entrance of the new drift mine.

Abernant Colliery, miner at a pumping station at pit bottom, 1978

Aberpergwm Colliery, Dosco Road heading machine and auxiliary fan ducting, c.1978

Ty Mawr Colliery, the remains of an underground ventilation furnace which date back to the late 1870s.

Tower Colliery, 'Rex' with his ostler, 1979.

Taff Merthyr Colliery, heading with Dosco road heading machine and auxiliary ventilation, 1979.

Taff Merthyr Colliery in the late 1970s.

Penrhiwceiber Colliery Pit bottom, 1978.

Nantgarw Colliery, 1978, Anderson Strathclyde drum shearer cutting coal on the coal face.

Merthyr Vale Colliery downcast shaft, c.1980

Maerdy Colliery, 1977, empty mine cars waiting at pit top.

Lewis Merthyr Colliery, 1977, hydraulic roof supports in the yard waiting to be taken underground.

Lady Windsor Colliery, steam locomotive with the upcast shaft in the background, 1977

Ffaldau Colliery, 1977, the pit head.

Fernhill Colliery, the jib of an AB 15 hydraulic undercutter on a timbered longwall face.

Deep Navigation Colliery, the downcast headframe, c.1978

Deep Duffryn Colliery, two pitmen inspecting the shaft from the roof of the cage, 1977-78.

Bargoed Colliery, 20 May 1977.

Morlais Colliery, general view looking east across the River Llwchwr, 1978.

Morlais Colliery, a general view, note the derelict engine pumping house, 1978

Cynheidre Colliery,coal drams at an underground loading point, c.1978

Cynheidre Colliery, main trunk road with high speed conveyor, c.1978

Cwmgwili Colliery, 1978, afternoon shift waiting for their ride at the entrance of the mine.

Cwmgwili Colliery, 1978, a Joy Loader and operators ready to commence work.

Betws Mine, the afternoon shift waiting for the manriding train, c.1976

Cwmgwili Colliery, a completed drivage supported by timber, 1978

Ammanford Colliery, 1974, Mr P.A. Jones, Safety Officer inspecting the roof on the last coal face.

Ammanford Colliery, 1974, Gerald Gibson drilling a shot hole on the coal face.

Ammanford Colliery, 1974, a journey of empty drams being lowered into the slant.

Two Blaenavon miners in the timber yard at the end of the morning shift, 1978.

The Big Pit manager, Glyn Morgan, talking to Billy 'Pigeon' Preece (seated), Big Pit 1975

New roadway driven from the drift entrance with conveyor belt carrying coal from the Garw Seam, Big Pit 1975.

Last day for Glyn Morgan, the last National Coal Board Manager, on 28 November 1980.

Junction near pit bottom, Big Pit 1975, now part of the museum's underground tour.

General surface view, Big Pit 1975.

Forge level, driven c.1812, later incorporated into the Big Pit underground complex .

Colliery horse returning to Big Pit surface stables from the Washery in 1968.

Bill Gunter, the Big Pit safety officer, on the G11 face in 1979

Bill Gunter standing at the archway to Dick Kear's Slope, driven around 1820. Big Pit.

A mine official examining a section of a cage of a water balance machine, near the pit bottom of the Forge Pit (Big Pit), 1975