This document tells the story of the Tylor family and their rise from humble beginnings to wealth and status due to their involvement in the coal mining and iron industries during the Industrial Revolution. It describes how the family started their first small, unsuccessful coal mine but eventually succeeded through determination. Later family members expanded into iron production and additional coal mines, prospering due to innovations like the steam engine that increased demand for coal and iron. The story highlights both the opportunities and dangers that family members faced as industrialists during this transformative period of history.
2. This is to you my child; this is the story of our family. I hope you
will find this after my death. I am sorry I cannot be there with
you anymore, but remember. I love every single one of you.
I will tell you a story that my papa told me as a child, and
hopefully, you will pass this story down to your children. This
story is the origin of our family.
Our family first started to succeed when we started our own
coalmine. Our first ever coalmine wasn’t very successful, but as
determination runs through the family, we never gave up. We
eventually got to the top. Now, look at us. We live in London, an
agrarian area, but still own a mine in Tylertown. Pa once told me
how we became so rich, but we should never forget where we
came from, and whom we should thank. He said, we should
thank the Industrial Revolution for changing our lives. Changing
the world to a world of machinery from a world of manual
labour.
3. As I have told you many times, your grandpa was a powerful man.
He owned one of the biggest coalmines. The goal of all coal mine
owners was to produce as much coal as possible so they could earn
more money. 1781 was the best year for Pa. This year changed the
world from depending on nature or worrying about the climate.
When .things we use now, such as transportation, technology, and it
even helped with the social organization. The invention of steam
engines helped Pa earn more and more money. This was one of the
best years of Pa’s life. Another time, that was amazing for Pa was
when the Davy Lamps were invented. This meant that the workers
could work for longer periods of time.
By now, all of you should have finished school and should know
that steam engines are powered by coal. And as a coalmine owner,
this was great news for Pa. As steam engines got more and more
popular, the demand for coal kept increasing. I’m not sure if now
another type of metal has replaced iron, but in Pa’s times, iron was
the best metal for tools.
4. I may have not mentioned this much, but your grandpa also
owned an iron works. He bought many steam engines to
help him produce iron. This quote “innovation is critical to
success” is framed inside our house for a reason...
Innovation is what drove our beloved British Empire to
success. Innovation created the steam locomotive, and the
steam locomotive is what made Pa so successful. The
invention of steam locomotives changed the world from
using canals. With the steam locomotive’s the coal could
travel faster from place to place, this increased the efficiency
of producing coal. Steam locomotives were powered by coal.
Same thing happened to the steam locomotives, it got really
popular.
5. Steam engines were placed on trains, and ships. Everyone
started using them to transfer goods across countries or
even regions. Because of the popularity of the steam engine,
the demand for Welsh coal increased greatly. Pa said many
other countries produced coal as well, but they only wanted
our coal, because our Welsh coal has something special. It
can make the trains and ships travel faster and farther on
the same amount. Because of the speciality of our Welsh
coal, Pa became really rich. This is only just the beginning of
our story; something farther along Pa’s life was just as great,
but also threatening…and explains why Pa started an
ironworks.
6. The Blaenavon Ironworks. Sounds similar right? That's because
that's where our ironwork is. At around 1787, three
businessmen started and created the Blaenavon Ironworks. In
1805, the Blaenavon Ironworks opened, and two huge furnaces
were added. The opening of the Ironworks was both a happy
and sad moment of Pa’s life. With the new furnaces, the
Blaenavon Ironworks became one of the most advanced
facilities. As humans are attracted to innovation, many peasants
and middle class workers migrated to Blaenvon to learn about
the new technology. This was a huge threat to Pa’s coalmine
because many of his workers moved their entire family to
Blaenavon. Without large amounts of cheap manual labor, Pa
could not produce the amount of coal needed, and was earning
less money. As Pa was struggling, the Blaenavon was having a
good time.
7. The Blaenavon Ironworks consisted of three blast furnaces,
these blast furnaces helped melt iron much more efficiently.
In the beginning, Pa hated the Blaenavon ironworks. They
stole his workers and because of the new technology,
everyone was more interested in buying from the Blaenavon
Ironworks. So, Pa even lost some of his customers. Even
though there were many disadvantages to the opening of
the Blaenavon Ironworks, there were many things that Pa
took for advantage. The blast furnaces really helped our
country thrive; it increased the efficiency of producing iron,
it produced more iron. Pa said iron was a really important
material during this time period; everything depended on
coal and iron.
8. Pa knew if he wanted to be even more successful, he needed
to add the other factor that drove the Industrial Revolution.
This was the reason why Pa also started his own ironworks.
As Pa bought his own furnaces to help produce more iron
and coal, the Blaenavon Ironworks were in trouble. As they
hired more and more workers they couldn’t seem to pay all
of them. They started to have a financial problem; they
couldn’t pay their bills and were losing customers. At first,
Pa was happy that he was getting more and more
customers, but he left sorry for the Blaenavon Ironworks.
9. Later the ironwork was bought by Blaenavon Iron and Coal
Company, and that is when Pa bought our ironworks. The
Blaenavon area was the best place to have an ironworks
because this was where the raw materials, ironstone,
limestone, and coal were easily found. With all the new
money Pa was earning from his ironworks and the coalmine,
he was getting extremely rich. As coalmine owners, you
show your wealth by how many mansions you own. Pa built
the mansion we now live in; the other mansions that we go
to during vacations (in Australia and India because they
were a part of the British Empire) were also built by Pa later
in the years. As the technology improved, the danger
increased. And that leads us to the next part of the story.
When danger, is the main factor.
10. “Those stupid, stupid people. Who was the dumb coalmine
owner that let the Children’s Employment Commission have
an inspection on their coalmine? Some stupid people hired
little boys at the age of 4-5 to work underground… Who
does that? At least let them be old enough to lift the door,
there’s no point in hiring little boys if they can’t work well.
Because of those stupid people, there are new rules.
Disgusting rules. Now, I can’t even hire children under 10
years old. “ I still remember; those were the exact words Pa
said. He was so furious, that he almost threw his wine glass
at the wall.
11. Because of the new rules, 1833 was one of the most appalling
years for Pa. He had to spend a lot more money, hiring workers
because he could no longer hire children whom were cheaper.
The new rules meant that no children under the age of 10 or any
women were allowed to work at the colliery. These acts were
made by the parliament of United Kingdom. Obviously many
coalmine owners were furious about this, but many women
were angry as well. Since the women couldn’t work at the mines
anymore they could not earn the money they needed to survive.
With these new sets of rules, Pa’s coalmine got more visits then
it ever did from outsiders. Every few days, someone would come
and check on the ‘conditions of the workers’. The only good
thing that came out of this act was that children from the age of
10-18 were still allowed to work underground. These new rules
did not only upset the coalmine owners, it upset everyone,
because these rules did not only apply to collieries, it applied to
all mine.
12. This act was probably one of the best things that happened for
the miners. Because of the hazardous conditions working
underground, the miners gained employment benefits and better
sanitation of the mines.
There was another act before the 1833 act, the factory act. This
act may not have impacted Pa much because it didn't have
anything to do with coalmines, but this definitely was the cause
of colliery acts. The factory act was the first big step towards
rights of child labor. Another act happened after the act in 1833.
This act effected Pa’s coalmine indirectly. In 1847 there was the
Ten Hours act. In this act, everyone working in dangerous
conditions were forbid to work for 11-12 hours a day. This act
also gave child labour better rights. Lord Anothony Ashely-
Cooper was the person behind all of this.
13. These acts weren’t the best part of Pa’s life. They made his
life more difficult by reducing the work hours and
eliminating the children. He was definitely not happy with
the situation. He had to spend his own money that he had
earned from the coalmine and the iron works to spend on
the workers. This made Pa extremely mad but over time, he
got over it. Pa was getting old, and his body couldn’t deal
with the stress as well as it used it.
Eventually, his body just gave up… This was when the
coalmines were passed down to me, the eldest son of
Joseph, Alfred. As the new coalmine owner, I knew I had to
do something to make the coalmine better. Then it hit me. It
was time for expansion.
14. Expansion. But where do we expand? Beside Tylertown, there
was a little area called the Pendyrus.
1876 was the perfect year to start up my new coalmine. It was
the year the world found our dirty little secret. The welsh coal,
our coal, is the best. It can run 10 times faster than any other
coal, because of this secret has been spreading rapidly, the
demand for coal has increased. This was the prefect
opportunity for me to open up my new coalmine. The
Pendyrus Coalmine.
Every coalmine owner has to choose the perfect place to open
the coalmine. I made the best choice in my life, buying the
mineral rights to town of Pendyrus farm. Pendyrus had one of
the deepest steam coal seams. The depths of the steam coal
seam went down to 333 yards.
15. Expansion. But where do we expand? Beside Tylertown, there
was a little area called the Pendyrus.
1876 was the perfect year to start up my new coalmine. It was
the year the world found our dirty little secret. The welsh coal,
our coal, is the best. It can run 10 times faster than any other
coal, because of this secret has been spreading rapidly, the
demand for coal has increased. This was the prefect
opportunity for me to open up my new coalmine. The
Pendyrus Coalmine.
Every coalmine owner has to choose the perfect place to open
the coalmine. I made the best choice in my life, buying the
mineral rights to town of Pendyrus farm. Pendyrus had one of
the deepest steam coal seams. The depths of the steam coal
seam went down to 333 yards.
16. The Pendyrus area was small, but I needed lots and lots of
workers to fulfill the high demands of the British
Government. I built many buildings for miners to live in, and
eventually, the housings were so condensed, it was even
more squished than an urban environment.
The development of the Pendyrus Colliery was growing fast.
Going from 3,252 tons to 241,061 per year just in 16 short
years. The Pendyrus Colliery eventually became the second
biggest mines in England.
This was a magical time to be a coalmine owner, because the
demand for coal was increasing really fast. But all magic
comes with consequences….
17. Remember those fairy tales I used to read to you when you
were younger? I remember one quote from ‘The Dark One’.
Rumpelstiltskin always said, “All magic comes with a price”,
and I was about to pay for it.
Just as the Tylertown Colliery was doing magnificent,
something horrible happened. In 1896, I went back to
Tylertown for a visit, to collect my earnings, and then it
happened. I remember exactly as everything happened. It
was my last day there, and then I was going back to London.
The miners were just making their way back from the night
shift, and then Boom. Something had exploded.
18. An explosion occurred in pit No. 8, but that was not where most
of the destruction was. The force from the explosion blew off the
roofs and walls of the shafts, leaving the miners with nowhere to
run. This explosion was so big, that three pits got affected. Pit
No. 7 got completely wiped, 25 men were killed there. In Pit No.
6, 12 men were killed, and in pit No. 8 20 men were killed. On
this day, not only men were killed, horses were too. 57 men and
80 horses were perished…
Even to this day, we do not know what was the cause of this
explosion. Many people believed that it was the methane caused
from mining, but there was no solid prof. This explosion led
scientist running in circles, scientist started researching for
ways to detect the level of methane. The scientist found out that
canary’s are 20 times more sensitive to methane than humans
are. This helped the miners predict when the methane levels
were high because if the canary would fall off its porch.
19. This would have become great news for me, but this
explosion really scarred me. It changed everything about
coalmines for me. I didn’t mind making people work for me
for little amount of money, but being responsible for 57
deaths? I can not handle this pressure. In 1921, I started
losing interest in owning the coalmine, I sold the Pendyrus
Colliery to David Davis. For a while, I stayed as the manager
of the coalmine, but soon enough. I couldn't take it anymore.
20. This was when I decided to come back to London, and stay here
for good. Your uncle, Louis, was interested in taking over our
collieries and he did, and he’s been doing a good job. I left
Tylertown and went back to London, back to your mother, and
started my life as a geologist.
And now, as you are growing older and older, you are starting to
wonder about our family. Our family comes from a long line of
determined men and women, whom are willing to do the best
for their families. We have succeeded our goals with the help of
the Industrial Revolution.
21. As the quote on our wall says,
”innovation is critical to
success”, I think the Industrial
Revolution has started a
whole new era for the world.