Black Day in July...

The title of today's post comes from a Gordon Lightfoot song, which he wrote about the 1967 riots in Detroit.  Of course, this post has nothing to do with that, but refers to one of the worst days in the history of Welsh mining.  Today - the 15th of July - is the anniversary of not one, but two terrible events in south Wales...

Cymmer is a small village in the Rhondda Valley in Glamorgan, and like so many communities in the area, grew as a result of the coal mining boom of the mid-19th Century.  The first pit of the colliery, the Cymmer No. 1 (old) pit, was sunk in 1844.  In 1955, a second pit, the New Cymmer pit, was sunk next to the first.

Just a year after the addition of the second pit, there was a massive explosion at the colliery.  On the 15th of July, 1856, a total of 160 men and boys were working underground at the colliery.  Of these 160, 114 succumbed to their injuries.  The youngest casualties were two ten-year-olds, Thomas John and Dafydd Dafydd.

Some 35 miles east of Cymmer is the Gwent town of Risca.  Another thriving mining community of the region, Risca suffered a tragedy in 1860  when an explosion at the Black Vein Colliery killed over 140 miners.  That disaster, I have already discussed.

Another colliery, the New Risca, started coal production in June, 1878.  Twenty-five months later, on the 15th of July, 1880, an explosion of firedamp  at the New Risca Colliery claimed the lives of 120 men and boys.  The youngest victims were several 13-year-old boys, and the oldest was mason Thomas Jones (72).