Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - Some newspaper reports from the 1870's

• January 1878 - The Depression of Trade - "The distress in the coal and iron districts of South Wales increases magnitude, particularly in the neighbourhood of the ironworks. Of the 500 collieries in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire, only twenty are working full time.

At Penarth the docks are almost deserted, and on Saturday, last week, there was not a single vessel under the coal-tips.

At Merthyr distress is more intense, and covers a wider area than it did during the strike and lock-out of 1875. A gentleman who has been examining the homes of the workmen, says, “There is great poverty among the people, but they will not come out and make it known.”

At the Cardiff Docks there are now miles laden coal-wagons waiting for shipment. Since April the shipments of coal have fallen off from 363,000 tons & month to foreign parts to 215,000 last month.

At Cardiff work house the applications for admission are increasing at the rate of about fifty a week. Along the whole of the Rhondda Valley, which contains a population of 30,000, whence there is the largest output of coal in South Wales, collieries are only kept at work as little as possible, as the masters assert that every ton of coal involves a loss of from 6d to 9d per ton.

Thousands are in a state of semi-starvation, and glad to subsist on refuse, brewers’ grains, bread and tea, and cabbage-leaves. Soup kitchens are being opened at Merthyr, and temporary sheds are being erected to relieve the over-crowded workhouses . . . " - Capitol and Labour [1054] [499] 2nd January 1878.

• February 1878 - Opening of the Penarth Railway - "This new line of railway, as announced in our columns of Monday last, was opened for passenger traffic on Wednesday. During Tuesday and Tuesday night, the officials of his company were busy in completing the necessary arrangements, and so successful they were, that the opening passed off without a hitch or delay of any kind.