Volume Two - The Era of Optimism, Investment & Development - Growth of coal exports . . .

1913 - Peak Coal Output -  The peak of output from the South Wales mines was circa. 36,000,000 tons, of which, 4,660,648 tons was exported through Penarth Dock and the River Ely Tidal Harbour. That same year Barry Docks exported 11,050,000 tons and Cardiff 10,600,000 tons. Penarth, being included within the Port of Cardiff, therefore exported about 17.7% of the Welsh coal; but now consider that Cardiff Docks extended for 165 acres and Barry Docks 114 acres whereas Penarth Dock was a mere 26 acres (excluding the River Ely Tidal Harbour) which is approx. only 8.5% of the combined Port of Cardiff area - quite an achievement Penarth!

1918 - The Coal Mining Review [1236] [499] of 1st June 1918 ran the following article : -

Biggest Coal Town - Cardiff, in Wales. Exports Greatest Tonnage of Fuel - The greatest coal exporting port in the world, where more business is carried on in a quiet way than in hundreds of cities better advertised and far more in the public eye. Cardiff, attained a sudden blaze of fame by reason of its being the center of the strike recently declared by British coal miners, an action which might have had significant bearing upon the war. The story of this mushroom growth in the heart of England's richest coal fields is told in a bulletin just issued by the National Geographic society:

For years a great part of the coal that has driven the industrial machinery of Germany, Austria, Holland, France and Russia has been shipped from the Welsh port of Cardiff. That city became the first port in the world for the shipment of coal, and so vast was the quantity of this export that including the docks at Barry and Penarth as part of the port, it saw the greatest quantities of foreign shipping clear from its docks of any port in the United Kingdom.

With the outbreak of the European war, with the loss of practically all of her coalfields by France and with a growth of a need of coal by Russia and by France greater than ever before for the manufacture of the almost unlimited munitions that the war is consuming, Cardiff has become a place of first strategic importance, a heart source of power to the entente powers.

The Welsh port conforms to the best American tradition, in that it has grown from an insignificant village to a center of world importance during two brief generations. In 1831, it had a population of 6,187, and its name was never mentioned outside of Wales.