Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - A History of Penarth Dock by Roy Thorne . . .

During the war some amalgamation took place. E. A. Prosser, the General Manager of the Rhymney Railway also became manager of the Cardiff and Taff Vale Railway Companies.

This amalgamation continued until January 1922 when an Act reduced the numerous railway companies in England, Wales and Scotland to five. Our local companies and their docks were absorbed into the Great Western Railway Company, and Penarth Dock and Ely Tidal Harbour were, in 1922, under the control of the G.W.R.

From 1839 when Crawshay had tried to bring a union between "Dockists, Canalists and Railroadists for the general welfare," [1170]  there had been 84 years of hesitant attempts at co-operation which had only resulted in competitive antagonism.

Ironically it took a terrible war, where so many young men lost their lives, to be a contributory factor in bringing unity to the competing factions who had commercially fought one another. Crawshay had the foresight to see that their interests were the same - to export coal. This unity did not save the South Wales coal exporting trade.