Merthyr Tydfil manufacturing history

 In 1759, in Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil, an iron works was founded by a group of iron masters. Eight years later, John Guest joined the company as works manager. Guest would later join with Keen and Nettlefold in what became one of Britain’s largest industrial companies, GKN.

The Dowlais Iron Works, under Sir John Guest, was said to be the greatest ironworks in the world in the mid nineteenth century, employing some 7,000 people. I wrote of its story in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. It wasn't alone in the Merthyr area, the Cyfarthfa Iron Works was a close rival until Dowlais powered ahead in the 1860s and 1870s. There were in all eight major iron works on the northern boundary of the South Wales coal field including Tredegar, Hirwaun, Penydarren and Ebbw Vale.

Transport was an issue for Merthyr, as iron had to be taken by horse to the port at Cardiff. In 1804, Richard Trevithic made the first steam locomotive for use on a tramway at Penydarren iron works. In time a canal was built and this was followed by a railway, vastly improving journey times. Dowlais supplied rails for the Great Western Railway, iron for Brunel's SS Great Britain built at Bristol and cannon balls for the Board of Ordnance.

Steel came to Dowlais earlier than many other iron works with the adoption of the Bessemer process making Merthyr at one time the leading steel making district in the world. The district also produced many of the great steel engineers who would take their skills elsewhere.

Merthyr suffered as other areas had access to better quality ore demanded by new processes.The Dowlais works closed in 1936 with production moving to Llanwern, combined with that of Baldwins and I write of these combinations in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Hoover manufactured cleaners in Merthyr.

Further reading:

• J.C. Carr and W. Taplin, History of the British Steel Industry, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962)