THE history of this industry may be

traced with more or less distinctness to a comparatively early period. Some authorities maintain that the Romans were acquainted with the value and use of coal previous to their occupation of Britain; but that they turned British coal to account has been proved beyond doubt. Even as late as 1883 an interesting discovery of a Roman villa was made in the neighbourhood of Caerleon, under the tesselated pavement of which coal was found, and some of it had evidently been used.

After the departure of the Romans, few attempts appear to have been made to continue and develop the various industries planted by them. The wars and troubles of the Middle Ages materially interfered. with all industrial progress in this country for many centuries. Coal appears to have been used by the Anglo-Saxons, and occasional mention is made of it during the

Danish invasions. One of the earliest documents recording the establishment of collieries is Bishop Pudsley's Boldor Book, A.D., 1180, in which mention is made of collieries at Bishop Wearmouth.

In 1306, Edward I. issued a proclamation prohibiting the use of sea coal in London, as the smoke was regarded as deleterious, and the people were commanded to make their fires of wood. But in the reign of Edward II., about 1321, coal was used in the king's palace, and it soon became an important article of commerce. Henry VII. appointed the Duke of Bedford one of the governors of his mines in England and Wales, and engaged miners from the continent to work his mines. Elizabeth made at first a retrograde movement by prohibiting the use of coal in London during the sitting of Parliament, lest the health of the members should suffer from the evil effects of the smoke during their residence

in town, but later on she encouraged the development of the industry by sending to Germany for experienced men.

Robert Mansel, vice-admiral of England, utilised the Pembrokeshire coal about 1615 in his glass works at Milford Haven, and reference is made in Galloway's "History of Mining" to a company which obtained a grant in 1620, for the use of sea coal in the manufacture of iron. This company appears to consist chiefly of Welshmen, to judge by their names, - Powell, Lewis, Powell, Lewis, John Prothro, Walter Vaughan, and Henry Vaughan, the last probably Henry Vaughan of Derwydd, in the county of Carmarthen, and son of Walter Vaughan of Golden Grove in the same county, who was well known as the owner of immense mineral properties in the neighbourhood of Llanelly.

By 1632, sea coal was getting into general use, although the country still maintained its densely wooded character; but in 1649, the city of London petitioned Parliament against its use on account of the objectionable character of the smoke, an objection by the way which most people admit to be worthy of redress, but which, nevertheless, has been suffered to exist down to the present day.

The coal produce of the whole country in 1660 was about two and a quarter million tons, and twenty years later it appeared even less. Charles II. in 1685, passed an act of Parliament to encourage the building of ships in England, so as to benefit the coal trade, which was in a depressed state, a state which continued until about 1695. During the following century many energetic attempts were made to bring pit coal into general use, both for household and manufacturing purposes; and many an interesting account might be given of the struggle of the pioneers who succeeded at length in opening out the vast resources of the South Wales coal field, amongst whom mention may be made of Sir Humphrey Mackworth of the Gnoll, Neath, with his inventions of sailing waggons on land to convey the coal to the water's edge, and his system of tubbing out water from his pits, referred to by the poet Yalden as follows,

"What spacious veins enrich the British soil, The various ores and skilful miners' toil,

How ripening metals lie concealed in earth, And teeming nature forms the wondrous birth, My useful verse, the first, transmits to fame In numbers tuned and no unhallowed flame; O generous Mackworth, could the muse impart A labour worthy thy auspicious art, Like thee succeed in paths untrod before, And secret treasures of the land explore; Apollo's self should on the labour smile, And Delphos quit for Britain's fruitful isle.” But notwithstanding all the ingenuity and perseverance of this worthy man, impediments thrown in his way by the irregular proceedings of agents, servants, and dependents, together with quarrels incident on those irregularities, acted most detrimentally to the mining interests and the discouragement of its future prosecution. The final picture is drawn by the hand of an old tourist, who describes the scene when the worthy knight rested from his labours,

"At a short distance from Neath is the Gnoll, a castellated seat of the late Sir H. Mackworth, occupying the summit of a hill at the termination of a noble lawn. The fine views which this elevation commands, encompassed by hanging woods and extensive plantations, shady walks and picturesque cascades, render it a place deservedly attractive.” But the writer reminds us that the early coal owner of the west is dead, and his picture of the Gnoll becomes a gloomy one. An awful circumstance strikes every beholder visiting this mansion, that this lovely place has closed closed its gates upon its hereditary possessor, the estate being gone out of the Mackworth family. Every apartment is unfurnished, uninhabited, and forsaken ; no minstrel strikes the harp, no bard celebrates the heroic actions of its ancient owners. The dance, the feast, and the song are no more; nay the fish ponds, the bowling green, the benches, the basin of gold fish, the velvet walks, shady alcoves, shrubberies, embellished with choicest flowers, the murmuring waterfall, — all these have perished as if they had never been."

Then mention may be made of Chauncey Townsend, who opened collieries at Llansamlet and Llanelly about 1750. An old mineral lease, dated 1752, and made between the then owners of the Stepney

Estate, as lessors, and Chauncey Townsend and others as lessees, is still in existence at the Stepney Estate Office, Llanelly. Mr. Chauncey Townsend was an important man in London, and an alderman of the City; his daughter Elizabeth married in 1770 Mr. John Smith, of the Drapers' Hall, London, and their son Henry gives the following evidence before a committee of the House of Commons,

"That I, together with my brother Charles Smith, Esquire, are possessed of collieries in the parish of Llansamlet, in Glamorganshire, not far from Swansea; that we succeeded to four undivided fifth parts of these collieries upon the death of our father in the year 1797; that we have since purchased the other fifth part from a person who had an undivided interest in it; that John Smith, deceased, our father, succeeded to one undivided fifth part of this colliery in the year 1770 in right of his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Chauncey Townsend, Esquire; that in his life he purchased three other undivided fifth parts of the same colliery; that the collieries which we are now possessed of and working at Llansamlet were originally opened by the said Chauncey Townsend about the year 1750; that from my remembrance, I, being now forty five years of age, can remember this colliery as long as I can remember anything, and that from my earliest remembrance very deep pits were sunk which must have cost a great deal of money.

"There were several very powerful fire engines at work, one of them, I believe, of the largest dimensions then in use. That there were very expensive waggon ways made, the framework with timber, at that time; and it is perfectly evident from my recollection of the whole face of the country that a very large capital must have been sunk previous to my earliest recollection, but the amount I cannot speak to otherwise than by guess, but I am certain that my grandfather had expended his whole fortune in it, for he died without any property but that. That when my brother and myself succeeded to the collieries, upon my father's death in 1797, he was then of his own proper money, without taking into account anything

which had been expended previous to his becoming entitled in the year 1770, in

advance to these collieries to the amount of upwards of £54,000; that I know that in the year 1773 he gave for two undivided fifth parts of that same concern the sum of £6,000, which was not included in the sum of £54,000 which I have previously mentioned, and which had been wholly unprofitable to him from the time he made the purchase in the year 1773, and with interest, if interest had been calculated upon it up to the year 1797, the sum which would have been in the nature of capital invested upon that concern would have been upward of £70,000, which was the whole of it, invested and at risk and at stake previous to the year 1797. The profits of the colliery had by no means reduced the capital on that advance, and it is only to the future prospects of working that colliery that any reimbursement of any part of that sum can arise. That there are now upon the colliery two fire engines, I believe of the largest dimensions which are made. There is also a small fire engine for the purpose of drawing water. water. There is also a fire engine for the purpose of raising coal from a deep pit, and a very extensive water engine for raising them from another pit, and there is a canal, wholly private property, which ⚫ was made some time previous to 1786,the precise time I cannot from recollection specify, but I am certain it was previous to 1786,-for the purpose of leading coals down to the water's edge. That I know, by the evidence of my own eyes and recollection, that in the neighbourhood of Swansea there were existing collieries of equal dimensions and extent, more than one, from my earliest recollection, upon which I should think that a less capital could not have been invested. That I also know that previous to the year 1770 my grandfather had sunk pits, erected a fire engine, and had made a canal to lead the coals down to the water's side near Llanelly, in Carmarthenshire. I am unable, from any documents which I have access to, to ascertain precisely what that expenditure was; but I am very certain, from the depth of the pit, from the view of the engines, and from the canal, that it must

have been a considerable expenditure which was made there. But that this colliery and concern passed from my grandfather to my father, and from him to my brother and myself, and we have since made it over to Major General George Ward, who is, I believe, now working upon the same capital which was invested in that concern, and he is making use of that capital which had a pre-existence previous to his becoming engaged in it. And I have heard that he has spent very large sums of money in addition to it since he has been engaged in that work. That I know to a certainty, having been down to the bottom of the collieries which we now work at Llan

samlet, that they are working at a depth of upwards of ninety fathoms from the surface. I also know, from having seen coals drawn up from collieries belonging to other persons near Swansea, that they are working them at a very great depth. I also know that General Ward's collieries are worked at considerable depth, but the particular depth I am not competent to speak of."

The collieries opened by Chauncey Townsend at Llanelly, and transferred by his grand children to General Ward, were later on acquired by Messrs. Nevill, Druce, and Co., who continue to work some of them to the present time.

CURIOUS feature of Holyhead and the surrounding neighbourhood, as indeed of the whole of Wales, is the number of ecclesiastical edifices that can be proved to have been in existence at the period of the Reformation, which had either wholly disappeared or were in rapid process of disappearance when the wave of evangelical revivalism reached its height about the commencement of the present century. Everywhere throughout Wales are traces of ruined churches to be found, or the memory of their existence is preserved in place names that are themselves on the point of vanishing. The very name of Capel Ilo, or Ulo, has faded from the recollection of the oldest inhabitant of Holyhead; yet, three quarters of a century ago, the ruins of a Ittle chapel dedicated to this otherwise unknown saint, were dimly discernible on the road leading to another and better known shrine, that of the Irish St. Bridget on Tywyn y Capel. This would make the

fourth ecclesiastical edifice situated in the small island of Holyhead, in addition to the collegiate church of St. Cybi,* the three others being Eglwys y Bedd, in the precincts of the parish church, Capel Lochwyd, and Capel Gorllas.

But there was yet a fifth, of which I could not discover that there lingered even the shadowy tradition of a name. Capel Gwyngenau,-an exquisite epithet that, as in the case of Chrysostom, has swallowed up the less poetic personal name of the ancient saint, was situated somewhere upon the farm now known as Crecrist, in which form we may recognise the site of a religious foundation. The fortunes of these small churches have not been followed with the attention that they deserve; perhaps the flux of time has now rendered the task impossible. But their gradual abandonment and decay denotes the neglect which had fallen upon all things religious, and they finally went out of the sight and the recollection of men in

I forgot, when dealing with the history of St. Cybi's Church in the last number of WALES, to refer to a circumstance which is mentioned only by an Irish annalist, namely, the descent of a body of Irish rovers upon Holyhead in the year 1476. The church was pillaged, and the jewelled shrine containing the bones of St. Cybi carried off. It was eventually placed on the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity, now known as Christ Church, in Dublin, but it disappeared for good about half a century afterwards when that church in turn fell a prey to the spoiler. The main portion of the present edifice of St. Cybi's had its rise probably after this, the last, invasion of the Irish.