Dowlais through the eyes of German Royalty

The following is transcribed from The King of Saxony’s Journey Through England and Scotland in the Year 1844. Trans. S.C Davison. London: Chapman and Hall, 1846.

As we approached Merthyr Tydvil (sic), the iron-works became more numerous; we saw everywhere smelting-houses and forges, little railways and canals for the conveyance of the iron from one place to another. In one valley we saw below a canal, and a railway for locomotive engines; higher up, the road upon which we were, and still higher, a tram-road for the conveyance of materials and workmen belonging to the mines. We met on another occasion, on such a tram-road, along train of black coal-waggons, and others covered with workmen black and brown with dust – a curious sight! And what mountains of dross were piled up. Certainly, the quantity of iron produced in these mountains must be enormous.

The race of people which we found here, is very much the reverse of handsome; the women wear men’s hats on their heads, or black straw hats, and along with this, a very awkward, ungraceful dress. I was reminded once or twice of the women of Unalaska, mentioned in ‘Cook’s Voyages’.

All other considerations however vanish, when one comes to understand the size and extent of the iron-works themselves. The first we visited, in which six blast furnaces were at work, presented an extraordinary sight. Above the flaming chimneys of the blast furnaces the heated air trembled, and made the outlines of the mountains of dross behind them appear wavy. I could not help imagining these mountains of dross to be volcanoes, and the blast furnaces little burning craters on the sides of the larger ones. The impression produced was a much more powerful one, when we went further and took a view of the great iron-works belonging to Sir John Guest and Company. One could easily have believed oneself transferred to the blazing city of Dis, mentioned by Dante! We were first conducted to the mines, the immense quantity of coal and iron produced by which rendered all this possible. Some idea of this quantity may be obtained from the fact that in the last five weeks 36,000 tons of coal have been dug out, sometimes 1500 tons in a day, and that all these coals are employed in the works. Close to this mine is that from which a similar quantity of ironstone is produced. The cost, of course, is enormous! The works employ about 6000 work-people daily, and the wages of these workmen, with food, &c., amounts to about 26,000l. a month! …

I was also much interested in standing at the double entrance to the shaft, and observing how, set in motion by a steam-engine, and conducted along a subterraneous railway, on the one side a row of empty waggons, and a number of workmen, with miners’ lamps, were conveyed into the mountains; whilst, on the other side, shortly after, a number of waggons loaded with ironstone and coal, and with other workmen, came out from the cavern. The carelessness with which the workmen acted, sufficed to show the influence of daily exposure to danger. Several of the men came out of the sloping shaft, quite without holding, and standing upright upon the rope which drew the waggons out of the centre of the mountain. The slightest inclination to either side, in the darkness of the cavern, would have been sufficient to precipitate the man from his position, and he would have been crushed to pieces by the next waggon. This carelessness is, however, not merely manifested in such exhibitions of skill, but is even shown in a similar manner in the interior. Hence, notwithstanding Davy’s safety lamp, accidents are continually occurring from cold damp. Only this morning three workmen were killed in this manner, in one of the workings.