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Penydarren Ironworks
Penydarren Ironworks was the fourth of the great ironworks established at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. Built in 1784 by the brothers Samuel Homfray, Jeremiah Homfray, and Thomas Homfray, all sons of Francis Homfray of Stourbridge. Their father, Francis, for a time managed a nail warehouse there for Ambrose Crowley. Most of the family were involved in trade as ironmasters or ironmongers (in this context meaning a manufacturer of iron goods). Samuel built Penydarren House on the opposite bank of the River Taf, as a home for the family locally. Because the owners of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks dominated the management of Glamorganshire Canal, the other Merthyr Tydfil ironworks built a tramroad to Abercynon, bypassing the upper sections of the canal. This "Penydarren Tramroad" (more correctly, the Merthyr Tramroad) was used for a trial of the first railway steam locomotive, built by Richard Trevithick. This successfully hauled wagons but was so heavy that it broke many rails. The ...
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Glamorganshire Canal
The Glamorganshire Canal in South Wales, UK, was begun in 1790. It ran along the valley of the River Taff from Merthyr Tydfil to the sea at Cardiff. The final section of canal was closed in 1951. History Construction started in 1790; being watched over by the wealthy ironmasters of Merthyr Tydfil, including Richard Crawshay of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, the canal was thought up as a solution to the issue of transporting the goods (iron ore, coal and limestone) from the valleys to Cardiff, where they would be shipped around the world. Thomas Dadford was hired to inspect and plan a route for the canal and, with support from Lord Cardiff, the canal was authorised by Parliament on 9 June 1790. Almost £90,000 was raised in preparation of constructing the canal and would be linked to any works within four miles of the canal, through branch canals and linking railways. However, during the few miles approaching Cardiff, the canal suffered from severe water shortages, resulting in goods ...
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Industrial History Of Wales
Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominated by one or more industries * Industrial loan company, a financial institution in the United States that lends money, and may be owned by non-financial institutions * Industrial organization, a field that builds on the theory of the firm by examining the structure and boundaries between firms and markets * Industrial Revolution, the development of industry in the 18th and 19th centuries * Industrial society, a society that has undergone industrialization * Industrial technology, a broad field that includes designing, building, optimizing, managing and operating industrial equipment, and predesignated as acceptable for industrial uses, like factories * Industrial video, a video that targets “industry” as its primary audience * Industri ...
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Buildings And Structures In Merthyr Tydfil
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term ''building'' compare the list of nonbuilding structures. Buildings serve several societal needs – primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the ''outside'' (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful). Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasses of much artistic ...
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Dowlais Ironworks
The Dowlais Ironworks was a major ironworks and steelworks located at Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales. Founded in the 18th century, it operated until the end of the 20th, at one time in the 19th century being the largest steel producer in the UK. Dowlais Ironworks were the first business to license the Bessemer process, using it to produce steel in 1865. Dowlais Ironworks was one of the four principal ironworks in Merthyr. The other three were Cyfarthfa, Plymouth, and Penydarren Ironworks. In 1936 Dowlais played a part in the events leading to the abdication crisis of Edward VIII, when the King visited the steelworks and was reported as saying that "these works brought these men here. Something must be done to get them back to work", a statement which was seen as political interference. The steelworks finally closed in 1987. Beginnings (1759–1807) The works was founded as a partnership on 19 September 1759. There were nine original partners including Thomas Lewis and ...
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William Thompson (MP, Born 1792)
William Thompson may refer to: Academics * William Forde Thompson, 21st century psychologist * William Hepworth Thompson (1810–1886), English classical scholar * William Gilman Thompson (1856–1927), American professor of medicine * William Oxley Thompson (1855–1933), president of Ohio State University * William Hertzog Thompson (1895–1981), American psychology professor and minister * William Irwin Thompson (1938–2020), American social philosopher and cultural critic * William Robert Thompson (1923/4–1979), Canadian psychologist and behavior geneticist Entertainment * William Thompson (poet) (1712–1766), English poet * William C. Thompson (cinematographer) (1899–1963), American cinematographer * William H. Thompson (actor), (1852-1923), American actor * William Tappan Thompson (1812–1882), American humorist and journalist * Will Lamartine Thompson (1847–1909), American composer Military * William Thompson (Leveller) (died 1649), Leveller leader of the Ba ...
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Tower Of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower (Tower of London), White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new Normans, Norman ruling class. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 (Kray twins), although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were severa ...
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Wagon (railroad)
Goods wagons or freight wagons ( North America: freight cars), also known as goods carriages, goods trucks, freight carriages or freight trucks, are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. A variety of wagon types are in use to handle different types of goods, but all goods wagons in a regional network typically have standardized couplers and other fittings, such as hoses for air brakes, allowing different wagon types to be assembled into trains. For tracking and identification purposes, goods wagons are generally assigned a unique identifier, typically a UIC wagon number, or in North America, a company reporting mark plus a company specific serial number. Development At the beginning of the railway era, the vast majority of goods wagons were four- wheeled (two wheelset) vehicles of simple construction. These were almost exclusively small covered wagons, open wagons with side-boards, and flat wagons with or without stakes. Over the course ...
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Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a British inventor and mining engineer. The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He was an early pioneer of steam-powered road and rail transport, and his most significant contributions were the development of the first high-pressure steam engine and the first working railway steam locomotive. The world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Turning his interests abroad Trevithick also worked as a mining consultant in Peru and later explored parts of Costa Rica. Throughout his professional career he went through many ups and downs and at one point faced financial ruin, also suffering from the strong rivalry of many mining and steam engineers of the day. Durin ...
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Steam Locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels. In most locomotives, the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders, in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically-powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally. Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick ...
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Merthyr Tramroad
The Merthyr Tramroad (sometimes referred to as the Penydarren Tramroad due to its use by Trevithick's locomotive built at that ironworks) was a long line that opened in 1802, connecting the private lines belonging to the Dowlais and Penydarren Ironworks with the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, also serving the Plymouth Ironworks along the way. Famous as the line on which Richard Trevithick's experimental locomotive hauled the first train to carry a load (of 10 tons of iron). It was largely superseded when the Taff Vale Railway opened in 1841 and sections gradually went out of use over the two decades from about 1851. History The four principal ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil were Dowlais (built 1759), Plymouth (built 1763), Cyfarthfa (built 1765) and Penydarren (built 1784). Initially the output of these ironworks was carried by packhorse or on carts 25 miles to Cardiff. In 1794 Cyfarthfa works was linked to Cardiff by the Glamorganshire Canal, the other three ironworks were ...
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Abercynon
Abercynon (), is both a village and a community (and electoral ward) in the Cynon Valley within the unitary authority of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. The community comprises the village and the districts of Carnetown and Grovers Field to the south, Navigation Park to the east, and Glancynon (or Aber-taf) to the north. The population of Abercynon was recorded as 6,428 in the 2001 Census,Davies (2008), p.4 decreasing to 6,390 at the 2011 Census, despite more than a hundred additional households built over this period (from 2,582 in 2011 to 2,694 by 2011). The electoral ward of Abercynon includes both the community of Abercynon, but also takes into account the nearby villages of Pontcynon, Ynysboeth and Tyntetown further north. Abercynon is approximately north of Cardiff and approximately from Swansea. The rivers Taff and Cynon converge at Watersmeet near Martin's Terrace. Abercynon used to have many churches, chapels and pubs. There are now only four public houses left - The Tho ...
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