Article of the week - number eighty - a badge with a history
In 1926 the last colliery to be sunk in Wales by a private company opened.
The Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company opened its new colliery just after the General Strike ended, having begun work on the mine in 1922. The company insisted that workers joined a new organisation, the South Wales Miners Industrial Union, that it had set-up, and no workers from the South Wales Miners’ Federation were employed because of the strike action. Violence ensued between the miners employed and those who had lost their jobs, and other forms of intimidation split the community for years afterwards. The mine finally closed down in 1993 and in 1995 the winding gear was demolished.
This emblem, made of embroidered felt, celebrates the opening of the troubled mine and commemorates the final colliery to be opened by a private company. After this mines were nationalised and demand for the coal they produced declined. The insignia of a fox with a miner's lamp is surrounded by a Welsh language motto that translates as "From the depths let there be light".