This Is The Tylor Family Story

This is to you my child; this is the story of our family. I hope you will find this after my death. I am sorry I cannot be there with you anymore, but remember. I love every single one of you.

I will tell you a story that my papa told me as a child, and hopefully, you will pass this story down to your children. This story is the origin of our family.

Our family first started to succeed when we started our own coalmine. Our first ever coalmine wasn’t very successful, but as determination runs through the family, we never gave up. We eventually got to the top. Now, look at us. We live in London, an agrarian area, but still own a mine in Tylertown. Pa once told me how we became so rich, but we should never forget where we came from, and whom we should thank. He said, we should thank the Industrial Revolution for changing our lives. Changing the world to a world of machinery from a world of manual labour.

As I have told you many times, your grandpa was a powerful man. He owned one of the biggest coalmines. The goal of all coal mine owners was to produce as much coal as possible so they could earn more money. 1781 was the best year for Pa. This year changed the world from depending on nature or worrying about the climate. When .things we use now, such as transportation, technology, and it even helped with the social organization. The invention of steam engines helped Pa earn more and more money. This was one of the best years of Pa’s life. Another time, that was amazing for Pa was when the Davy Lamps were invented. This meant that the workers could work for longer periods of time.

By now, all of you should have finished school and should know that steam engines are powered by coal. And as a coalmine owner, this was great news for Pa. As steam engines got more and more popular, the demand for coal kept increasing. I’m not sure if now another type of metal has replaced iron, but in Pa’s times, iron was the best metal for tools.

I may have not mentioned this much, but your grandpa also owned an iron works. He bought many steam engines to help him produce iron. This quote “innovation is critical to success” is framed inside our house for a reason... Innovation is what drove our beloved British Empire to success. Innovation created the steam locomotive, and the steam locomotive is what made Pa so successful. The invention of steam locomotives changed the world from using canals. With the steam locomotive’s the coal could travel faster from place to place, this increased the efficiency of producing coal. Steam locomotives were powered by coal. Same thing happened to the steam locomotives, it got really popular.

Steam engines were placed on trains, and ships. Everyone started using them to transfer goods across countries or even regions. Because of the popularity of the steam engine, the demand for Welsh coal increased greatly. Pa said many other countries produced coal as well, but they only wanted our coal, because our Welsh coal has something special. It can make the trains and ships travel faster and farther on the same amount. Because of the speciality of our Welsh coal, Pa became really rich. This is only just the beginning of our story; something farther along Pa’s life was just as great, but also threatening…and explains why Pa started an ironworks.

The Blaenavon Ironworks. Sounds similar right? That's because that's where our ironwork is. At around 1787, three businessmen started and created the Blaenavon Ironworks. In 1805, the Blaenavon Ironworks opened, and two huge furnaces were added. The opening of the Ironworks was both a happy and sad moment of Pa’s life. With the new furnaces, the Blaenavon Ironworks became one of the most advanced facilities. As humans are attracted to innovation, many peasants and middle class workers migrated to Blaenvon to learn about the new technology. This was a huge threat to Pa’s coalmine because many of his workers moved their entire family to Blaenavon. Without large amounts of cheap manual labor, Pa could not produce the amount of coal needed, and was earning less money. As Pa was struggling, the Blaenavon was having a good time.

The Blaenavon Ironworks consisted of three blast furnaces, these blast furnaces helped melt iron much more efficiently. In the beginning, Pa hated the Blaenavon ironworks. They stole his workers and because of the new technology, everyone was more interested in buying from the Blaenavon Ironworks. So, Pa even lost some of his customers. Even though there were many disadvantages to the opening of the Blaenavon Ironworks, there were many things that Pa took for advantage. The blast furnaces really helped our country thrive; it increased the efficiency of producing iron, it produced more iron. Pa said iron was a really important material during this time period; everything depended on coal and iron.

Pa knew if he wanted to be even more successful, he needed to add the other factor that drove the Industrial Revolution. This was the reason why Pa also started his own ironworks. As Pa bought his own furnaces to help produce more iron and coal, the Blaenavon Ironworks were in trouble. As they hired more and more workers they couldn’t seem to pay all of them. They started to have a financial problem; they couldn’t pay their bills and were losing customers. At first, Pa was happy that he was getting more and more customers, but he left sorry for the Blaenavon Ironworks.

Later the ironwork was bought by Blaenavon Iron and Coal Company, and that is when Pa bought our ironworks. The Blaenavon area was the best place to have an ironworks because this was where the raw materials, ironstone, limestone, and coal were easily found. With all the new money Pa was earning from his ironworks and the coalmine, he was getting extremely rich. As coalmine owners, you show your wealth by how many mansions you own. Pa built the mansion we now live in; the other mansions that we go to during vacations (in Australia and India because they were a part of the British Empire) were also built by Pa later in the years. As the technology improved, the danger increased. And that leads us to the next part of the story. When danger, is the main factor.

“Those stupid, stupid people. Who was the dumb coalmine owner that let the Children’s Employment Commission have an inspection on their coalmine? Some stupid people hired little boys at the age of 4-5 to work underground… Who does that? At least let them be old enough to lift the door, there’s no point in hiring little boys if they can’t work well. Because of those stupid people, there are new rules. Disgusting rules. Now, I can’t even hire children under 10 years old. “ I still remember; those were the exact words Pa said. He was so furious, that he almost threw his wine glass at the wall.

Because of the new rules, 1833 was one of the most appalling years for Pa. He had to spend a lot more money, hiring workers because he could no longer hire children whom were cheaper. The new rules meant that no children under the age of 10 or any women were allowed to work at the colliery. These acts were made by the parliament of United Kingdom. Obviously many coalmine owners were furious about this, but many women were angry as well. Since the women couldn’t work at the mines anymore they could not earn the money they needed to survive. With these new sets of rules, Pa’s coalmine got more visits then it ever did from outsiders. Every few days, someone would come and check on the ‘conditions of the workers’. The only good thing that came out of this act was that children from the age of 10-18 were still allowed to work underground. These new rules did not only upset the coalmine owners, it upset everyone, because these rules did not only apply to collieries, it applied to all mine.

This act was probably one of the best things that happened for the miners. Because of the hazardous conditions working underground, the miners gained employment benefits and better sanitation of the mines.

There was another act before the 1833 act, the factory act. This act may not have impacted Pa much because it didn't have anything to do with coalmines, but this definitely was the cause of colliery acts. The factory act was the first big step towards rights of child labor. Another act happened after the act in 1833. This act effected Pa’s coalmine indirectly. In 1847 there was the Ten Hours act. In this act, everyone working in dangerous conditions were forbid to work for 11-12 hours a day. This act also gave child labour better rights. Lord Anothony Ashely-Cooper was the person behind all of this.

These acts weren’t the best part of Pa’s life. They made his life more difficult by reducing the work hours and eliminating the children. He was definitely not happy with the situation. He had to spend his own money that he had earned from the coalmine and the iron works to spend on the workers. This made Pa extremely mad but over time, he got over it. Pa was getting old, and his body couldn’t deal with the stress as well as it used it.

Eventually, his body just gave up… This was when the coalmines were passed down to me, the eldest son of Joseph, Alfred. As the new coalmine owner, I knew I had to do something to make the coalmine better. Then it hit me. It was time for expansion.

Expansion. But where do we expand? Beside Tylertown, there was a little area called the Pendyrus. 1876 was the perfect year to start up my new coalmine. It was the year the world found our dirty little secret. The welsh coal, our coal, is the best. It can run 10 times faster than any other coal, because of this secret has been spreading rapidly, the demand for coal has increased. This was the prefect opportunity for me to open up my new coalmine. The Pendyrus Coalmine. Every coalmine owner has to choose the perfect place to open the coalmine. I made the best choice in my life, buying the mineral rights to town of Pendyrus farm. Pendyrus had one of the deepest steam coal seams. The depths of the steam coal seam went down to 333 yards.

Expansion. But where do we expand? Beside Tylertown, there was a little area called the Pendyrus. 1876 was the perfect year to start up my new coalmine. It was the year the world found our dirty little secret. The welsh coal, our coal, is the best. It can run 10 times faster than any other coal, because of this secret has been spreading rapidly, the demand for coal has increased. This was the prefect opportunity for me to open up my new coalmine. The Pendyrus Coalmine. Every coalmine owner has to choose the perfect place to open the coalmine. I made the best choice in my life, buying the mineral rights to town of Pendyrus farm. Pendyrus had one of the deepest steam coal seams. The depths of the steam coal seam went down to 333 yards.

The Pendyrus area was small, but I needed lots and lots of workers to fulfill the high demands of the British Government. I built many buildings for miners to live in, and eventually, the housings were so condensed, it was even more squished than an urban environment.

The development of the Pendyrus Colliery was growing fast. Going from 3,252 tons to 241,061 per year just in 16 short years. The Pendyrus Colliery eventually became the second biggest mines in England.

This was a magical time to be a coalmine owner, because the demand for coal was increasing really fast. But all magic comes with consequences….

Remember those fairy tales I used to read to you when you were younger? I remember one quote from ‘The Dark One’. Rumpelstiltskin always said, “All magic comes with a price”, and I was about to pay for it.

Just as the Tylertown Colliery was doing magnificent, something horrible happened. In 1896, I went back to Tylertown for a visit, to collect my earnings, and then it happened. I remember exactly as everything happened. It was my last day there, and then I was going back to London. The miners were just making their way back from the night shift, and then Boom. Something had exploded.

An explosion occurred in pit No. 8, but that was not where most of the destruction was. The force from the explosion blew off the roofs and walls of the shafts, leaving the miners with nowhere to run. This explosion was so big, that three pits got affected. Pit No. 7 got completely wiped, 25 men were killed there. In Pit No. 6, 12 men were killed, and in pit No. 8 20 men were killed. On this day, not only men were killed, horses were too. 57 men and 80 horses were perished…

Even to this day, we do not know what was the cause of this explosion. Many people believed that it was the methane caused from mining, but there was no solid prof. This explosion led scientist running in circles, scientist started researching for ways to detect the level of methane. The scientist found out that canary’s are 20 times more sensitive to methane than humans are. This helped the miners predict when the methane levels were high because if the canary would fall off its porch.

This would have become great news for me, but this explosion really scarred me. It changed everything about coalmines for me. I didn’t mind making people work for me for little amount of money, but being responsible for 57 deaths? I can not handle this pressure. In 1921, I started losing interest in owning the coalmine, I sold the Pendyrus Colliery to David Davis. For a while, I stayed as the manager of the coalmine, but soon enough. I couldn't take it anymore.

This was when I decided to come back to London, and stay here for good. Your uncle, Louis, was interested in taking over our collieries and he did, and he’s been doing a good job. I left Tylertown and went back to London, back to your mother, and started my life as a geologist.

And now, as you are growing older and older, you are starting to wonder about our family. Our family comes from a long line of determined men and women, whom are willing to do the best for their families. We have succeeded our goals with the help of the Industrial Revolution.

As the quote on our wall says, ”innovation is critical to success”, I think the Industrial Revolution has started a whole new era for the world.