The Ocean Coal Company and 'The Barry'

The Ocean Coal Company between 1866 and 1884 epitomized extraordinary enterprise under the leadership of David Davies (1818-1890). Collieries opened were Park, Maindy, Dare and Eastern in the Rhondda Fawr Valley, and Western, Garw, and Lady Windsor in adjacent Glamorgan valleys. Thousands of jobs were created to work the ‘finest seams of coal in the world’. New villages, Blaengawr, Cwmparc, Nantymoel, Ton Pentre and Ynysbwl, were built. The coal mined powered steamships, a ‘most lucrative monopoly’ for the South Wales Coalfield. In 1893, his son Edward Davies (1852-1898) oversaw the purchase of Deep Navigation Colliery. For two decades, the company was the coalfield’s major coal producer. Due to David Davies serving as the ‘arch promoter’ of the Barry Dock and Railway Company, the Ocean Company overcame obstacles to transporting Rhondda coal after 1889. Known also as ‘the Barry’, it became Great Britain’s greatest shipper of coal. This book tells the history of this fascinating company.