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OAKELEY

The History of The Oakeley Slate Quarries, Blaenau

PART ONE 1800-1889 From Beginnings to the Great Fall

J G ISHERWOOD

To be continued in:-

PART TWO 1889 – 1920 From Amalgamation to the Great War

and

PART THREE 1920 – 1968 From Peace to War and Back again

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CONTENTS of Part One

1. Oakeley & 2. Wild 1800-1824 3. A Land Dispute 1820-1825 4. The Welsh Slate Copper and Lead Mining Company 1825-1826 5. Holland Vs The Company 1825-1839 6. The 1838 Lease 1838 7. Hollands’ Quarry 1838-1869 8. Rhiwbryfdir Quarry 1838-1870 9. The Welsh Slate Company Succeed 1825-1870 10. The Quarries and The Railway 1838-1872 11 The Paths Divide 1865-1869 12. The Welsh Slate Company’s New Lease 1869-1870 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1878 14. Oakeley and Rhiwbryfdir 1870-1882 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882 16. Railways Again 1872-1889 17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Company 1883-1884 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887

Note: References to figures in the text may not altogether correspond to the actual figures in this version, they will be updated as soon as possible. My apologies for any confusion. GI

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1. LOCATION AND OVERVIEW

When visitors to , or , to give the ancient country the correct title, take the A470 from Betws y Coed for they drive up through what is arguably one of the most beautiful valleys in the principality, that of the . The roadside views are ever varying, often great vistas of hill or mountain, little clearings among the great trees of the Commission plantations, isolated hamlets glimpsed up tracks and across the ravines of the river. Amidst all the beauty man hardly seems to have made an impression, yet peeping out from the encircling trees are the scars of past endeavours; tips and open quarries long since abandoned bear mute testimony to the handiwork of man the quarrier and miner. Now the efforts of both man and nature serve to hide these old remains from sight. From the road climbs steeply and the visitor is rewarded by the sight of the open hillsides and the distant peaks of and even mighty Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa itself, provided the clouds are high. It is all the greater shock then, unless the visitor has been over that way before, when he crests the top of the pass and is greeted by a view of a mountain clearly ravaged by man. Giant steps carved from the living rock make an ogres pathway up the flanks of the mountain while vast tips of loose rock spill away from the hillsides stretching like rivers of lava towards the road seeming to seek to bury it. The road descends, abandoning the green and brown of moor and mountain for the grim shattered mounds of sharp edged waste, which tower over it. Instead of the whitewashed walls of cottages and farms rows of grey walled houses appear, all the trappings of a small industrial town, but without the factory chimneys. This is , centre of the Ffestiniog , much contracted now from its former pre-eminent position in the roofing trade, but still a potent source of slate. Really Blaenau consists of a row of several villages all strung out together so that one runs into the next and is indistinguishable from it. Once called the “slate horseshoe”, these villages of , Rhiwbryfdir, Four Crosses, Conglywal, Bethania and Manod echoed twice a day to the tramp of booted feet as the men made their way to and from the great mines that had caused the town to be. Now only a few work in the quarries, but the memories linger on in the minds of the people, the names of men long gone to rest, of injuries sustained and grievances real and imagined, the names of quarries great and small, their masters, and above all of the rock that was both life and death to them. Life in that it gave them the money to live, death both from the instant crushing weight of a fall, slower from shattered limbs and complications and the real killer, the dust, which turned young men old and crippled them, dooming them to a wheezing, gasping breath-denied end before their time. Blaenau is easy to locate on any map of North and Mid Wales – simply look for the coloured boundary representing the National Park. The planners who drew up the boundary after the Second World War were careful to exclude the significant slate industry sites of Dinorwic (), Penrhyn (Bethesda), , and Blaenau from the park, thus ensuring that their work would not be affected by the planning controls within the park. In the case of the first four, exclusion was simple, they were on the edge of the area anyway, but Blaenau was in the middle. The Solution ? Create a “hole” in the park with Blaenau in it. The Oakeley Quarries lie to the west of the A470 as it descends from the Crimea Pass, forming the “giant’s steps” mentioned earlier. For most of their lives it was the largest quarry complex in Blaenau and acquired the cognomen of The Largest Slate Mine in the World. The word “mine” is important, for, despite the easily visible open workings which scar the mountain, like an iceberg, two-thirds of the quarry workings are invisible, hidden from view below ground, the steep dip of the bands of slate rock, (known as veins), in the Blaenau district having made the mining of the rock a necessity to avoid excessive removal of overburden. The Oakeley Quarries has a plural title for the site is in fact an amalgam of three original quarrying ventures, begun in the 1820s and 30s and as later chapters will relate, have been known under various titles in their time, some official, others less so; Hollands’ Quarry, Mathew’s Quarry, the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co.’s Quarry, the Palmerston Quarry, the Company’s Quarry, the Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry, Cloddfa Gesail and Chwarel Isaf being but a few of them. The essential point being that the site was worked for some seventy years or so by three independent companies and even after amalgamation into the Oakeley Quarries , the divisions remained so marked that until the 1960s it was still possible to speak of the Upper Quarry , the Middle Quarry and the Lower Quarry as distinct identities. Despite this clear verbal division of the site, physically the divisions are less clear, the workings on both surface and underground have merged inextricably into one another and the prodigious production of slate from the workings and more particularly the accompanying vast quantities of waste rock have all but buried much of the earlier remains of the quarries, a process which accelerated over the last decade or so. After amalgamation in the 1880s working continued, following the rises and declines of the slate industry in general until in 1970 the Oakeley Quarries as such were closed and their deep underground workings scrapped and allowed to up to the drainage levels. The site was sold to Glyn Williams, a local coal merchant, haulage and plant hire firm owner. He continued the open workings of the old quarry as the Ffestiniog Slate Company, retaining sections of the underground workings above the flood waters for special quality slate and as reserves of rock. This activity took place principally in the Lower Quarry , although roads were constructed throughout the site to enable modern tracked vehicles and lorries to reach all parts of the site where there might be workable slate and for maintenance purposes. For a while the Upper and Middle Quarries languished, but later the old Middle Quarry slab producing mill was put into service for architectural and slab work by Wil Roberts, Glyn Williams’ son in law, and by 1974 this formed the nucleus of the new Gloddfa Ganol company, named after the welsh for Middle Quarry. As trade developed other slate quarries were taken over and a trading organization was set up as The Ffestiniog Slate Group. Gloddfa Ganol, as well as being a productive member of the group, was intended from the start to tap the tourist trade and the increasing interest in our industrial past. Its formal title was Gloddfa Ganol – Ffestiniog Mountain Tourist Centre. - 4 - Oakeley Slate Part One – 1. Location and Overview

From 1974 until the 1990s working there continued in parallel with tourism, but for a number of reasons, recession being a major contributing factor, the whole of the Ffestiniog Slate Group of companies was bought up by McAlpines who had been working the at Bethesda since the late 1960s. They closed down the tourist side of the business and proceeded to radically re-organise the open workings and production methods in line with their long experience at Penrhyn, introducing modern geological surveys, Health & Safety analyses and large-scale methods of working. Following some financial irregularities the quarry closed and then reopened under new ownership. Now, once againat has been closed due to geo technical problems. They found, as both Oakeley and the Ffestiniog Slate Group had found before them that the progress of the Great Fall westward had so deatroyed the cohesion of the ground to the north and west of the open quarry that as they were extended into the broken ground, so that ground gave way and collapsed into the open workings again. The scale of the later operations radically altered the appearance of the old quarry. They constructed a network of new roadways all over the site, formed new tips, and blasted away the old rock faces in order to gain access to where they thought productive slate might be found. This has had the result of making some descriptive work very difficult as long established features useful for orientating both writer and reader have now vanished. Some basic features remain, however, and these are mentioned below. The two most obvious features of the quarries as viewed from the Crimea pass road are the open workings and the tips with numerous buildings both complete and in ruins perched on them. The open workings stagger down the mountain in the form of a letter L, their greatest extent being hidden behind tips which screen the depth of workings from the main road. The open workings are known as the “sinc” or occasionally “twll,” the origin of the former word relates to the quarry being sunk below the natural ground level while the latter is Welsh for a hole. The higher part of the sinc and its associated works, which climbs up the mountain, is known as Sinc Fach, while the greater and lower portion is Sinc Fawr. To the right or north of the Sinc Fawr, as viewed from the road, just below a vast tip perched on the mountainside, were once mills and workshops, occupying the old area of the quarry known as Bonc Siafft , this has now vanished, worked away from below. The tip above this is known as Ffridd, crowned by its derelict enginehouse and stack. Beyond it on the same level were the tips and ruins known as Twr Babel, now isolated and surrounded by the new roadways. Between Bonc Siafft and the corresponding Bonc Goedan or C Bank to the left and south of Sinc Fawr on the same level was until recently an unbroken bank of waste slate, however, during the last decade this has been removed in greater part to gain access to the rock beneath. From the present road entrance to the site the A470 drops steeply and passes through the ancient hamlet of Tal y Waenydd. From here the lower entrance road, bulldozed through the tips, climbs up with Bonc Goedan to its right and to the left the ruins of one of the last rope and gravity worked inclined planes, which connected the quarries internal tramways with the below. The incline was known as Clogwyn Mawr or Spion Kop and the area at its foot called Pant yr Afon , where the standard gauge railway from Dolwyddelan emerged into daylight after the long tunnel under the Crimea pass. The area is also known as Pen y Bont after an old viaduct one of whose masonry piers still looms over the railway track. An old tip, now removed, also gave its name to the area - Glan y Don. As the lower road swings round the edge of Bonc Goedan towards the massive tips that supported Gloddfa Ganol itself, a route branches off to a number of buildings perched on the very lip of Sinc Fawr. These once housed smithies and stores as well as the haulage machinery for drawing the slate rock up to the mills from the sinc, and are where the present quarry office is located. The main part of the quarry road slants steeply up the side of the tip, eventually arriving at what was the public entrance to Gloddfa Ganol. Here the ticket office was the old timekeepers office, where the men would report for work after climbing up the long zigzag “miners’ path” from the town below, and woe betide he who was tardy and did not reach the office before the hwtar for the start of work. Close by the office was the massive masonry of the drumhouse of the Dinas incline of 1904, which for many years connected the Middle Quarry tramways to the Ffestiniog Railway some four hundred feet below and which still forms a prominent landmark in Blaenau. From this point, at the incline head one can move either north or south on top of the huge mass of tipped waste brought out from the workings, the original hillside being buried under hundreds of feet of shattered slab and rock. The southern part of the tip is known as Domen Fawr and was created between the 1890s and 1960s. From its height and length spectacular views can be obtained over Blaenau and the . However it also afforded a view of Hollands’ Lower Mill, while behind it were the remains of an incline to the Upper Quarry, and around it the original hillside peeped out from the all-burying waste. Here and there buildings dating from the earliest times of the quarries perched on the rock, while the abandoned trackbed of a tramway cut through an outcrop of rock behind the mill. Now the old gap between the tip and Hollands’ Lower Mill has been filled with modern waste, and Hollands’ mill itself was put into use again. To the south of the mill lay the entrance to the Hollands’ original Lefel Fawr and in the days of Gloddfa Ganol this was also the way into the workings open to the public. . The main area of what was the Gloddfa Ganol site is to the north of the entrance, dominated by the now considerably extended structure of the old slab mill, surrounded by both the raw material ready to be converted and by finished stacks of slabs and smaller roofing produced from the waste ends. This mill is young in quarry terms, only dating back to the 1890s. Now it is a hybrid of both old and modern construction materials, having been severely damaged in a massive fire in 1989. It was the last major slate production centre on the site, apart from the crushing plant producing slate dust from the tips close to the old Bonc Siafft. Between it and the northern edge of the built up ground on which it stands were once two other more ancient mills, now demolished. Of the larger only the ends remained to give an idea of its size. The western end once contained the engine and drumhouse of the largest incline in the Ffestiniog district, having no less than six tracks and dropping

- 5 - Oakeley Slate Part One – 1. Location and Overview some 800 feet or so into Sinc Fawr, whose vast extent could only properly be appreciated from the still standing chimney stack area. It was converted into a museum and is now derelict again. The other buildings here have already been mentioned, apart from a row of quarrymen’s cottages, lived in almost to the end of the old company. Close by the cottages, at the foot of a derelict incline to the floors above was the quarry road, which in the 1980s led up to the long abandoned Upper Mills floor of the Upper Quarry. Once there were ruined mills at this level too, but these, together with the empty shells of barracks have been buried under new tips of quarried waste. Now only a strange circular building is left which may have been a private office, standing as a silent sentinel over the great enterprise. Above and beyond them the tips rise in grey blue terraces across the long ridge that leads up to the isolated granite peak of Carreg Blaenllym. Just below Carreg are two tiny reservoirs, which still supply the quarry over a century after their building. Below them is the shattered ruin of Sinc Fach now rent anew by roadway and excavation, while above them lie the last few floors of the upper quarry abandoned as long ago as 1890. Here the skyline is dominated by the poorly defined peak of Pen y Foel, the southernmost extent of the ridge of Yr Allt Fawr, the mountain whose bones are now spilled over the landscape for all to see. Here, at the top of what was once the Oakeley world, we must leave the present day and return to the past in order to see how all these workings came about .

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2. WILD WALES, 1800-1824

We have to go back to 1800 to begin our story, when the “ Blaenau Ffestiniog” were the bluffs at the head of the vale of Ffestiniog which stretches from the blaenau, now buried for the most part beneath the waste, down the valley of the Afon Dwyryd to end in the Traeth Bach which joins the flowing across the out into Cardigan Bay and the Irish Sea. Then the slate horseshoe did not exist, only the names of farmsteads, houses and hamlets scattered around the later sites. It was on the slopes of the blaenau that the slate was discovered. When exactly is uncertain, it had probably been worked on a tiny local scale for centuries before our story begins, just local men, farmers, getting slates from the outcrops to roof their own buildings and perhaps their neighbours, quarries of convenience one might call them. The slate had lain there for eons before it was worked. It was formed, geologists tell us, many hundreds of millions of years ago in the Ordovician age, when layers of mud, silt and clay from the bottom of the sea were buried and subjected to inconceivable heat and pressure. These changed the properties of the layers, forcing their constituent particles, most importantly, mica, into alignment, and giving the new rock the property of splitting along the line of the particles. Some rock was only partially changed and became shales, others suffered even greater changes and became tough and hard and acquired the property of splitting into thin strong sheets a property which we now call slaty cleavage. Legend has it that one Methusalem Jones, a quarryman at the ancient Cilgwyn slate quarry in the , many miles away to the west of Snowdon, dreamed that under the hills of Ffestiniog lay a treasure “greater than King Solomon’s mines.” He journeyed to the blaenau Ffestiniog with some of his fellow quarrymen and began working an outcrop of slate on Diffwys mountain which lay on the eastern side of the head of the Vale of Ffestiniog. They were successful in their endeavour but they were soon to be interrupted. William Turner and Samuel Holland were two speculators in mines and quarries; Holland in Ireland, forced to cease his operations there by the rebellion of that unfortunate country in 1797, Turner was from a Lake District slate getting family and may well have also been working in the Wicklow mountains. Both turned their attention to Wales, then in the process of being opened up. Turner began in a small way at Clogwyn y Fuwch quarry in the Conwy valley before he went into partnership with William Casson and his brother Thomas, fellow Lake District men from Seathwaite. Together they bought out the quarrymen working Diffwys and soon began to make significant progress, and so the quarry became known as Diffwys Casson, although the spellings of Diffwys have varied widely. Samuel Holland, meanwhile, took a more diversified approach becoming involved at one point with the slate production of Lord Penrhyn’s great quarry at Bethesda in . He formed a partnership with Michael Humble around 1800 or so, called Humble and Holland, which sold the slates from Port Penrhyn. [1] Latterly he had taken up the management of a small quarry on Cefn Du common, which worked the same slate veins as the Penrhyn, Dinorwic and Nantlle quarries, and lay to the west of Llyn Peris and the Dinorwic quarries. There were many small open quarries here and it was while Holland was on a visit to Cefn Du from his offices and home in Liverpool, that his quarry foreman, one Owen Thomas, came to him and told him that there were very good prospects of a slate quarry at Rhiwbryfdir in the Parish of Ffestiniog. Holland was probably well aware of Turner’s successful work at Diffwys and together with Owen Thomas set off for the prospective quarry site . Rhiwbryfdir was a farmstead with a considerable sheep walk on the mountainside above. This was, in 1818, a marshy bowl of land at about 1,000ft. above sea level at the head of the Vale of Ffestiniog, hemmed in to the south and west by the stony heights of the mountain Yr’Allt Fawr 2,287ft. high and which separated the Rhiwbryfdir sheepwalks from those of Cwmorthin further west; to the north by the high land of Iwerddon and the ridge leading up to Moel Dyrnogydd 1,712ft. high. This land was drained eastwards by three streams, each of which in turn joined a fourth which flowed down from Bwlch Gorddinen, the high pass at 1,263ft which separated the head waters of the Lledr valley from those of the Vale of Ffestiniog. This pass later became known as the Crimea , when a public house of that name was constructed at the top of the pass. Further to the east, towering above the pathway through the pass rose the ridge of Ffridd y Bwlch rising to Moel Farlwyd ,1889ft. which served to separate the catchment areas of the Gorddinen stream from those of the Afon Barlwyd. This latter was the major water course, draining a large tract of land, mainly bog and scrub moorland near Moel Penamnen to the south east. From the confluence of the Barlwyd and the Gorddinen, below a cliff like outcrop, called Clogwyn Mawr, the Barlwyd flowed south westwards down the edge of the cliffs of Allt Fawr or Craig Nyth y Gigfran, which gave the hamlet there its name of Tanygrisiau, below the steps , although later writers ascribed the naming to the numberless steps which climbed up the cliffs to the quarries, and to the old mountain paths beyond. Some distance beyond Tanygrisiau, the Barlwyd was joined by two similar streams flowing from the opposite direction. These were the Afon Ystradau which drained a boggy area below the eastern slopes of the Moelwyn mountains and the Afon Cwmorthin which plunged down from the hanging valley of the same name on the Moelwyns north eastern flank. The new stream formed by the confluence then turned eastwards to plunge over the Cymerau falls and changed its name to the Afon Goedol before a further eastward journey after which it joined the Afon Bowydd whose source lay further east than that of the Barlwyd, draining the northern slopes of . The new river became the Dwyryd, the principal river of the Vale of Ffestiniog, which flowed out into Cardigan Bay via the Traeth Bach and Traeth Mawr estuaries. Rhiwbryfdir itself lay a little downstream of the confluence of the Barlwyd and the Gorddinen, at about 700ft above sea level. It is believed that the quarry prospects lay above in the area bounded by the subsidiary streams that flowed down from Allt Fawr. Samuel Holland’s son, also called Samuel, writing many years later said that when his father arrived he found a few men in a small hole, getting slates. This was presumably an outcrop working on what eventually was to become known - 7 - Oakeley Slate Part One - 2. Wild Wales 1800-1824 as the Old Vein, Hen Lygad in Welsh, although the strict translation would be old eye. Assuming this, the location of the “hole” was probably between the two northernmost streams opposite the hamlet of Tal y Waenydd. In passing it should be noted that direct translation into English of the terms used in the quarry, is not always possible and the traditional English versions of quarry words will be used, although these may not agree with strict local Welsh usage. Samuel and his foreman, Owen Thomas, took a liking to the rock and so Samuel sought out the landowners, the Oakeley family, whose residence was , a large mansion, overlooking the Vale of Ffestiniog from its western bank just below , the lowest bridging point over the Dwyryd. The Tan y Bwlch estate can be traced back to the early years of the sixteenth century to one Iorwerth ap Adda, whose descendants were the Evans family, the estate passing to the Gruffydd family of Bachysaint. [2] The Plas itself was rebuilt from 1748 onwards by Robert Gryffydd , Gruffydd or Griffith - the spellings have changed with cyclical variations in acceptable Welsh and also who was writing them down. He was High Sheriff of Meirionydd from 1742 to 1743. His marriage to Ann Anwyl brought the Meyrick and Berth-Lwyd estates within the orbit of Tan y Bwlch. Robert died in 1750 and was succeeded by his son Evan, who was also High Sheriff of Meirionydd from 1770 to 1771. The last of this line was Evan Gruffydd’s daughter, Margaret, who married one William Oakeley. William Oakeley was the eldest son of the Reverend William Oakeley, the Rector of Forton, in Staffordshire and Vicar of Holy Cross, Shrewsbury, and whose line could be traced back in Stafford history almost as far as the Tan y Bwlch Estate. William restored the house, which had fallen into disrepair, and constructed embankments in the valley below to constrain the river, for which work he won a medal from the Society of Arts and Agriculture. He was the spirit behind a road from Tan y Bwlch to Aberglaslyn via Rhyd to replace the old Roman road via . As a result of these enterprises he became known as Oakeley Fawr. He died in 1811 and was succeeded by his son, William Gruffydd Oakeley, who had been born in 1790. William Gruffydd was aware of the slate on his estate and in November 1812 sent a petition to the Board of Commissioners of Forests and Woods for a lease of certain commons in the Parishes of Ffestiniog and . At this time the common lands above the enclosures of the estates were deemed to belong to the Crown, but this was later to be disputed, as we shall see. At this distance in time it is difficult to say exactly which areas William Gruffydd was concerned about or, indeed, what his intentions were, he does not seem to have taken them any further, and there were others willing to take an interest in the slate at Rhiwbryfdir. Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog, the history of the Parish of Ffestiniog, written many years afterwards, gives the names of some of those involved in trials for slate and other minerals apart from Oakeley himself. [3] The first was David Jones in about 1812 who was succeeded within two years by Hugh Williams, of , who was connected with the Dylife Lead Mines and the quarry in Corris. He worked in conjunction with Richard Griffiths of Plasyndre, later the first manager of and R.W. Solomon in digging a “pit” and driving a “level”. By 1816 one Richard Thomas of Penmachno was at work, to be followed rapidly by Richard Evans, Oakeley’s steward or agent, presumably in 1818. The dates come from traditional sources, and it may be that the trials actually began some years prior to 1812. Most of these trials were on Rhiwbryfdir land itself, although the first appears to have been on Tal y Waenydd land, possibly on the site of the later Llechwedd quarry. Again, there was subsequent dispute as to who had actually discovered the slate at Rhiwbryfdir, two old men each claiming the credit, but no-one could ever prove which, and it probably mattered little, except to the old men! Of Richard Evans, it is said he was a bachelor, and after Thomas left, Evans said that he would spend £3 out of his own pocket before he would leave his master’s works - by which he meant Oakeley’s - standing idle. [4] From this list alone it can be seen that Holland was by no means the first to try and exploit the site and that the existence of the slate was known for a number of years before he came to try it. Rhiwbryfdir farm itself and nearbye Tal y Waenydd were leased from Oakeley, for £70, by one Richard Morriss, whom a later Methodist minister described as “the first religious man in the area” - he meant of the Methodist persuasion, of course. He used to go to Dolwyddelan to the meetings and somewhere in the rocks he had a place where he used to go to pray which became known as “pulpud Richard Morriss” [5] William Gruffydd had not been idle while this was going on; he had become High Sheriff of Meirionydd in 1814 and of Caernarfonshire in 1815. He had a stone quarry at Coed Gelli Grin, just west of the 8 mile post on the Maentwrog- road, which provided the stone to construct numerous estate buildings and re-front the Tan y Bwlch Inn, later known as the Oakeley Arms , as well as parts of the village of Maentwrog. In passing, the existence of the actual Oakeley “Arms” as such came about as a result of the activities of Charles Oakeley, Oakeley Fawr’s younger brother, who had been created a Baronet in 1790 as a consequence of his services to the Crown in India. Charles’ motto was “Non Timeo, sed Caveo” – “Not Timid but Careful” and his arms and crest , to be seen in the Plas and, more publicly, as the Inn sign, are described as “Arg. on a fesse between three crescents gu., as many fleurs-de- lis or.” The crest being, “A dexter arm embowed in armour ppr. charged with two fleurs-de-lis or, each in a crescent gu., in the hand a scimitar also ppr., pommel and hilt gold.” Charles himself does not enter our story, but some of his six sons and daughter came to play an important part in it, for although William Gruffydd married Louisa Jane Ness of Bath, their marriage was not blessed with any children. [6] Most of our knowledge of this period comes from Samuel Holland Junior’s many memoirs, supplemented by other contemporary sources, mostly written many years after the events described here, which form the only consecutive account of the happenings. In 1818, then, Samuel Holland sought out William Gruffydd Oakeley at Plas Tan y Bwlch and after a short negotiation obtained a “take note” for three years. This was a form of permission to make trials for a quarry and contained an - 8 - Oakeley Slate Part One - 2. Wild Wales 1800-1824 option of a 21 year lease back dated to 1818, should the quarry prove worthwhile. Holland was to pay £120 for the first year and £150 a year for each year afterwards, in addition there was to be a royalty of 1/10th. of the value of any slates produced. Up to this time, the rent as sheep pasture had only been £95 per year whereas by 1877, the royalties were at least £14,000 per year ! [7] Samuel arranged to employ a foreman, one Richard Jones of , near Nantlle, who was said to understand quarrying. He also sent one of his own men from Liverpool, Peter Whitehead, to be clerk and as Samuel Junior wrote in his memoirs, he had to “look after all, pay the men etc. and to report to him how all progressed and the prospects of a quarry.” [8] Unfortunately, Mr. Whitehead does not come out of the story very well, he was staying at the Grapes Hotel in Maentwrog, and as time went on Samuel Holland occasionally went over to Wales to see how matters were progressing. He eventually became satisfied that the prospects for a quarry at Rhiwbryfdir were good, but as his son later put it, he “was not satisfied with Whitehead’s conduct.” Sadly for poor Peter Whitehead, he was isolated and alone in a sea of almost entirely Welsh speaking people, separated even from the habitués of the Pengwern Arms at , Mr. Baines, Captain Jones and Colonel Williams, landowners on the eastern side of the Dwyryd. He seems to have allowed the place to pray on his mind and had taken to the bottle, for he was reputed to have been getting drunk every evening. Holland arrived on one of his regular visits in March 1821, and apparently found the unfortunate Whitehead the worse for wear. The quarry, on the other hand, was progressing well despite him, and Holland decided on two major changes, the first was to take up his option and convert his take note into a lease, especially as William Gruffydd was expected in the neighbourhood shortly. The lease was to be dated the 25th. March 1821 and backdated to take effect from 1818, in which W.G. Oakeley leased to him the lands of Rhiwbryfdir, and Tal y Waenydd for 21 years. Secondly, realizing that a more reliable and permanent manager was needed, he sent a message to his Liverpool Office, requesting his son to leave for Ffestiniog. He was told to take the packet boat from Liverpool to Bagillt then walk to St. Asaph, staying there the night and then walk on to and from there to Ffestiniog “over the Mountain past Dolwyddelan.” Sam left Liverpool the next day, having told his mother and acquired a carpet bag but the packet was delayed by the tide and only by catching a coach to Holywell, where he got a cup of tea, and walking did he eventually reach St. Asaph about half past midnight. Despite the late hour he managed to wake up the hotel and got a room for the night. Sam arrived at Llanrwst late the following afternoon and was told that there was no road past Dolwyddelan, only a footpath. He was advised to go via Penmachno and then over a cart road to Ffestiniog. Sam was tired and engaged a “young” man to carry his bag and show him the way to Penmachno which he reached that evening. He stayed the night at the Public House in the village, but got little sleep and left early due to rats ! On the road that climbed up past a slate quarry, he came across a man breaking stones on the road who confirmed he was on the right track. Shortly afterwards he was overtaken by another man on a pony who later turned out to be the Ffestiniog baker. He kindly loaned Sam his pony to ride as Sam looked so tired, and walked beside him all the way to Ffestiniog. This was on the 25th. March 1821. The village is better known now as Llan Ffestiniog, to distinguish it from its younger and larger sister, Blaenau Ffestiniog. Sam was shown to the Pengwern Arms Hotel, in the middle of the village, where the landlady had been expecting him. She gave him something to eat and then showed him the road to the quarry, having told him that his father had gone up to it and that he was to follow him. A couple of miles up the road he met a pair of men unloading slates from their carts at a cross-roads. He discovered they were from his father’s quarry and were returning there for some more slates, so he obtained a lift with them up to Rhiwbryfdir. At the quarry he found his father had been expecting him the previous evening. He showed his son about the quarry, which “was then only a small hole and only a few men at work. ” The elder Samuel explained that he wanted Sam to stay in Wales to look after the quarry as he was unhappy about Whitehead. Sam Junior was introduced to the foreman, Richard Jones, and then the Hollands returned to Ffestiniog for what must have been to the younger man a very welcome meal indeed. [9] During that evening Samuel Holland explained to his son what he was to do: “ to learn the art of quarrying, look after the men etc.- and added that if I could get lodgings in some decent House, it would be better than staying at the Hotel.” Clearly Holland did not want his son following in Whitehead’s footsteps. [10] He introduced Sam to the regulars of the Pengwern Arms Hotel, and also to his landlord, W.G. Oakeley, who had apparently arrived at Tan y Bwlch that very day from Reading, bringing with him yet another William Oakeley, Charles Oakeley’s fifth son, to show him the estate, “his entrance,” Sam called it in his memoirs. Sam Junior no doubt saw the signing of the lease, which was to become so important to him in the future and had met two members of the family with which his prosperity was entwined. After breakfast the following morning Samuel Senior rode off back to Liverpool, leaving Sam on his own. He was just 18 years old. Samuel’s first home was at Pen Mount, Llan Ffestiniog, where he lodged with one Mrs. Griffiths, a clergyman’s widow, and her servant for 12/- a week. This included four meals a day and all his washing and mending. Sam, however, seldom had more than two meals in the day, sometimes taking a little bread and cheese with him. He found the route to the quarry along the cart road from Ffestiniog too long and roundabout and so made his own way directly from Pen Mount. The slates from the quarry were carried by one-horse carts, pony-carts really, to a wharf at Pen Trwyn y Garnedd, a mile or so downstream of the Maentwrog bridge below Tan y Bwlch, so Sam’s daily round consisted of walking up from Pen Mount to the quarry, down to the wharf and then back up from there to Pen Mount; a round trip of about twelve and a half miles.

- 9 - Oakeley Slate Part One - 2. Wild Wales 1800-1824

Sam apparently did this for some little time until he got the feel of the place; in the meantime, “Whitehead I saw very little of use, and heard such sad accounts of him that I wrote and told my father so he recalled him to Liverpool and discharged him.” [11] Next to the wharf was an old Turnpike Cottage, no longer used. Sam rented it from W.G. Oakeley and improved it, adding a small stable and other amenities and moved in towards the end of 1822, much to the sadness of his old landlady who soon after left Pen Mount and went to the Almshouses at Corwen. Sam was visited there in 1823 or there abouts by some of his relatives, one of whom, Lucy, described the Vale of Maentwrog thus: “ seems the abode of innocence and peace, but Sam says the inhabitants are rogues, or topers, or cheats, or swindlers, or sportsmen, or runaways, or debtors &c.&c.” They also found Tan y Bwlch disappointing, the grounds “ in rack and ruin & everything going to waste ” William Gruffydd left Tan y Bwlch, on a semi-permanent basis, in 1823, or thereabouts for Reading, where he had property, which may explain the “rack and ruin” just mentioned. He left the estate in the hands of his agent until 1827, when Charles’ son, William Oakeley, came to live in Maentwrog with his newly wed bride. They occupied The Lodge at Maentwrog, one of the buildings constructed by W.G. Oakeley and previously the residence of James Spooner, the famous engineer, himself later to become the Oakeley’s agent. They had the Lodge enlarged, and renamed it Glan William . Even later it became the Maentwrog Rectory and after some years of disrepair, became The Old Rectory , a restaurant and hotel. Richard Morriss left Rhiwbryfdir farm in 1823, moving to Glan y Pwll, just to the south, and leased Llwyn y Gell farm. On the 24th. March 1823 Sam appointed one Amos Jones as Farm Manager, and before the end of the year Rhiwbryfdir House, the old farmhouse, had been rebuilt for him. Originally the slate was loaded from quays along the river into small boats manned by a hardy independent group of men known as “Philistines”, possibly because of their hirsute appearance or perhaps because of their behaviour. These boats carried the slates down the out beside the Traeth Bach and then across the wide expanse of the Glaslyn estuary, to the semi-sheltered north shore where ships could anchor in the lee of Ynys Cyngar, Ynys y and Y Garreg Wen. There the slates were transferred from the Philistines’ boats to the sea going ships. However, this was changed during Holland’s time at Rhiwbryfdir, for in 1798 one William Alexander Madocks had bought the Tan yr Allt Estate on the west shore of the Glaslyn. He had ambitious ideas, and became M.P. for Boston and then in 1800, he caused to be constructed an embankment which reclaimed part of the Glaslyn estuary. On this land he planned and subsequently had built the model town of Tre - “Madocks’ Town”. This was but an overture, for in 1807 he obtained an act which gave him powers to construct an embankment across the Traeth Mawr from Ynys y Tywyn on the north west bank to the headland below Penrhyn Isaf farm on the south east bank, and vested in him the Traeth Mawr sands, as well as giving him powers to improve the “harbour” at Ynys Cyngar. Work began in 1808 and was completed in 1811, although a storm breached the “Cob”, as it became known, in 1812, which took until 1814 to seal, partly due to Madocks’ straightened circumstances. A set of sluice gates were installed at the western end of the embankment, between Ynys y Tywyn and the mainland, and the considerable waters of the Glaslyn, constrained to flow out through the sluices soon scoured out a deep channel. Madocks took notice of this and, realizing the superiority of the channel for a harbour compared to the more exposed Ynys Cyngar, obtained an act of Parliament in 1821 to construct a harbour along the channel, to be called Port Madoc. This is now known as , and is ascribed as the place from which the legendary Prince Madoc sailed into the west to discover America before Columbus, although it is very unlikely that this was the inspiration for Madocks’ naming of it. The first quay was rented by Samuel Holland on October 21st. 1824, and the use of quay wharves for storage and transhipment replaced the hazardous open water transfer, although the Philistines still sailed the Dwyryd, now bringing their loads to Port Madoc. (Portmadoc being the name in use during the time period of this book will be used throughout) These early years were both full of promise and frustration for Sam. The slate was carried by pack animal and cart down rough roads to the wharf, where it was trans-shipped to the Philistines boats, which could only work effectively on the high spring tides. Dissatisfied with these river boats, the Hollands had their own ships built in Liverpool: three sloops to carry twenty tons, one appropriately named the Experiment , which could reach Pen Trwyn y Garnedd wharf without transhipping at Port Madoc. The other two were named the Bella and the Pelican . Indeed, so useful were they, claimed Samuel in his memoirs, that they “introduced the first wheaten flour imported into the neighbourhood”. [12] Samuel also set about improving the land part of the journey for the carts from the quarry to the wharf. The quarries in the Vale of Ffestiniog were very poorly off for transport compared to their neighbours and great rivals in Caernarfonshire. The Penrhyn Tramway had been at work since 1801, carrying slates from Lord Penrhyn’s quarry to Port Penrhyn, and similar projects were under way at Dinorwic and in the Nantlle valley, although all three quarries had been served by roads long before. The Ffestiniog quarry roads were little more than cart tracks and were frequently in poor condition from the loads put upon them by the quarries. Breakages happened frequently and it is hardly surprising that the multi-fold journey, in the case of the quarries up in the hills, of pack-mule, cart, small river boat and finally sailing boat to its destination added more to the cost of the slates than the methods of production. Sam planned a new improved route from the Rhiwbryfdir quarry through Congl y Wal to the riverside wharves but ran into the formidable opposition of the Casson brothers, whose land it would have crossed. Nothing daunted, the young man took them on and eventually obtained the County’s approval, but by then his quarry had been sold as described in the next chapter and the victory was a somewhat hollow one. Typically, Sam combined the task of learning Welsh with that of keeping his new home in order by employing local help. Unfortunately his first servant was “as desirous of learning English as I was of learning Welsh so we did not get on very well together.” He had more success with Mary Wynne, who gave up being waitress at the Tan y Bwlch Inn, to work for him. - 10 - Oakeley Slate Part One - 2. Wild Wales 1800-1824

His comment on her gives, perhaps, an insight into his character: “ ...and remained with me ....for nearly fifty years...and never asked for an advance of wages.” [13] To make her task lighter (?) Sam added another room to the cottage and improved the back kitchen. Well might Sam comment on wages, his relations with his workforce at the quarry were proving somewhat difficult to say the least. As has already been mentioned, initially quarrying in the district had been and still was to a certain extent, a private venture, each group of men having their own favourite spot or site. No doubt the men at Rhiwbryfdir may have continued to feel this way, even after the site was leased by the elder Samuel. They may even have felt that they, not the Hollands, were in some way entitled to the slate and only “sold” their slates to the Hollands as middlemen. Certainly if this was the case, it would explain some of the initial trouble with the men, apart from Sam’s possible lack of experience in handling men. They were prone for many years to cease work and go fox- hunting, should the animal appear. Fair days and markets also had their attractions in an area that was basically rural in character and where industry was very much a new and part time occupation when there were crops to be brought in and animals to be herded. Most vexing to Sam was the “saucy” nature of the men, two of whom refused to leave the site when dismissed. This may be understandable if they felt that the slate was in some way “theirs” and not Holland’s. Indeed, this seems to have been the way in which other quarries in the district worked. Sam also had trouble with the Philistines and on one occasion they went on strike for higher pay but he held out against them and they returned to work. These items are to be found in the only detailed record we have of this early period, young Samuel’s diary for 1823-4. It also reveals that he was assiduous in his work. During 1823 he visited the quarry 81 times, spending most of the rest of his waking hours supervising the loading of river boats at the wharf and of ships at Port Madoc. He was also running his father’s copper mine at Bronygadair on the Tremadoc - road, the Rhiwbryfdir farm which was leased along with the quarry, and the Ffridd y Bwlch farm, high on the Gorddinen pass. [14] Unfortunately, little detail emerges about the quarry workings. They were in at least two parts, the sinc and the B Quarry, and the work was let out in the usual manner in bargains , where one man contracted or bargained to work a particular area of rock for the owner on behalf of several others. The bargain involved agreeing how much would be paid for slates produced during the bargain period and how much would be produced. The bargain leader was responsible for paying out the money thus obtained to the others. This system, with variations, was to remain in use until late in the 20 th century. In eighteen months there were three unspecified accidents, one victim being given £15 from the “Club”, the others receiving not inconsiderable medical attention for the time. In 1824 Holland determined the siting of some machinery to be provided by John Edwards of Llanllyfni, an engineer who was to design the first ill-fated inclines to Hollands’ quarry described in a later chapter; but what the machinery was, whether for pumping or lifting, is not stated . Sam’s diary records a number of visits by one W. Griffith who had been making gravestones for Worthington at Felin Fawr, near the Penrhyn Quarry and who showed Sam a model of something. In view of general developments, Michael Lewis is of the opinion that that the machinery may have been, in fact, a slate saw. The previous year, too, there was an innovation in the form of “gauges”, notched rods used to ensure that the slates were cut to standard sizes, this led to a dispute with the men. As a result, a fine of 2/6d was imposed for making undersized slates: a sum often greater than a day’s pay. Under Holland, the foremen or stewards changed rapidly. The original Richard Jones of Llwynygell was soon replaced by John Edwards of Bwlchiocyn, who was himself dismissed in 1823. He was followed by William Rowlands, an admirable quarryman who, as an ex-soldier, was fluent in French and English; but he left for Diffwys a year later and was replaced by John Davies.

- 11 -

3. A LAND DISPUTE, 1820-1825

As has already been mentioned, the land between the various estates was held by the Crown and was the responsibility of the Board of Commissioners of Woods and Forests. This became of importance in the 1820s In September 1820, one John Wilkin was appointed Receiver of Crown Rents and Revenues for North Wales and Chester. [1] He found the situation of rents in chaos and spent large sums of his own money in setting things right and making the office pay. He gave evidence to a select Committee on Management of Woods and Forests in June 1834; he was asked if there was not a great difficulty in identifying property in Wales upon which Crown rents were charged. He replied, “Yes I apprehend not only in Wales but throughout England,” and continued, “It is the practice of the landed proprietors to turn the waste into what they call private sheep-walks: that is each man directing his farmer to graze his sheep upon so much of the waste lands as are contiguous to the respective farms. They take it one on one side and one on the other, so that the whole waste is taken up.” [2] Of course the presence of minerals in Wales was not unknown to the Crown. From 1813 to 1823 a Thomas Williams was Crown Mine Agent in , Caernarfonshire and Merioneth, his place being taken in 1824 by one Lewis Williams, who was in post at the time of the dispute detailed below. In September 1823 James King of the Office the Board of Woods and Forests wrote to John Wilkin, giving permission for an accurate survey of encroachments on Crown Wastes in Merioneth and suggested a John Jones to do it. December 1824 brought the following letter to the Board from Nathan Meyer Rothschild, a great banker, the first baron of an Austrian title, which he did not use, and Thomas Hamlet, a prodigiously wealthy jeweller. “Gentlemen, As objects for the promotion of National Industry are now in almost every County the subject of attention, it has struck us that some great improvements might be made in the different counties of Wales, particularly where Mines and Quarries belonging to the Crown are to be found, and we are persuaded that Government has reaped very little advantage from this description of property since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Having mentioned this circumstance to some wealthy and highly respectable friends, we beg leave to state that we in conjunction with them are desirous of working the Mines and Quarries situated in Wales, which we presume to say will be of great benefit, not only to the Revenue, but also to the poor inhabitants of that part of the Principality, by the introduction of skilful Miners and other experienced persons. Should you be pleased to entertain our proposal, we are desirous of obtaining a lease for 31 years of all the Wastes, Rocks and all other Manorial Rights under the Crown Manors in the different Counties in Wales, not now under Grant, for which we will pay an annual Rent of Five pounds and allow a Royalty on the produce of one tenth of the lead, and one twelfth of other Minerals. On enquiry of the persons renting Mines in , we find that the Royalty paid does not exceed on an average one 20th., and in no case is it more than one 15th. part; as besides some of the Counties in Wales are at a great distance from Water Carriage, and the Land Carriage, from the badness of the Roads, not only very difficult but expensive, we hope that our proposal will be considered reasonable.” [3] The Board wrote to the Treasury saying that they felt that the mines would probably never be worked to great advantage when lessees had no capital and only their own labour and recommended that Rothschild’s and Hamlet’s offer be accepted. The Treasury requested the Board to enquire further into the offer. [4] The Board decided to ask them for more details of their plan for working the mines and quarries and also decided to send them a list of leases already granted, together with those applied for. This affected Samuel, for on the 18th. December 1824, he wrote to the Board applying for a lease of land above his existing quarry where he had already begun another quarry under the misapprehension that the land was part of the estate he had leased from W.G. Oakeley. [5] This letter seems to have been virtually ignored until the following April when Wilkin complained about Holland having commenced working “a valuable slate quarry belonging to the Crown, without any regular authority.” Holland, however, had also written again, referring to his previous application and requesting the board’s decision. Holland’s letter was referred to the Mine Agent and the Board wrote directly to Holland, telling him to discontinue working the quarry until his application was decided. The site in question was that of the Upper Quarry to be described later. Wilkin did not think Holland’s application should be granted and in his report to the Board on the 18th. May 1825 said that “The Slate Quarries were contained in a tract of unenclosed land, that the general opinion was that the ground held the most valuable slate in the county, that Hollands’ existing lease from W.G. Oakeley contained a greater extent of ground that he could possibly work during his lease.” [6] The Board, however, pointed out to Wilkin that no access could be gained to the Crown Quarries except through the Holland leased land, and that therefore he ought to reconsider whether some agreement with Holland might be advisable. In the meantime Rothschild and Hamlet wrote to the Board again, explaining their project of forming a company for working the Crown’s mineral property in Wales and requesting authority to make trials for minerals in any of the lands not already leased to see if they were worth working. The Board requested authorisation from the Treasury to grant such a license. Later after being asked for further details the entrepreneurs said that it was their intention to form a mining company, provided there was sufficient ground for it. However they felt unable to give any details of the possible expenditure etc. until they had the results of trials to go on. Finally on the 24th. January 1825, the Treasury wrote to the Board authorizing them to proceed with Rothschild and Hamlet. They said that the Board were to “Acquaint them that they are at liberty to proceed to make trials and to search for minerals until Michaelmas next, in any of the Commons Wastes or other Lands in which the Minerals are the property of the Crown, within the , and which are not now in lease or under engagement to be leased, on their communicating to the Board, from time to time, the places where they propose to make the trials, and subject to the payment to the Crown of 1/10th. part of the value of the lead and 1/12th. of that of all other minerals to be raised within the period above - 12 - Oakeley Slate - 3. A Land Dispute 1820-1825 mentioned. And giving them the option of taking leases of the said lands for a term of 31 years, at the yearly rent of five pounds, and subject to the payment of the like royalties on the Minerals raised.” The Shrewsbury Chronicle reported on the 28th. January: “Mr. N.M. Rothschild has contracted with the British Government for the Welsh Mines, as well as for certain grounds in South Wales, believed to possess ore, where new mines will be commenced; the contract also includes Sir Hugh Middleton’s Mines which have not been worked for a great number of years. The Mines contain copper, lead and tin; and by accounts lately received, there is little doubt of their being productive, and ultimately yielding a considerable revenue.” [7] By the beginning of May, things became more certain as Rothschild and Hamlet wrote to the Board “stating their intention to apply for a Charter for the Incorporation of a Company of Adventurers, with an adequate Capital, for working the Crown Mines and Quarries in Wales, and requesting the Board’s assistance in such application; and further requesting authority to search for minerals in several specified places in the Counties of Cardigan, and Merioneth, and that the Crown Agents be instructed to aid the parties employed in making such searches.” The Board promptly acquiesced, writing to the Mine Agents and the Receiver General telling them to afford every facility to the new company. The new Company of Adventurers took the name of the Royal Cambrian Company , and Richard Smith was appointed their agent in Wales, with Joseph Tyson his assistant. They soon ran into trouble, in early June notices were served on behalf of Lord Newborough on Smith prohibiting him from working certain lands on the grounds that they were anciently enclosed. [8] Holland wrote to the Board again on the 17th of June 1825 requesting an early decision on his application. This was referred to the mine agent, Williams, who was asked if the Board should comply and if so how much ground should be included. Wilkin once again intervened on the 24th. June 1825, “submitting a sketch of the lands in question, and stating that in the preceding week he had surveyed the same, in concert with Mr. Smith the Agent of Rothschild and Hamlet, who had discovered the vein of slate, which he thinks capable of yielding to the Crown a revenue of £2500 for many years if the works be prosecuted on the scale proposed to these gentlemen, but that if placed in the hands of persons having only small capitals, like the applicant, no such result can be expected; and further stating that it is not at all necessary to form a Road to these Quarries over any part of the lands which Mr. Holland rents from Mr. Oakeley.” Smith’s efforts, however, had not gone un-noticed. Wilkin was soon busy writing to the Board, for the workmen Smith had engaged to search for minerals were served notices by Holland and by Mr. Caldecott (for the Welsh Slate, Copper and Lead Mining Company which had by this time bought the quarry, see the following chapter ), and the following day by W.G. Oakeley and W. Griffith as tenant of Lord Gwydyr, who between them claimed the land above Rhiwbryfdir and above Iwerddon, an area known as Bwlch y Moch. A map prepared by James Spooner, and from which the later 1839 Lease map was prepared, shows the site of Smith’s trial to be close by the later Iwerddon reservoir. Wilkin was greatly concerned that if these various claims were not vigorously resisted, the Crown would sustain a great loss. He felt there would be little difficulty in proving the Crown’s right to the minerals. The Board resolved to write to the various parties, informing them of the authority that had been given to Rothschild, Hamlet and co. and stating that if the various parties intended to deny the right of the Crown to authorise the company, then the Board would direct their solicitor to communicate with the parties’ solicitors “to the end that any question which may be raised thereon may be put into a course of legal trial and determination.” [9] The Board gave copies of everything to their solicitor anyway and asked for his opinion of the best way of bringing the whole issue to a head. On the 27th. July 1825 H.R. Williams, Oakeley’s solicitor wrote to the Board stating that Oakeley denied the Crown right to search on any part of his estate and was commencing action against Tyson and the others. Matters then fell into abeyance for a while; further notices were served on Smith in other areas and were referred to the Board. However, someone must have been digging into old matters, for it would appear that Oakeley’s 1812 application for a lease of Crown Land turned up in January 1826, or alternatively he made a new application, which seems unlikely. On the other hand he may have been deliberately goading Wilkin into action before he was ready. The Board promptly wrote to their solicitor and to Wilkin apprising them of the news. Wilkin was soon in action, “ recommending that Messrs Rothschild and Hamlet’s Agent be authorised to open the Quarries of Slate in Rhiewryfder (sic) Common, Festiniog, immediately adjacent to the fence of the old inclosures there belonging to Mr. Gryffydd Oakeley, so that his claim thereto may be brought to an issue.” [10] The Board referred this to their solicitor. Meanwhile, clearly recognizing the danger of his original petition, which might be taken as an admission that the lands in question were, in fact Crown Lands, Oakeley withdrew it, and then proceeded with his case against Tyson, Smith & co. [11] This was heard in the Court of Great Session for in the Summer Session 1825 and passed for trial at Bala Spring Session 1826. But, as the Shrewsbury Chronicle put it, “...the defendants, or their employers, apprehending that they could not have a fair and impartial trial before a jury of the county of Merioneth, caused an application to be made by His Majesty’s Attorney-General,”…., “and a rule was obtained that Mr. Oakeley should show cause why the proceedings in the action brought by him against Tyson and others in the Court of Great Session for Merionethshire, should not be removed into the Court of Exchequer, so that the same might be tried in the county of Salop,” … Not only did they try to remove the action away from Wales, but also tried to avoid Oakeley objecting to it: “care was taken that the application was made so late in the Term that cause could not be shown against it until Easter Term following.” This did not deter Oakeley, whose legal team, one Mr. Jervis and a Mr. Richards did indeed show cause against the rule “ but the Court, notwithstanding, made the rule absolute for removing the proceedings out of the Court of Great Session into the Court of Exchequer.” [12 Clearly, apart from the “fair trial” aspect, Rothschild and Hamlet also felt that the higher costs of a trial at Shrewsbury would put off W.G. Oakeley. However, they were delayed in transferring proceedings from one court to the other and so Oakeley through his solicitor caused the transfer to be completed before his opponents were ready and notice for trial was given for the next Shrewsbury Assizes. Rothschild and Hamlet withdrew their case, Wilkin later offering the feeble excuse that it - 13 - Oakeley Slate - 3. A Land Dispute 1820-1825

“had been abandoned on the advice of the Solicitor General, the lands in question being anciently enclosed.” Consequently W.G. Oakeley was given judgement against them and costs together with nominal damages. Sam Holland, in his diary, described how he gave evidence for Oakeley at a counter case heard at Dolgellau, although the circumstances are unclear, and was, he said, “cheered out of court.” Little more was heard of Rothschild and Hamlet, they found workable slate on the saddle between and and opened a quarry there, but with the collapse of their case nothing more was heard of the Royal Cambrian Co., the Moelwyn venture being finally abandoned in 1827.

- 14 -

4. THE WELSH SLATE COPPER & LEAD MINING COMPANY, 1825-1826

1825 was a very busy year for the Hollands. There was formed in London “ a company of gentlemen, who were desirous of some promising ground where from £2,000 to £50,000 might be laid out to profit.” This was the Welsh Slate, Copper and Lead Mining Company and had a number of shady connections as will be seen. [1] Sam Holland Junior soon became involved, later writing , “One day as I happened to be at home, two gentlemen called mounted on ponies,” . These were Colonel Williams, of the Pengwern Arms and one George Homfray, a friend of the Colonel’s and a relative of the South Wales Ironmasters of the same name. They were going to look at the Pant y Wrach copper mine near Llanfrothen and asked Holland to go with them and show them the way. This he did. [2] The mines at Pant y Wrach did not look favourable to the men and so Holland, ever the business man, mentioned one of his father’s properties: the Bronygadair mine on the Tremadoc-Criccieth road. They visited it the next day and as Homfray expressed some interest in it, Holland suggested £1,500 as a price, subject to his father’s approval. Homfray agreed to take it “provided the Company went into Lead and Copper.” [3] During lunch at Tremadoc, Homfray brought up the subject of the Rhiwbryfdir quarry and it was agreed to look over it in the company of Homfray’s associates who were busy looking at a quarry in the Nantlle valley. Sam was unable to get any reply or comment from his father in the two days between meetings and so rode up to Tan y Bwlch to meet some of the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. Committee. These consisted of Homfray, a Mr. J Gray, Mr. W.L. Caldecott, S.B.M. Barrett, M.P., P. Moore M.P. and John Wilks, of Wilks and Verbeke, solicitors. Of these, Caldecott had been W.A. Madocks’ pig boy and had worked his way up through Tremadoc society to the dizzy heights of the Mining Co. Committee. Although his past had not been blameless, by his honesty he helped the fledgling company through its earliest difficulties. Peter Moore was an interesting character, having spent time in India as a writer, where he married and returned to England with a substantial fortune, entering politics and Parliament as MP for Coventry in 1803. He had supported various improvement in London where he wasa busy promoter and skilful manager of private bills, much in demand by projectors of many companies. He had a very active political life, but sadly this was blighted by his fascination for speculative ventures including “ The Welch Coal and Iron Mining Company,” “The Cornwall and Devonshire Mining Company,” “The Medway Lime and Coke Company,” “The Norfolk Suffolk and Essex Railroad Company,” and, of course the “Welsh Slate Copper and Lead Mining Company.” All had a suspiciously similar list of Directors and the dubious services of Wilks and Verbeke, solicitors, who were both associated with a number of equally suspicious companies. Wilks in particular acquired the nickname “Bubble” Wilks as a result. Moore was said to be the last wearer of the pigtail in society and could be an abrasive character. Despite this he was also a promoter of worthy causes and a defender of popular liberties – he had paid for the poet Sheridan’s funeral when that worthy died in poverty. He is also known as the guardian of William Makepeace Thackeray, the famous novelist.[14] After luncheon, the group rode up to see the quarry, Wilks and Moore in a chaise, but with the late time of day and the bad roads the men were finishing work as they arrived and the chaise never even got up to the ‘banks’. Holland’s opinion of them is made clear in his memoirs, “They...looked at the quarry but did not go into it and never under stood it or knew anything about it.” [4] This was a fault of the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.’s committee that was to last for very many years and was in the end to prove its undoing. The party returned to Tan y Bwlch for dinner. They asked Sam his price for the quarry and were told £50,000. The group said this was too much, but Sam felt unable to reduce the price any further without the agreement of his father. No more was said, but Sam wrote a full account of all that had passed and despatched it to his father. Before a reply could be obtained, Sam received a letter from Homfray asking him and his father to meet him and Mr. Verbeke, the Company’s solicitor at Homfray’s house near Ruabon. Sam agreed and wrote to his father accordingly. On the way to the place Sam met up with his father and together they rode to the house discussing the matter as they went. At this time Lord Eldon introduced a bill in Parliament to control the activities of company speculators and profiteers by laying down that a company had to provide its own funds for work it was authorized to carry out, and this apparently had some effect on the W.S.C.& L.M.Co., who said it was “ rather doubtful if they could float their company ” [5] suggesting that their original motives were not all perfectly above board. Whether the elder Samuel actually met the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. is open to doubt, as is mentioned in the following chapter. W.A. Madocks at first watched with pleasure the increased attention to the slate industry, which would have to use the new port facilities he was providing at Port Madoc. However, he soon became unsure of the bona-fide nature of the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. and feared that the failure of such a company might frighten away others. Nothing came of the discussions at Ruabon, the company still feeling that the Hollands’ price was too high and so it was arranged for the negotiations to continue in London between Swinton Holland, Sam’s uncle who was a partner in Baring’s banking house and Wilks, Verbeke and co. In the end the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. Committee decided only to buy the Holland’s slate quarry at Ffestiniog and Sam claimed in his memoirs that “they were afraid that they could not float this, though they had issued prospectuses and said that they had purchased Mr. Holland’s valuable Slate Quarry at Rhiwbryfdir.” [6] In fact the Times had printed the following announcement from Wilks and Verbeke on the 28th. March 1825 : “Welsh Copper Lead and Slate Mining Company - The applicants for shares in this Company are informed, that the same will not be issued for 14 days; that very valuable mines have already been secured; that experienced and highly respected engineers are occupied in Wales in making the further necessary surveys, and entering into different negotiations; and that when the results

- 15 - Oakeley Slate - 4. The W.S.C. & L.M.Co. 1825-1826 of these various operations is known, the shares will be appropriated, and the prospectus developing the plan and object of the Company announced: 24 March 1825, Wilks and Verbeke, 36 New Broad St.” [8] The prospectus was finally issued on May 27th. 1825 and published in the Times on the 30th. and gives an interesting picture of the originators of the company, and some hints as to their aspirations. This gave the title as the Welsh Slate, Copper, and Lead Mining Company. It gave the capital as £500,000 as 10,000 shares of £50 each. The Directors and Officers were given as follows: Chairman: S.B.M. Barrett, Esq., M.P. Deputy Chairmen: P. Moore, Esq. M.P.; Hon. W.F. Powlett, Esq., M.P. Directors: The Hon. R. Bingham; The Rt. Hon. Lord Viscount Palmerston M.P.; W.L. Caldecott, Esq.; The Rt. Hon. Earl of Donoughmore; Archibald F. Paxton, Esq.; John Gray, Esq.; George Green, Esq.; The Hon. William Grey; Phillip Perring, Esq.; A.A. Surtees, Esq.; Colonel Talbot, M.P.; William Kershaw, Esq. The Secretary was Phillip Borton, George Homfray was the Mine Superintendent, and the Solicitors were Wilks and Verbeke. The prospectus read as follows although, in view of the penultimate line, it sounds more like an introduction to a prospectus!: “It is not perhaps very generally known, that the valuable Slate Quarries and Minerals which abound in a large portion of North Wales, have been hitherto entirely neglected, or only partially worked. Indeed the mode in which mining operations are conducted in this principality, exhibits sufficient evidence of the want of skill or insufficiency of capital to work them. The appearance of a vein of slate or mineral either induces a few persons, generally small tradesmen, in the vicinity, to agree to explore it in partnership; or some individual with an incompetent capital to undertake it. For this purpose all adventures in copper and lead are divided into 16 portions or ounces, and the usual subscription to commence the working seldom exceeds £50. for each shareholder, who looks to an immediate return for the investment, and seldom consents to the profits (if any) of the works being devoted to their extension and improvement. This also, with reference to slate quarries, is the principal cause why at present, with the exception of ironworks (which it is not the intention of this company to undertake) there are in a tract of country literally abounding with the most valuable slate mineral, very few conducted on a scale promising adequate remuneration. To obtain an immediate and small profit, the capabilities of the quarries and mines are generally altogether sacrificed; and if at any future period, the shareholders in the adventure, or perhaps sole proprietors, be induced to extend operation, they often find that all the previous workings have only been detrimental to the property and a serious obstacle to its improvement. This is more particularly the case with the slate quarries. The immense demand for this article within a few years would, it might be supposed, have induced the investment of a large capital, and the employment of competent talent in the production. But the contrary is the fact; and it appears from personal inspection, and the opinion of individuals well qualified to pronounce on the subject, that within the principality of North Wales at this moment, only 2 proprietors conduct this trade on their own estates, to that advantage, of which it is so completely susceptible. Not that other situations and other opportunities are wanting - not that the slate is elsewhere of an inferior quality, or more expensive in the production; for it is found to be otherwise the case in various parts of the Principality, both as to quality of material and vicinity to a place of shipment. Yet notwithstanding these advantages, and the long period during which the trade has been steadily increasing, there are now many lying in the ports of Bangor, Caernarfon, and Tremadoc, many vessels from all parts of the kingdom, and from America, waiting for weeks to be loaded with slate, which all the exertions of the present proprietors of the quarries are insufficient to produce in quantity to supply the demand. Thus in defiance of the unprecedented prosperity of the trade, the capabilities of numerous situations for slate quarries, it is fair to conclude, are altogether unknown to the great majority of individuals resident in North Wales, and interested in this description of property; or they have been deterred by want of capital from working them with energy. These considerations have induced the proprietors of this company to pay more particular attention to that portion of its intended operations connected with slate, than they otherwise would have felt justified in doing; and they have now the satisfaction to announce to the shareholders that they have secured several valuable quarries, compactly situate in various parts of the Principality, and particularly at Festiniog, in Merionethshire. Although the main object of this company will be the working of slate quarries, yet agreements have been made for situations, and mines of copper and lead in the same vicinity, which, it is confidently anticipated, must prove eminently productive. The affairs of the company are under the management of a board of directors and 4 auditors. A deed of settlement has been prepared for the regulation of the company, which, being approved of by the directors, is the proper deed for the regulation of the company, and must be signed by every shareholder on taking out his shares, the deposit on which is 10/- a share. Prospectuses and any further information may be obtained at the company’s offices, 3, Broad Street Buildings, City. By order of the Directors, Philip Borton, Sec.” [9] Some of the statements made in the first paragraph made an interesting contrast with the subsequent history of the Welsh Slate Company (as it became) as we shall see. Sam went on to say that, in the end, “It was finally agreed that it should be £25,000 for the quarry and farm, (they taking the farm too, Cattle Sheep etc. for £3,000 more) in all £28,000 and up to a certain boundary where I was informed by my foreman and others that there was a good prospect of a Slate Quarry and a line was drawn from it down the south side of the mountain for tipping rubbish and to make and use a cart road marked out at the back of the Quarry (sold to them) to Rhiwbryfdir House. This arrangement was afterwards agreed to and settled after considerable negotiation, a threat of Law proceedings and a Bill in Chancery - and all about the quarry and that part of the farm agreed upon as well as the wharf and - 16 - Oakeley Slate - 4. The W.S.C. & L.M.Co. 1825-1826 my cottage and the warehouses on the wharf were given up to the W.S .Co.(sic) or their agent Mr .Homfray towards the end of March 1825.” [7] Here, it would seem Holland’s memory played him false, for the final transfer of the lease did not occur until the end of the year. It was, however, the 14th. June before the Secretary was able to announce that: “The Deed of Settlement, establishing this Company, will lie for signature at the Company’s offices, No.3 Broad Street Buildings, until the 21st. instant, when the deputations appointed to examine the quarries and mines will return and make their report.” [10] The deputation appears to have consisted, not of “ experienced and highly respected engineers” but the various members of the Directors mentioned by Holland! Their “report” was published in the Times on June 26 th , and read as follows: The Deputation, in the first instance, directed their attention to the consideration of the propriety of employing the capital of the company almost exclusively in the purchase of slate quarries and the working of slates. They so acted, in consequence of the various and important information received by them from several persons fully competent to advise them as to the preference which should be given to the object of working slate quarries over that of opening mines of either copper or lead. The Deputation are satisfied- First - That the trade in slates is most extensive and improving. Second - That slates are now almost universally preferred to tiles, or any other covering. Third - That the slates of North Wales are decidedly superior to any other which are produce and Fourth - That the Welsh slates procured in the neighbourhood of Festiniog, are the best in colour, quality and durability. Acting upon these data, the deputation proceeded to examine various quarries in North Wales, and are convinced, that in giving a decided preference to the quarry of Mr. Holland, over all of those inspected by them, they only do that which must be approved and supported by all who are acquainted with the subject. The quarry of Mr. Holland is situate in the parish of Festiniog, in the county of Merioneth, about 9 miles from Tremadoc, at which port slates are shipped in great quantities. These quarries have been well opened and are decidedly preferable both as to the quality of the slates and capability of being worked at less expense than any of the adjacent quarries. The quantity of slates produced, at present, does not exceed 70 tons per week. This may be doubled before the summer expires, by an additional number of men; it would be advisable to commence two additional openings, without delay, which would be in readiness for the spring; from these a further quantity , 70 tons per week may be calculated upon throughout next summer; but before the work can be carried out into any extent, some additional accommodation must be procured for the men. By the terms of Mr. Holland's lease, the landlord is bound to supply timber for all building purposes; and as stone and waste slates are upon the spot, cottages may be erected at a very moderate expense. Six have lately been erected by Mr. Holland, the expense of which did not exceed £12 each. There is, however, once circumstance connected with the quarries, which will require early consideration – viz. the want of carriers , to convey the slates to the sipping port. To remedy this defect, three different lines of railroad have been surveyed, either of which is practicable, and at an expense not exceeding £20,000; and the proprietors of the adjoining quarries will co-operate in making the necessary railway. The distance should not exceed 11 miles and a half on the longest line; when made it would effect a saving of 6s. to 7s. a ton upon the slates. The price required for Mr. Holland's quarry is £28,000, included however, in this sum is a farm and faring stock, consisting of sheep, cattle and horses etc., and also the railroad and implements connected with the quarries, and the total amount of which stock etc. is about £2,700. There is a wharf capable of holding about 600 tons of slate, with 2 warehouses, a clerk's house and 2 cottages, the rent of which is £60 a year. Seventeen years of the lease is unexpired, and the quarries have not been rated to the poor, but the farm pays about £24 per annum for taxes. In addition to the quarry of Mr. Holland, the Deputation inspected various other quarries, which they cannot advise the Directors to treat for, and certain lands, containing good slate, belonging to Mr. Caldecott, and which are within half a mile of the former quarry. These lands consist of about 520n acres, and Mr. Caldecott will grant a lease to the company for 57 years, at a royalty of one tenth. For these lands no consideration money is required; and the quarries can be opened under the management of Mr. Homfray, the mining superintendent. In the first instance the deputation would advise the directors to confine the operations of the Company to these two quarries; and as the nature and objects of the Company are better understood, and the profits derived from the working of slates divided among the shareholders, which they can expect will soon be the case, to extend thoe operations to such other quarries and mines as may then appear eligible, and as may be offered to the board. In conclusion, the deputation cannot but express their sincere conviction, that if the objects and operations of the company be thus, in the first instance, confined and conducted, the profits to the shareholders will be great, and will rapidly increase in proportion to the amount of capital embarked and the degree of energy with which those operations shall be conducted.” [10a] From this can be seen that it may well have been Caldecott’s land leasing which brought him onto the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.s committee, rather than any money. Also notable is the reference to “railroad and implements” showing that even at this early stage, tramways were in use at the quarry – coeval with those at Cwmbowydd and Diffwys. The fact that the report was published in the Times for nearly a month suggests they were anxious to attract more subscribers. Researches in the Porth yr Aur records at Bangor by Michael Lewis have turned up the fact that one Griffith Jones the “newly appointed” W.S.C.& L.M.Co.’s slate shipper at Trwyn y Garnedd wrote his letter of resignation to his previous employer, the Hollands’ on the 24th July 1825, the W.S.C.& L.M.Co., having taken possession the previous Tuesday, the 19th July 1825. The Company’s effectiveness was limited at the start by internal feuds and for many years it was notorious in the district for paying wages at irregular intervals and for working in a half-hearted manner. Homfray, the manager, seems to have - 17 - Oakeley Slate - 4. The W.S.C. & L.M.Co. 1825-1826 been an honest man but inexperienced and too easily led. Certainly cash was short, the only surviving accounts for the period for the half-year from 29th. September 1825 seem designed to grossly mislead. At the end of the first quarter of working, the company was £1853 in deficit, and at the end of their third quarter this had grown to £4021, although this was disguised as a surplus of £1020! The only significant income for the half year was £1380 for sale of slates, of which 883 tons were shipped in the period. In 1826, the first full year of operation, the company shipped 3921 tons. The purchase price was apparently payable in instalments with 2% interest, and was approximately covered by calls on shares. It was also unused to handling the men and, just as vitally, to working a quarry. Not only wages were a problem; there were no standardized rules either of working or for the men, so that disputes and displeasure were all too easily promoted. When Lord Palmerston visited the quarry late in 1825, the quarrymen petitioned him for more regular payment of wages, work having begun in June, no pay had been received by September. [11] The W.S.C.& L.M.Co. was not only interested in Holland’s quarry, W.L.Caldecott was involved in negotiations for a lease of the Manod quarry also, intending to under lease it to the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. A draft lease was sent to Caldecott in June 1825, it had included copper originally, but this had been crossed out. By September 1825 negotiations included a clause to give up the lease after 10 years and to confine it to slates alone. Wilks and Verbeke were given a draft lease of the Manod quarries in November 1825 to be perused on behalf of their clients, the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. They wrote to Borton, the Secretary of the Company, in December 1825 informing him of the difficulties that had arisen in taking an under lease from Caldecott of the property intended to be demised to him. The following August, probably as a result of the Hollands’ obstinacy in requiring payment from them, the W.S.L.& C.M.Co., through Wilks and Verbeke announced to Caldecott that “it had been decided not to work the quarry at Tanymanod and the lease would be yours.” Presumably he was intending to work it independently. However he did not take it up either. Of the original “company of gentlemen” named in the prospectus, changes were soon made. Peter Moore lost his seat in Parliament in 1826 and fled the country to Dieppe to escape arrest for debt; he subsequently surrendered most of his assets to his creditors and never returned to England, dieing at Abbeyville in May 1828. Wilks and Verbeke, who had been involved in a whole catalogue of dubious companies and promotions, along with a number of the other directors for several years, finally came to grief in 1826-28, even falling out amongst themselves and taking one another to court. There are some fascinating (though irrelevant) reports of these activities in the Times, in one of which even the Lord Mayor of London was famously to remark, “ Messrs.Wilks and Verbeke, Messrs.Wilks and Verbeke , the Lord deliver me from Messrs.Wilks and Verbeke.” On another occasion the Times reported : "It is said that these attornies have netted £100,000 by the companies which have started on the humbug system." This culminated in Wilks, being charged with forgery and sent to prison, where, it is believed, he died. [12] Thus by the end of 1826, the most irresponsible directors and the solicitors had been shed, although the management remained weak and top heavy. The stalwarts were Lord Palmerston and the Hon. William Powlett, later Duke of Cleveland, who together became its mainstay for over 30 years. Homfray himself was not popular, Madocks felt that he was “inclined to play too much of the fine Gentleman for his own good or his employers’ ; the company, he said, “could get a better manager for half the price.” Caldecott likewise lambasted him as “deficient in temper and judgement” , and as unfit to be in charge of a large work force. Certainly the attitude he took towards the early railway proposals of 1825-6, siding with the Rothschild- Hamlet axis was far from the company’s best interest. Under Homfray, who was really a sort of managing director, were no fewer than three sub-managers: Mark Baugh was a kindly man, an ex-coalminer, who really ran the quarry. He was quite inexperienced in slate, but he stayed for ten years; his name will come up again. Of Griffith Jones we know nothing, and John Davies was inherited from Holland . [13] Baugh was replaced by another Englishman, John Coward latterly from Llangollen, for a brief spell; Davies by one William Roberts of Tai’r Frest, but in broad terms, until the late 1830s the company suffered from poor and impractical managers, some of whom could not even speak the language of their workforce – Welsh.

- 18 -

5. DISPUTES, INCLINES AND THE BIRTH OF THE FESTINIOG RAILWAY 1825 – 1839

After the sale of the quarry, Sam Holland stayed on in Wales, looking after his father’s businesses as well as on his own account; apparently his father had never even met the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. Committee, apart from the argument with the Crown, as he thought the whole thing would come to nothing and left the matter in the hands of his brother - and Sam. There is some confusion over when precisely the Hollands began quarrying at Rhiwbryfdir again, as well as the exact circumstances. There is considerable conflict between sources as to the true entitlement of the Hollands to the land above Rhiwbryfdir. Most of this seems to emanate from the dispute with the Crown, what is clear is that the Hollands re-opened the quarry that had been closed during the affair. However, on the 2nd. of January 1826 Palmerston and Powlett granted to Samuel Holland an under-lease of part of the land comprised in the lease of 1821, for the remainder of the term set by that lease less ten days. Work did not apparently begin on the new site until 1827, possibly when the dust had settled on the Crown case, and once again Sam was in charge. He put it this way: “...I managed to reserve the upper portion of the Quarry there for myself, and the Coy. knowing very little about quarries willingly gave up the upper part of the Vein supposing it was worthless and they only wanted a quarry to form a company and stock exchange it. So upon a reduction of the purchase all was agreed.”. [1] By the spring of 1828, the “new” Holland’s quarry, the Upper Quarry of later fame, was producing slate again, although for several years the output was only a few hundred tons a year, compared with the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.’s 4000 tons or so. Holland’s first manager was again William Rowlands, reclaimed from Diffwys, who remained with Holland until his death in 1838. Meanwhile, William Oakeley and his wife of Glan William had a son, William Edward Oakeley, born on the 1st.August 1828. This William was to be of prime importance to the future W.S.Co. and the quarries. In 1831, Samuel Holland Senior declined to do any more at Rhiwbryfdir, and so he assigned all his interest in the Rhiwbryfdir site to Sam, who was then in sole charge until he was joined in 1833 by his brother Charles. Together they worked the quarry until 1878. (NB. despite Sam and Charles working the quarry together, by convention it is known as Holland’s Quarry, presumably a legacy of the original quarry lease being Sam Senior’s alone.) Sam described the events slightly differently later on adding to the confusion over dates, but also describing how he introduced the idea of using walls rather than pillars into the workings in the district. “My father never thought of again working any Quarry, so he transferred to me the reserved portion for a consideration...... Upon the Welsh Slate Coy. (sic) setting to work they sent Mr. Geo. Homfray over as agent and he brought with him a man who had worked in Coal Mines named Baugh and when they began to understand the Quarry and observed how the slate rock dipped into the North and was over-capped by a Hard and heavy Top, they decided to work it as Coal Miners, I suppose, to leave the Top and follow the dip of the Slate, leaving Pillars to support the Top. Their plan seemed to succeed very well and so enabled them to follow and get a great quantity of slates which would have been very costly to get if the top had all to be removed. William Owen (my then Quarry Manager) observing this and finding my Top very heavy in No. 1 Quarry, decided to adopt this plan and so left a very large pillar which eventually (after many years) came down. While all these workings at the W.S.Co. (also at the Middle Quarry) were going on I happened to pay a visit to some friends at Dudley, and while there, one of the sons of the family with whom I was staying - and about my own age - used to take me walks about Dudley and one of them was to see Lord Dudley’s lime stone Quarries which were worked very much as the W.S.Co. were doing by Pillars, but not by single pillars cut all round as the W.S.Co.’s but wall pillars thus leaving the Pillar solid - not very wide, but the full width of the Whinstone Vein. This struck me very much as an improvement and on my return home and next visit to my Quarry I mentioned this and explained it, as well as I could, to William Owen. He so well understood it that he at once saw the advantage of the plan and the next pillars we had to make he adopted a wall of rock and my own North Quarry as can be seen any day - now - has no supports to the roof - all walls the full width of the slate vein and none of them have ever given way - all are up now tho’ the slate rock has been taken away to a considerable depth. Another great advantage is that they are not so wide as mere pillars and where pillars have been left by the W.S.Co. or Middle Co. they were restricted to work the Slate Rock only to the width of about 20 or 30 feet between pillar and pillar, whereas I worked Slate Rock between wall and wall 30 and 40 yards so I leave you to guess which was the best plan. William Owen proved a very clever and good quarryman, so upon one occasion as I was going over to Liverpool and he had never been out of Wales I took him to L’pool with me and while there took him to Fawcetts and other Foundries and several works ..... He observed a wheel at the stern end of the vessels and enquired what it was for..... he thought rudders were always worked by or with a heavy lever. Observing one wheel and how it acted he said, that’s the way to work our inclines which were till then worked by a long lever and in wet or frosty weather it sometimes took two men to attend to it, as the pressure was so great that two men were required.” [2] This was not generally adopted, and what remains could be seen of Hollands inclines in the 1980s suggests that they had conventional level operated brakes. William Owen had originally come from , in the Gwyrfrai valley, between Snowdon and Nantlle, as Rowlands successor and proved durable . He served the Hollands until 1848 when he was replaced by one Robert Owen, originally the manager of the Quarry in the Nantlle valley. He stayed with the Hollands until 1869, despite, in 1864, applying for and obtaining the post of manager to the large , also in Nantlle. Exactly how Holland persuaded him to stay has not been determined! He acquired an under-manager named Rees Roberts in 1862, who was to succeed him. Which of Holland’s workings was the “No.1 Quarry” it is not possible to say

- 19 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939

At the same time as Sam taking full charge, it would appear that William Gruffydd Oakeley rewarded him for his help with the Crown lands affair by leasing him the land between the original boundary fence and the now established boundary with the Cwmorthin estate, and by extending the term of this lease beyond the original one at the original royalties and rents. This land was probably in addition to that under-leased to him by the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. This rankled with the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.who were paying not only their purchase price to the Hollands but also interest as well, on top of which they only had the remainder of Holland’s original term which expired in 1839. This combined with the difficulties they were having running the place meant that Holland was hardly their favourite person so, as Sam put it his memoirs: “When I began to drive a tunnel or level....., within what I considered to be my ground, the W.S.Co.(sic) through their agent Mr. Homfray tried to stop me, stating that where I commenced my tunnel was in their ground, though it was all mapped out.” [3] Sam claimed that this occurred in 1827, but this seems unlikely as the lease had not yet been transferred to him, and it seems more likely that the events actually took place as described in about 1831 or so when he was in sole charge, the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. and especially Homfray having every reason to be annoyed at the turn of events. This date is confirmed by the Caernarfon Herald for the 27th. July 1833 which reported the subsequent court case regarding the disputed boundary, also stating that the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. had bought the lease for £28,000 with the exception of unenclosed land reserved by Holland and demised to him by underlease. The boundary was apparently defined on the underlease map by a curved line, but on the ground consisted of both a straight fence and a zig-zag fence. The W.S.C.& L.M.Co. claimed the straight one was the boundary, Holland claimed the zig- zag. In the previous winter, 1832-33, Holland had begun a level between the fences, but the company filled it in. Holland claimed that the company had admitted the zig-zag fence was the boundary whereas the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. claimed that Holland had built the straight fence as the boundary, and the company had grazed cattle between the two. Judgment was given for Holland, but the defendant was given leave to appeal on the grounds that they had only sub-leased unenclosed land to him. Charles’ fourth son, Edward Oakeley, was managing the estate, his younger brother William of Glan William being ill. Sam got him to look at the place where he had commenced his level, and as he felt that Holland was perfectly within his own ground, he advised Sam to go and tell his lawyers about the affair. Sam wasted no time and an action was brought against Homfray and the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. at the July assizes at Dolgellau in 1833. The verdict on this occasionwas given in Holland’s favour, but a counter action by the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. in chancery was not heard for many years. In fact, the second case was heard in the Rolls Court in 1837, the case being between one Alderwick and Holland, Alderwick apparently being a W.S.C.& L.M.Co. shareholder. Basically this time the W.S.Co. wanted the boundary maps altered as they claimed they did not agree with the description given in the lease. The Times reported it in this way[3a]: “It appeared that Mr William Griffith Oakley, who in 1821 was entitled to the land, which was called Rhiwbryffdir farm,in the county of Merioneth, and consisted party of enclosed land, and partly of unenclosed mountainous land separated from the enclosed land, did on the 25 th of March 1821, demise the land to Samuel Holland, the father of the defendant, for 21 years. The enclosed was separated from the open land separated from the open land by a zigzag line, which was described in the plan in the indenture of demise. Oakley had property in both the enclosed and unenclosed land. Afterwards, with his sanction, a new boundary line was made, which was straight and intersected the old zigzag boundary line in three different places. This new line was finished in 1823, and was a conspicuous object, being a straight wall four feet high. In the course of this period the Crown made a claim to some interest in the enclosed land, and there was a conversation between Smith, the Crown surveyor, and the defendant Samuel Holland the younger, who was then the agent of his father. Smith objected to the alteration which the other defended.” (Spellings as in original.) Once the sale was agreed, “ Mr Caldecott, Mr Gray and Mr P Moore, three members of the company , went down to the spot, and for what purpose but to see what were the limits of the land to be held by each of the parties? At the spot they found the new wall four feet high, making the boundary between the higher portion of the quarry and the rest of the land. They there met the defendant, who showed them the premises they were to have. He stood upon the wall and pointed out what his father was to retain, and what the company were to have. It appeared then to be a matter of small importance to the defendant what the boundary was to be.” It was clear that the maps drawn on the deeds did not agree with either boundary, nor with the statements of either party. At the time of the agreement there had been no doubt between the parties, and everything had been taken for granted, any error being occasioned by the way in which Holland had conducted himself at the time!Lord Langdale, who heard the case, “had no doubt that the intention was that the new wall was the boundary, and was of opinion that the plaintiffs were entitled to relief, and to reform the deeds accordingly. The conduct of the defendant was not justified and the plaintiffs were entitled to their costs”. Thus this time Judgment this time was given for the W.S.Co. Holland claims to have met Lord Palmerston one day afterwards at Tan y Bwlch when he was up visiting the quarry who said that if he had known how the case really stood at first, he would never have sanctioned the proceedings and complimented him on his pluckiness in having carried on the suit. In 1831, the Slate Duty on water borne slate, which had counted heavily against Welsh slate producers, was repealed. Sam, in his memoirs, also claimed some small part in this event. This freed welsh slate from a considerable burden and made it easier for it to compete with the English slate and tile producers. Even Oakeley himself did not escape a minor clash with the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. in 1830, when his solicitors gave an opinion as to whether he was bound to provide timber for the company, as assignees of the 1821 lease who were about to erect a water wheel for “draining Rhiwbryfdir Slate Quarry” and some other machinery ! The first suggestion for a Rail Road, as it was called, to link the growing quarries with the sea was, not surprisingly, Madocks’, made in about 1820. This only envisaged replacing the first part of the journey between the quarries and the wharves on the Dwyryd, the line dropping by inclines to the valley floor at Dol y Moch, and then along the riverside meadows to the wharves. - 20 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939

Nothing came of this, but in 1824, he was one of the instigators behind a proposal, which became known as the Festiniog Railway, which was surveyed by one J. Bourn and had George Overton as its engineer. This followed the earlier route, dropping to the valley floor at Dol y Moch via 3 rope-worked inclines, then along the Dwyryd to the headland called Penrhyn Deudraeth - the headland between two estuaries - where the line climbed over the ridge to join up with the eastern end of the cob, by then the location of , named after Madocks’ Parliamentary constituency. The line apart from the inclines was to be graded at 1 in 50. A rival scheme was put forward by some of the landowners in the valley, notably W.G. Oakeley himself and possibly Holland, though his diaries do not speak of it, was known as the Festiniog and Port Madoc Railway. This was surveyed by W.A. Provis, Telford’s Resident Engineer on the Menai Bridge. The route for this line followed the contours from Maenyfferam farm, now the site of the old Maenofferen school in Blaenau Ffestiniog, down the western side of the valley through Creuau farm, just above the present Tan y Bwlch Station. Here the line passed to the west of the ridge and then down a steep valley by a rope worked incline, joining the present route at the point now known as Cei Mawr. From here the railway followed the eastern side of the ridge down to the headland and the cob, thence across the cob to Port Madoc. Permission to cross the Cob had not been a necessary part of the previous two schemes, since Madocks’ owned the cob and the rights to cross it. [4] After a first abortive attempt, bills for the railways, together with a new harbour bill of Madocks’ own, principally to increase dues, were submitted to Parliament in February 1825. All 3 bills failed. The arrival of the Rothschild circus complicated matters and while still embroiled in the row with Oakeley, Richard Smith, the Royal Cambrian Company’s Agent, had found workable slate on Moelwyn Mawr and Moelwyn Bach, and in May 1825 he put forward his own proposal to link these sites with Port Madoc. This route was surveyed by the young James Spooner in November 1825, who at the same time had surveyed the Moelwyns and Allt Fawr for the Crown Land Case. His route was an exercise in simplicity itself, consisting of a straight track across the reclaimed Traeth Mawr from Port Madoc to the mountains and then a series of almost continuous inclines up the mountainside to the quarries. By now the Festiniog Railway scheme had been dropped, but with Oakeley behind it, the F.& P.M.R. was the obvious opponent to the Moelwyn Mawr and Port Madoc Railway, as it was called. Madocks went over to the F.& P.M.R. for the simple reason that he feared that Rothschild, already trying to claim all the upland quarries, might be trying to obtain control of Port Madoc itself via the railway. If he had succeeded then he would have been able to control the independent quarries sole outlet to the sea. It would appear that to reduce opposition to the Royal Cambrian Co., Rothschild offered to extend the M.M.& P.M.R. over to the Ffestiniog quarries. This was a fanciful scheme involving hauling slates up nearly a thousand feet up into the Moelwyns before letting it down again on the other side. The only quarry for which this might have made some sort of sense was the disputed Holland’s Upper site, which could have been connected by a line along the contours around Cwm Orthin without entering Oakeley land at all. The united opposition to the M.M.& P.M.R. was betrayed by George Homfray of the W.S.C.& L.M.Co., who had apparently known Smith before he came to Wales and who began to support the M.M.& P.M.R., presumably due to some dislike for both Oakeley and Madocks. At a meeting at Tremadoc on the 12th. December 1825 so overwhelming was the case put forward by Smith, Homfray et. al. that the F.& P.M.R. agreed to withdraw their Bill, W.G. Oakeley being out of the country. The M.M.& P.M.R. Bill was put before Parliament on February 16, 1826 and obtained a 2nd. reading. However, in April, Caldecott went on the offensive, emphasising the threat of Rothschild’s scheme to the Ffestiniog Quarries, enabling him to control or strangle their output of slate to market. This would have particularly affected the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. quarry, here he was in conflict with Homfray and correspondence both public and private became acrimonious. Rothschild’s failure to humble Oakeley in court described in an earlier chapter sealed the fate of the M.M.& P.M.R. and the way was clear for a new scheme. This involved a route slightly lower than the original F.& P.M.R. following the contours on an even gradient all the way from Rhiwbryfdir, down to Penrhyn, sharing most of its lower course with the F.& P.M.R., but avoiding the inclines. The Festiniog Railway Act was passed on the 25th. May 1832. No branches from the railway proper to the slate quarries were proposed by the original Act, it apparently being assumed that the various slate companies would eventually build their own, or would simply send their slates to the rail head to be loaded and sent down to Port Madoc by railway rather than road and river. Sam Holland wrote to , the Managing Director of the Festiniog Railway Co. Ltd, and suggested that if the company would lay inclined planes into his quarry “from the farthest point it goes from Rhiwbryfdir Farm”, he would refund the cost in two years and undertake to send all his slate to Port Madoc by the railway for 6/- per ton. He had been paying more than 9/- per ton for the road and river journey. Archer agreed, as Holland was the first quarry owner to come forward, and drew up plans to connect the railway with the site of the new (contested) level. The company granted Sam £250 towards the cost of the inclines. The route chosen unfortunately lay partly across the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.’s leased land and it is probable that Holland and Archer assumed that W.G. Oakeley would exercise his overriding powers as lessor to enable the inclines to be constructed, making the company’s consent unnecessary. At this point everyone seems to have got at cross-purposes, Archer and W.G. Oakeley, who laid the first stone at Creuau, near the present Tan y Bwlch station, on the 26th. February 1833, disagreed over the matter of building walls to screen the railway from view where it passed through the Tan y Bwlch Estate. Unfortunately Archer appears to have left out mentioning Hollands proposed inclines until after the railway offered W.G. Oakeley £500 rather than build the walls. Oakeley, rather typically, both rejected this and then refused to use his powers as lessor for the inclines as well, thus making W.S.C.& L.M.Co. consent necessary. Holland and Archer attempted to get around it by stating that the wayleaves in Holland’s lease - 21 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939 allowed him not only to use roads and paths over the W.S.C.& L.M.Co leased land – which they did - but build tramways and inclines as well, in order to reach his quarry. On this basis, and assuming agreement, work was begun on the inclines on the 20th. May 1834. Thus the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. already smarting from one court defeat over what they considered to be Holland’s encroachment on their land now found another apparent encroachment taking place over an even longer stretch of ground. Not surprisingly the incline builders, Ellis Owen and Owen Humphrey Owen, were forced to stop by men from the W.S.C.& L.M.Co also threatening court action. [5] Concerned about the possible action, Archer and Holland decided to consolidate the position, relying on the F.R.’s powers for branch construction conferred on it by its Act – which actually related to the level or near level stretches which were later to be referred to as the Dinas and Diffwys branches, though which was the main line and which was the branch changed over at a later date. Thus Holland and Archer entered into a formal contract in August 1834, under which the FR would contribute £250 towards the cost of the inclines. This was mischievous because in fact, the FR was constructing the inclines at Holland’s expense, less the £250. As a result the FR served notice on the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.. in November to acquire the land, and followed it up by tendering £7 as payment. The W.S.C.& L.M.Co., who were perfectly aware who was building what and for whom and for how much, saw red at this effrontery and promptly obtained an injunction against both the FR and Holland to stop the work in December of 1834. This was appealed against by the Festiniog Railway Co. in the Rolls Court on the 30th. April 1835, the railway company claiming that they had powers to build it under their Act and Holland’s wayleaves and also saying that W.G. Oakeley did not object, which was a long way off him giving consent or using his powers as lessor. This was clearly not the case, and the court held also that Holland’s wayleave only applied to roads and paths, not railways. The outcome of the affair was that the Railway company. lost the appeal. It would also appear that the Railway company may have been short of funds and as Lord Eldon’s Act had laid it down that a company had to provide its own funds for work it was authorized to carry out, if the inclines had been included in the Act, Holland could not have provided the funding for them, even in retrospect. The track to the foot of the first incline was to be 80 yards long on a gradient of 1/2 inch to the foot ( 1 in 24) ; the first incline was to be 160 yards long inclined at 8 inches to the yard (1 in 4.5) ; between the two inclines was to be 50 yards of level track. The second incline was to be 260 yards long inclined at 1 in 3; beyond the incline head was to be 280 yards long and nearly level to the quarry. To contain these the railway had tried to acquire a piece of land about 1080 yards long and 5 yards wide which passed through various places long since forgotten, named, in order from the railway to the quarry: Ddolman, Ddolfawr, Ddolclupia, Pantlleidr and Friddgwair. I have found no map naming these. [6] Apart from the start of the lower incline bed, and £177/4/0d worth of machinery, little had been done. William Gruffydd Oakeley died in October 1835, having been ill for some time and was buried in Maentwrog churchyard, and although Louisa Jane Oakeley, his widow, accepted the £500 from the railway company in lieu of the walls she seems also to have refused to use her powers as lessor and thus the situation was at an impasse again.. It will be recalled that W.G. Oakeley and his wife Louisa Jane Oakeley had no children, and it would seem that it was originally W.G. Oakeley’s intention to leave the estate in the care of William Oakeley of Glan William, as Louisa Jane was unable to inherit directly, under the then law. However, William Oakeley of Glan William had died on the 11th. of December 1834, and a new will was necessary, being drawn up on the 13th. January 1835. The new will left the entire estate entailed to William Edward Oakeley, William’s son, and his male heirs, should he have any, as tenants for life. Louisa Jane Oakeley was also made tenant for life, the estate only passing to William Edward on her death. The entailing ensured that the estate could not be sold off in part or in whole, nor could it be used as security for debts or mortgaged. Thus Louisa Jane had effective legal control of the estate, apart from its sale, William Edward, however, even when he was to come of age in 1849, had no control of the estate whatsoever, even though it was to pass to him and his heirs. As can be imagined, this was to lead to trouble, for apparently in the 1830s and ‘40s Louisa Jane spent much money on charitable works in the district, and eventually became something of a recluse at Tan y Bwlch, as is described in a later chapter. She lived on until 1878 and the exact location of her grave is not recorded she having left the district. She was not buried with her husband. We shall return to this in a later chapter. The Festiniog Railway opened officially in 1836, Holland’s slates being the first over the line, although they were soon followed in 1838 by those of the W.S.C.& L.M.Co., the bill of £8/10/- being for drawing their slates from Rhiwbryfdir Quay to the top of the southern of the two inclined planes on the F.R. that were used to get the railway over a spur of the Moelwyns until it could be tunnelled through. James Spooner was at this time Quarry Agent and Engineer to Louisa Jane Oakeley as well as the fledgling Ffestiniog Railway, placing him in a unique situation and one which must have required a good deal of tact. One suspects that the title ‘Engineer’ in the estate context really meant ‘Surveyor.’ Holland and Archer wanted the original incline route embodied in the new bill, but Spooner disagreed with Archer over the route, drawing up a route of his own in early 1836 which he felt would obviate the boundary dispute. Holland was adamant that any incline connection had to link up with his level, and so a site meeting was held between Spooner and Holland at Rhiwbryfdir in April. One of the motivating reasons behind Holland getting the FR to build the inclines at his expense was shortage of money in the fledgling FR and thus a new FR bill was promoted which included both powers to raise additional finance and also powers to purchase land and construct inclines and tramways. If it was passed, such a bill would enable the FR to complete Holland’s inclines with or without the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.’s consent Spooner was acutely aware of a number of issues facing both the infant FR and the Oakeley Estate. The FR was short of money and so anything that would remove opposition to the new bill was clearly a good thing. Anything that would ensure its success was also to be encouraged – traffic was to be its lifeblood and so enabling the quarries to send their produce down - 22 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939 the line as soon as possible was essential. The construction of inclines into the various quarries was the key. The W.S.C.& L.M.Co. though improving, were not yet up to working their entire leasehold – indeed they had given up working their upper site, just below the boundary with Holland. There was only three years left of the original lease still to run and both the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. and Holland were agitating for a new lease to be agreed on. The whole way in which the quarries were worked was in need of regularizing, much progress in technique etc. having been made over the last decade. The acrimony between Holland and the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. over the boundaries and much else needed curtailing so that they could settle down to increasing production. It was clear that there was a continuous bed of slate all the way from the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. quarry up to the ridge above Hollands quarry, and it would be in the interest of the estate for that to be developed to the full . Thus in April 1836 James Spooner wrote to Edward Oakeley , who presumably had shown more interest in such things than Louisa Jane, not only to bring him up to date on the incline question, but also putting forward Spooner’s views as to how the site might be developed to the estate’s advantage:

“My dear sir, Since I had the pleasure of seeing you at Tan y Bwlch I have been up with Mr. Holland to the quarries inspecting the approach to them by inclines and am sorry to say our views of the same did not agree, he wishing to have them as laid down in Mr. Archer’s plans and certainly in consequence of his Mr. Holland’s level being driven in the situation it now is. I find the bar or edge of rock where I had formerly intended the head of the incline to be, is on a much higher elevation than the mouth of the said level and therefore cannot be brought to work with each other. Under these circumstances I have again examined the direction of the strata, as also the best places for the deposit of the deads and where the levels should be driven for the future workings of the quarries on an expanded scale. To effect this, I consider 3 levels should be driven across the whole of the five slate veins commencing at B, C & D which would enable you to have these quarries worked in three distinct portions without at all interfering with each other. By referring to the maps which I now send, these positions are shown and marked by the said letters B, C & D, B the lower, C the middle and D the upper or Mr. Holland’s Quarry and the three workings if exposed would have this appearance:

D

C B

and each would eventually follow up the bottom slate of the other. I have endeavoured by these remarks to show the very great importance to the proprietor of this property to have each of these portions of the work kept perfectly distinct and with this conviction have shown on the accompanying plan, the way the upper or Mr. Hollands work should be approached by a red line commencing at E and terminating at F. To effect this plan is necessary for a level to be made from D to F and which level could not be completed in under 3 1/2 years. Under these circumstances I would advise Mrs. Oakeley to allow the railway proprietors to have that portion of the railway from E to F and marked in their plan only for the space of four years and no longer as a temporary accommodation till the level was driven and then to have that part marked red. The other part of this line I would not object to as I find it would answer from E downwards for the middle working & therefore an advantage having the communication so far made. If a clause is inserted in the Act to effect this, I think Mrs. Oakeley’s interest will be sufficiently protected. I send a copy of this and a map to Mr. Rumsey Williams by this days post. Morfa Lodge, 3 April 1836.” :[7]

Spooner was obviously concerned to emphasize that the original and much argued over route which the FR wanted embedded in the bill would only be temporary, basically an accommodation to get Holland’s slate on the railway as soon as possible, pending a new connection. Judging by the response below, Edward on behalf of Mrs Oakeley was concerned that if the railway was not restrained in some way, then they might use their powers to build inclines willy nilly wherever they wanted over the land and possibly over veins of slate and might then refuse to remove them to allow the rock to be worked. Fortunately the accompanying map to Spooner’s letter reveals the exact location of these troublesome inclines, which, relative to later developments, has always been something of a mystery. It shows the much disputed course, the original boundaries and the eventual modified proposal. Curiously the point E mentioned above is not marked. It can only be assumed to be the point at which the two proposed lines diverge, just below the marked point C. In essence, the route of the inclines branched off the “main line” of the Ffestiniog Railway, as it was then referred to, a little to the north of the later Dinas Station and then ran straight across the fields behind Rhiwbryfdir farm and up behind a - 23 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939 large outcrop. The route then turned rather more to the west for a short distance before turning westward again, very sharply indeed, and then rising through a shallow pass in the hillside, curving eventually to cross first into W.S.C.& L.M.Co. land and then into the heavily disputed triangle. In view of this, it is hardly surprising that the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. opposed the route. It is difficult to make the various lengths and inclinations attributed to these inclines at different times in the history of the F.R. ‘fit’ this route without some rather peculiar inclines indeed! The basic lengths and inclinations give about the right distance and vertical height separations, but fitting the inclines in given the two sharp bends and the general curvature of the top section is particularly awkward. One possible solution which allows a fit is that the various descriptions do not distinguish between inclines in series at the same inclination, thus a pair of inclines connected by a turntable might be treated as one for the purpose of description. Fig. 7 shows a conjectural version of the inclines on this basis. Certainly the W.S.C.&.L.M.Co. was initially connected by a series of inclines in tandem rather than one long one. Edward wrote three days later in a letter to H.R. Williams (the family solicitor in Wales), telling him to make out a take note for 1/10 royalty (for what, was not said) and continuing “I have not sufficient knowledge of the subject to give any opinion as to whether Mr. Spooner is correct in the view he takes of the question at issue between him and the Railroad Company regarding the inclines.” [7] Despite this he went on to emphasise the need to indemnify Mrs. Oakeley and bind the Railway Co. “by a very heavy penalty if they neglect to comply when so requested”. A letter to James Spooner at the same time went further “I can only say in reply that the matter being entirely in your hands,” he had agreed and had written to H.R. Williams telling him to insert a clause giving the railway “temporary accommodation only not exceeding four years... inclines are to be taken and to bind them strictly that on and after that date to alter and vary the said Inclines in such a way as they shall then be instructed, so as to occasion both now and at all future time, the land ? ? (unreadable – may be accessible?) to the Veins of slate or to the working of them, such alteration to be made at their sole expense and they must be bound in a Penalty if they neglect or refuse to comply when so required by Mrs Oakeley & Co. Unless this is consented to by the Railway Co., Mrs. Oakeley will oppose their present application to Parliament.” :[7 ] In the end Spooner’s efforts with regard to the new F.R. bill were futile, the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. were, naturally, still opposed to any attempt to cross their land, and it is clear, despite public denials, that they were also being stubborn in the hope of winning some concessions out of the F.R.Co. and also the prospect of a new lease through Spooner, in his capacity as Oakeley Agent. The new bill failed. This left the FR with a financial crisis which was only resolved by Sir Joseph Huddart of Brynkir, an estate and house to the North of Portmadoc, taking out a Mortgage of the FR, the first of several which were to amount to £10000 at 5% interest. He also owned the Wern estate and another on Anglesey. Now the curious thing is that in a reference in his will dated originally 1835, he refers to having recently gone into partnership with some gentlemen for the purpose of working a slate quarry at Ffestiniog and taking a lease for a term of 40 years. Several secondary sources, have suggested that this company took up a lease at Rhiwbryfdir in 1833. This is very unlikely, for if the lease boundaries had been re-set, then the whole business of the arguments over the inclines – which definitely took place in 1836 – would have been between Holland and the new or middle company rather than the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. The first reference to any middle quarry possibilities are in Spooner’s 1836 letter where he was clearly putting forward a new idea to Edward Oakeley – the middle company did not then exist. The confusion has probably arisen because Sir Joseph’s original will was dated 1835, yet the only quarry we know he was involved in financing was what became the middle company which did not even get a lease at Rhiwbryfdir until 1838, the reference to having “recently” gone into partnership and taking up a lease has thus been interpreted as meaning before 1835, whereas it was probably attached to the will as a later amendment and so post- rather than pre-dated it. One may suspect that Spooner had floated the idea of a middle company in his circle at Portmadoc – which may well have included Sir Joseph Huddart - so when the bill failed and the FR was mortgaged, it made sense for Sir Joseph to suggest that he might be willing to put together a group of people to form a quarry company. That Sir Joseph should perhaps seek to involve himself in the quarries is not unlikely, after all, how better to guarantee a return on his mortgage of the railway than by working a quarry which would provide revenue earning traffic on it ? His partners were ready to hand, one was Andrew Durham, his brother in law with property in Ireland, and who was to also act as benefactor to the railway in the future, others were Nathaniel Matthew and his son Edward Windus Matthew who had come to stay in Wales and after initially staying with Holland at Plas yn Penrhyn, Nathaniel had leased Wern. He was related by marriage to Benjamin Godfrey Windus, a wealthy member of a long established firm of coachbuilders in Tottenham who was a serious collector of watercolours. Then there was George John Clode about whom we know little, but may well have been a wealthy importer of wines and spirits in Windsor. There was clearly money behind the partnership. Just when the Matthews’ arrived in Wales is open to a little uncertainty, Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog says 1835, but Ivor Wynne Jones in his descriptions of the early history of John Whitehead Greaves, of the later Llechwedd Quarry, states that he stayed with Edward Windus Matthew in 1834 at Wern, and got Edward to ride up with him to Cwmbowydd to look at the derelict Lord quarry which he and Edwin Shelton were thinking of leasing from Lord Newborough. We shall meet Greaves again later. Just how rapidly things happened we do not know, but although there was an obscure reference in correspondence between Edward Oakeley and the family solicitor referring to a take note, already mentioned above, it seems unlikely that this was for the middle company, as the lease boundaries had clearly not yet been re-set. Something drastic certainly happened next, one may suspect that Spooner, armed with Sir Joseph’s potential company up his sleeve, laid his cards on the table and on behalf of the Oakeley Estate, now approached the W.S C.& L.M. Co. with a proposal, which was both a threat and a carrot. In effect he may have pointed out that they had leased, but were not working, - 24 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939 the upper part of their site; they were unlikely to be able to work it in the immediate future and the Estate wanted it to be worked. If they were prepared to reduce their leased land on the surface, so as to make room for a group of people interested in working a quarry there, then their surface rent would be reduced pro rata, but they would still be able to work the deep slate as the quarries above them removed the upper layers of rock, only paying a royalty on the deep slate. In return, negotiations could start in earnest for a new lease to replace the original which was fast running out. On the other hand, if they proved to be obstinate, then matters might take another course. The group of people he knew who were interested in working the quarry might possibly be even more interested in taking over the entire lease… The W.S.C.& L.M.Co. appear to have taken the hint, and certain that they would be getting a new lease, they could begin work on their own inclines to connect to the FR. The original plans of the F.R. called for the main line to keep to the north and west of the Afon Barlwyd, which in those days meandered considerably, all the way to its terminus just past Rhiwbryfdir Farm close by the confluence of the stream from the pass and the Barlwyd. The Barlwyd swung west close by the farm, where there were a couple of bridges and so it was proposed that the railway would also swing west, along the village road, to avoid having to bridge the river twice in quick succession. In 1836 this was altered and a more direct line was taken, requiring the bridges, but giving a better potential approach to the W.S.C.&.L.M.Co and keeping the village lane clear. However, the right to the original route for the purposes of incline connections seems to have been retained. Fig. 5 shows this alteration. It may well be that in the interim period before the new lease was settled – and it did take some time – the middle company were given access to the site for preliminary work, possibly on either a sub-lease or take note, we do not know. William Williams, of Ty Nanney, Tremadoc, became manager of the W.S.C.& L.M. Co. in 1837, moving in to Rhiwbryfdir House. Williams was an intensely practical, Welsh speaking man who brought a blast of fresh air to the company. He had a good understanding both of quarrying and its needs. Above all, not having been involved in the earlier squabbles with Holland and the railway, he had no axe to grind and soon got down to sorting it all out. He was part of a complex quarrying family of Nantlle, whom G.P. Jones, the Nantlle quarry historian, has described as the Nantlle Quarry Mafia. He was the son of William Williams of Meillionydd, , Nantlle, the brother of John & Ellis Williams, both of whom were managers at . Prior to his appointment at the Welsh Slate Co. he was the manager of Caermeinciau Quarry, Llanberis. Three of Ellis Williams’ sons were in their turn managers of Cilgwyn, Moeltryfan and Vron Heulog Quarries. It is further said that two managers of Quarry and another of Vron Heulog were the sons of Henry Williams. There is also thought to be a relationship with Owen Pritchard, the Rhiwbryfdir Quarry manager, and a putative relationship via Henry Parry of Ty’n Weirglodd and his father, Robert Parry of Cloddfa’r Lon to the Parrys of three generations at Dinorwic, Owen Parry, his son Robert and his son Owen! This Nantlle “connection”, so to speak, with the Welsh Slate Company (as it became) in particular was to last even up until the “Great Fall” Arbitration of the 1880s when a succession of Nantlle managers appeared on the W.S. Co.’s behalf. Initially, both W.S.C.& L.M.Co. and Holland’s slates had to be loaded at the “Dinas Rhiwbryfdir” quay. This was presumably sited at the end of the railway, or possibly situated at the later foot of Holland’s incline. If the latter, then it may well have been used afterwards by J.W.Greaves as his Dinas slate wharf until the incline to his Llechwedd Quarry was constructed. The W.S.C.& L.M.Co. made an agreement with the directors of the F.R.Co. and Mrs. E.A. Madocks, W.A. Madocks’ widow, in 1837 to lease a wharf at Portmadoc, as the town had become, provided that the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. contracted with the F.R.Co. to transport its slates. This the W.S.C.& L.M. Co. did and shortly after Williams entered into negotiations with the F.R.Co. for a direct connection between the railway and the quarry. The actual agreement between the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. and the F.R.Co. was made on the 14th. December 1837. The first slates were carried on the railway in the new year. Meanwhile, the Welsh Slate Copper and Lead Mining Company, to give it its full title for the last time, was re- constituted by a new partnership deed on 30th. June 1938 as the Welsh Slate Company, hereafter referred to (at last) as the W.S.Co., it being declared that the capital of the new company and the gains and profits thereof, should be considered as divided into 60 shares and that the shares in the old company should be used as the basis for determining the interest of the old partners in the new company. No registration of either the old or new companies took place nor were any new share certificates issued, the old documents being used in the new. The deed of partnership provided that the shares of the original proprietors should not be transferable, except that the shares of any deceased partner might pass to his representatives or legatees, but in the event of any partner wishing to retire, his shares were to be taken up, upon certain terms by the continuing partners. An estimate for the construction of an incline from the railway to the W.S.Co.’s quarry was prepared in 1838, giving a cost of £149/7/0d if made with filling and £120/1/6d if made with breastwalls and filled in between. The railway was extended beyond Rhiwbryfdir house alongside the Barlwyd and a new zero point established where the F.R. land met the W.S. Co.’s leasehold. From this point a number of inclines in tandem led into the quarry workings. [8] Thus by late 1838 or early 1839 the Welsh Slate Company had facilities at both ends of the line, and combined with the arrival of Williams and the agreements with the F.R., as well as, perhaps, James Spooner’s machinations, they seem to have moderated their attitude to Holland at least as far as quarrying was concerned. As a result both Holland and the W.S.Co. and the third company – the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company - entered into negotiations over a new lease. The situation with regard to the inclines to Holland’s quarry was now very different. The W.S.Co. problem had been removed, but in their place was the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co. Spooner, the guiding hand behind the lease, had, in the interim between his 1836 letter and the negotiations, developed to the full his ideas of using connecting levels to the workings. In order to identify the limits of each company’s workings, each one now had to drive a “limit level” on the horizon of their lowest floor, which would act as drainage, communication and a central reference point for development and surveying. The original - 25 - Oakeley Slate - 5. Disputes and Inclines 1825-1939 site he had proposed for the level to Holland’s quarry was now partly taken up by the new limit level tunnel for the middle company. That of the W.S.Co. coincided roughly with their proposed incline connection; only Holland required something completely new. The site chosen for him was as far south as the lease allowed, but would require a completely separate incline connection from that for the middle company. It also required a further exchange of land, amounting to 33 perches in area, between Holland and the W.S.Co. to make room for the incline approach, which was achieved in 1838 after some negotiation. This had the additional effect of leaving the original site clear for the proposed middle quarry company connection. [9] Samuel Holland made a new agreement with the F.R.Co. in March 1839 in which the F.R.Co. agreed to carry all Hollands’ slates from the head of an incline to be constructed up to his level to his wharf at Portmadoc. The use of the singular term for the inclines occurred here for the first time, showing perhaps that the original longer proposal had finally been abandoned. The F.R.Co. was to build the incline at Holland’s expense, less the £250 the F.R.Co. had originally agreed to give him towards the old route. When the incline was ready, the F.R.Co. would cease paying for the carriage of slates from the quarry to the Rhiw quay, but until the incline was ready they would continue to transfer the slates but would charge Holland 7d a ton to do so. Enough wagons, painted red, were to be supplied for Holland’s exclusive use and the F.R.Co. was to carry all the slates from the incline head to the wharf within 18 working hours, the F.R.Co. being responsible for any breakages occurring. The agreement was for 40 years, but if the Railway Co. gave other quarry owners better terms at some later date, then Holland’s would be reduced to the same. The scale of charges given was 5/3d per ton if the total was under 7,500 tons, but 3/9d per ton from that figure up to and over 20,000 tons. The cost of the incline was £796, and was apparently brought into use in late 1839. [10] Fig 6 is a composite diagram which attempts to relate developments in the quarries and their connections together for this period. Holland, one can imagine, was not really very happy about the new incline location. His tunnel would be the longest of the three, his incline the highest and longest, and the end of the incline and start of the tunnel were to be half way up the precipitous mountainside on the opposite side of the main ridge to his workings! However, his opposition to the arrangements may have been softened by the fact that he may have been promised preferential treatment with regard to the actual ground worked. The original lease which Samuel Holland Senior had had with W.G. Oakeley and which was effectively still in force, although much altered, determined (legalese for terminated) in 1839, being 21 years from 1818, and thus the period 1838-1840 was effectively filled with negotiations between Edward Oakeley, acting on behalf of Mrs. Louisa Jane Oakeley and William Edward Oakeley, her young nephew, the tenants for life of the Oakeley estate, possibly Sir Joseph Huddart and Mr. E.W. Field, the W.S. Co.’s solicitor who had replaced the dubious Wilks and Verbeke. Field remained with the company for over 30 years and was regrettably responsible for the initial advice that was to sow the seeds of disaster to come. The new lease, must have come as a great relief to all the parties, setting as it did, the stage for more friendly relationships between the quarries for the next forty years. For the time being, the age of litigation seemed over, the age of expansion was about to begin.

- 26 -

6. THE 1838 LEASE

The 1838 lease wiped the slate clean, so to speak, at Rhiwbryfdir, allowing the companies involved to start again free of the animosities that had darkened the previous ten years. The new lease set aside all the previous agreements between the old Welsh Slate, Copper and Lead Mining Company, Holland’s and the Oakeley family. Holland relinquished his extended lease in return for special provisions in the new lease. The Welsh Slate Co., to use their new shortened title, obtained their own special dispensations for their early problems to be resolved, while the new company, the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company, was given almost a clean sheet to start on. While no complete copy of the lease has yet to surface, it has survived in the form of references, quotations and similar sidelights, sufficient to indicate its contents, while copies of both the Welsh Slate Company’s lease map and a draft of a deed of mutual covenant between the three companies have fortunately survived in the Ffestiniog Railway Company’s archives. From these sources some general comments may be made before going into detail. The leases, for there was one for each company, although generally identical, seem to have been drawn up with an eye to removing the sources of the legal arguments which had characterised relations between Holland and the W.S.C.& L.M.Co. during the previous years. They set out clearly not only the surface boundaries but also the underground limits to which the various companies could work and specified the depths to which each company could work. Clauses set the rights as to entry, construction of buildings, roads, fences etc. Underground working was clearly in mind at this time and provided for by requiring that pillars at least forty feet square were to be left to support the hard rock which overlay the slate veins. There were clauses defining the sizes of slates, the weights and measures to be used, and the rents and royalties that were due. The three leases were not identical in specific areas, for instance the Hollands were given special provision to sink below their “lowest limit level” to any depth they wished west of the mutual boundary line between their leased land and that of the Rhiwbryfdir Company. Similarly, as will be seen below, the Welsh Slate Co. were also given special provision by reason of their being the lowest of the three quarries on the mountainside and also, apparently, because of peculiar difficulties of their workings. All three lease maps were originally identical, this being clearly stated in the surviving draft deed, and thus the surviving Welsh Slate Co.’s lease map is sufficient, although possibly amended at some later date as described below. It is reproduced as fig. 8. [1] The arrangement depicted by the Welsh Slate Co.’s lease map, which from now on will simply be referred to as the lease map, is complex. The W.S.Co. had by far the largest surface area, comprising Iwerddon, and a large tract of land on both sides of the Barlwyd including Rhiwbryfdir house and farm. The W.S.Co.’s section is shown in more detail as Fig. 8a. The Hollands’ area was the next largest, comprising all the land from the boundary with Cwmorthin down to the fence that had marked the old boundary. As originally defined their leased land was separated from the Ffestiniog Railway by about five chains of W.S.Co. leased land, but an exchange of land with the W.S.Co. and an additional leasing gave them direct access to the railway. Between the two old protagonists lay the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s leased land, roughly wedge shaped. The surface boundaries, although important in that they determined the rent payable apart from any royalties, were of less importance when it came to the quarrying operations. Thus it was that additional boundaries, independent of surface features were defined, these being the actual mine boundaries . There were originally three of these, all being parallel to one another and to the line of pillaring of the slate, running roughly north to south. (For an explanation of pillaring and other terms, please see the appendices.) The westernmost boundary, roughly 20 chains to the east of, and parallel with, the Cwmorthin boundary, marked the extreme mine boundary of the Welsh Slate Co.’s and Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co.’s workings. A second boundary, 15 chains further east marked the “Mine Boundary westward of which the Rhiwbryfdir Co. cannot take Mr. Holland’s underslate until January 1844,” while a similar boundary another 15 chains to the east of that marked the “ Mine Boundary to the westward of which the Welsh Slate Co. cannot take the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s underslate,” presumably until a similar date, although it is not stated. Since the leaseholds were at different heights above one another with Holland at the top, the Rhiwbryfdir Co. in the middle and the Welsh Slate Co. at the bottom, in order to clearly define the boundaries in a horizontal plane as well as the vertical, as well as to facilitate surveying by providing three clearly defined base lines, all three companies were required to drive tunnels to mark their “lowest limit levels,” these being depicted on the lease map. It is thought that these were also intended to mark the centre of their workings, which were expected to spread out equally on either side, so far as the rock permitted. Underground working was thus clearly in mind at this time, although open working was allowed for. One curious feature of the lease plan relates to the lowest limit level of the W.S.Co. Two tunnels are, in fact, marked on the plan in virtually identical fashion, however, only the most easterly actually bears the legend “Tunnel to be driven by...... ” etc. The other is unlabelled, but corresponds perfectly to the tunnel as it has survived to the present day. On this tunnel are marked two shafts, labeled “shaft 1” and “ p.shaft 2 ”, these also correspond to surviving shafts. It therefore seems likely that it was found necessary to deviate from the original planned course and the plan was suitably amended to record the fact. No date is given. Both the tunnels meet where they cross the Gorddinen stream, this area being labeled “Open” , perhaps suggesting that this section of the tunnel was either not tunnel at all, or perhaps had already been begun at the time the map was drawn. Little detail is shown on the plan of the quarries themselves: The Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s quarry is shown as a small roughly bottle shaped outline with its open end towards the east, bearing the legend; “Upper Quarry Opened by the Welsh Slate Co..” This has sometimes been referred to as given up by the W.S.Co. because of the dispute with the crown, but this - 27 - Oakeley Slate - 6. The 1838 Lease seems unlikely as it lies wholly within the original enclosed land of the Tan y Bwlch Estate, the fence or wall being clearly marked. It seems more likely that it was given up due to the early financial difficulties of the company. The map clearly shows the then existence of Llyn Ffridd y Bwlch as a reservoir, storing the waters coming down the Bwlch Gorddinen and from the high Iwerddon area, then conducting them via a long leat to join with a small stream above the W.S.Co. workings to feed a much smaller reservoir below which are marked several buildings. The positions of both reservoir and buildings closely correspond with those found on maps of fifty years later, the principal one being a slab dressing mill with an overshot water wheel fed from the reservoir. Indeed, Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog records the W.S.Co. as experimenting with a slate dressing machine “in the time of Mr. Baugh,” although with little success, as the blade hit the slate all at once rather than with a cutting action, smashing it to bits. Clearly, the W.S.Co. had some water powered machinery presumably for such purposes as sawing timber, smithying etc. They may also have had slab dressing machinery, perhaps a reciprocating sand saw or even a circular saw. The Welsh Slate Co.’s workings are shown on the lease plan as two distinct open pits, the larger being to the north. Between the two was a strip of rock, which remained even after the pits were opened out considerably and the pits became the eastern end of Sinc Fawr . The ridge was known as The Peak and remained a distinctive feature of that end of Sinc Fawr until the 1920s when it was removed during an eastward extension of the sinc. Now even the site of the slab mill mentioned earlier has been quarried away. One peculiarity is the map’s treatment of the Gorddinen stream in the W.S.Co. leasehold,. This is shown coming down the valley from Llyn Ffridd y Bwlch only to vanish just above Tal y Weined ( sic) and reappears some 400 yards further on. Whether the mapmaker simply forgot it, or whether this in fact reflected some subterranean course is not clear. Several later maps show this also, until the stream was lost forever beneath the all-consuming tips. In Holland’s land, his new incline is clearly marked and labeled as such, although what has to be an incline to the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s tunnel bears no similar legend. It does, however, follow the proposed line shown in an earlier chapter. Holland’s quarries are again shown as two pits similar in size to those of the W.S.Co. with a couple of small buildings near them. The map also bears the legends “Pump Shaft Sunk by Mr. Holland” and “Mouth of Mr. Holland’s Level” . The words are written inside the Rhiwbryfdir leasehold, but the former seems to refer to a square outline marked at the end of the “Tunnel to be driven by Mr. Holland” , while the latter is not marked at all clearly. The extreme mine boundary of both Rhiwbryfdir and Welsh Slate Co. just touch the western edge of the most southerly of the Holland pits. On top of the ridge between Holland and the Cwmorthin land, labeled on the map as belonging to “John Lloyd Esq.” is marked a small un-named lake. This became known as Llyn Bach, and was latterly expanded considerably to form a reservoir. As has already been mentioned, only a draft of a deed of mutual indenture appears to have survived. This was a separate document, for while the leases defined the relationship between the lessees and Mrs. Oakeley, their lessor, they did not apparently include any detail as to their relationships with one another, and thus it was necessary to make a separate deed to include such details. Later leases incorporated such arrangements without a separate deed. [2] The draft which has survived bears the date 10th. July 1838, but this has been corrected to 1839, and from later reference it seems likely that the leases were not finally formalised until that year. Thus, the actual deed may have been somewhat different from that presented here, although it is felt that the differences would probably be minor. Spellings are given as in the original. The various parties to the 3 leases and the covenant were given as follows: “This Indenture made the 10th. day July in the year of our Lord 1838 between Louisa Jane Oakeley of Plas Tanybwlch in the Coy. of Merioneth party of the first part, the Right Honourable Henry John Temple Viscount Palmerston, William Powlett commonly called Lord William Powlett and Archibald Frederick Paxton of the 2nd. part, Sir Joseph Huddart, Knight, Andrew Durham, Edward Windus Mathew (sic), Benjamin Godfrey Windus and George John Clode Esq., of the 3rd. part and Samuel Holland and Charles Holland Esq. of the 4th. part.” It is curious that Nathaniel Mathew’s name does not appear, but see the Rhiwbryfdir Company chapter.. The main purpose of the covenant was given as follows: “Whereas it hath been agreed by and between the various parties into that for the more effectually securing such similarity of working and the uninterrupted continuance thereof and for the mutual safety and convenience...... and the more ready conduct of their several workings and for so far as possible preventing and the more readily settling all disputes and misunderstandings...they should enter into the various covenants.... herein.” Clearly avoiding disputes was a good idea…. The first section dealt with initial workings: “That until the several workings of the said parties shall meet in each of the several slate veins demised.....in the prosecution of their workings and quarryings up and down all and every the several slate veins to the eastward and westward respectively as the case may be or circumstances may apply of each of the 3 lowest limit levels to be respectively driven by each of the ....three parties as depicted in the .....plans.....and respectively numbered 3 and 4 by each.....to the respective depths of each ..... lowest limit level to proceed and to work and to get take and win all the slate both upper and under which may be there found without reference or regard to whether the same is past the mine boundary lines to the eastward of which the ....parties of the 3rd. and 4th. part are not by the leases.....ever entitled to work or get slate it being the intention of the said....parties that to secure the uninterruption of their several workings they shall and may severally and respectively be entitled to work and to get such slate as aforesaid though the same shall and may be demised ...... to the others.....until the several workings.....shall respectively meet....., but so never the less that it shall not be lawful for any of the parties...... to work any other veins except the ones now in work or which have been worked by the Welsh Slate Co. past the respective boundary lines.” So basically, they were allowed to work all the slate they could until their workings met, regardless of the boundaries, but they had not to work any new veins. But there were controls on the working: - 28 - Oakeley Slate - 6. The 1838 Lease

“.....the.parties...shall and will in the making and prosecution of their....quarryings and workings and at all times during the continuance of the.....3 demises from and after their....workings ...have met together....proceed to work and get and clear away all the slate demised lying up the said several veins to the west respectively of such part or parts where they shall have respectively met....so and at such rate that the working of the....parties of the 4th. part (Holland’s) shall in each and every vein be complete and the entire of the slate therein except pillars and supports gotten to the extent of at least 100 feet in their lowest limit levels in advance of the workings of the parties....of the 3rd. part and in like manner....the workings of the parties...of the 3rd. part shall ...be complete and ....in advance of the workings of the parties of the 2nd. part.” Thus once they had met, they had to work away all the slate, and not leave any behind apart from pillars. Also the workings had to be arranged so that the lowest floor of the “upper” of any two of the quarries had always to be at least 100ft ahead of the highest floor of the “lower” quarry. There were severe penalties for failure: “All the parties....covenant and agree... that if at any time the working of the parties... of the 4th. part shall not in any one vein be in advance of and complete as aforesaid to such extent of 100 feet the... vein and the right and intent... and all benefit and advantage thereof shall thereupon be entirely forfeited and absolutely transferred to the said parties hereto of the 3rd. part in use and for so long as they shall choose to work the same and in like manner if the workings of the 3rd. or 4th. parts ...shall not in any one vein all or either of them be completed and in advance of the workings of the...parties of the 2nd. part to such extent.... that the entire of the vein and the right and intent of both the said parties....if neither of their workings shall be so in advance or so much of the said vein both as to upper and under slate as the said parties hereto of the 3rd. part are entitled to if their workings are not so in advance and all.....shall in like manner ...be absolutely forfeited and entirely transferred to the parties hereto of the 2nd. part.” So, if they failed to keep ahead in a particular vein, then they forfeited the right to work that vein. But they could still work their quarry - at a price! “Provided never the less that so long as any one or more of the said parties who shall have allowed any one of their veins to be forfeited shall continue to work any other of their veins....they shall continue as between the parties hereto liable the whole of the surface a minimum rent in and by their respective lease or leases....the party taking such vein by way of forfeiture paying only such royalties as may become due and payable in respect to such forfeited slate.” But they still had to pay the whole surface rent. An afterthought related to the possibilities of cheating! “But provided never the less and in order that no unfair advantage shall be taken on by either of the 2nd. and 3rd. parties ....in pushing on less faster than another in order to obtain any forfeiture it is hereby further agreed that in unless the 2nd. and 3rd. parties in carrying out their works to the westward shall never have more than 5 bargains of 10 yards wide each at work on one or either of the said lifts at one and the same time and nor shall either of the ....2nd. and 3rd. parties ...have more bargains of 10 yards wide each at work in these and on their uppermost lift than they have on their first or lowermost lift and second lift but as the Welsh Slate Co. have not yet commenced working their lowermost lift and will be able to do so in the table which by their lease they have covenanted to drive shall have been made it is herebye preferably declared and agreed that the last above mentioned clause shall not so far as regards the Welsh Slate Co. be applicable to them so as to prevent their working their 3 uppermost lifts for forfeit of working their lowermost lift till the last day of January 1842.” This prevented a “lower” company deliberately working ahead very quickly on their highest floor so as to catch up with the “upper” company and make the “upper” company forfeit the vein – instead they had to keep all their floors in work. However, they had to work properly: “....they shall and will from time to time and at all times during the continuance of the said 3 several demises and of their several workings.... set out good and proper and sufficient pillars and walls of slate and also will duly and properly clean away all rubbish and will in all other respects so work and manage their said several quarries and workings that the same shall be in an entirely safe clean and proper state for the respective workings of the ....others of them to proceed ....without interruption and that they shall in no wise injure or endanger the ...others or their works or workmen ....otherwise shall be thoughtful ...on all or any occasions in the prosecution of their workings to give and in the case of the laying out of pillars they are herebye required to give notice in writing to the ...other parties of their intended proceedings, and that both such other parties shall thereupon shall within 14 days have liberty to enter the workings and view the same and shall be bound to state in writing their objections if any to such works proceeding...” This meant that every time any of the three companies began a new pillar or wall, then they had to give notice to the other two, to allow them a voice. And if they did disagree then there were ways of settling things: “...in case of such objections...each...shall ...name a person...and the persons shall within another week appoint a referee ...in case of their not agreeing ...or of the referee ...not choosing to act or not making his decision in the time provided then the surveyor or engineer of the landowner for the time being of the....3 quarries shall name such referee. Such referee being some indifferent person versed in quarry matters and ....shall within four weeks ...decide on the matter in difference ...and that the decision ...which need not be in writing shall be final and binding upon the said several parties who will obey the same accordingly and also pay and bear any expenses as he shall direct. ...no party having given such notice as aforesaid and having obeyed the decision which such referee has in case proceeded ...shall be afterwards liable to the ...others...for any accident or damage which may arise from the failure of the pillars or otherwise in consequences of such work whereof he shall have given notice...” The lessees were not the only ones to make promises: “Louisa Jane Oakeley doth...covenant and agree that she will not during the continuance of the said demises grant or appoint or be party to the granting or appointment of any leases of the present quarries or any slate quarries in the county of - 29 - Oakeley Slate - 6. The 1838 Lease

Merioneth to any proprietor lessee or holder or worker of any quarry in the Parish of Ffestiniog ...and the parties hereto of the 2nd. 3rd. and 4th. part ...agree ..that as long as she ...remains in possession as landlady ...and entitled to a power of leasing ...they shall not nor will ....work or carry on or be concerned in the working or carrying on of any other slate quarry or quarries in the said Parish of Ffestiniog or except or take or lease such quarries or carry on the same in any manner whatsoever in the Parish of Ffestiniog without the consent in writing of the said Louisa Jane Oakeley..” This seems strange – for the Oakeley estate included other lands where slate might be found, notably the area on the other side of the Barlwyd and Gorddinen stream known as Llechwedd y Cyd. In addition to the referee, the draft also gives details about the appointing of an arbitrato r in the event of a serious disagreement, or dispute over a referee’s decision. However a scribbled note, possibly by a legal advisor suggests that this should be deleted as it duplicates the provision of a referee and also would weaken his powers. Thus it seems likely that the final deed mentioned only an arbitrator including the tasks of the referee under that title. The draft is interesting in several ways. It, even at that early time, mentions both walls and pillars as means of support. It clearly lays responsibility for safe working on all the parties, recognising that eventually the workings would be one. It is curious that there seems to be a certain coolness towards the Hollands in that they were the last named party and that the penalty clauses were more likely to work against them than against the lower two quarries. This is mitigated, however, by their deeper workings as mentioned earlier. It is also clear that at that time the Welsh Slate Co.’s pits were not yet open to the depth of their lowest limit level, and would not reach it for some little time yet. Before delving into the developments which followed, it is worth pausing to consider how the working methods had progressed at the time of the lease, for much had happened. It is thought to have been William Turner, of Diffwys Quarry, who first introduced the ideas of slate mining, as opposed to open quarrying, into North Wales from his home county of Westmoreland. By the time of the 1838 lease and covenants described above, the methods had been to some extent regularised. Essential to both open workings and mining was the concept of the “bargain.” This was the arrangement wherebye an area of rock in the quarry was “let” to a group of quarrymen usually called “rockmen” to make slates. The basis of the bargain was the men’s estimation of the amount of slates they could make from the rock during the next period of time, usually a quarry month of four weeks, compared to the quarry owner’s or his agent’s estimation. Naturally the men tended to underestimate, citing the poor nature of the rock, the difficulty of getting good sized and good quality slates in the hope of a higher rate per slate, while the agent would, equally naturally, overestimate, citing the good quality of the rock, the ease of getting the slates and the large sizes etc., offering a lower rate per slate. Both sides understood the rules and in general the “bargaining” worked. The quarry month was also referred to as a “pay.” Men might be paid an amount each week based on the original estimate, with a final settlement “the Big Pay” at the end of the quarry month. In the surface workings where the quarry was worked as series of terraces, referred to as “floors” or “lifts,” each bargain would be adjacent to the next, and would encompass a length of one floor and the rock face above it as far as the floor above. On the next floor would be a similar set of bargains. How each bargain was marked out from the next is not known, but presumably by paint marks, poles, chains or ropes. Work was usually begun on an outcrop of the slate vein, which was then followed along the surface and down into the ground. In the Ffestiniog area, the veins dip at between 30 and 35 degrees to the horizontal, with layers of hard rock above and below the each vein, usually referred to as “hards” thus depending on the surface location, more or less of the hard rock overburden above the vein had to be removed as the slate vein was exposed and worked. Eventually the situation was reached where the thickness of overburden to be removed was excessive, and so just the slate vein was extracted. However, there was a natural limit to the extent to which this could be done before the unsupported overburden would break and fall into the workings below. In freestone, limestone and coal mining it was a common method to leave pillars of material every so often between the overlying and underlying hards to support the overlying “roof.” Slate mining borrowed the idea, and the term. There were complications, of course, the natural line of splitting of the slate, the “cleavage plane” dipped at a much steeper angle than the actual dip of the vein. One result of this was that the side of a pillar towards the surface could not be left vertical, or it would tend to shed layers from the bottom upwards, and so had to slope. Similarly the side of the pillar towards the dip had to slope in the opposite direction, again to avoid shedding layers from the slate immediately under the roof. These facts were discovered the hard way, by experience, as were the various minor faults or “pefels” soon anglicised to “pevels” or “bevels” which ran through the slate and provided a line of weakness along which the slate would slip or slide which meant that enough rock had to be left round any pevel to “lock” it into place. In consequence, working on the basis of the usual width of a bargain between the pillars of 10-20 yards it was soon found that a slate pillar needed to have base dimensions of a similar width in order to have enough strength to support the roof, while the “length” of the pillar had to be much greater. Early workings thus show an irregular variety of pillar sizes and locations, especially as a result of pillars collapsing and then being removed, the situation only becoming more regular from the 1840s and 1850s onwards when the idea of continuous “walls” being left rather than pillars was introduced. This removed the danger of there being long stretches of “roof” at right angles to the dip unsupported, and provided a continuous support parallel to the dip. It will be noted that the draft only refers to “pillars or supports” – not walls. The idea of the bargain was transferred underground very easily, and more often than not referred to the working spaces between a pair of walls or pillars and the rockface or “forebreast” between one floor and the next higher up. It should be pointed out, however, that it was perfectly possible for there to be more than one “bargain” working in the same chamber, so “bargain” should not always be taken as synonymous with “chamber.” As we shall see, it was also possible to refer to a - 30 - Oakeley Slate - 6. The 1838 Lease

“bargain” where the team of men were working on a wall, or on removing loose lock and sending the slabs recovered from that up to their partners in the mills. Inherent in the idea of leaving unworked slate, whether in a pillar or later in a wall, was the consequent idea that when the slate vein was “worked out” or perhaps too deep to work further, then the pillars or walls could be removed from the lowest ones upwards, thus allowing the overlying rock to collapse into the void left behind, while dumping the waste produced from working the pillars into the worked out bargains between them. This process was sometimes referred to as “gobbing up” or “gobbing back” – again perhaps from the term used in coal mining to refer to the waste packs as the “goaf “or “gob.” In the early years of the lease the possibility of this process being employed was far from everybody’s minds, but as time passed it was to become clear that in the Welsh Slate Company at least, the idea of “gobbing back” as the lease came towards it’s end had not been forgotten. As this process would quite naturally render the mine virtually unworkable afterwards, later leases were carefully worded to try and prevent any excuse for this.

The foundations had been laid, it was now up to the three quarries to build on them.

- 31 -

7. HOLLAND’S QUARRY, 1838-1869

The Hollands seem to have recognised early on that there were at least two veins of slate within their leased ground and initially opened workings in both of these as open pits. These were known as the Northern and Southern Quarries respectively from their geographical location. Using the later nomenclature, the Northern Quarry was in the Back Vein, while the Southern Quarry was in the Old Vein or Hen Lygad, however, the Hollands referred to them as the North Vein and the Main Vein respectively. Another reference gives the Back Vein as “No.2” and the Old Vein as “No.1” . Of the two workings, the oldest would appear to be the Southern Quarry, the vein outcropping in a southerly direction all the way up the side of the ridge towards Pen y Foel. This could be worked for most of its length in the open in a conventional fashion and maps up to 1870 show the progressive development of these terraces or floors up to a common line where a high vertical quarry face, the Western Bon as it was known, was created. This seems to have coincided with the extreme mine boundary of the lower two quarries, perhaps deliberately. Beyond it were developed the underground workings. The floors in the quarry were connected by a number of conventional rope worked inclined planes. However, the vein dipped into the ground to the south of and below the Northern Quarry and here mining on the pillar and chamber method was begun, forming a true sinc below the original ground level. Initial access to this sinc was by a level from the hillside to the east, presumably being the location of the level that had caused the earlier dispute over boundaries with the W.S.C.& L.M.Co.. This sinc was soon extended and eventually there were two separate floors, both reached by independent levels. Waste from the floors above the sinc was simply disposed of by tipping on the hillside to the east of the quarry the tips curving round first towards the north east and then gradually turning back towards the south east as the quarry developed and the tips lower down required room. Eventually some of the tips formed a complete semi-circle on the hillside, early tips being buried and obliterated by the higher ones. The early numbering of the floors is not known, but by the 1850s a straightforward system had been developed. The lowest limit level tunnel was Floor 1 and each floor above this was numbered upwards in sequence. Floors below the tunnel, in that part of the leasehold beyond the lower quarries extreme mine boundary where the Hollands could sink to any depth they wished were given alphabetic labels A and B. Thus the Southern Quarry sinc had its bottom on floor 3, with access levels and bargains on floors 3 and 4. The upper floors all connected by incline with floor 5, where a tramway ran across the higher ground towards the east. [1] However, not all the earlier working was as regular as this may suggest, nor were they always recorded. In the course of some fieldwork in the 1970s, a level was discovered halfway between floor 4 and floor 5. This was both narrow and low and corresponded roughly to the line of the tramway on floor 5 mentioned above. The eastern end was blocked and the western buried by fall. The origin and purpose of this is completely unknown, no quarry plans from the 1850s onwards showing it at all! The initial workings in the North or Back Vein were accessed from the surface on floor 4 as a cutting along the outcrop of the vein from east to west, this cutting becoming a level where the hillside rose more steeply and the vein was overlain by an extremely hard rock layer which had become known as the “Holland Hard.” From roughly the centre of this cutting, an inclined plane worked as a water balance was constructed down the dip of the vein and open terraces developed on either side of it for four floors down to the horizon of the lowest limit level tunnel. However, unlike the Southern Quarry, which could drain through the levels in the sinc, until the limit level, Lefel Fawr, was driven through the mountain to the main incline, the Northern Quarry had to be pumped to be kept clear of water as it lay wholly below the original level of the mountainside. This would seem to be the origin of the “Pumping Shaft” marked on the W.S.Co. lease plan, later quarry plans showing a wheelpit close by this position, apparently without any other purpose. We can presume, therefore, that the Back Vein sinc was drained by wheel pumping from the 1830s until the middle 1840s. Once the tunnel, Lefel Fawr, was through, the whole quarry developed more rapidly, two more floors being opened completely underground in the Southern quarry, continuing the sinc working down to the level of the tunnel. The higher of these two floors was connected to the lower by a short incline, itself underground inside a chamber. The lower floor connected directly with the tunnel and henceforward the whole of the drainage water from both quarries passed through the tunnel. In the Northern Quarry, the workings were extended westwards, the presence of the Holland Hard forcing them to be entirely underground, however, it was a mixed blessing, for its strong nature and the shallow depth below the surface allowed the Holland’s to develop bargains and chambers here much wider than could be formed anywhere else in the quarries. By 1859, when the quarry was surveyed by Charles Easton Spooner, James Spooner’s son, the Old Vein was in work in the Southern Quarry from floor 1 up to floor 8, while the Back Vein in the Northern Quarry was virtually worked out in the open, all the slate rock having been removed between the two hards which formed the top or northern and bottom or southern limits of the Back Vein. Underground working had extended in for about four chambers on Floor 1, three chambers on Floor 2 and two chambers on Floor 3, in accordance with the mutual covenants. Unfortunately the plans gives no indications of how the chambers or walls were labeled. Workshops had been established on floor 4, close by the level to the Southern quarry sinc. [1] The principal incline to the Holland’s quarries from the Ffestiniog Railway remained much the same from the date of its construction in 1839 until around 1895 when it was abandoned and progressively buried beneath the advancing Middle Quarry tip. By the 1980s only the tip of its head could be seen. Around the foot of the incline a small known as Dinas Rhiwbryfdir developed as time went by and the quarries grew. Samuel Holland had a carriage shed built for his chaise, there was a small level crossing over the line. A number of cottages were built, Tre’r Ddol, Pen y Groes and Ysgoldy – the cottage school for the quarrymen. There were a couple of larger houses near the level crossing while further east, across the - 32 - Oakeley Slate - 7. Holland’s Quarry 1838-1869 other side of the Barlwyd developed the community of Rhiwbryfdir proper, some little distance from the farm and hamlet which had given its name to the district. Two branches had been planned and constructed by the FR near the quarries, one running along the course of the Barlwyd with which we are concerned, and known as the “main line”, latterly the Dinas Branch, after Dinas Rhiwbryfdir, and the other known originally as the “branch line”, or latterly the Duffws Branch. The Dinas line was intended to serve the Rhiwbryfdir quarries while the other was to serve the quarries to the east, Diffwys Casson etc. See figs. 6 and 10 for comparative arrangements of connections. The junction of the two lines was several hundred yards south west of the foot of Holland’s incline site, and was known as Dinas Junction . From here the Dinas line was single track, running between stone walls to the north of the river until it reached a prominent outcrop of rock where Dinas station was later built. At this point two tracks branched off the main line to form a long reception loop, curving round the outcrop until they reached the usual crossover which formed the foot of the incline, having turned through about 135 degrees on their journey. Here the F.R. land ended and the quarry leasehold began. It is also probable that just to the north of this loop was the site of the Dinas Wharf used by J.W. Greaves from 1849 until his Llechwedd Quarry was connected to the FR. The incline was of conventional double tracked form, slanting diagonally up the hillside at a constant gradient, climbing some 400 feet from the end of the loop to the “crimp” or change of gradient at the head of the incline. It was known as Inclen Fawr - the Big Incline - a title frequently used within the quarries. The incline bed was built up here and there with masonry to preserve the gradient where it crossed depressions in the uneven mountainside, a number of buttresses or quay walls being constructed on the southern side to support it. These are particularly noticeable on photographs taken of the area. The incline drumhouse was, by the 1890’s, built into a cutting in the mountainside, the track passing beneath the drum directly into the limit level tunnel. Investigation of this area in the 1980s shows some curious features, which may give a clue to the original arrangement. The main entrance to the tunnel was for many years about 15 yards to the south of the drumhouse. This is now the sole entrance, the actual drum site being buried beneath waste. Here there was a weighhouse and weigh bridge, together with other buildings, one probably being a timekeepers office or candle store. This level immediately curved around to the north-west to line up with the main bore of the tunnel. After a few yards the drum house tunnel joined it from the right to form a double width section, the quarry drainage water running in a slab covered channel in the centre of the area. The double section ended after a short distance, the right hand side which came from the drum house curving off again to the right, the main tunnel carrying straight on into the mountain. The arrangement is shown in fig. 51 and illus 10 and 11. From the surviving drill marks in the walls and roof, it would appear that the more southerly entrance tunnel was driven outwards from the double width area, while the continuation of the drumhouse tunnel was driven in towards the double width section from both ends. The northern extension of this tunnel was blocked by a fall of uncertain age. Since Holland’s incline was in use in 1839, but the lowest limit level tunnel as defined by the lease, had yet to be driven, it follows that the driving of the tunnel which was about 2000 feet long, mostly through granite rather than slate, must have occupied the period from 1839 to 1841 or 1842 at the earliest. Spooner’s estimate, it will be recalled, was 3½ years. Thus, unless there was an alternative means of access to the drumhouse, no slate from the quarry could reach it. Fig 9 shows two possible routes of access around this period to the top of the incline, presumably used prior to completion of Level Fawr. The most likely scenario is that the bridge on the bastion was the first access but that was inadequate for the output because it was so awkward. Possibly it was only used during construction. The curved tunnel came next and could have been completed in a few months in the more friable strata near the surface. That access was adequate for the output until Lefel Fawr was complete. It would have been possible to connect it to the short incline until the main tramway was built although that too would have been a bit awkward. It would appear that the tunnel was driven with the assistance of two or possibly three shafts from the surface. The first shaft is about 200 feet from the present entrance, at the end of the double width section; the second is some 550 feet further on. No trace of either can be found on the surface, being presumably capped and buried beneath the waste tips that obliterate the original mountainside. The third shaft was in the western end of the tunnel, in the Old Vein, but unlike the other two, ended halfway down the tunnel wall, rather than above the tunnel itself. When I first walked the tunnel in 1975 or so, the shafts were open above the tunnel, but the shafts were roofed over in the Gloddfa Ganol period to prevent the incessant water dripping onto the public. The third shaft was in an area now completely worked away by McAlpines. The tunnel originally traversed the whole of the slate vein formation from Back Vein through the Old and what became known as the New Vein, the Glanypwll Trap rock (granite) and the South or Glanypwll Vein. The present tunnel is about 12 feet wide and 10 feet high, its original size is unknown as is the possible date of its widening. However, it only seems to have ever had a single track in it despite the width. Along the southern or left hand wall from the entrance was the channel carrying drainage water from the mine and the water balances. This water was used in the 1880s and 1890s, and possibly much earlier, to drive an overshot waterwheel at the bastion slab mill described below. Mention has been made of the problem of gaining access to the drumhouse, and clarification of this is difficult because of later construction. Plans and photographs from the 1870s onwards show a considerable bastion of slabs forming a platform on either side of the incline bed and drumhouse site on which were constructed a stable yard, smithy and a small slab mill driven by water. The incline was bridged and this carried the tramways across the incline to reach the Lower mill and the incline to the Upper Mills. The drumhouse was shown connected to this by a tramway, which came directly from under the drum and curved sharply to cross the bridge. See fig. 51 for detail. Much of this bastion was probably built at the time of the Lower Mill, in the 1860s and was probably much narrower at an earlier time. The rock cutting immediately behind the southern end of the Lower Mill, together with a small house or office perched on the rock close by it suggest an earlier age, before the mill, when the tramway had to cling to the - 33 - Oakeley Slate - 7. Holland’s Quarry 1838-1869 mountainside. It is felt that this cutting is the last remains of the original access tramway to the incline from the quarry before the tunnel was completed, the tramway running north and west around the mountain in a long climb to reach the floor 3 level., shown on fig. 9. The gradient for such a line would have been about 1 in 30 to 1 in 40, quite feasible for a horse to work with the gradient in favour of the load. On the way there must have been a dressing area, where the slabs brought out from the level to the Old Vein sinc could have been split and dressed. Here would have been small huts, gwaliau, or hand dressing huts where the men would sit to work on the slate, protected to some degree from the elements. This idea seems to be strengthened by the presence of a substantial tip of fine dressing waste at about the correct floor height between the Upper and Middle Quarries which could still be seen in the 1980s. The way in which the upper workings were connected to the incline has to be even more conjectural. Two tramways had to connect, one on floor 4 which communicated with both Back Vein and Old Vein and a second on floor 5 from the Old Vein only. The floor 5 tramway can still be traced today, crossing the ridge through an arched tunnel under a later over-tip to an incline immediately behind the Upper mills site. This incline is today very short and seems to have been superseded in the 1880s. It could easily have connected with an extension of the floor 4 tramway around the contours of the hillside from the Back Vein. It is the writer’s contention that hereabouts was another dressing area and the head of a longer incline, long since buried, carrying the tramway down to the level of the cutting below. It may also be that the extension of the drumhouse tunnel may have come out into the open at the foot of this incline, thus giving direct communication with the incline. Otherwise this branch of the drumhouse tunnel seems completely pointless. Holland is reputed to have installed gas lighting in his quarries in the 1850s – 1860s. The only reference to this, which has been found so far, is a report in the Local Advertiser on the 10th. of November 1858: “This slate quarry is situated near Festiniog, North Wales; it belongs to Samuel Holland Esq., and is worked through different levels into the inside of the mountain, to the distance of more than 1000 feet ; the mode used being to make openings in the solid slate rock at the end of the tunnels, 30 feet wide, high and long, and then leaving a pillar of slate of the same dimensions before making another opening. In these excavations no daylight can enter, the light of candles being the only source of illumination which the men worked up to last spring, when the proprietor employed Mr. George Walcott, engineer, to erect gasworks, and fit up the slate quarry with gas. These works have been now in operation two or three months and have given every satisfaction to the owner.” George Walcott of 24 Abchurch Lane exhibited at the 1862 London Exhibition, showing a full size set of six Gas Retort Bed. No reference has been found to this in any of the quarry letters for the period after 1878. However, Holland’s tunnel, which was certainly never connected to either the compressed air or electricity networks of the later Oakeley quarries, retained until recently brackets for piping on the southern wall, which “traditionally” are the remains of the tunnel lighting gas main. A circular depression in the bastion ground outside the tunnel and the remains of circular retaining wall found during survey work in the 1970s may suggest the site of a small gasholder. It was this period, 1840-1869 that saw the greatest changes at the quarries in the way they processed the quarried slabs. Saws to cut stone or slate rock to a size were used in the 1790s at the Penrhyn Quarry and were apparently adopted by the first quarries in the Ffestiniog district soon afterwards, indeed, by the 1820s the Diffwys Quarry was ordering blades for their slate saws in lots of twenty or more. These were circular saws , though small numbers of horizontal reciprocating sand saws are thought to have been at work up to twenty years earlier. They remained in use for dealing with hard slab in some quarries up until the 1920s. We know that the Welsh Slate Company had some machinery worked by water in the 1830s and, as described in the next chapter had experimented with a mechanical dressing or trimming machine in the early forties, as did Matthew at Rhiwbryfdir. However it was several years before a successful combination was arrived at which allowed the dressing knife to strike the slate repeatedly without smashing it completely. The slate saw and planing machine, being straight forward adaptations of existing stone working machinery were the first machines to be employed by the developing Rhiwbryfdir quarries and the first mills to be constructed in the quarries were often referred to as machine houses or saw sheds rather than dressing mills, dressing being carried out in gwaliau. Holland’s first attempt, as we know it today, was thus a sawing shed. This was constructed, possibly as early as 1852 or 1853, close to the top of the ridge on floor 4, hard by the short incline from floor 5. Indeed, so short of flat space were they that part of the hillside was cut away to fit it in. This first mill was about 100 feet long and 35 feet wide. Six saws were installed, orientated on the length of the mill, three on each side. The saws were driven by fast and loose pulleys from line shafts running across the mill over each pair of saws. These in turn were driven by bevel gears from longitudinal shafts driven by a small steam engine, which may have been installed inside the southern end of the mill, but was later removed to the outside on the west. A tramway passed through the centre of the mill between the lines of saws, while dressing was carried on outside the mill, by hand or machine. Subsequently the building was extended to the north to house a further six saws internally arranged in the same manner. The new section was 95 feet long and 40 feet wide, giving more room between the saws. The tramway was continued through this section. The change of location of the engine may relate to a replacement with a larger one to handle the increased size of the mill. Two lean-tos were constructed along the east and west walls to handle the dressing operations, although at some later date the west lean to was used to house a further three saws parallel to those inside. The lean-tos added forty feet to the width of the mill. The mill was also, by 1870 anyway, working on the day wages system rather than the bargain system. A plan of the complex is shown in fig 54. The waste from the mill, and the expanded quarrying operations that it allowed, caused a great increase in the tipping area in front of the mill, eventually engulfing the old floor 3 tramway. A water balance incline was constructed in the Southern quarry sinc to replace it, lifting slabs to the floor 4 tramway. A number of barracks and cottages were constructed around the new mill, both on the natural and the newly made ground. It is almost impossible now to determine with any certainty which - 34 - Oakeley Slate - 7. Holland’s Quarry 1838-1869 buildings were built when, all were certainly in existence by 1870, and the extent of repairs carried out with old and new material alike makes dating difficult. There was a smithy, for the mill, two rows of barracks or cottages and what can only be an office with a strange circular adjunct, which a photograph of the 1870s shows to have had a conical slated roof. Perhaps from this eyrie Samuel Holland kept a magisterial eye on the workings of his men and the other quarries lower down the mountain. See illus. 26, 27 (Roundhouse), 80and 81(barracks). Holland’s next mill was of a more refined design its exact date is unknown but as it was designed for both saws and dressers arranged transversely across the mill, it seems safe to date it to about 1858-64 or so when this arrangement was introduced. By this time most of the available open quarrying rock had been extracted and the workings were being extended almost entirely underground. This was particularly true of the Back Vein in the Northern Quarry, whose rock was of the best quality and whose output was hindered by the need to raise both waste and good slab by the single water balance incline to floor 4 for disposal and dressing. Even after a second water balance incline was installed in the Back Vein sinc, lifting from floor 2 to floor 4, the capacity of the upper mill and the inclines was insufficient so the waste from the workings on floor 1 and 2 was diverted through the tunnel and tipped onto the mountainside forming the bastion previously mentioned and providing an area for the new mill. The new mill, which became known as the Lower Mill, Melin Holland Isaf , seems to have been built in two stages. The first, or southern, section of the mill was 132 feet long by 52 feet wide. The building housed 9 or possibly 10 saws mounted transversely across the mill with a similar number of dressers mounted against the eastern wall. Beneath the dressers were openings in the floor leading out through the wall. Waste from the dressing operations could thus fall into waste wagons positioned on stub ends of track, the wagons then being removed and tipped from outside the mill. Above each waste hole was a window, to give light onto the splitting and dressing position. The view from these windows, if the slate makers ever had time to look, would have been spectacular, with the incline slanting down the mountainside below them and the town of Blaenau growing up in front of them. Certainly the mill and its windows form a prominent feature on many early photographs of Blaenau. The mill was powered by a steam engine installed in a separate house on the solid ground to the west of the mill, sharing a common wall. Unlike many of the mill engines, this had a substantial chimney built up from slabs that was still standing in the 1980s. No details of either engine or boiler have survived, but examination of the remains suggests that the boiler house was extended at some time with a lean-to, the combination holding possibly a pair of Cornish boilers about 5 feet in diameter and 20 feet long, which was typical of the later Oakeley boiler houses. The engine house itself was a two storey structure with a slab water tank outside. The house is positioned roughly half way along this first part of the mill and so would seem to be of a similar age. Power was taken from the engine via a flat belt through a vertical slot in the common engine house/mill wall to a line shaft inside the mill. This was not a particularly good arrangement as the belt crossed the mill tramway, which was laid alongside the western wall, at a very low height. This form of drive is also to be seen in one of the Diffwys mills, and it may be that they were both constructed by the same groups of masons, as these moved around from quarry to quarry as work was required. Drive from this first shaft was then transferred by further flat belts and pulleys to the two main shafts, which ran longitudinally along the mill, one above the saws and a smaller one above the dressers, each machine being driven individually from the shaft. The second or northern part of the mill was constructed from sawn slabs, rather than the random masonry of the first part, and added 165 feet to the length of the mill at the same width. This brought the mill to 297 feet long. An extra ten or perhaps 11 saws and their accompanying dressers could have been accommodated. A small extension was also constructed at the southern end of the mill housing a saw or perhaps a planer with a dresser bringing the total for the mill as a whole to around 21 saws and dressers. The tramway bringing slabs into the mill entered from the southern end and passed out again at the other where the track curved round the outside of the mill to connect with the waste tramways in front. At some time the ground was built up behind the mill, possibly when the tramway connection was made to the Middle Quarry, and the existing entrances to the mill on the level gained by steps down. This area shows no remains of a stacking yard, which it must have been, and it is tempting to suggest that the original stacking yard was at the level of the mill floor. Thus by 1870, Holland’s quarries had two mills in work, the Upper being fed with slabs from the Southern quarry floors down to floor 3 together with the upper Back Vein floors of the Northern Quarry. The Lower Mill, on the other hand, was fed via the tunnel with slabs from the Old Vein and Back Vein on floors 1 and 2. In passing, it will be apparent that, the small slab mill apart, the Hollands were dependent on steam for powering their mills from the start, and this seems to require some little explanation here in view of Blaenau’s copious rainfall. The explanation lies in the combination of the Hollands leasehold and the lie of the slate outcrop, which became the Southern and Northern Quarries. Their development effectively cut off the tip areas where the north west of the quarries collecting all the water available by a series of leats. These fed both the water wheel pit mentioned earlier and the water balances in the Back Vein. The feed to these was particularly awkward as the reservoir was on the opposite side of the sinc to the water balance, thus a supply pipe was constructed down the bon across the floor 1 tramway by means of slab bridge and then up alongside the water balance track to feed the tank at the top of it. The second shorter balance was fed by a pipe from the Old Vein along the top of Pen Balance, as the spur of rock between the two quarries was known. These reservoirs did not supply the mills or Old Vein balances, however. Two small reservoirs were constructed just above floor 9, in the narrow valley between Carreg Blaenllym and the ridge running up to Pen y Foel. These supplied the water balance in the Old Vein sinc and a small reservoir just above the Upper mill on floor 5. From this pipes fed the boilers in - 35 - Oakeley Slate - 7. Holland’s Quarry 1838-1869 the Upper and Lower Mills. These however must have proved very trying in dry weather and in an attempt to improve the situation, Llyn Bach, on the watershed between Cwmorthin and Holland’s quarries straddling their mutual boundary, was substantially enlarged, and fed with pipes collecting water from the higher mountainside to the north. Pipes or troughs supported on slab pillars led from the eastern dam to feed the floor 9 reservoirs. This dubious scheme, constructed with the agreement of Cwmorthin lasted until the bed of the lake was apparently cracked open by the Cwmorthin fall of 1882. Charles Easton Spooner had an ambivalent relationship with the Blaenau Quarries. As well as acting as consulting engineer and surveyor to them, he was also acting in a managerial capacity for the Ffestiniog Railway. Perhaps he had a compartmentalised mind, or very strong Victorian principles. However, be that as it may, in 1859 he surveyed Holland’s quarry workings a task he repeated in the years to come. Regrettably only a few of his plans have come to light, Bron y Garth, his Portmadoc home, must have been a veritable library of quarry and engineering plans and drawings. Thus all that can be said is that at some time between 1859 and 1868(!) there were falls in both Northern and Southern quarries where the overlying strata collapsed into the workings. A pair of paintings, originally reproduced as the cover of “ Candles To Caplamps ”, give a rather fanciful picture of the Holland quarry pillars, but it may be significant that Holland, in his diary refers to some of his pillars giving way whereas his walls stood firm. The Back Vein fall consisted of primarily the quarry face or bon to the east of the water balance incline. The fall did bring one advantage; it allowed a road to be brought directly into the Back Vein on floor 1. The original road to Holland’s, which had passed up the valley, had been quarried away by the combined efforts of the Welsh Slate and Rhiwbryfdir Companies, and the Holland's had had it rebuilt to the north of the open workings where it connected the farms of Tan yr Allt and Ffridd to Tal y Waenydd. After the fall, a branch track from the road was made over the rubble into the quarry. It was thought that the road in its new position would be free from any interference by the workings, but as shall be seen this was not the case. The fall in the Southern Quarry was potentially more damaging than that in the Back Vein. For one thing the Back Vein fall had occurred to the east while the direction of development was to the west, it had also not obstructed the principal tramways. The fall in the Old Vein was a different matter. It principally affected the sinc below Pen Balance on the southern side. Floor 2 was completely filled up and rock ran down and blocked floor 1 immediately below, smashing the connecting incline. Floor 3 was also partially filled. Floor 2 was abandoned and the floor 1 area cleared only so far as to allow traffic through, development continuing beyond the line of the western bon. The decision to leave both falls where they were, while understandable, was not a good one and contrary to the terms of the lease. In the years 1867 to 1869 Charles Spooner surveyed and re- surveyed the various Rhiwbryfdir quarries, producing several huge plans to chain scale which have fortunately survived and on which almost all subsequent surveyors based their work. Without Spooner’s plans this history would have been almost impossible. Their one lack is that they do not go far enough! Intended to show the workings, they show little if anything of the tramway connections with the F.R. and it is this lack that causes so much uncertainty in the layout drawings. Nonetheless, when it comes to the workings they are most informative, using different colours to distinguish not only the different floors, but also the tramways on the floors. It was a face-to-face confrontation with Spooner’s 1870 masterpiece that first ensnared the author. In later years he was referred to as “The” Mr Spooner – the Old Gentleman, a survey in 1876 being taken by “Young Mr Spooner – only recently from College” who by the time of the Great Fall Inquiry was described as “now gone to Ceylon”. Fig 17 shows the open workings depicted on it the 1870 version. In the Old Vein, work had been extended up as high as floor 9, although it had as yet not been connected to the lower floors by tramway incline. The highest drumhouse was on floor 8, the incline connecting this floor with 7 and 6 below it, their own tramways crossing the incline by means of slab bridges. A second incline connected floor 6 with floor 5. Both these inclines were unchanged from the form shown on the 1859 survey. From the foot of the lower incline on floor 5, tracks spread out over the ridge to the east, which was covered with waste while the old tramway still connected with the short incline behind the Upper mills. Here on floor 5 was a smithy, while pipes ran beside the inclines to feed the lower reservoir and the water balances. Floor 5 was the highest underground working in the Old Vein at this time, being accessed by a timber bridge over the floor 4 open workings beneath it. The end of the bridge sprung directly from the western bon, by this time a huge vertical wall of rock several hundred feet high, its face pockmarked by the blocked mouths of abandoned levels. Floor 4 and floor 3 were connected together by a water balance incline in the sinc, a detailed sketch of this is given as fig. 53, but the floor 4 tramway route which had originally skirted around the eastern edge of the sinc on a ledge had been supplanted by a new tunnel further to the south, partly through the tips, which became known as the Injan Level . The name came from the Welsh for an engine or a machine but also came to apply to the building which contained them and so the mill also was termed an Injan, hence Injan Fawr etc. Thus the level referred to may have been named because it was actually used by a steam engine or more likely because it led to the mill. To partially clear the fall at the level of floor 4, a tunnel was driven through Pen Balance from the Back Vein and a tramway laid through the hole to work the top of the fall. In the Back Vein open workings, all four floors were connected together by zigzag pathways for horses, while a gravity incline had been laid to connect floors 2 and 1, presumably to allow slabs to be transferred to the Lower mill. The plan clearly shows the positions of many small gwaliau on the tips and in the Back Vein sinc. As has been mentioned, the underground workings in the Old Vein had reached up as high as floor 5 where there were two chambers in work, reached directly from the bridge in the open quarry, however two long levels northwards tapped the tops of two Back Vein chambers. Figs. 19 and 20 show the underground workings. On floor 4 an exploratory level had been driven to the south, which must have tapped the New Vein, then of little commercial value where there was Old and Back Vein rock of higher quality in plenty to work. The main - 36 - Oakeley Slate - 7. Holland’s Quarry 1838-1869 level connected to four working chambers. There were no workings on floors 3 and 2 due to the fall, but four very long and high chambers were accessed from the floor 1 main level. It seems possible that these were originally developed from floors 2 and 3, but the plans do not show even the remains of connecting levels, so this must remain in doubt. The main floor 1 level was connected by a north-westerly branch to the main Back Vein floor 1 level, presumably to avoid congestion at the foot of the main water balance incline in the Back Vein sinc, allowing waste and slab traffic to be separated, the slabs from both veins using the Old Vein level, while waste from the Back Vein went up the incline. Where the waste from the Old Vein went and why the Back Vein waste could not go the same way is a matter for much conjecture. Of the two veins, the Back Vein was by far the most developed underground, while the Old Vein was the most extensive above ground. Apart from the different physical locations all accounts refer to the Back Vein Slate as being of the higher quality. Floor 4 in 1870 was still basically exploring the top of the vein. There were two chambers in work, but most of the floor was purely tunnel. On floor 3 however the level had been driven much further west, three chambers being tapped, three being exhausted. Floors 1 and 2 were the main producers, floor 2 having 4 or 5 working chambers of considerable width, floor 1 having a similar number. Six chambers in from the surface was a carriage incline, with its drum on floor 2, which connected floor 1 with a lower floor A, in the part of the mountain beyond the extreme mine boundary where the Holland’s could sink to any depth they liked. This connected with two small chambers. Thus even at this time the workings were beginning to lose the regularity required by the lease. Although, since most of Holland’s workings were west of the limiting boundary line with the Rhiwbryfdir and Welsh Slate Cos. and were begun well before those of the Rhiwbryfdir Co., it may well be that there was no requirement for them to be regular as they had no others to relate to. Two photographs were taken at the same period that have also fortunately survived in the Gwynedd Archives Oakeley collection, these show the Back Vein open workings and the Old Vein workings. Particularly interesting in the Back Vein photograph is what seems to be a boiler and stack just under the overhanging Holland Hard and western bon, possibly supplying steam to the incline mentioned above and a pump on the lower floor. The photograph also shows the various inclines, balances and several horses at work on floor 1. In connection with the discussions over the lease in 1869, referred to in the next chapter, the following description was made of the Holland’s quarry in a report by the manager of the Welsh Slate Co. : “4) MR. HOLLANDS QUARRY. “Our Main Vein does not cut out there. This impression arose from a disturbance in the formation of the rock at the boundary between the Upper Quarries where the vein suddenly diminishes to eight yards, and again widens considerably going westwards.” “His workings are in two veins only, -The Main Vein of 62 yards wide and North Vein of 44 yards wide.”

(In this context the “Main Vein” was the Old Vein, and the “North Vein” actually referred to the Back Vein!)

“5) SUGGESTION. “Having well considered the difficulties of the territory question the only way to meet the lessor’s view and bring about a satisfactory arrangement would be to invite Mr. Holland to become a member of your company on 1st. January next.” “Granting his profit is £8000 a year, of which he would have to satisfy you that return is represented by 10 of your shares.” “His plant and machinery might be taken at a valuation, from which £1,500 should be deducted for the cost of removing the old fall, and payment of the balance arranged by instalment to be spread over a period of three years.” “If it could be so settled no capital would be wanted to communicate it, and the result of your first year’s working of his quarry would leave an increased profit wherewith to meet the £8000, the first instalment upon the plant, and leave a surplus.”

“A few statistics may not be out of place showing the practicability of all this: - Bargains: 41, less unproductive: 7, slate making: 34. 1st. Class saw tables: 40. No. of men: 520. Average of 3 years make is equal to: 1200 tons a pay . [3] Marketable slate made: 35 tons 6cwt. per bargain per pay. 1 ton 5cwt. per saw table per day. 2 tons 6cwt. per man per pay. £ 1 5s 1/2d a ton on the make. “As these seven are worked by the day wages system, £87/10/- monthly goes to pay the labour, powder and tools of these 14 rock workers.” “I am of the opinion that the same quantity of work might be done by contract for nearly half the money.” “Along one road in bad order are 5 horses continually going each drawing 4 loads = 20 loads.” “Along our timber frame road on DE level are 4 horses going a longer distance each drawing 6 loads = 24 loads.” “Allowing for the difference in quality of the slate and that therefore results cannot equal Rhiwbryfdir, this quarry is nevertheless capable of an early increase in the make at diminished cost.” [2] Of the forty saw tables, the Lower Mill might account for 21, while the Upper Mill held a further fifteen, it may be that a further three or four were in the Upper Mill lean-tos, although this is now impossible to determine. Here for the moment we must leave Holland’s Quarry and return to the 1830s again to follow the development of Holland’s great rivals, the Welsh Slate Company, and Matthew’s Rhiwbryfdir concern.

- 37 -

8. RHIWBRYFDIR QUARRY, 1838-1870

Of the three constituent Rhiwbryfdir quarries, the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co. itself is perhaps the least well documented. Unlike both Holland’s and the Welsh Slate Co. the quarry’s management seem to have kept themselves out of the many squabbles that went on, indeed until they and the W.S.Co. came to disagree in the 1870s they seem to have behaved with an exemplary regard for the terms of the lease and their neighbours. Perhaps not too surprising when one considers their position between the two. We must remember also the nature of the proprietors, and their interests, principally local men. Sir Joseph Huddart owned the Brynkir Estate and was the first mortgager of the Ffestiniog Railway on 14th. July 1836 for £10,000 at 5%. His father had been a Merchant Navy Captain and famous hydrographer, who had surveyed improved routes for the Irish Mail ships in 1807 in association with John Rennie. He had leased Plas yn Penrhyn to Samuel Holland in the late 1820s and Samuel senior is said to have died there, Huddart himself dying between 1838 and 1841. One son was G.A. Huddart who served on the F.R. Board of directors from 1847-58, 1860-64 and on later occasions, while another was Joseph Durham Erskine Huddart who was involved jointly with his brother in several patent applications in the 1860s.. Andrew Durham, his brother in law, was a director of the F.R. also, from 1844-58, 1860-62 and on subsequent occasions while he was also the Chairman of the Board of FR for 16 non-consecutive years. [1] He owned the house and estate “Belvedere”, in county Down, Ireland, and had property in street, Bath. He died in November 1876.[0] The Matthew’s had leased the house Wern, near Tremadoc, from Sir Joseph Huddart,who had purchased it in 1818 and subsequently completed the work done on it and its estate by the previous owner many years before. Nathaniel Matthew had only arrived in Wales in 1834 or 1835 with his wife and son. He was the younger son of the Matthew family of New House, Pakenham, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. His wife was one Mary Windus, the daughter of Edward Windus of Tottenham, Middlesex. He was to take a great interest in the life of Ffestiniog and later became a J.P. for Caernarfonshire, his tenure lasting for many years. John Whitehead Greaves of the later Llechwedd quarry stayed at Wern with them and met his future wife, Ellen Stedman, there. He and Nathaniel Matthew were later considered to be the most honest and just Magistrates and always sat on the bench together. Nathaniel Matthew died, aged 80 on the 3rd. March 1867, his wife having died some 15 years previously, aged 62. Both were buried in the family tomb in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Pakenham. [2] The son, Edward Windus Mathew was born in 1812 and was again later remarked on for his kindliness and generosity; this nature was said to have helped many to find a position in life. He was known as a thorough gentleman and in all the circle he moved in he was known as faithful to his position and his conscience. He was Chairman of the local National School Committee for many years and established a Volunteer Corps in Porthmadog in 1860, the “ 4th Corps of Carnarvonshire Rifle Volunteers ” becoming its first Captain and then Major of Battalion in 1868. He was apparently a loyal and sincere churchman, and so succeeded his father as a J.P. and became a Deputy Lieutenant of Caernarfonshire. He married twice, Charlotte Isabella Thompson, of Bewley in 1848 who died in 1863 and then Charlotte Anne Windus of Lewes in Sussex. His children were Nathaniel Edward Arthur and Charles James Windus, thus keeping the family names in being. [2] There is some confusion over the spelling of the surname both Mathew and Matthew being recorded as well as Mathews and Matthews. To this can be added variation on Stedman as Steadman. Nathaniel’s eldest daughter, Mary Sophia married Robert Stedman, a landowner and farmer from Pakenham at Festiniog in 1843. As a result there are Steadmans in the Matthews’ family graves at Pakenham. A second daughter, Eleanor, was born about 1826. Mention has been made in the previous chapter of the absence of the name of Nathaniel Matthew from the 1838 lease. It seems likely that this is because he was not one of the original company of gentlemen who made up the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company. A notice appeared in the London Gazette for March 1844 as follows: “NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership lately subsisting between us the undersigned, Andrew Durham (in my own right, and as executor of the late Sir Joseph Huddart), and Edward Windus Mathew, Benjamin Godfrey Windus, and George Clode (trading under the style or firm of the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company, at Festiniog, in the county of Merioneth, and Portmadoc, in the county of Carnarvon, respectively), was, by mutual consent, dissolved on the 1st day of June 1843, so far only as the said George Clode is concerned, by the substitution of the undersigned Nathaniel Mathew in the place and stead of the said George Clode.” [2a] From then on, essentially it was the Matthews, father and son, who were most obviously associated with the company –so much so that ever after it was referred to as “Matthews’ Quarry.” Presumably George Clode was no longer interested or perhaps wanted to employ his money elsewhere, for it is said that in the early days the Rhiwbryfdir Company saw little return on their investment. Benjamin Godfrey Windus, Edward Windus Matthew’s uncle, died in July 1867, Edward being one of the executors of his will. It is also interesting to note that Benjamin was the great nephew of Peter Moore, M.P. one of the original directors of the W.S.C.&.L.M.Co. The Windus family is very interesting, but has little to do with the quarries. Benjamin originally inherited both the family coachmaking business and also the making of “Godfrey’s Cordial” however, he sold his interests in both and seems to have been quite content to remain a financial backer for his brother in law and nephew, being more interested in his famous collection of Turner paintings. His son, also called William Edward was a founding partner in the famous publishing firm of Chatto & Windus[2b] The Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company was that most risky of enterprises, although typical of the period, a private company or partnership with unlimited liability, all the capital and the responsibility lieing on its members. We know very little about how the original capital was provided by the partners, but in 1859 it was said that the “ Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company – Employs about 350 men and returns a net annual profit of £13,000 or 50 per cent upon the original capital.” [2c] This would seem to imply that the total capital was about £26,000. In the absence of shares, once can only presume that when any of the partners died, their income from the company died with them, unless they passed their interest in the company on in their wills. Certainly by the 1870s the only person ever mentioned in connection with the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company was Major Edward Matthew – it had indeed become “Matthew’s Quarry.” - 38 - Oakeley Slate - 8. Rhiwbryfdir Quarry 1838-1870

The strong connection between the proprietors and the F.R. may well have mitigated against the Rhiwbryfdir Co. complaining about lack of wagons for transport or other issues - or perhaps this connection is precisely why the other proprietor’s complaints were so vehement! In view of the lack of documentation, for the early period generally, what follows is somewhat speculative and must be regarded with caution, except where factual evidence exists. The initial location of the Rhiwbryfdir Co was fortunate in that the abandoned open working of the W.S.Co. which they took over lay on the outcrop of the Old Vein in the valley that ran up to the Holland’s quarries from the W.S.Co. pits. Being thus situated on the run of the vein where it rose up the hillside they were able to develop their quarry in the by then standard fashion of a series of open terraces across the width of the vein, each floor having its own tramway running along the floor to a tip on the mountainside to the south, below Holland’s quarries’ tips. Presumably each floor was connected to the next one below it by an inclined plane worked by gravity. Again, each floor would have had an area somewhat removed from the actual quarrying site where the splitting and dressing of the slabs could take place in gwaliau . Unfortunately later developments described below have so obliterated the earlier tips that it is very difficult today even to suggest the original arrangements. The Rhiwbryfdir floors were numbered in a similar manner to Holland’s, the lowest limit level floor being floor 1 etc. However, internal correspondence in the 1870s and 1880s refers to them as the “First Floor” , the “Second Floor” and so on. In view of its location, sandwiched between Hollands’ and the W.S.Co., the new company soon went underground on its lowest floors. The Rhiwbryfdir Co. seem to have numbered their walls starting with 1 in the east, approximately on the mutual boundary line between them and the W.S.Co. and increasing westwards.. Each chamber formed, was numbered after the wall on its eastern side, thus one had Wall No.1 followed by chamber No.1, then Wall No.2 and chamber No.2 etc. True to form, they also had their own numbering system for the Veins - the Old Vein was No. 1 Vein, the Stripy Vein was the No. 2A Vein, the Back Vein the No. 3A vein – though quite why the “A” was appended is not at all clear – it was usually used to indicate a part of a vein. All of which makes the situation of relating the quarries correspondence and working even more difficult. Especially when the Welsh Slate Co. referred to the Old Vein as the Main Vein and the Back Vein as the North Vein! [3] Curiously at some point the Back Vein chambers were given an alphabetic reference, Wall “A” being roughly below the middle of Twll Clai, chamber A to the west of it and so on. It should be noted in passing that after 1887, the nomenclature of the old Rhiwbryfdir and Holland’s quarries was simplified by using the Rhiwbryfdir numbering as a base. Thus the Holland’s quarries floors whose base on floor 1 was very little different from floor 5 of the Rhiwbryfdir workings all had 4 added to their numbering to bring them into numerical order. However, due to the slight difference in levels, the Rhiwbryfdir floor 5 and the new Holland’s floor 5 were sub-labeled 5 M.Q. and 5 U.Q. to distinguish them. The original site for the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s incline connection to the Ffestiniog Railway is shown on the lease map as beginning just to the north of Rhiwbryfdir Farm and then slanting south west up the mountainside to the entrance of the limit level tunnel in a similar manner to that shown for the Holland’s, although it is not labeled as an incline. The track to it is shown as branching off the F.R. about 280 yards (from the Holland’s connection, just before a bridge over the Barlwyd. The tramway is shown as running along the west bank of the river in front of Rhiwbryfdir House to the foot of the incline. Now while this route is certainly shown on F.R. Co. plans, as is the foot of the incline, although the alignment does not exactly match that proposed in 1836, the alignment of the lowest limit level tunnel certainly does NOT match that actually driven. It therefore seems likely that, as in the case of the Welsh Slate Co.’s lowest limit level, mentioned in Chapter 5, it was found necessary to deviate from the direction originally planned, but as this did not concern them (!) it was not marked on their copy by the W.S.Co. See page 46 for conjectural development. The Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s lowest limit level tunnel could still be explored for most of its length in the 1980s, although its eastern end is completely buried by the tips and internally the same end is buried in feet of silt and mud carried into it by the drainage waters of the quarry. Unlike the Holland’s Lefel Fawr, the Rhiwbryfdir tunnel has never been opened out as a traffic level, having apparently been used only as a drainage level for the whole of its long existence. Again, unlike either of the other tunnels, it seems to have no documented intermediate shafts connecting with it. It is likely, following on from the above, that the quarry was initially connected with the incline to the F.R. by a tramway following the contours from the quarry, most probably on floor 1, connecting with the head of the incline on that level, the other floors connecting with it via their own inclines. In 1842, the Rhiwbryfdir Co. wrote to Edward Oakeley, who was still acting on behalf of Mrs. Oakeley, requesting a reduction of royalties for slate obtained in open workings. The result was a modification: [4] “Gentlemen, Whereas by an Indenture of Lease dated the 9th. day of July 1839 granted by me (?) to your Company of certain lands and Quarries situate lying and being at and forming part of a certain farm called Rhiwbryfdir..... it is covenanted and agreed that the said Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co. shall have the option of working the said Quarries either on the underground principle or Open system of working as they... may think fit”. The document then went on to list the changes the royalty for 1st. class slates was to be reduced from 4/- per ton to 3/6d and for 2nd. class slates from 2/3d per ton to 1/9d during the unexpired term of the lease. However, there were conditions attached. They had to work on the open principle only within a space marked on an attached plan (not surviving), nor could they dispose of their rubbish on any vein or veins “...except such portions of such vein or veins as shall have previously had the Bone and Hard removed from the Back thereof down to the depth of your lowest limit level, as the same is laid down..... or shall have had the Bone and Hard removed down to the Upper Middle and Lower lift of the different slate bargains in the ordinary and usual mode of working such quarries.” The “Bone” or quarry face was to be cut “perpendicularly and entirely thro’ the hard”. The reduction was only to be on the conditions given and if any other mode of working other than the open - 39 - Oakeley Slate - 8. Rhiwbryfdir Quarry 1838-1870 was used, then the royalties would revert to their former levels, and the whole period of the reduced royalties would be considered to amount to an arrear of royalties! Note: Bone was the anglicised spelling of the Welsh word bon which could be and was applied to almost any hewn rock face within the quarry. In an east-west level, for example, the south wall was known as bon mawr and the small wall where the roof met the floor on the north side known as bon bach. More generally it was applied in the open workings to the high quarry faces which were pierced by the openings into the chambers. The size of the bon was later considered to be a weakness, as being exposed to the elements, it allowed water to get into the layers of rock where it could damage their cohesion by its own action and the action of frost. The “hard” or being the layers of non-slate rock which usually over and under lay the actual slate vein and which were worthless. Despite the dire retribution that would follow failure, the Rhiwbryfdir Co. apparently agreed to this, and shortly thereafter Holland’s also became involved in a similar agreement. The Welsh Slate Co.’s arrangement was more awkward, as is related in a subsequent chapter. It initially seems odd that they should want a reduced royalty on a cheaper system of working – it may be that this was to take into account the fact that rock exposed in the open “dried out” and became harder to split, thus producing a reduced make. Even in the 20 th . Century it was common practice for slate blocks from underground to be kept damp by water sprays until needed to make them easier to split. As the workings on each floor progressed westwards into the mountain, it eventually became necessary to resort to mining on the chamber and pillar method to remove as much of the slate vein as possible. However, as far as evidence is available, it would appear that Rhiwbryfdir used walls as a means of support from the first without first becoming involved in the rather vulnerable pillars. Indeed, such was their belief in this method of support that they obtained an agreement from the Welsh Slate Co. in 1845, that where the W.S.Co. workings were beneath theirs, the W.S.Co. would continue the Rhiwbryfdir Co. walls downward into their own workings in the same manner. Whether the dating has any significance in view of the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s workings at that time, or whether this was because the clause in the indenture protecting the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s “underslate” from the W.S.Co. had run its course, it is difficult to say. Equally, one wonders how this relates to the agreement over royalties mentioned previously. As might be expected, the first floor to become dependent on mining for its slate was the lowest floor, 1, each succeeding floor higher up being less dependent in turn until floor 5, the highest floor, was entirely worked in the open even in 1870. Unlike the Welsh Slate Co. the directors of the Rhiwbryfdir Co. being almost all local men, chose local men (well, sort of) as their managers or agents. The first was Owen Pritchard, the son in law of Robert Parry of Llanllyfni, Nantlle, and the brother of Ellis Williams and Hugh Parry of Cilgwyn. He had been a quarryman in the 1820s and 1830s at Cloddfa’r Lon. Owen’s son, David Williams-Pritchard acted as his clerk. Owen was succeeded in about 1858 by one William Pierce of Dolwyddelan, who had been the shipping agent at Porthmadog. He in his turn was succeeded by Robert P. Williams, of Cae Braich y Cefn, Nantlle in 1864. His clerk was an ex-rockman called Robert Roberts, about whom we shall hear much more anon. Nathaniel Matthew patented a slate dresser in 1850, patent no. 13019, already mentioned in connection with Holland’s first Upper Mill, a device which he said was constructed: “.....in a suitable manner for being actuated by the strength of the ....workman....or otherwise by the strength of a man...or men... of a horse... of a water wheel ....or of a steam engine.” His patent covered a device able to cut slates to the traditional rectangular pattern or to other “fancy” or “gothic” shapes simply by changing the movable knife and the fixed blade it struck against. Until recently this was the only known form of Matthew’s dresser. Several example survive in museums including one at the , Llanberis, Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog records that it was in the early 1840s that Matthew was first experimenting with a dressing machine driven by horses, the essential features of it being that it had a slanting moving blade, enabling it to cut & dress the slate without shattering it. [5] While perfect for the fancy slates it was rather less satisfactory for handling rectangular slates, an eccentrically driven wheel and a spring converting the rotary motion of the lineshaft to an oscillating knife. This clumsy arrangement has hitherto made it difficult to see how such a device made the revolutionary impact it was credited with. It was also rather small in size and it was difficult to see a whole mill being equipped with them. Thus the question remained, what was Matthew’s dresser? A chance discovery on a Practical Industrial Archaeology Course at Plas Tan y Bwlch provided what appears to be the answer. The author and others “strayed” from the Diffwys Quarry into Votty and dug out two interesting iron rods sticking out of a pile of rubble in a mill. They turned out to be the drive rods to what could only be the archetypal Matthew’s dresser! This was basically a vertical guillotine with a heavy frame carrying the slanting blade moving in metal guides themselves attached to a heavy timber frame. Details can be found in the appendices. It was certainly crude, but it would have worked, and it was certainly adaptable to a mill. How can we be so certain? The answer lies in the hitherto inexplicable change in mill design between the 1860s and 1870s. Early mills, such as Holland’s Lower and the oldest eastern part of Matthew’s mill had windows directly over the dressing space - essential when the dresser was fastened flush up against the wall. Later mills had no windows, the light from the roof windows falling onto the dressing position, which was set back from the wall. Thus early mills equipped or designed for the Matthew’s dressers had windows, while later ones did not. A rather different picture of Matthew and his dresser, however, comes from Hanes Porthmadog, [6] that tells of one John Etheridge, a Scot born in London in 1777. His parents had prepared him to enter agriculture and he arrived in the district with . He was appointed to be Keeper of Madocks’ Estate in his Master’s absence. He moved to Pen y Bryn, Penmorfa in 1828 and thence to y Wern, where he gained employment with Matthew. He, it is said, invented the dressing machines, while Matthew put them on display in the 1851 London Exhibition, and it was Matthew, not Etheridge, who got the praise for the machine. Etherridge died on the 10th. November 1867, 90 years of age, and was buried in Penmorfa Cemetery. - 40 - Oakeley Slate - 8. Rhiwbryfdir Quarry 1838-1870

The tipping grounds available to Rhiwbryfdir were extremely confined between Holland’s and the Welsh Slate Co.’s property, and it would appear that by the 1850s most of it was covered and that the lower tips in particular had run out of room. Matthew’s solution to this was to erect a steam engine on floor 5, by tradition “the First in Ffestiniog” to raise waste from all his lower floors for disposal over the lower tips which were forthwith abandoned. This was in 1854, a date substantiated by an essay on Ffestiniog written only a few years afterwards. The same essay refers to Matthew’s dressing machine but says nothing about any mills! The existing inclines were supplanted by a new incline running diagonally up the southern quarry face, pegged to the rock surface by iron rods and built up from slabs. From the top of the incline a large flat area of waste was soon deposited and on this Matthew began his magnum opus, again by tradition “ the First Dressing Mill in Ffestiniog” equipped with dressers and transverse slate saws. The mill was at first powered by the same engine which worked the incline, a very dubious method but this was apparently soon altered and a separate engine supplied in the same building. The erection of the mill created several problems. The new enlarged floor 5 tip already threatened the old tramway route to the incline to the F.R. and one can only presume that for a short period the finished slates were having to travel down the same steam incline as the slabs coming up with the waste. A very dubious practice where one accident could completely paralyse the traffic of the quarry. A new incline was therefore constructed from the new mill floor to the head of the incline to the F.R. or very close to it on floor 1. In course of time the floor 5 tip completely obliterated all the tips below it so that by the 1870s there only appeared to be the one tip with its mill. The date of the abandonment of the original floor 1 tramway must have been prior to 1856, for in that year, having had a fall in an inaccessible part of their quarry, the Welsh Slate Co. obtained permission from the Rhiwbryfdir Co. to build a water balance incline and to tip waste over the Rhiwbryfdir leasehold to the south of their workings, the only possible location of the tramway. The Rhiwbryfdir workings were not only constrained for tipping space, they were constrained on the surface as well to a relatively narrow strip across the main run of the veins from east to west. The result of this is to be seen particularly at the western end of their workings where the mutual boundary between their leasehold and that of the Holland’s ran. The Holland’s quarries made an effective wall beyond which the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s open workings could not pass. Only by mining could the Rhiwbryfdir Co. work the slate that lay beneath, and as is hinted at in the description of Holland’s quarries given in the previous chapter, it was believed at that time that the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s main or sink vein became unworkably thin where it passed beneath Pen Balance below the Holland’s lowest limit level. Due to the closeness of the floors, it was impossible to drive any levels west on floor 5, and the difference in height between floor 4 and Holland’s floor 1 was only of the order of 20- 30 feet. The solution to this problem, which became more and more imperative as the 1850s became the 1860s, lay in the Back Vein, that same vein which was in fact the basis of Holland’s financial success at his quarry. This vein lay to the north of the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s Old vein, as it did in Holland’s territory. It had been worked in a small way at some indeterminate date in the 1840s from a small sinc, known as Twll Clai, the Clay Hole. This was only a couple of hundred feet wide and two floors - about 75-100 feet deep - but it showed that there was a workable vein of slate to the north of the Main Vein and extending for the width of the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s leasehold. It was abandoned by about 1850, and then left for a further 8 or 9 years. At the instigation of Nathaniel Matthew estimates of cost were made in the early 1860s for the re-opening of the Back Vein. The Rhiwbryfdir Co. subsequently drove several levels to the north from their open workings to test the depth and extent of the vein. An original level north on floor 3 had had to be abandoned because the access to it was worked away. The open workings in the Old Vein being virtually exhausted, Mathew considered it an urgent matter to gain access to the old quarry and a level was driven along wall 12 on floor 4 for that purpose in 1866. Only on the lower floors of the Old Vein was there any reserve of slate but this was needed in several cases to support the tramways, which led to the Back Vein workings, a situation which led to a conflict of interests with the W.S.Co. who were dependent on the Rhiwbryfdir Co. working away all the slate rock which lay above their floor 1 before the W.S.Co. could work away their rock. Once again, C.E. Spooner’s plans give a clear picture of the state of the quarry in 1869-70. See Fig.15. By this time floor 1 was a very small landing in the open, the platform almost entirely worked away by the Welsh Slate Co. immediately below. The only source of slate on this floor was underground in the far west, accessed by a route through the tops of chambers worked out by both companies. Floor 2 was in a similar state, but there was some work where the floor 3 platform could be quarried away, as could that on floors 4 and 5 from the floors below. However, this was mitigated against by the need to retain some parts of the platform to support the various tramways. In 1868, the main steam incline to floor 5 had communicated directly with every floor, the foot of the incline on floor 1 being inside a chamber, however, in 1869 part of the quarry face or bon above the chamber collapsed destroying the incline foot and the main tramway level from it to the west. A small subsidiary incline was constructed from floor 2 eastwards to the floor 1 platform, and a new level driven under the incline to connect with the old route, utilising a level through the New Vein where a couple of chambers had been opened. This incline was probably worked from the main incline by taking the rope round a sheave mounted in a drumhouse on floor 2 as was done on a number of later occasions in similar circumstances. The earlier arrangement is shown as an inset in fig. 15. A number of levels had been driven on the lower floors by this time to tap the Old Vein slate beneath Holland’s quarry, proving that it widened again to the west, but unfortunately beyond their extreme mine boundary. Only one shallow chamber had been opened on floor 4 by 1870, being a continuation of one of Holland’s chambers, while immediately beyond it was the extreme mine boundary. Two chambers had been opened on floors 3 and 2 while 3 had been opened on floor 1, putting the workings in line with the terms of the indenture. Floor 1 also tapped the tops of four chambers on its way to the incline foot, but only two of these appear to have been in work, each being continued lower into the vein by the W.S.Co. beneath. Fig. 23 shows the Old Vein workings. - 41 - Oakeley Slate - 8. Rhiwbryfdir Quarry 1838-1870

The main lines of communication to the Back Vein were a series of north-south tunnels under Holland’s Back Vein and vertically in line with one another, creating an area of weakness in the rock, which was later to prove dangerous. From these tunnels levels were driven on floors 4, 3 and 1 under the overlying hard rock roughly from Holland’s mine boundary to the Twll Clai; which was then re-opened and worked away from beneath, providing ventilation to the workings. These are shown in fig. 22. Given that several of the Back Vein chambers on floor 4 were “roofed through” to the surface for ventilation, it was obvious that there was the potential to work away the walls between them, remove the shallow overburden and convert the workings into an open quarry parallel with the main one. We shall return to this again. It was not practical to work the Back Vein east of Twll Clai for two reasons; firstly it was close to the W.S.Co. boundary and more to the point, the Back Vein was “pinched out” here between two layers of hard rock, the Gwynithfaen Coch and the Gwynithfaen Llwyd, the Red and Green Hards. In passing, it is worth pointing out that, under the terms of the lease as the Back Vein was not worked at all by the Welsh Slate Co. it was strictly wrong for either the Holland’s or the Rhiwbryfdir to work it. It should have been the subject of an additional agreement. However, the Welsh Slate Co. had a “Back Vein” although it had little geological connection with that of the Rhiwbryfdir Co. and in view of the state of geological knowledge at the time, perhaps no-one was aware of it - or avoided mentioning it if they knew! The main steam incline served all the floors of the Rhiwbryfdir workings, with the exception of floor 5, which was, of course on the same level and needed no lift. The incline had four tracks, each one serving a separate floor. On each floor there was a loop for loaded and empty wagons to be marshalled. The exception here was floor 1 which was reached indirectly by the subsidiary incline mentioned earlier. In view of the complexity of this incline, it seems likely that the first tentative experiment had been worked by a portable or semi-portable engine and that a larger permanent engine of a horizontal type, fed by three or four Cornish boilers was installed. The longest ropes at this time were about 500 feet. While it is possible that the same engine was used to drive the mill initially, in view of the different requirements of the two jobs of hauling and continuous motion, at some stage the mill must have been powered by its own engine, though it may have shared boilers with the incline engine. Be that as it may, the 1870 plan clearly labels a large section of the building at the head of the incline as “Steam Engine” , singular. At the head of the incline, overlooking the sinc and the incline was the walled coal yard. The mill was a considerable length by 1870, the plans suggest about 400 feet long and 50 feet wide. It had been extended perhaps in two stages. Each section seems to have had its own steam engine, suggesting that the engine installed to drive the mill in lieu of the incline engine had limited power. Close examination of the 1870 plan shows two small buildings with water tanks separated from the mill by the width of the waste tramway, which was outside the mill on the southern side. These may have held small engines and boilers, connected into the mill by long belts, or perhaps by shafts and bevel gearing, an early variation, thus keeping the mill itself free of the engines and giving more room to work. Exact figures for saws and dressers are not available, the mill being first of all completely rebuilt in the 1890s and demolished in 1970, thus preventing any proper examination to determine the original equipment. However, again from the plans, which show either steps or waste doors, the mill in 1870 may have held about 28 saws and dressers. By this time it is thought the dressers were of the Greaves type rather than the Mathew’s ones with which the first part of the mill must have been equipped, as the later two-thirds of the mill did not have the windows over the dressing waste holes. Opposite the south wall of the mill, across the stacking yard and hard against the lee of the waste tip from Holland’s Quarry above, were a row of what can only be gwaliau, perhaps the last remains of the floor 5 dressing arrangements. At the end of this row were three cottages, which still stand today. North of the mill, along the tip edge were a heterogeneous collection of small un-named buildings culminating in a walled enclosure in front of the quarry office. This became the smithy in later years. Close by the office was a small building at the top of an inclined pathway heading towards Rhiwbryfdir, presumably the timekeepers office. At that point the plan ends, showing neither tramways on the mill floor, nor the head of the incline to the F.R. Fig. 21 shows the details of the mill at this time. Immediately below the steam incline drumhouse on floor 4 to the east of the incline bed is a small reservoir, marked on the plans as belonging to the Rhiwbryfdir Co. the purpose of which is obscure. It may have been the water supply to the engine, though this is unlikely. Alternatively it may well have been the supply to the W.S. Co.’s water balance from C floor mentioned earlier, certainly it still contains a valve which leads to the Lower quarry, though this may have been a more recent addition, , in which case the labeling was merely to emphasise the true ownership of the land on which the incline stood. Few details of interest are shown in the open workings except the presence of a circular building labeled “Cabin” (sic) on floor 1, outside the entrance to the lowest limit level tunnel. Track is shown entering the level but soon turns west through the New Vein chambers to reach the main floor 1 level. A final enigma is a large waste tip to the north of the sinc and “Holland’s New Road to Ffridd” . A long embankment of waste leads to this tip from the sinc area. The tip itself has two levels, the larger being very shallow and spreading out over the mountainside like broad fingers of rubbish. The second area is deeper and raised above the first. At its southern edge there were retaining walls and above them the remains of a building, in front of this was an “Old Incline” in the words of the mapmaker. This area is known as “ Twr Babl” or sometimes “Twr Babel” depending on the whim of the mapmaker, the name supposedly coming from the number of languages spoken there, English, Welsh and Irish! It is believed to have been the remains of the clearing operation referred to in the next chapter. The Welsh Slate Co. are also thought to have referred to Twr Babel in their correspondence of the 1880s as “the Old Machine House on the Bank” , this is ambiguous in that it could refer to either an incline winder or a dressing mill. Certainly the whole site had been abandoned by 1870, and is not shown on the lease map. Fig. 33 shows the area as depicted on Thomas Jones’ survey of 1874. In 1870 some rationalisation of the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s connection to the Ffestiniog Railway seems to have occurred. The tramway branch through Rhiwbryfdir was abandoned along with the old incline, for a new incline some yards to the north, - 42 - Oakeley Slate - 8. Rhiwbryfdir Quarry 1838-1870 alongside the Welsh Slate Co.’s viaduct, described in the next chapter, where new long sidings were laid out able to accommodate the increased traffic from the quarry. From the drumhouse – probably still located on Rhiwbryfdir’s floor 1- there was a long loop and then a second incline taking the tracks up to floor 5. The only uncertainty here being whether the upper of the two was original, or whether it replaced an earlier incline nearer the old incline site. Until a detailed map for the 1840s to 1850s period turns up showing the actual F.R. connections, we must remain somewhat in the dark. See fig. 10 for some conjecture in this direction.

- 43 -

9. THE WELSH SLATE COMPANY SUCCEED, 1838-1870

In 1825 the then Welsh Slate Copper and Lead Mining Co. began their workings from Holland’s two pits, the sinc and the B Quarry. Along the way between then and 1838 they also tried for slate at what became the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s site. However by 1838 their principal workings were the two lower sincs, although which was which it is not possible to say. By the 1860s W.S.Co. correspondence contains no references to either a sinc or a B quarry, although the designation B is used to refer to an inclined shaft. However, since there is also an A shaft, the designation is unlikely to be connected. Despite this, cross-sections prepared at various times show the use of the term “sink vein” to refer to the southern part of the Old Vein, similar to the W.S.Co.’s use of the term Back Vein described below and it may be that this too is a remnant from Holland’s time, in which case the most southerly of the two pits was the original sinc. The 1838 indenture makes it clear that at that time the W.S.Co. had not reached the depth of their lowest limit level, and it would appear that of the two pits, the southernmost and smaller of the two was the shallowest in depth, the workings being concentrated in the northern part. The Welsh Slate Co. floors were given alphabetical designations, progressing downward rather than upwards. However, a curiosity here is that by 1870 the sequence began with C rather than A and there was one floor called DE. This reflects the effect of the W.S.Co. and Rhiwbryfdir’s workings intersecting in the open. Originally, the W.S.Co. sequence began with A, at the original surface level, also referred to as the Office Level or Office Floor, now long since quarried away or buried for the most part, only one ledge surviving long enough for the later surveyors to record, and which itself lay above the horizon of the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s lowest limit level. So too with floor B, an old level survives about 25 feet or so above the present C floor, which is the remains of floor B. This suggests that the original floor separations were intended to be about half the 50 feet or so that became standard. Certainly F floor is only about 25 feet below floor DE, so it may be that the unique designation DE is the result of the amalgamation of floors D and E at the lower level at an early stage. This would have originally given a complete set of five floors from A to G at a similar floor interval. Mining, however clearly intended, was not the original source of slate from the Welsh Slate Co. Between 1838 and the 1860s the W.S.Co. extended their open workings considerably towards the west, following the outcrop of the vein until their open workings met with and became indistinguishable from those of the Rhiwbryfdir Company above them. In the combined quarry, which thus became Sinc Fawr , the Great Sink, the W.S.Co.’s C floor lay only about 50 feet below the Rhiw. Co.’s floor 1, thus enabling the Old Vein to be extracted virtually in toto by the combined efforts of the two companies. There seems little doubt that both companies also co-operated in the removal of the overlying hards, waste rock useless for slate making, but which when removed meant that all the slate could be extracted, no pillars or walls being required. However, this co-operation required that the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s workings were constantly in advance of the W.S.Co.’s and that they removed all of their rock down to the level of floor 1, their limit level, thus allowing the W.S.Co. to make an equally continuous advance with their workings. Unfortunately, the problems of Rhiwbryfdir’s Main Vein and the diversion of effort into the true Back Vein, brought their open quarrying to a halt, with effects on the W.S.Co. that we shall see were to lead to disaster. In 1842 it is recorded that the first “Great Fall” of the underground workings took place in the W.S.Co.’s leasehold. [3] It was at this time that apparently Lord Palmerston called on George Parker Bidder, the famous civil engineer on the matter. In Bidder’s obituary it says he was consulted “ with reference to slate quarries in the Festiniog district, not at that time in profitable working, and in which his lordship was largely interested. Mr.Bidder advised the removal of the “tops,” and a general opening of the quarries, and found a contractor ready to undertake the execution of the works. The result was the development of the quarry into one of a very remunerative character, which laid the foundation of the success of the well known Welsh Slate Company .” [3a] No other reference has been found to Bidder’s involvement, but we can imagine that what he advised was essentially the removal of the overburden – often referred to as “tops” - and the cutting back of the quarry face, so as to remove the risk of it falling in, to use later parlance, the creation of a new “bon.” The contractor was one James Leishman who was involved in the construction of canals and railways in both Britain and Ireland. He brought gangs of navvies to Rhiwbryfdir with him and it is believed they settled in the area later known as “Twr Babl,” and were also the cause of the area to the north of the quarry being named “Iwerddon” – Ireland in welsh – a name which has gone down on the maps as well. The local population did not take kindly to the new arrivals and there were several brawls which resulted in various members of the indigenous population being bound over before the local JPs to keep Mr Leishman’s peace. He appears to have lived at Rhiwbryfdir house. However, the cost of clearance work and uncovering was high and as a result the company found themselves saddled with a “debt” of no less than £60,000 – presumably this was covered by calls on the shareholders ? All was not gloom, however, for in 1841 the Company had engaged George C. Chessel as Chief Accountant or Clerk, accounts differ, at the quarry. This was a happy choice as he and Williams seem to have hit it off straight away and made a formidable partnership, and there is no doubt that between them they were ultimately responsible for the success and financial solvency of the Company. Indeed by late 1845, Lord Palmerston, the Company’s Chairman, was able to write; “We are gradually paying off our heavy debt, and in two years from this I hope we shall be thinking of some sort of dividend.” One assumes that what he meant was that the monies raised from the shareholders was being repaid from the profits and that once this had all been repaid, real profit would commence. This, however, may have been assisted greatly by the reduction in royalties, which were negotiated between the W.S.Co. and the Oakeleys. The then secretary of the Welsh Slate Co., or possibly Mr Field, their Solicitor, writing to Mrs Oakeley from their office at 1 New Boswell Court, Lincolns Inn on the 10th. of September, 1844 put it this way: “Madam,” - 44 - Oakeley Slate - 9. The Welsh Slate Company Succeed 1838-1870

“The Committee of the Welsh Slate Co. having been informed that a modification of the Leases of Mr. Holland and Mr. Mathews (sic) particularly affecting the payment of the Royalty has been made are encouraged to express their hope that they may not be placed in a worse situation than their Neighbours.” “The Committee are the more induced to take this step because they feel that some assistance of this kind is necessary to place them in a condition to maintain a fair footing with their competitors in the Market under those reductions of price which have lately taken place and which may still further take place in the Prices of Slate - The measures which they have now in contemplation viz. the cutting of the Bone to a greater depth, they take the liberty of stating upon the authority of their Engineer will enable them to obtain a greater present Make with the least possible consumption of Slate Rock, and will thus promote not only your Interest as the present Owner of the Quarry but also that of those who may succeed you therein.” “The Committee are informed, and their experience confirms it, that in order to work upon the underground principle and to obviate the recurrence of those disasters which have so frequently paralysed their proceedings, it would be necessary to leave Pillars of such number and dimensions that a quantity of Slate Rock equivalent to at least sixty feet above the lowest limit level of the Company, for the whole width of the vein, would be left unavailable in those Pillars; but if the Bone be cut down in the way contemplated, not only will those sixty feet deep of Rock be worked up, but a further quantity of the lower Slate Rock may be got, and thus for every lineal yard of the Quarry, ten thousand tons of Slate Rock will be got which may be estimated to produce about 2500 tons of Slate - this portion of the vein being well known to consist of Rock of the best quality - and that at 3/6d per Ton £437.10.0d will be produced out of Rock which would be left unworked and covered over with Rubbish.” “It is estimated that the Quantity of Slate which can be made from the Rock, without cutting the Bone, would not exceed 3000 tons per lineal yard, and thus by a reduction of 1/-per Ton on the latter quantity the former sum of £437.10.0d may be obtained; that is to say, the Landlord by sacrificing £150 would receive £437 and would therefore gain on the Balance £287.10.0d per linear yard, independent of the advantage of having the Quarry worked on a principle which must be admitted to be the best for the Interest of those in possession and of the Reversioners.” “Upon the question as to the place at which it is most expedient that the Bone shall be cut down, the Committee understand there is an agreement in opinion between your Engineer Mr Spooner and Mr. Bidder who acts for this Company, as also with respect to the condition that the reduction of Royalty shall only apply so long as the Company shall continue to cut down the Bone, as may be agreed.” “The Committee believe that after the above reduction shall have been made, they will still remain in a less advantageous position than your other Tenants, taking all circumstances under consideration, but with a less reduction, they feel they will be unable to justify themselves in undertaking the outlay which will be requisite to carry into effect the necessary works, and they would beg to observe with regard to such outlay that the expense and risk thereof must fall upon themselves while certainty of advantage must occur to the Landlord.” Thus, not for the last time, the W.S.Co. warned that unless they got what they wanted, then disasters might occur which could be avoided, which, as they were ever eager to point out, was really in the lessor’s interest. Edward Oakeley, who was, as usual, looking after Mrs. Oakeley’s interests, wrote in reply to say that she would consent to an abatement of 1/2d per ton to take effect from 30th. June 1844 (there seems to have been some long discussion in the interim) provided that: i) the royalties were to be paid promptly in future (!), payment for each quarter to be paid before the end of the next, thus there should never be two payments due at the same time. (One wonders if the W.S.Co. had been proving difficult.) ii) the stock of slates at the wharf and at the quarry were to be kept within reasonable limits, whatever stock there might be at the quarry at the end of the Christmas quarter having to be carried down to Port within one month after the 30th. December. iii) the reduction was only to be a temporary measure as a result of the low slate prices, and power was to be reserved to withdraw the reduction at any time. The W.S.Co. agreed, in a letter of November 1844, but pointed out that it was impossible to comply with the requirement over stock in the current year. The present stock was about 9,800 tons, with about 4,000 at the Port, the rest at the quarry. The Port wharf, however, could not hold, they said, more than about 6,000 tons altogether including the old wharf and the land ordered to be prepared at the end of the new wharf. Thus even if they stopped all their work then and there, discharged all the workmen and made no slate for some months to come, if they could only sell and ship off between November and the end of January next about 3,800 tons - which they claimed was next to impossible - they would still be unable to carry down to port all the stock within one month as the wharf was too small. They had, they said, already given instructions to their local agents to diminish the quantity of work at the quarry either by discharging workmen or “giving each man less employment” ! They would try the next year to bring down their whole stock to the port by the end of January 1846. They begged to submit, as a general principle, that they could not carry on the quarry work to any advantage unless they were “left at liberty to exercise their own judgement as to the details of the manner in which they are to carry it on” - it should not, they averred, depend on the accidental capacity of the wharf. They pointed out that substantial stocks were needed to meet sudden demand -both Holland and Matthew had lost customers due to their inability to execute orders due to too small stocks, the customers had come to the W.S.Co. In any case the need to remove the “ fallen rubbish and the unbearing which was necessary in order to put the quarry into proper shape” had produced a lot of inferior quality slates for which they could find no purchaser. They refuted the charge, which had been laid against them (by whom, one wonders?), that the low prices for slates were due to the Ffestiniog Quarries underselling one another: “the successful reductions which of late years have taken place in the prices of slate have had deeper causes than any underselling by the comparatively small Quarries of Ffestiniog and have been occasioned partly by circumstances which have affected the prices of almost all other commodities and partly by - 45 - Oakeley Slate - 9. The Welsh Slate Company Succeed 1838-1870

Rivalship and Jealousies, which have arisen between Colonel Pennant and Mr. Asheton Smith and which we believe have been aggravated by misunderstanding between the respective agents.” The two people referred to were, of course, the owners of the giant Penrhyn and Dinorwic Quarries of Caernarfonshire, whose prices and production dominated the industry. It would seem that the W.S.Co. had pleaded their case well, and they were left alone for a time. The Welsh Slate Co. seems to have been an early user of water balance inclines, and two were installed in the sinc, raising the rock to floor DE from floors F and G. DE floor became the main traffic handling floor in the quarry in 1850-6 when a long level was driven from the sinc south east above the lowest limit level tunnel to emerge to the west of the original incline route. Here on the western bank of the Barlwyd a number of dressing floors had been established, connected to the sinc by their own levels. These had all but vanished before the Spooner surveys, but quarrying operations in the 1980s uncovered two of them, one at the level of C floor, and eventually traced on the plans to a level labeled “Old C Floor”, and the other about half a floor above it, the remains of long lost floor B. Each dressing floor here connected directly with the inclines to the Ffestiniog Railway. There appears to have been a series of short inclines one from each floor to the one below, the final one ending close to the entrance to the lowest limit level tunnel on G. The highest may have connected with a large area of shallow tipping which covered the surface between the sinc and the hamlet of Tal y Waenydd, later known as the Office Floor (see fig 24) and probable floor A. At the foot of the lowest incline were the usual reception sidings, and here too was the zero milepost for the Ffestiniog Railway, marking the end of the original line from Porthmadog. All this area has since been either worked away or tipped over! The new DE dressing floor soon took on additional significance, for tipping space was short on the north bank of the Barlwyd and so, tradition insists, Thomas Williams – some accounts give Thomas Roberts – the Welsh Slate Co.’s Chief Carpenter, was set the task of building a wooden viaduct to carry the waste from the quarrying operations to be tipped on the southern and eastern side of the river on the Company’s leased land. Ultimately the job was done. There were three masonry piers rearing 55 feet above the Ffestiniog Railway, the tramway being carried 22 feet above them by towers of timber and long cross beams. This begs an interesting question to which there is no answer; is it coincidence that the top of the piers is roughly at the height of floor F? Could it be that F floor was originally going to be the main traffic floor rather than DE? Tradition gives the date of construction of the viaduct as 1854, but a Welsh article written in that year refers to the bridge having been in use for about 18 months, putting its construction back to 1851 or 1852. This is confirmed by an advert which appeared in the Chester Chronicle on 7th June 1851, and no doubt in other papers as well, which requested suitable persons to tender for the construction of “ a stone and timber viaduct ” at their quarry at Rhiwbryfdir “near Festiniog ” where the drawings, specification and any other information obtained. The tenders were to be sent to W.B.Barwis, at the W.S.Co.’s office, at this time at No.1 Boswell Court, Lincoln’s Inn by the 20 th June – not a long period. Naturally they did not bind themselves to accept the lowest or any tender. In view of its massive construction, one can only presume that the F.R. objected to the construction of an equivalent solid bridge or spoil embankment which might have obstructed the river and led to flooding. Back in the main quarry area, a shaft 282 feet deep was sunk to the north of the sinc down to G floor and a vertical water balance, similar to those at the Penrhyn quarries was installed. This originally raised waste to the surface, about 100 feet above the Tal y Waenydd floor, where it formed a new waste tip, which spread out eastwards towards the Gorddinen, pass. This waste tip became known as Bonc Siafft or the Vertical Balance Bank , and in the 1850s many gwaliau were established on it, a gravity incline being constructed down to the Tal y Waenydd/Office floor to carry the slates produced by them to the main quarry tramway. Immediately below Bonc Siafft, and somewhat below the level of the Tal y Waenydd/Office floor was the old quarry slab mill with its overshot water wheel fed from several small reservoirs below Bonc Siafft, the higher being know as Llyn Ty Clai after a house which stood just above it, fed in their turn by the old leat from Llyn Ffridd. There was a gravity incline connecting the mill with the Tal y Waenydd floor, which is odd, unless the amount of rock going down was far greater than that coming up! No evidence has so far come to light of any tunnels from this level towards the south, all levels known being below the level of the mill. The discharge from the mill wheel was channelled down into the sink to feed the water balances, overflow from the reservoirs being channelled separately to discharge into the lowest limit level, the G tunnel, thus giving its later cognomen Lefel Dwr, the Water Tunnel As has already been mentioned, the slab mill was probably the site of early trials with a slate dressing machine invented by a Mr. Simpson, which was unsuccessful, the blade being straight and hit the slate all at once, smashing it. Regrettably not only have no details of the mill survived, but the whole site has now vanished, having been progressively worked away since the early 1900s. [5] The first true mill may well have been that on Bonc Siafft, driven by an overshot waterwheel of unknown diameter and width mounted in a pit below the floor of the mill. This was fed by water from a small pound to the north of the mill, this being fed both from Llyn Ffridd via the old leat and also from the new lake, which fed the vertical balance tank. This lake, which stored the waters from the whole of the mountainside below Iwerddon, became variously known as Llyn Newydd and the Vertical Balance Lake. So much rebuilding of this mill had taken place since its original construction and it was still in use for its original purpose in the 1980s that it was impossible to tell whether it was originally built in two stages, one either side of the wheel pit, as is the case at other sites in the district or whether it was built as a whole. The original construction appears to have been of timber on a slab base, the timber walls being slated over to make them weatherproof. Latterly the timber panels were filled in and replaced by the waste sawn slab ends from the saws. Whether it was originally purely a sawing mill or equipped with Matthew’s guillotine dressers at conception we do not know.

- 46 - Oakeley Slate - 9. The Welsh Slate Company Succeed 1838-1870

However, by 1870, the mill held about twenty saws and dressers, being about 390 feet long and 50 feet wide. Outside, at the eastern end and abutting onto the corner of the building was the drumhouse of the incline down to the Tal y Waenydd floor. The slab tramway passed along the outside of the mill on the north side, connected by branches to a parallel track just inside the mill wall. Waste from the dressers was removed by a lower level tramway on the south side of the mill above the sinc, there being an entry below each dressing position into which a waste wagon could be pushed to receive the waste. Also along this wall there were several doors. The stacking yard, described as a “Slate Wharf” on the plans was established on a low tip to the north of the mill on both sides of the vertical shaft headgear. [6] The other principal Welsh Slate Co. mill was established on the new tip on the southern bank of the Barlwyd. This became known as Glan y Don, or Pen y Bont, after the W.S.Co. viaduct that connected with it. This bridge also acquired the cognomen Bont Goch, the Red Bridge, by tradition because a horse’s blood was smeared down it when the wagon it was pulling derailed and fell off the viaduct, pulling the horse to its death. More probably the name came from the colour the woodwork was painted. The mill was similar in design to that at Bonc Siafft, being a timber frame building, covered with slates, but unlike Bonc Siafft, it was powered by a steam engine at the northern end near the bridge. This was supplied with water by a pump and pipeline from the river below. Latterly the water came down from the quarry and across the bridge by pipe. The mill was aligned with the bridge, slabs entering along the north eastern side, waste leaving at a lower level on the south western side. The waste tramway was bridged near to the mill by the existing quarrying waste tramway. Both tramways then spread out south westwards to expand the tip. The mill was originally about 280 feet long by 50 feet wide and housed twenty saws and dressers. A second mill, a mirror image of the first, was constructed in the 1870s on the opposite side of the waste tramway. See fig.27 for the 1870 arrangement By 1870, the DE tunnel had become known as Lefel Galed or the Horse Tunnel, while the management referred to it as the Timber Frame Road, presumably a reference to the supporting timbers used where it passed through the tips. It seems likely that the G tunnel was also reduced to drainage only, if indeed it had ever carried traffic, although a track was retained through it for maintenance purposes. If waste or slabs were ever carried out through the G tunnel, there can have been very little space for waste except perhaps as a very shallow tipping area southwards on the far bank of the Barlwyd – perhaps the fore-runner of the Glanydon tip itself. This would have required a bridge, but of no great height. While considering the Glanydon area, it is worth mentioning at this point that during the mid 1840s there had been considerable activity on the eastern side of the Barlwyd, an area known as Llechwedd-y-cyd, where J.W.Greaves and Edwin Shelton had been prospecting for the location of the continuation of the Old Vein. They had that this deduced had to lie somewhere between the Welsh Slate Co’s quarry and their present workings at Cwmbowydd, much further to the south east, which they held under lease from Lord Newborough. The land in question was amicably claimed by both the Oakeley estate, Lord Newborough of the estate and “the Trustees of Richard Parry.” Richard Parry the youngerhad had owned a very widespread but disparate estate which stretched from the area, across , Caernarfon and into Merioneth. On his death he left the estate to his nephew, Francis Haygarth, at the time a minor and so the estate rested for many years in the hands of trustees. The land was undivided, there being no boundaries between the estates, but they had agreed to each receive various proportions of produce from it! Negotiations were, as can be imagined, complicated, but eventually Greaves and Shelton were able to settle into the work and after some initial difficulties were able to bring the quarry into production. However, with a working quarry, they needed an outlet to the Festiniog Railway and the only practicable route lay across the Welsh Slate Co.’s leasehold to reach the FR at Rhiwbryfdir. Negotiations began in 1851, after Shelton’s death but it was 1852 or so before they were concluded and construction of Greaves’ incline and tramway connection could be got underway. Mention has already been made of the agreement made between the Welsh Slate Co. and the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co. in 1845 to continue the Rhiwbryfdir walls in their own workings. The effect of this was introduce a consecutive and regular numbering of the workings towards the west. The W.S.Co.s eastern workings bore mute testimony to the irregular original workings and presumably the clearing which had gone on, but out of this by the 1860s a scheme of labeling the pillars (as they insisted on calling them) had evolved. Each pillar was given a distinctive title – that at the extreme eastern end of the open quarry being labeled A1, and the opening or chamber to the west of it was given the same title, the next pillar, to the west of the chamber was thus A2 and so on. As the bargains were usually confined to a single chamber on each floor, one finds references to “Bargain A4 on G Floor” for instance. However, once the mutual boundary with the Rhiwbryfdir Company was reached, the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s numbering was used, presumably to avoid any confusion. Thus after the W.S.Co. pillar A5 and chamber A5, the next to the west was “Wall No. 1”, followed by chamber 1, and so on. An added complication, which we shall return to again, was the fact that in the W.S.CO.s quarry, the great “Old Vein” which was the source of their prosperity was divided up by two “spar veins” – later known as “whinstone dykes” – which cut through the main slate vein at a steeper angle than the dip. The effect of this was to split the vein up into two or even three sections. The first, most northerly section was worked from the “clay slant” or “top hard” southwards to the “North Spar,” the second was worked under the North Spar roof as far as the “South Spar” and the third between the South Spar and the bottom hard. How many were actually worked depended on the horizontal distances between them. However, as the workings went westwards, the spars passed away from the Old Vein towards the north, and the full thickness of the vein could be worked in one section from top to bottom hard. Unfortunately, the W.S.Co. not being fully aware of the geology, labeled the vein between the spars as the “Main Vein” and the section between the Clay slant and the North Spar as the “Back Vein.” Thus when they began to work eastwards from their open workings, following the Clay slant, they referred to the chambers there in the same way. Ultimately they were referred to as the “North Old Vein” - which was much more accurate description, but we digress. For some reason, not given - 47 - Oakeley Slate - 9. The Welsh Slate Company Succeed 1838-1870 anywhere, they numbered the walls and chambers in a new series. Thus the chamber to the east of pillar A1 was referred to as “No.22” and the wall to the east of it similarly, then the next east was “Wall No. 21” and so on. It may be that this was in some way related to the largest wall number they thought they could reach by their extreme western mine boundary – but we do not know. Thus the overall labelling scheme which came into use was as shown in this simple series:

WEST <- Etc. No.3 No.2. No.1 A5 A4 A3 A2 A1 No.22 No.21 No.20 Etc -> EAST

More detail of the extent of the Welsh Slate Co.s workings by 1870 will be related in a later chapter. As time went on other agreements regarding continuing working arrangements were made as might be expected in such a complex arrangement of workings. One such came about as a result of a fall from the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s workings in 1850 into the Welsh Slate Co.’s quarry, the W.S.Co. eventually removing the fall at the expense of the Rhiwbryfdir Company. However they suffered a fall of their own in 1855 or 1856 which buried their C floor workings, by then apparently cut off from any tramway access or tipping space. In consequence they prevailed on the Rhiwbryfdir Slate Co. to allow them to construct a water balance incline on their leased land to raise the spoil from C floor and tip it from that higher level. Rhiwbryfdir agreed, and so, in 1856, we find James Spooner, then agent to Mrs. Oakeley, writing on the quarry map as follows: “Messrs. Mathew (sic) & Son. have given the Secretary of this Company a written undertaking that they will not disturb the Company during their term in the lease as regards the site of the Water Balance and the Road on their Leasehold.” “This Map and Arrangements delineated thereon and coloured pink are approved of by me, the Engineer and Quarry Agent to Mrs. Louisa Jane Oakeley, 31st. May 1856.” [4] As far as can be determined, this was a similar water balance to that used to access the F floor from DE in the sinc and also similar to Holland’s Old Vein water balance. Regrettably insufficient remains, either on the ground or on maps, to be certain whether it was single or double acting. The ruins are shown in the photos where the typical 3-drum, 4-wall appearance of the drumhouse can be seen. This form had two rope drums with a separate brake drum between them, rather than the typical gravity incline with a single drum, the brake being at one end of it. The waste bank became known as C Bank, or Bonc Goedan, and the W.S.Co. soon established gwaliau on it to deal with the slabs from the fall, the bank being connected to the Tal y Waenydd or A floor by a short gravity incline. The new tip buried the old smithy below it, but a new one was constructed close by the head of the incline to the old slab mill. In 1861 a short incline was constructed on the east side of the bridge down to the F.R., which thus possibly dates the abandonment of the intermediate floors. At around the same time the short inclines from floor to floor in tandem down to the F.R. were also replaced by a single long incline from the TalyWaenydd floor down to DE floor . Fig. 24 shows the arrangements. See Illus. 39, for the situation prior to 1874 and 75, 76 for the 1861 incline remains. Unfortunately, we have little to go in terms of plans of the workings before 1870, from the correspondence quoted in chapter 11, we can gather that wall 11 was the furthest point west where there were working bargains – so if that was the case, we can postulate that, if the workings were in accord with the lease, then in 1865 C floor was probably open as far as wall 12, DE floor in wall 11, F floor in wall 10, G floor in wall 9 and H floor in wall 8. In contrast, by 1870, the W.S.Co. workings stretched as far as Holland’s workings, though on a much lower level. The C floor Level was in wall 15, DE floor had reached wall 14, F was at 13, G 12, and H floor was about to enter wall 11 . [7] Further detailed discussion of the development of the W.S.Co.’s workings in the period 1865-70, a crucial one, is left to a later chapter. Some additional light is cast on the course of events in this period by a court case, which occurred in 1867 in the Court of Chancery between the Widow of Lord William Powlett, who had become the Duke of Cleveland, one of the Welsh Slate Co.’s principal shareholders, and the Meyricke Family. [1] The Duke had made a will in 1856 in which he gave all the residuary estate upon trust for his wife, for life, with the remainder in favour of Meyricke. However, by a codicil of the 17th. August 1860 he bequeathed all his shares in railways and mines of which he died possessed to his wife absolutely. When he died, he had 10 shares in the Welsh Slate Co. whose value at that time was estimated at upwards of £4000 per annum on which £600 per annum poor rate was paid. The “Poor Rate” was a form of taxation which was used to support the poor and unemployed, in towns it was often combined with “Improvement Rate” – another form of taxation, both were replaced by the better known Council or Town rates in 1925-29. In an action of November 1867, Meyricke and others claimed that these shares were not in a mine and hence fell under the original will. The Dowager Duchess not unnaturally claimed that they were shares in a mine and came under the codicil. The law reports of the case state that the evidence as to the mode of working the slate went to show that the company’s operations had been carried on, at the time of the case, for upwards of 20 years to a great extent and, dating back from 1866, almost wholly underground. Diagrams and plans were produced showing that the Welsh Slate Co.’s works were conducted at the lowest of three levels, the upper levels or “seams” of slate being worked by other proprietors. “On behalf of the Dowager Duchess, Mr. Field, the Welsh Slate Co. solicitor stated that in 1839, when he negotiated the renewal of the lease of the slate rock called Rhiwbryfdir, in the Parish of Festiniog, to the then re-constituted Welsh Slate Co., the workings were in the main underground of the same nature as mines, and the contemplation of all the parties was that such workings should become more and more underground although liberty was given to the tenants to work by open air workings if they thought fit.” Charles Easton Spooner gave evidence, his father having been Engineer to the Company for 12 years from its commencement, and latterly had been Agent to Mrs. Oakeley. He said that: “The Slate Veins lie between hard seams of felspathic rock and whinstone bands, having a dip at so steep an angle and the top rock or superincumbent mass over the slate veins is so great that it is necessary to work out the slate by mining such as driving adits, levels, sinking shafts, unroofing, - 48 - Oakeley Slate - 9. The Welsh Slate Company Succeed 1838-1870 cutting freesides, and means of ventilation, before any slate can be obtained, leaving walls of slate rock to support the roof; in precisely a similar process as with copper, lead or similar mines, and in much the same manner as in colliery operations.” [2] Much reference was made to the use of the term “Slate Quarry”, and the fact that the Company had never claimed exemption from the payment of poor rates, even though this had been granted to adjacent companies whose works were entirely underground. John Evan Hughes, Charles Spooner’s assistant in the firm of Spooner & Co., Engineers, Portmadoc, England, gave evidence in agreement with his employer, while Robert Rowlands, the Welsh Slate Co.’s shipping agent said that there were a great number of bargains, but only 10 or 12 wholly underground. Robert Owen, a quarryman of Dinas Rhiwbryfdir, said that all three sets (of quarries) were on the same vein, and of one quarry substantially, there were few bargains that were not worked in the open air. The case was given to the Dowager Duchess, the case proving that the Welsh Slate Company’s quarry was, in point of law, a mine. This makes an interesting contrast with the situation some ten years later, when the Welsh Slate Co. along with others in the Ffestiniog District were trying to prove that they were in fact quarries, and therefore not subject to the provisions of the Metalliferous Mines Act!

- 49 -

10. THE QUARRIES AND THE RAILWAY, 1838-1872

From Tanygrisiau the Ffestiniog Railway followed a route along a ledge cut in the hillside high above the Afon Barlwyd, but as the land rose and with it the river bed, by the time Dinas Junction was reached, the railway was barely above the river. From here onwards the courses of the Dinas Branch and the river became irrevocably mixed. In later years it was the railway which predominated and the river which was controlled and channelled by slab walls and culverts, but at the time of which we speak, it was the railway which was confined by stone walls and the river which followed its natural course. Of the three principal Rhiwbryfdir companies, the Welsh Slate Company obtained their incline in 1838 or early 1839, Holland obtained his incline in late 1839 and only the Rhiwbryfdir Company had to wait until 1842 before their slates too could have an uninterrupted journey from the quarry to the wharf at Portmadoc perhaps due to the length of their connecting line. The quarry disputes, effectively settled by the new 1838 lease, the railway provided the next bone of contention between the quarries for a number of years until the events described in the next chapter took place. In January 1841, the Welsh Slate Company made an agreement with the railway company on similar lines to those the railway company had made with Holland several years before, with the notable exception that under certain circumstances they were permitted to use their own wagons on the F.R. for non-slate haulage, virtually the only occasion on which privately owned wagons were to be allowed on the railway. By this agreement, the quarry had first refusal if the haulage, already being done under contract, was re-let. This was presumably to prevent any delay in transporting the quarry’s goods if a new contractor had to be found and there was no one to move slates in the interim. Typically, perhaps, the Welsh Slate Company overdid things and found itself in court in 1843, the railway company charging them with claiming free back carriage of all items, even those not required for quarrying! On this occasion the F.R. actually won the case. [1] The Rhiwbryfdir Company, as latecomers, were not tardy in seeking improvements in their own transport arrangements, and once their own incline was complete in 1842 we find Livingston Thompson, as F.R. Co. secretary writing to James Spooner regarding the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s “new terms” for a slate agreement. It transpired that they wanted a similar arrangement to that given to the Holland’s whereby they were granted an allowance towards the working of their incline which amounted to 15/- a week. Thus the Holland’s were effectively paying only 4/7d a ton for transporting their slate while Rhiw would have to pay 5/3d. [2] This was settled amicably enough and by the time of the dispute mentioned above with the Welsh Slate Co., both Holland’s and Rhiwbryfdir were paying only 4/3d a ton with the Holland’s allowance for working their incline coming to £39 and the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s allowance coming to £48/1/9d. The Welsh Slate Co. were, however, still paying 5/3d, but this was not the full story. It turned out that, because of the sliding scale employed, no less than half the W.S.Co. slates were being transported for only 3/3d a ton while in addition, the W.S.Co. were only paying £5 for the rent of their quay wharf at Portmadoc while the Holland’s was paying no less than £15 for theirs. [3] By 1844 the Holland’s had paid back £547/15/4d of the balance of the cost of their incline, leaving £395/2/4d still to be paid. The interest on this was £19/15/0d but by 1846 only £47 remained to be paid, this giving some indication of the success of the quarry. [4] New deeds of covenant were drawn up between the various quarry proprietors and the F.R. Company in 1853, but this time all the quarries were treated equally and no more was heard of allowances for working inclines. The deeds are curious in that there were two separate deeds for the Rhiwbryfdir Company, one referring to Andrew Durham and Windus Matthew and the other to Godfrey Windus and Nathaniel Matthew, why this should be so is far from clear. [5] Traffic on the railway continued to increase as the output of the quarries spiralled upwards, by 1858 the Welsh Slate Co. alone was sending 26,236 tons, the Rhiwbryfdir Co. 9,287 tons and Holland’s 10,676 tons. All of which was carried down by gravity and horse to the companies’ quays at Portmadoc. The following year the railway board was informed that “A big increase in output is expected in Mrs. Oakeley’s quarries.” We may suspect that this was due to the introduction of Matthew’s mechanical dressers and the saw sheds. [6] Greaves patented his rotary dresser in 1860, giving further impetus to production. 1863 was a momentous year in many ways. A new deed of covenant was drawn up between the railway company and the Welsh Slate Co. over the lease of a wharf and the free use of part of the railway. All the major quarries were by now paying only 3/3d per ton carriage with the exception of the newly formed Cwmorthin and Rhosydd quarries who were paying only 3/- for the slightly shorter trip. [7] The railway introduced steam-powered haulage in 1863 and this led to a further agreement with the Welsh Slate Co. to carry down 200 tons within 18 daylight hours from the foot of the incline to the port, subject to a rebate of 1d. for every wagon required that was not available. This was the equivalent of 1/100 th of the yearly output, the new rate being 3/- per ton. [8] The Holland’s, Rhiwbryfdir and the Greaves’ all complained over this saying that this was an unfair practice by which the railway could starve some quarries in order to honour its agreement with the W.S.Co. and thus give the W.S.Co. an effective monopoly of the railway. Once again the F.R. found itself in court, and once again they lost, for the following year they had to draw up identical agreements with the other quarries, which matched the W.S.Co. agreement. [9] This made wagon availability a function of quarry output, whether or not they actually needed the wagons at that particular time. This led to a silly situation whereby the quarries kept men posted to watch the other quarries sidings and report on the number of wagons standing idle and empty, detection resulting in vitriolic letters to the railway management on the subject. The following year, 1864, the Holland’s, the Welsh Slate Co., Rhiwbryfdir and the Greaves’ were all given a retrospective rebate of 1d. per ton for the previous year! In 1865 this rose to 3d. per ton and was repeated again the following year. At this time the rates prevailing were 3/3d per ton then downward on a sliding scale to 2/6d per ton where the output exceeded 110,000 tons per year. [10] By 1867 the rates were 2/9d for the familiar names of Rhiw, Holland’s, Greaves & the W.S.Co. while the Glan y Pwll Company, who were working a small quarry on the heights of the ridge to the south of - 66 - Oakeley Slate - 10. TheQuarries and the Railway 1838-1872

Holland’s quarry, was quoted at 4/- per ton. [11] A quarrymen’s train had been asked for since 1865, indeed such was the lobbying by the various quarries that the railway company formally asked permission to run such a service from the Board of Trade in December 1866. The service began in 1867, the men being conveyed originally in small open carriages, but these were later closed in. A new railway opened in Blaenau in 1868, the Ffestiniog and Blaenau Railway, this was ostensibly intended to convey slate and other goods to and from the hinterland to Blaenau, but behind it were the Hollands and others determined to try and break the F.R. monopoly of carriage if they could. [12] In an attempt to increase loadings, 1869 saw the railway company introduce new iron framed wagons capable of carrying 3 tons of finished slates as compared to the 2 tons carried by the original wooden wagons and their iron framed successors. These did not meet with much favour in the quarries, who had become accustomed to using the 2 ton wagons as almost their own, and arranged their tracks accordingly. The new wagons were much wider than the originals and it was found that in their oscillations as they were hauled up inclines they struck wagons on the parallel track, they were also just too wide for convenient loading by hand from one side in the quarry stacking yards. Later the same year an Act was passed enabling the F.R. to double its track, but only after strenuous objections by most of the quarry proprietors who felt that the existing line was not being used to its full capacity. In particular, the passing loops available were not being used effectively, only one, at Hafodyllyn, near Plas Tanybwlch being in regular use. Sam Holland appeared at the hearing on behalf, he said, of the workmen of Blaenau, although it turned out that he was rather more concerned that the continuing high rates of carriage for goods up from the port would mean that he would have to pay a further increase in wages to his men which would reduce his profits. Some things never change! [13] In particular the quarry owners complained about the terms of the agreements they had had to make with the railway company. A number of these had been due to terminate in the late 1860s and so the quarry companies became backers of various alternative schemes, such as the Ffestiniog & Blaenau, previously mentioned, in order to break the F.R.’s monopoly. There were many under-currents flowing, for when the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway proposed a branch to Blaenau, Greaves and Holland felt that the F.R. could carry the traffic and it was suggested that if the quarry owners joined the Ffestiniog Railway Company in opposing the A. & W.C.R. then they might be rewarded by lower rates, though the F.R. Board later denied this. One constant bone of contention was the differential rates for transport applied by the railway to its various customers, who pointed out that the tolls were based on the expected tonnage of 1832, some 12000 tons per year, whereas the line was actually carrying over 110,000 tons of slate and 14,500 tons of other goods, as well as passengers. The affair of the differential rates finally came to a head in 1872-5 when the Diffwys Casson Slate Co. complained to the Railway Commission regarding tolls and charges for demurrage, which the F.R. was charging them when it did not levy similar charges against the other quarries. They also felt that the other quarries were being offered better credit facilities. It turned out that Diffwys had not signed an agreement with the F.R. Co. and hence were subject to standard charges. Diffwys pointed out that in that case the Railway Co. was showing undue preference to those quarry companies that had signed an agreement binding them to use the F.R. only for transport for a number of years. The railway charged them 1d. per ton for shunting whereas it did not charge other companies - this was rather a moot point. [14] The railway, Diffwys complained, had made the agreements in order to prevent any competing railways from entering the district by denying them traffic. In the Queen’s Bench Court Session for December 1874 agreements between J.W. Greaves of the Llechwedd Quarry of 1864 were cited, this bound Greaves to use the F.R. for the next 14 years. The Court found that the F.R. was giving undue preference and should cease the practice. The F.R. appealed against the decision the following year but was rejected. This decision once more brought Holland and the Welsh Slate Co. into the courts on opposite sides over the railway rates. Until 1871 the Holland’s, Greaves, the Welsh Slate Co. and the Matthew’s at Rhiwbryfdir had all been equal parties to the 1864 agreement which bound them to use the railway for 14 years from the 1st. January 1864. In the case of the Rhiwbryfdir quarries, this coincided with the remainder of the term of their lease and so was satisfactory at the time. However, following their successful negotiation for a new longer lease in 1869-71 (to be described in a later chapter), the Welsh Slate Co. made a new agreement with the Railway in 1871 binding them to the railway for 30 years in return for a 2s.1½d per ton rate - this would have once again given the W.S.Co. a monopoly of F.R. traffic as Holland and Matthew could not take advantage of this as their leases were still due to terminate in 1878. It also turned out that the W.S.Co. had managed to adapt their tracks to cope with the larger 3-ton wagons giving them a higher loading factor than the other quarries, who were still insisting on the 2 ton wagons which had to be laboriously separated out from the 3 ton ones on return to the quarry incline sidings. Apparently William Edward Oakeley, who comes into prominence shortly, felt he ought to intervene, but was restrained by his Agent, A.M. Dunlop who wrote: “I should not think of recommending you to take any steps whatever against the F.R. Co. at present. Let Holland and Greaves fight their own battle, at the end you may come in and advise on certain parts....” Once again undue preference was upheld, but the Court recommended that the quarries who were not using the 3-ton wagons should take advantage of them by altering their works to suit. [15] The Ffestiniog Railway opened its doors officially to passenger traffic in December 1865 with the opening of a station at Dinas, just to the south of Holland’s incline junction. Here, too, was a small engine shed. The following year a second station was opened on the other branch at Duffws and from then on alternate trains terminated at each station, an awkward arrangement. All up trains were mixed, the empty slate wagons being tacked on to the end of the passenger carriages. In 1870 Dinas station closed its doors again to passengers and Duffws was rebuilt. Henceforward all trains terminated at Duffws, not entirely satisfactory from the quarrymen’s point of view, especially if they worked in the Rhiwbryfdir quarries but only until 1881 when the new L N W R station opened nearby. - 67 - Oakeley Slate - 10. TheQuarries and the Railway 1838-1872

An additional outlet for slate was found in 1872 when the F.R. made connection at with the and established a large exchange yard there. [16] From 1870 until 1879 the Dinas branch was the scene of surveyors and ultimately railway contractors as various proposals for connections to the north under the mountain from Dolwyddelan, the Lledr and Conwy valleys were made, surveyed, modified and discarded until the London and North Western Railway finally grasped the nettle, as is recorded in a later chapter, closely followed by the , utilising that serpent’s tooth, the Ffestiniog and Blaenau.

- 68 -

11. THE PATHS DIVIDE, 1865-69

It is now necessary to look at the events that transpired between the Welsh Slate Company and the Rhiwbryfdir Company in the latter half of the 1860s, for this was the essential turning point, which was ultimately to lead to the “Great Fall” of 1883/4 and the dismissal of the Welsh Slate Company from the site. Much of the material for this and the next five chapters has come from the actual W.S.Co. correspondence provided at the inquiry into the disaster and provides an excellent worms eye view of proceedings from the Welsh Slate Co.’s camp. To assist in the complexities of what follows it is necessary to briefly list the various personalities involved. The exact management structure (as we might call it today) of the Welsh Slate Company is far from clear. It was principally a partnership whose members formed “the Committee.” The reports of the Welsh Slate Co. used as evidence at the Great Fall enquiry often give the addressee and addressor as simply “Secretary” but it is equally clear from the context or references in letters that this cognomen was used by several different people. The principal dramatis personae of the Welsh Slate Co. from 1865 until the enquiry were as follows:

At the Quarry: William Williams Manager – retired 1866 George C. Chessell Manager – appears to have had two shares Robert Owen Assistant Manager – became Manager on Chessell’s death in 1873 Jno. Pritchard Assistant Clerk? (Jno is a Victorian contraction and could mean John or Jonathan)

At the Porthmadog Wharf: Jno. Phillips Wharf Manager?

At the Welsh Slate Co. Office, (various addresses) London J.S. Eves Treasurer? H.J. Phillips Secretary, writing from W.S.Co.’s Office 8c Adelphi Terrace, WC W.Hawkins Usually writes as himself, but on behalf of The Committee, in 1865 at 13a Cannon Road A.F.Paxton He was the son of Sir William Paxton, of Middleton Hall, Co. Carmarthen who had been a leading light in the London Gas, Light and Coke Company. Usually writes in a “Senior” manner, approving or referring things. It is believed that he had 9 shares on his death in 1880, and one John Remington Mills possessed a further 10, also dieing around that time. Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, died in October 1865. He had at least 24 shares in the Welsh Slate Co., of which he initially left 6 to W.F.Cowper, and a further 18 to Lady Palmerston to “dispose of as she thinks proper.” These may have come to Evelyn Ashley or W.F.Cowper William Francis Cowper Lord Palmerston’s step-son, became Cowper-Temple after his mother’s death in 1869, inheriting the Broadlands Estate at Romsey, he became 1 st Lord Mount-Temple in 1880, on his death in 1888 the estate passed to his nephew, Lady Palmerston’s grandson, Evelyn Ashley – see below Evelyn Ashley Full name Anthony Evelyn Melbourne Ashley-Cooper, 2 nd son of the 7 th Earl of Shaftesbury. He was Secretary to Lord Palmerston from 1858-1865, and in Gladstone’s 1880 Liberal Government he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade until 1882 when he became Under- Secretary of State for the Colonies until 1885. A man of importance within the W.S.Co. he appears to have taken a leading role in events from 1868 onwards, sometimes writing as “Secretary” but more often on his own account. Appears to have had a significant shareholding in the company at an early date, perhaps via Palmerston . Dowager Duchess of Cleveland Not mentioned, but someone must have acted on her behalf on the Committee, given her one-sixth part of the W.S.Co. shares. She died in 1883, her will being probated at over £434,000 ? Oldham Position not known ? Lewis Position not known ? Harrison Position not known

By the 1880s W.E.Oakeley considered Cowper-Temple and Evelyn Ashley to “be” the Welsh Slate Co. and certainly they were the only two names cited as being the Welsh Slate Co. in the arbitration dispute. Thus it seems likely that by then they were the majority shareholders, having bought up or otherwise obtained the shares from the other partners. The heart of the situation lay in the relationship between the W.S. Co.’s and Rhiwbryfdir’s workings. In earlier years both companies had co-operated in the removal of the overburden which allowed their open workings to proceed westwards, thus allowing the whole of the slate vein to be removed, the walls or pillars only acting as temporary supports to the overburden until the untopping could relieve them of their burden. This pleasant state of things had come more-or-less to an end when the Rhiwbryfdir Co., believing their vein had run out, transferred their activities to the Back Vein, bringing untopping activities to a halt and retaining considerable quantities of rock as roadways to - 66 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869 connect the Back Vein workings with their incline. This, and the lack of activity underground in the Old Vein began to worry the Welsh Slate Co. management. It is at this point that William Edward Oakeley enters our story materially. Previously it has already been mentioned that the Tan y Bwlch Estate, by the terms of W.G. Oakeley’s will, was wholly entailed, with his widow being tenant for life, while she remained unmarried, William Oakeley of Glan William was next in line, but had died so W.E. Oakeley would become being tenant for life on her death, as would be his first born son and his son etc. It would appear that after her husband’s death Mrs. Oakeley spent much money doing charitable works in the district, one long lasting memorial to her being the Quarry Hospital at Rhiwbryfdir which she had caused to be built for the quarrymen, not only of the Rhiw quarries, but others as well. However by the late 1850s and early 1860s she had become something of a recluse. A letter written in 1859 refers to “Mrs. Oakeley’s attitude towards the proposed marriage of William Edward” , of which she did not apparently approve. William’s marriage finally took place in 1863, he being presented with a son and heir the following year. The old Mrs. Oakeley’s behaviour was now giving some people cause for concern, and at the same time the W.S.Co. were agitating for a new lease. One Pugh Lloyd, writing from the estate in 1863 described events thus: “Mrs. Oakeley had a fancy to put all the village cottages in good repair before Winter set in, and last week she ordered all the labourers (some of them on the Estate for many years) to be discharged altogether and also withdrew her subscription from St. David’s Church - what next I know not... I am glad to hear of the return of W.E. Oakeley.” What he found (on the return from his honeymoon?) was serious enough for him to involve old Edward Oakeley, and in 1864, possibly galvanised by the birth of his son who would inherit the estate, and by the behaviour of the W.S.Co., legal advice was sought regarding matters. Mrs. Oakeley was described as “an Old Lady of weakened intellect and of morbid and eccentric habits and is very much under the influence of one or two local people of inferior position.” A letter went on: “The lessees are (it is believed) exceedingly anxious to secure an extension of their existing leases (which will expire in about 14 years time) having it in mind to layout capital and more largely develop their operations.” [1] Now where have we heard that before?

It would appear that the W.S.CO, Mathews and Holland now opened communication directly with William, obviously in an attempt to get the first word in with the prospective new landlord. At the same time the W.S.Co. with a view to obtaining his agreement to any arrangement that could be obtained... “intimated that unless they can get renewals on such terms as they consider reasonable, they shall let the leases run out and exercise such powers and liberties as they consider the clauses in the lease confer upon them and which if exercised would be most detrimental to the inheritance. ” Specific reference was to the clause - or clauses - which enabled the lessees to deposit waste on the surface of the lowest limit level contemplated in the lease, and those which required pillars of slate to be left for support rather than the walls –i.e what was referred to as the “gobbing-up” clause. It is said that similar suggestions were made by Holland and Mathews, though solid eveidence is lacking as yet. The legal advisors, presumably Rumsey Williams et. al. of Caernarfon, pointed out that it was not considered probable when the lease was drawn up that slate would be worked below the lowest limit level, but by the late 1860s it had become very profitable to do so. Removal of the parts of the walls to convert them into pillars would be an admitted injury of great magnitude to the lessor and interfere altogether with any operations on his (?) part hereafter. Doubts were also raised as to whether the lease of 1838 had been a true “lease and release” i.e. whether the W.S.Co. had actually surrendered up the old lease in return for the new one and also whether, in point of fact, the 1838 lease was valid in law. The question to be determined was, therefore, were there any reasonable grounds for impeaching the validity of the existing (1838) lease when W.E.O. came into possession? At the same time, could the lessees be restrained in any way, perhaps in court, if they “misbehaved” and tried to invoke the disputed clauses in the lease? Finally, could the present lessor, Mrs. Oakeley, give a new lease on lower royalties than in the past as she was only a life tenant? After further discussion, Edward Oakeley wrote to William Edward Oakeley on the 3rd. December 1864 as follows [1] “It is absolutely necessary that an exact copy of the W.S.Co. Lease should be procured and that the opinion of a Solicitor should be obtained of the legal interpretation to be placed upon each of the clauses that the Company rely upon as enabling them to do the damage they threaten in order to force the granting of a new lease to them. Until I have the opportunity of seeing these clauses I shall not believe they bear any such construction, but supposing that they do it is quite certain that a Court of Equity will never suffer the interests of the inheritor’s heir to be sacrificed when it can be shown that he is without power to prevent it himself and that he has applied in vain to the present lessor (tenant for life) to remedy the principal.” Nothing seems to have been done, however, and the quarries, the W.S.Co. in particular, proceeded to carry out the part of their threat regarding the walls. Thus it was that in late 1864 or early ‘65 the W.S.Co. called in Charles Spooner to consider the matter of the workings and he reported in May 1865. He recommended the working away of several of the walls by both Rhiw and the W.S.Co. His advice was, however, not entirely acceptable. The secretary to the W.S.Co., Hawkins, wrote to Evelyn Ashley as follows [2]: “Although we are of the opinion that it would be practicable to work the slate in many of the present walls, it would not be prudent to do so to the extent recommended in Mr. Charles Spooner’s plan, nor is it possible how much to take from each wall until the operation is begun, and it is seen how far it may be carried consistently with safety to the Roof and the joints in the rock itself. “ “It would not be advisable to touch walls 9, 10 and 11 on floor DE into wall 10 on F and 9 on H or I, but leave these walls as they are, for the purpose of locking in that great dislocation in the Clay Slant, which is caused by the Bevel in question. “

- 67 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869

“If we rightly understand the plan, Mr.C. Spooner proposes the Messrs. Mathew (sic) to work a small portion of wall 11, a larger quantity of 13 and rather more of 15. Such a suggestion is open to grave objections, inasmuch as the giving the Upper Company more Rock than they would otherwise have would necessarily delay their advanced workings and considerably check those of the W.S.Co. “ “In deciding to work away our walls, it seems clear by the lease that the Upper Company have no voice whatever in the matter, but they cannot work theirs without the consent of the W.S.Co. “ “It is therefore submitted that if you decide to work portion of your walls the carrying out of the work should be left to the discretion of the Manager at the Quarry, leaving it to their judgement how much to take subject of course to instructions from Head Office in any difficulty that may arise.” The “Upper Company” being referred to here was, of course the Rhiwbryfdir Co., not Holland. Thus was the first seed of disaster sown, the idea that the lower of two sets of workings which rested on one another could remove parts of their walls and in this way reduce the support given to the upper workings without the agreement of the higher company was clearly folly, yet this was just what happened. The note of caution regarding the amount to be removed is interesting, perhaps suggesting uncertainty over whether there might be an extension of lease after all. There was a fall from the rockface above walls 7 and 8 in the Rhiwbryfdir leasehold in early October 1865, which blocked floors 2 and 1 with rubbish, and overflowed down into the W.S. Co.’s floor C. The W.S.Co. manager, Williams, commented as follows: “...this is a most serious occurrence for both the Quarries since it necessarily stops for some time their advanced workings on the two floors mentioned, and as cracks are visible on both surface and frontage of the Bone a good deal more stuff may yet come down. Capt. Matthew is up today and thinks he will have to solicit the W.S.Co. to remove all the rubbish now lying upon our floor C, charging them (the Rhiwbryfdir Co.) with the cost.” A plan of 1864 shows two underground inclines connecting G and H floors – a “Hydraulic Engine” on the later site of the Ashton Engine, and a “Steam Engine” on the site of the A5 engine. Only a few days later, on the 12th. of October 1865, the secretary wrote to Major Johnson, the Oakeley Agent): “The entire stoppage of the workings of this Company on their C floor, arising from the backwardness of the workings of the Rhiwbryfdir Company is causing and will continue to cause for many months to come a serious diminution in Mrs. Oakeley’s Royalty, as well as in the profits of this Company and it is to be feared that the recent serious fall in the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s Quarry will remove to a still more distant period the renewal of our workings on that floor. “ “Under these circumstances the Committee of this Company have been turning their attention to other sources to make up this loss, and they find that there is much ungotten slate in the Slate Walls. By the Quarry Lease the Company are only required to leave sufficient pillars to support the roof, each being 40ft square, but that in the year 1845 they acceded to the wish of the Rhiwbryfdir Company to leave for the time being walls of 40ft. thick, instead of pillars and which walls have been left accordingly. “ “The Committee are advised, however, that these walls are not only much beyond the requirements of the lease but also much more than can possibly be required for the support of the roof, and they therefore intend to remove and convert into slates the lower or north part of the walls in many places. “ “At present it is intended to commence on G floor with the walls No. 2, 6 and 7 as under wall 2, from the intersection of Clay Slant with the lowest limit level to about 135 feet Southward or so far in that direction as experience in working may show safely can be done. This will leave a wall there instead of pillars 40 ft. in width and 360 ft. long.” “Wall 6 from same intersection to about 150 ft. Southward or so far as will be found safe. This will leave 405 ft. of that wall as a substitute for pillars.” “Wall 7 from same intersection to about 300 ft. This would still leave about 300 ft. of that wall instead of pillars. “ “Further reductions of these and reductions of other walls will probably made hereafter.” “It is hoped that by this course Mrs. Oakeley’s Royalty will not only be restored to its former amount, but also very much increased and that therefore it will meet the cordial approval of that lady.” Here was the second major error - that the walls and pillars were far stronger than required and could be reduced - a fatal error, which instead of being repudiated was actually propagated further. Fig 12 shows the intentions of these and subsequent proposals, while fig 16 shows what the quarry would have looked like had they been successful. The term “roofing” in slate mining, usually refers to driving an inclined shaft under the hard rock above the slate vein from one floor up to the next. This shaft is subsequently “widened” to the width of the intended chamber enabling the slate rock to be removed. However, the Welsh Slate Company at this period . appears to have used the term “unroofing” (rather than roofing) to describe not only the normal act of opening a space for a chamber, driving the roofing shaft, and then widening the chamber ready for work, but also to the act of removing the wall between two chambers from the opening level southwards. Since this exposed the same sort of rock face as in a normal chamber, a “bargain” could be let on this rock face in the usual way, thus one could have a bargain in operation in each chamber either side of the wall, and another one in the “unroofing” itself. Meanwhile, in the workings in the Back Vein, where the W.S.Co. had no other workings above them, the manager reported as follows: “The terms of unroofing a second bargain in the Back Vein Eastwards of the Limit Level are 12/- per yard for three stems. It is proposed to open it, as the roof appears firm, 22 yards wide instead of 17 yards , the general width leaving the wall, not the usual 40 f t., but 24 ft. , but in consequence of the extended workings here the want of air is felt and the powder smoke is a hindrance.” This brought a reaction from the secretary approving the opening of the chamber, “...but you must leave the wall 40 ft. Mr. Field is clearly of the opinion that all supports must be of that dimension, even in the lower workings, and that the Clause in the lease binds us to do so.” - 68 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869

By now a Major Johnson was Mrs. Oakeley’s agent and wrote on the 14th October 1865 as follows: “Until I have gone through the leases and visited the walls, floors &c. &c. - which I shall do the first opportunity - it is impossible for Mrs. Oakeley to say whether she approves of the plan you mention. I am sure, however, that for the sake of an increase in the royalty, it is not her wish that the walls should be cut away beyond the requirements of the lease, or beyond what is required for the support of the roof, as not only a great loss of life, but of property also might result, either from a fall or from a slip in the roof or pillars.” He called at the quarries on October 17th. 1865 to look at the Rhiwbryfdir fall and at the same time was shown the three walls being considered for removal, the manager commenting, “...he was assured that it was equally to the interest of Mrs. Oakeley and the Welsh Slate Company so to work away the slate that the roof should not give way. He appeared to agree with this, but merely said he had received a letter from you on the subject and then left to visit the Old Hospital.” The remainder of October was taken up with an exchange of views regarding the Rhiwbryfdir fall, its weight and the cost of its removal. The Committee met on the 1st. of November and it was resolved that Chessel and Williams, the W.S.Co. managers, should commence the removal of the walls as previously agreed. William Williams had been the Manager or Agent of the Welsh Slate Company for nearly 30 years, most of those with the able assistance of George Chessell (or Chessel) as Chief Clerk/Accountant and by the 1860s as Assistant Manager. At the same time C.E. Spooner had requested payment for his work in connection with the original wall plan, possibly suggesting that he be paid on a percentage of the slate made. The Committee reacted as follows: “Resolved, - That Mr. Spooner be paid the sum of £120 for the surveys, plans, &c., and that he be informed that the Committee do not consider they will require his services in carrying out of the works, but they will be happy to consult him professionally should any occasion arise in which his valuable services would be needed. “ “That with regard to his remuneration for the idea he has originated, they will consider on a future occasion, and when the plan has proved to be successful, what amount would be a fair remuneration to him.” So much for Mr. Spooner! At the same time the secretary wrote to Major Johnson advising him of their plan to open the new chamber in the Back Vein 23 yards wide instead of 17 yards, “...as in other parts of the Quarry, when the three Quarries are working one above the other. We are advised that this is a perfectly safe measure, and the locality being very far to the eastward of any of the workings of the other two Quarries could not under any circumstances whatever affect them.” No sooner had the Committee given permission to start work on the walls than the manager, Williams, was writing about the width of the bargains again, “All the Bargains from Wall 1 to 11 being from 52 to 60 feet wide, it is submitted that there is no limit legally to the width of these in the Back Vein if the Walls be laid out the full 40 ft., so wherever the roof admits, pray let future bargains there be opened as wide as is consistent with safety, especially as there is no clause in the lease restricting us to 50 ft. chambers.” The secretary had an interview with the W.S.Co. solicitor, Field, who replied that there was nothing in the lease to prevent them doing so, and so gave permission to proceed with the wide bargains, if they, the managers, felt that it left a safe support to the roof. This letter would also seem to give an indication of the furthest extent of the workings at this time. The managers were not finished with suggestions and were soon writing about the “unroofing” of the walls 2,6 and 7 as follows: “The unroofing of wall 2 and 6 is now in progress. No.7 is composed of very small and inferior rock, and which, if taken away, the entire width of two bargains and walls nearly 200 ft. in an unbroken line would be left without any support, so it seems strange that two walls next to each other should have been decided upon. Under these circumstances, may we take No.4 instead which is composed of very good slate, so that by working away 2, 4 and 6, 3, 5 and 7 would then be the supports?” As this change was wholeheartedly approved, one can only wonder at a Committee which sanctioned the original “unroofing” without consulting its “men on the spot” when it was so ready to change its mind on their recommendation. Mr. Field pointed out that the change would mean having to give a notice of the alteration to the parties concerned. At the same time he commented, via the secretary that,”...he considers that the Landlady not having forbidden our removing parts of the walls, after having received notice of our intention of doing so, has tacitly consented to it, and he does not think that any difficulty is likely to arise to our proceedings from that quarter, so that we cannot do better than to go on in the matter agreed on, i.e. to try it on a small scale.” Notice was given of the change in walls on the 1st of December 1865, details being: “...to take away in lieu thereof a part of Wall 4 from the intersection of the Clay Slant with the Lowest Limit Level, to about 270 feet or so in that direction as will be found safe. The Wall that will then be left in line of pillars will be 246 feet in length .” Robert Roberts, latterly the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s agent and later still the Oakeley Quarries manager commented at the Inquiry into the “Great Fall”, “The Welsh Slate Company never studied the safety of the quarry in selecting these walls, they were taking the best walls as regards quality, and every practical man knows that the best as regards quality is the strongest as regards support.” Thus by choosing the best walls to remove and leaving the rest especially wall 7, the W.S.Co. were storing up trouble for themselves. The first hint was not long in coming. The “unroofing” and work on all three walls, 2, 4 and 6 continued through December 1865 and January 1866 until the 2nd. of February 1866, when the inevitable happened. The Clay Slant roof above the chambers, deprived of its customary support and disturbed by the explosions, collapsed into the void where wall 6 had been, cracking all the way from wall 5 across chamber 5 and chamber 6 as far as wall 7. Informed of the fall, a tiny one in view of what was to come, a “horrified” secretary in London gave immediate instructions to cease operations on the walls. The managers were not dismayed and said, “Under these circumstances there is only one safe way of working available, which it would appear from what transpired at your last visit is not in conformity with the lease; but this difficulty could be overcome by getting Mrs. Oakeley’s consent, it is; to choose the places where beds of good slate appear and undermine them, both sides of a wall would here and there be hollowed out, while the 40 ft. support under the clay slant would - 69 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869 not be disturbed as no unroofing would be necessary. This mode of working away the walls would yield more slate at less cost, and without risk, more slates because only the best rock would be gotten, and at less cost because of no unroofing or clearing miners rubbish, as well as that from quarrying bad rock.” The possible consequences of this “cupboarding” of the walls is best left to the imagination and Robert Roberts’ comments applied particularly well here. Fig. 13 shows this proposal. The quarry management would not leave well alone, however, on the 7th. of February they wrote: “In reply to your favour of the 5th., the fall came down in the night, and the following morning the crack was seen so that both must have happened at the same time. “ “It is well you have stopped the unroofing altogether or without a doubt the Quarry would fall in, and it is most fortunate the crisis has come so soon for had the Clay Slant been tougher and stood another 6 or 9 months, the consequences would have been frightful. It is intended to work away the uncovered slate in 2 and in 4 and in 6 also, when it is safe to do so, since it would neither weaken nor strengthen the roof by leaving it, not a further change has taken place.” In view of later events, it is worth a further quotation of the then managers opinion of trying to bring down the loose rock: “We are of the opinion that if the Unroofing goes on the consequences would be fatal to the prosperity of the Company as it might involve loss of life, and heavy falls are certain to come down not only 3 to 6,000 tons but in Chamber 6 30 or 60,000 are quite as likely, and from as high up the Clay Slant Roof as the DE floor bridge which would be destroyed, indeed there is no knowing where our disasters would end. “ “If powder was put in the present crack and open joints blasted, in bringing down what is already tottering, would likewise loosen what is now firm, and this makes us hesitate to use even a crow bar, but continue to watch it and let it fall naturally, particularly as there are no men working under it, only passing to and fro occasionally. “ “A fall in Chamber 6 of only 6,000 tons dropping close to the traffic road westward would at once block that road, thereby shutting up Bargains 7 & 8 as well as No. 6 and it would take a long time to clear the Rubbish as there is but one road, namely the Clay Slant level through which to get at it, but all this shews Mr. Spooner’s want of practical knowledge.” This last was, of course, unfair, as the activities that had caused the fall were not according to Spooner’s plan. There was a further fall in March 1866 from the roof across Chamber 5 and the unroofed portion of wall 6, about 400 tons coming down. It blocked the traffic road and stopped the bargain and although the route to the bargains in 6, 7 and 8 were blocked the rockmen carried on working. The worst was thought to be over! Operations on the walls, getting slates from the unroofed portions continued until September 1866 by which time 415 tons of slates had been made from wall 2, and 123 tons from walls 4 and 6 together. Work continued sporadically on 2 and 6 for some time after this but the produce figures are not available. The unroofing had only cost £210 in actual money, but its real cost in weakness was far, far in excess of the wildest dreams of the managers. C.E. Spooner was called in occasionally from time to time in the following years, but the affair of the unroofing destroyed any faith the management, and, more importantly, the Committee, had in his advice and from then on they brought in others to advise them. In May 1866, one Wyatt, the manager of another local quarry, possibly Croesor, and a member of the quarrying family which included Benjamin Wyatt, ex-manager of the great Penrhyn Quarry was called on to examine the possibilities for extensions at the quarry and reported as follows: “...I have no doubt it will be easily understood there can be no doubt, I think, of there being a large body of Slate to the West under your G floor, particularly as the Spar Vein which intersects the Slate to the East passes to the North of the Clay Slant Westwards and quits it altogether...... the Slate below G floor is the same as what you have been getting above. You will see that 36 new chambers may be got the same depth and size as your present ones, but as No. 1, 2 and 3 I believe are now opening for one deep chamber the same as those to the East, I will leave these out of the calculation and call the number 33, and as 5 rows of these are not the full length of the slate vein, owing to the spar vein cutting across, we may reckon the whole as equal to 30 full length chambers. As your chambers average 75 tons each per month, and will last 8 years, this is equal to 900 tons each per year and for 8 years amount to 7,200 tons each, 30 chambers would thus amount to 210,660 tons of slates, and at a net profit of 25/- a ton (which yours must be) this is equal to about £263,000. There being only eleven and a half years to run of your lease, the question is whether you can take out the whole of this slate within this time. I have no hesitation in saying you can do so, if you properly go to work and provide the necessary appliances. “ “I propose doing this by means of two double road Inclines, the same as ours, worked by a suitable steam engine each to bring up the wagons, pump the water and do anything that is required. These inclines ought to be placed so as to work an equal number of chambers on each side. If this is not attended to you lose time and power, their proper position would be best fixed on the spot. I would bring the rubbish up a lifting shaft between the two inclines worked by steam power. The whole expense of these inclines, shaft, machinery etc. I think you will find will not exceed £11,000 and I think the whole may be completed if properly set about within 18 months. I think you may get some of the chambers in slate making in less than 2 years, and the whole in little more than three years, and as it takes 8 years to work a chamber out, the whole may be exhausted within the period of the lease; however what is determined on, there is no time to lose in carrying it out.” Wyatt’s plan and report was sent to the managers on the 1st of June 1866, but the Secretary added the following significant comment; “The question of adopting it or not is one purely of time, for we must not calculate on what could be gotten within the remaining term of the Company’s Lease, but within the next seven years, for we must reserve the last four and a half years for the removal of the slate walls. The Committee wish to have a report from you as to what you think could be accomplished profitably within the period above mentioned.” A copy was also sent to Mr. Spooner for his comments. The managers replied by the 11th. of June, but their comments have not survived. The age of William Williams , the W.S.Co. manager, is unknown, but in March 1865 his son, Morriss Williams, was informing the secretary that he had received an offer to manage a slate quarry in Caernarfonshire and unless his salary was - 70 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869 advanced and he was given a promise that he could succeed his father, he would accept it. The Committee replied, inter alia, that they were glad to hear that he had received so generous an offer and although sorry to lose him, they could only recommend him to accept it. By mid-July 1866, however, Williams was ready to retire and a new assistant manager was required to assist Chessell, who would henceforward be in charge. One Robert Owen, then working for the Ffestiniog Slate Company at Rhiwbach Quarry applied for the job and was accepted, Chessell writing: “I am instructed by the Committee of this Company to engage you as my Assistant at the Quarries at a remuneration by a percentage on the present make to produce a sum of £200 per annum, such remuneration to increase with any future increase in the make.” “This engagement to terminate by 3 month’s notice on either side. I trust you will make it convenient to commence your duties on the 17th. September.” Robert Owen replied, “I agree to the terms of employment set forth in your letter of this days date to be your Assistant at the Rhiwbryfdir and Moelwyn Maur Slate Quarries and fully expect the Festiniog Slate Company to release me so as to commence my duties under you on the 17th. September. Though I am not legally bound to do so yet I should like to give my present employers three month’s notice. To be able to live near the Quarry at the commencement will materially assist me in the discharge of my duties.” . If the wording of his appointment seems strange, it is apparent that the W.S.Co. were at this time also working the Pant Mawr Quarry on the western slopes of the Moelwyns. Robert Owen was born in 1829 and had been working in slate since he was 8 years old; he had joined the Welsh Slate Company’s workforce at the age of 9 and had worked either there or at Rhiwbryfdir for most of his life, apart from a short time he had spent in Australia and at other quarries. In 1862 he had been appointed foreman and manager at the Rhiwbach Quarry, and had worked there until his appointment with the W.S.Co. In August Chessell wrote to the Secretary, “As the pay after the present will end the 15th. September may I ask Mr Robert Owen to come on Monday, the 16th., that he may have a week to get into the way of things so as to be ready to carry out some new arrangements on the first day of the new pay, the 17th. September.” Further thoughts came in the 1st week of September: “I do not know whether the day of Mr. Williams retirement has been fixed, but as Mr. Robert Owen comes on Monday he and I will in future let the Bargains. I think then that practically Mr. Williams will withdraw from active duties on the 15th., the 17th. being the first day of a new pay.” Later W.S.Co. papers refer to Chessell as being the “ Manager” and Owen the “ Underground Manager” . The same references give Chessell’s title as “General Supervisor” while Williams was the “Regular General Manager ” who managed the works. With this uncertainty of title, it is somewhat difficult to determine exactly who wrote which letter from Blaenau or Porthmadog. Some letters clearly being written from both locations by different people, both claiming the title of “Manager” . In view of later events, Robert Owen may have been an unfortunate choice for assistant manager, perhaps lacking in practical abilities such as surveying, a later requirement of managerial appointment, but above all he seems to have been a weak man, in the end allowing events to overcome him, though in fairness, whether any man could have coped with the enormity of the responsibility that the Welsh Slate Company’s quarry was to become must be doubtful It must also be said that his promotion through the ranks, so to speak, from workman to foreman to manager was not untypical of the period, and it was the 1895 Mines Inquiry which shone a bright spotlight on the need for Managers to have essential skills and training.. It was in part his lack of understanding of the rock and the forces at work in it, perhaps in the beginning fostered by Chessell, an accountant at heart, rather than a quarryman, which was to lead ultimately to his and the Company’s undoing, when the sorely tried mountain finally took its revenge on its tormentors The idea of the “ungotten” slate in the walls obsessed the Committee, and in November 1866, the secretary was once again writing to Chessell regarding the walls, this time below G floor: “Inclosed (sic) I send you by desire of the Committee a Copy of their minute defining the duties of their Officers at the Quarry. I also send you on the other side a copy of a Minute passed this day as to the walls on H and I floor. “ “That Mr. Chessell be requested to consider the expediency of diminishing the number of walls that are to be retained on the H and I floors, and to report whether he thinks it is safe to double the width of the bargains on those floors, and only to keep walls enough to support the alternate walls on G floor; and to send a plan showing what he would propose. As this is a matter on which Mr. Williams’ experience and knowledge would be of the greatest help, the Committee would wish him to join in the consideration and examination of the subject with Mr. Chessell, and to report his opinion conjointly with that of Mr. Chessell” Perhaps the Committee too were a little uncertain of Chessell’s own ability? In due course they reported, recommending that four walls should be worked away, A3, 2, 5 and 8, this having the effect of more than doubling the width of the bargains A2, 1, 4 and 7. They commented, “It may be thought too cautious to choose only 4 of the 14 walls, but after working them, we can better tell if it will be safe to work more.” Fortunately for the safety of the quarry, Major Johnson visited the quarry shortly after this and wrote to the secretary very promptly on the 4th March 1867, objecting to the idea of working away the walls: “At the same time as Mrs. Oakeley’s agent, and on her behalf, I should not be justified in remaining a silent spectator of workings I consider to be most damaging to the quarries.... Because, if so, as Mrs. Oakeley’s representative, I consider it my duty to protest most strongly against these supports being in any way weakened.” Not only the walls were under threat, Major Johnson must have made other comments for the manager was soon writing to the secretary as follows: “If you think it advisable to open further bargains in Floors F and G it would be as well to begin, but as our advanced workings must be left in the state shown in the enclosed sketch and described in Clause 31 of the lease, it is doubtful whether the Upper Company can open up chamber 14 in the North or Main Vein before the term ends so as to justify the pushing out of advanced workings into Chamber 13 on C, 12 on DE, 11 in F 10 in G and 9 in H, so that if your

- 71 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869 quarry be now opened further westward and there should not be time to get it right again by 1877 the Lessor would claim for Slate taken not leased and thus render the W.S. Company liable to heavy penalties. “ “Although the platform on each floor must be left 30 ft. from East to West it would be desirable to leave it the full width of a bargain rather than unroof and work away, say 20 ft. of slate rock. This 20 ft. may be useful as compensation for diminishing the 40 feet of walls 2 and 4 etc.” “Mr. Williams fully agrees with all I have said.” Here the unfortunate aspects of the lease clauses surfaced, clauses which had the opposite effect from that desired when they were written, and as we shall see with the next lease, certain of the clauses caused conflict in the minds of the lessees between the safety of the quarry and the desire to avoid penalties such as the one described. One can only wonder at the manager’s regard for the lease and the landlady herself when one reads the following letter to the secretary in May 1867, clearly assuming no extension of lease: “When the time arrives for our cutting away the walls, I do not think the Rhiwbryfdir Company will be able to cut away their parts of the walls without your permission, as the droppings from their rock operations, as well as falls from the clay slant roof would endanger the lives of our workmen in the chambers below. I also think when we do begin the furthest wall westward, say no.11, will be chosen; and when it is worked away as far as advisable, or until a fall comes down the rubbish will be left, and no.10 treated the same way, all this rubbish will thus assist in the jobbing up process. It would be much wiser to begin as described than eastward to avoid going under a dangerous roof. “ “The walls, not even every other wall, cannot be in my view worked away from G to the top of C floor since the threatening state of the clay slant would deter the men long before.” Returning to the deeper walls, the managers got Mr. Morriss Williams (still apparently available despite the Caernarfonshire offer some years earlier!) to do some surveying for them. In June 1867 they had been asked when they were to commence removing the walls below G floor. The Committee felt that although they had not given Mrs. Oakeley notice of their intentions, it might not be necessary to do so. The management at the quarry felt that it would not be a good idea to begin working away wall A3 on H until the 1st. of October as it would not then hinder the working of the adjacent bargains. At the same time, Chessell felt that Major Johnson’s objections to removing the walls were based on a misunderstanding. He, Chessell, thought that the Major thought that they were proposing removing the walls on the G floor, which had already proved disastrous, and not H floor. He felt that the present measurements of wall A5 exceeded the requirements of the lease. By October 1867, the secretary was writing as follows: “Mr Chessell still holds to his opinion that it will be very dangerous to cut away the walls as projected, not that he thinks the whole mountain would fall in, but that so much stuff would come down that the workings would be seriously impeded, the roadways stopped and much valuable time would be lost; further, that the roof would be left in such a condition that the men would be afraid to work under it for a long time to come. I mentioned to him, as you requested, the wide bargains which I saw in France; to this he replied, that he is not opposed to them in abstract, but that the clay slant roof is too weak to support them. In the North Vein, where there is a very solid spar roof, he has himself proposed (some time ago) a wide bargain of 100 ft.” Note that this was in fact in the Back Vein. The fall of 1865, which had triggered much of the above, continued to trouble the W.S.Co., principally because of a total disagreement between the W.S.Co. and Matthew of the Rhiw Co. as to the weight which had fallen, and its contents, Matthew insisting that there was slate in the fall, which would compensate the W.S.Co. for removing it, the W.S.Co. saying that there wasn’t and that the whole of the cost should be borne by the Rhiw Co. The W.S.Co. had estimated the fall at 40,000 tons, the Rhiw Co. at 17,500 tons. The managers eventually removed the fall under protest, the mode of payment being deferred, at the same time keeping a separate account of the cost and any slates made out of it, for future reference. By December 1865, they reckoned that 8341 tons remained in the quarry, over 2800 tons being removed in the last quarry month. The rubbish blocking the access to chambers 8 and 9 on C floor was cleared by June 1866 and slate making was resumed. However, this was soon stopped again when the Rhiwbryfdir Co. brought down part of wall 8 with gunpowder, burying the W.S. Co.’s floor C bargain. Relations were not helped when the W.S.Co. started working in chamber 9, much to the alarm of Matthew who claimed they were undermining his roadway along the side of wall 9. The W.S.Co. managers, however, stated that their “bargain in wall 9” was not under the roadway but much to the north of it, that the wall 9, which had been left 80 ft. wide by agreement, could now be thinned to the normal 40 ft. and that the Rhiwbryfdir Co. had consented to it. This argument was interrupted in March 1867 by the widening of the cracks in the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s quarry face, which caused fears in the W.S.Co. camp of another fall. Note that the bargain in question had been let in the wall – not in the conventional location at the forebreast. The worst happened on September 13th. 1867, and Chessell was soon writing: “I wrote yesterday announcing an alarming change in the crack, and I now beg to report that at 9 o’clock last night a heavy fall came down which is roughly estimated at 37,500 tons, 30,000 tons in the upper Company’s works and 7,500 tons in yours.” Once again C floor was completely stopped, and the make was to suffer by about 300 tons of slates lost. Chessell commented “It seems unfair as there is no slate buried that the W.S.Co. should now have to pay £300 for clearing 7,500 tons of the Upper Company’s rubbish because their bone was badly cut originally.” Now it was Matthew’s turn to complain, and he wrote regarding the work at wall 9 once again, Matthew considering that the W.S.Co. was preparing to take slate which did not belong to them, and which had been left as a deliberate support for the roof above their lowest limit level floor. Further he stated, “I am supported in my opinion by our Agent, Mr.R.P. Williams, that the course you, as Agent to the W.S.Co. are now adopting is greatly endangering the joint workings of the two companies, and I therefore give you this timely notice that the Rhiwbryfdir Company will hold the W.S.Co. responsible for any damage which may occur in consequence thereof. ” - 72 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869

Chessell said that his men were merely bringing down the loose after clearing a fall from the pillar and were trying to prevent a further accident. In any case he thought that the surplus width was now unnecessary because the Rhiw Co. had given up the object for which the surplus had been kept. Unfortunately this was not the case, and although Chessell and the W.S.Co. thought Matthew had given verbal permission to bringing down the loose, which he had, their continued operations began to break up the roadway completely, and Mathew was soon complaining again, pointing out that where the W.S.Co. were merrily at work, it had been their intention to work through the roof into the veins beyond, something they could not now do. This brought a temporary end to the squabble. Once again, in February 1868, the Eastern workings were the subject of speculation, Chessell writing: “BACK VEIN. The level across it will shortly reach the West side of Chamber 22 on H where the shaft sinking from G floor will be down in a few days. May this level instead of being driven under the Clay Slant in the usual way, be taken along the North side, and from it a short level on a curve into the side of chamber 20,1.“ “The cost would be somewhat more, but the saving in time in working this bargain after opening it, would be considerable. May it be done, and provided the roof is firm, larger bargains opened as shewn in the sketch.” This sketch is reproduced here as fig. 14. This involved the opening of chambers 20 and 21 as a single chamber 120ft. wide and chamber 22 90ft. wide, with only a 22ft. wall between them! Even on G floor the walls shown were only 33ft . wide as opposed to the 40ft required by the lease. This method was felt to be even more applicable on floor I, immediately below H, where the method would improve the rate of opening, as well as allowing both miners and rockmen to be at work almost simultaneously, the wagons of miners rubbish and blocks of slate not interfering with one another. However, on this occasion, although the Committee accepted the new way of opening the chambers from beyond the Clay Slant by curved levels, showing at last some common sense, they fortunately rejected the extremely wide chambers suggested, and insisted that the chambers be opened the normal width and the walls left intact. By now plans were in hand to extend the workings by another floor’s depth, the new level forming floor “I”, but rather than leave it to the manager, the Committee indicated that they would discuss it directly with him during one of their periodical visits. A curious aspect of the W.S.Co. correspondence is the lack of reference to the mechanical developments and similar work going on at the quarries during the period described. One can only assume it was “edited out” as not being relevant to the Fall Inquiry for which the transcripts were made. Despite this some interesting facts come to light.

A letter of April 4th. 1868 refers to the make for the period, a “pay” being the quarry’s month, not exactly matching the calendar month. The make was the quantity of finished slates produced: 1866 1867 1868 Tons Tons. Tons. Make for last pay (Mar?): 1,760 2,370 3,115 Make for Quarter (Jan-Mar): 4,900 6,910 8,590 Tonnage lifted by Vertical Balance: 18,000 19,073 26,944 Tonnage of all floors, rubbish & blocks: 46,444 48,992 58,288

Following the June pay, which ended on the 20 th of that month, the figures given were as follows: 1866 1867 1868 Tons Tons. Tons. Make for Quarter (Apr-Jun): 5,355 8,165 10,052 Make for Half year (Jan-Jun): 10,255 15,075 18,642 Blocks & Rubbish from Lower Workings by Vertical Balance: 40,408 40,052 56,332 G. Balance: 2,370 Total for 1868: 58,702 Weighed out-Tonnage of all: 92,757 103,309 117,085

It is curious that the G Water Balance is only mentioned in the June figures, perhaps pointing to its recent construction. It was double-acting, each truck consisting of a large timber frame running on 6 wheels on a track of 6ft. 9in. gauge. The water tanks were of riveted iron construction and mounted at the top end of the frame so that the wagons could be run underneath them. The drums were mounted at the rear of the DE floor at an elevated position, being braced to the head walls of the incline by stout timber beams. Next to the drums was the main water tank. A timber control cabin was supported on the beams in a position to supervise both the filling of the upper truck and the loading of the carriage itself. This was additionally supported by iron columns. By September the make was 3,393 tons of finished slates, being 19% greater than the previous year and some 64% greater than in 1866; the proportions of finished slate to waste being given as 1 to 6. Some rock however was very good, 8,865 tons of blocks alone yielding 1 ton of finished slates for every 2 tons 12 cwt. (2.6 tons) of rock. The total for 1868 so far was estimated at 36,936 tons. Despite this evident prosperity, the shadow of the big “unroofing” still fell over the quarry, and in August 1868 one miner was killed and his partner seriously injured while unroofing chamber 7 on floor H. A piece of rock fell “unexpectedly” from the roof. The manager commented that “The poor fellows have only themselves to blame, as they ought to secure the roof while the unroofing goes on and above all to make it safe at the finish.” The consequences of this accident were that four bargains were stopped as the rockmen were afraid to go in and work in case they brought down large quantities from the roof. - 73 - Oakeley Slate - 11. The Paths Divide 1865-1869

It seems likely that the use of the term “unroofing” here was, as mentioned previously, the normal process of opening and widening a chamber. All in all then, the W.S.Co. were working well, producing an ever-increasing make, despite their gloomy thoughts, but under it all was the manifest desire to utilise the last years of their lease to tear the walls out and let destiny take its course. One may well wonder at the surprising silence from the lessor, Mrs. Oakeley, while all this was going on, especially in view of Major Johnson’s objections. Why had the W.S.Co. not received any communication from the lady herself? By her default the W.S.Co. and in particular their Solicitor, Mr. Field, had assumed her silence to be tacit consent to their plans and operations! It takes little imagination to envisage the consequences if the W.S.Co. were to be given free reign to their plans.. Fortunately things were to change. It was during this episode that Major Johnson, himself increasingly concerned over the waywardness of the W.S.Co. and even more worried by his employer’s apparent indifference to his reports and fears, found that his letters were not even being read by that lady but by one of her maids! He contacted William Edward, then living in the Midlands, and explained matters to him. Here his news was not received calmly, for it raised the real fear in William that his aunt was no longer in control of events and that she might easily be pressured into new leases by the quarry companies on terms favourable to themselves and detrimental to the estate and his and his son’s inheritance. The immediate result of Major Johnson’s revelations to William Edward was that Mrs. Oakeley refused to talk to Major Johnson at all. William Edward had apparently begun legal moves to try and have Mrs. Oakeley certified as unfit to run the estate, moves which she naturally opposed, but by then she was not even talking to her own solicitor and in late 1867 she upped and disappeared from Plas Tan y Bwlch, taking her maid and the family silver. [3] William was at a complete loss, the estate was rudderless, and the W.S.Co. unaware of the drama, were assuming their landlady was well aware of what they were doing and had consented to it. After some little time, he was able to trace Mrs Oakeley to a hotel in Shrewsbury and began his legal activities again. In the end she consented to see a clergyman who was able to convince her to let a doctor visit her. The visit was unsatisfactory to William Edward, for the doctor found her in full possession of her faculties and quite capable. A new approach was in order and William Edward, through his solicitor, offered the suggestion that perhaps the estate was now too much of a burden for her and she might like to retire in his favour. Rather surprisingly, she appears to have agreed to this and signed over all her interests in the estate to him in return for £6000 per year. William Edward returned to live at Tan y Bwlch to try and clear up the situation, and ran into trouble when her brothers from Bath tried to oppose him, saying he did not have powers to administer the estate. This was rapidly squashed by a letter from Mrs. Oakeley herself on the 9th. June 1868 confirming that W.E.O. had full authority to manage the estate. One gathers that the brothers from Bath were given very short shrift indeed. She then retired permanently to Twickenham where she died on 17th. September 1878 and was buried in England. Thus it was that when the various companies, with 8 or so years of their leases remaining and profits still on the increase, began to agitate for a new extended lease in 1869, it was with William Edward Oakeley as landlord and lessor and his solicitor that they had to negotiate, a new situation for them entirely from the easy going time they had had with Mrs. Oakeley.

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12. THE WELSH SLATE COMPANY’S NEW LEASE, 1870

No sooner was William Edward at the helm than the three companies. promptly re-opened the argument over a new lease or an extension. It has been suggested that their insistence annoyed him. He responded clearly by firstly stating that their destructive clauses would not bear up in court and secondly, that he was prepared to refuse them a renewal and either offer the site to a third party or even borrow the money and work it himself. Evelyn Ashley, a major shareholder in the W.S.Co. and by this time acting as Secretary also, took part in the negotiation directly with W.E.Oakeley, on behalf of the Welsh Slate Co., and wrote to him [1]:

London Aug.29th. 1868

“Dear Mr. Oakeley, “In my opinion there is no doubt that a renewal of the Welsh Slate Company’s Lease will be for our mutual benefit and that it will be even more for your Interest than ours. To see this more clearly let us examine what will be the course of affairs if the Lease is not renewed - and on the other hand what it will be if it is extended. “ “1. Supposing that we are to remain as at present, we shall proceed to work out H floor, as far west as the workings of Mr. Mathews Quarry will permit us, as rapidly as possible. So long as that lasts our profits and your royalty will continue much as they are now, (though there must soon be a falling off from C, DE and F floors) except that, as we shall not be laying out any money for future workings, our profits will be increased by a sum which, laid aside, may compensate us for the diminution of our Income after H is done with. “ “Say that H is worked out in five years - Your royalty and our profits must then necessarily fall very considerably - we shall then have to confine ourselves to the upper floors - to the back veins and to any parts of the walls which we have left behind, which the terms of our lease and the circumstances may warrant us in attacking notice of which intention we gave long ago to our lessor. “ “We are advised that, under the terms of the Lease, we may take away a considerable portion of the existing walls. During these last few years the smaller quantity of slate that we shall be able to win must compensate us for its less amount by the diminished cost of getting it and notably among such assistances will be our “gobbing up” clauses. “ The lease of course, referred to pillars, not walls, so what was being suggested was that they were entitled to convert the walls into pillars. Gobbing is a coal mining term meaning backfilling. “By means of these we shall be empowered to leave behind us all the rubbish and shall merely have the expense of lifting what will be made into good Slate on the surface. I know from my conversation with you that you dispute our interpretation of the clauses and in fact refuse any interpretation at all to them, but I would merely point out to you at present that, even if you should find that you could induce the Court of Chancery to interfere with an injunction, the effect would be to paralyse our movements for the time but, whichever way it was given, it must result in a heavy loss to both of us - and further that your own contention, namely, that, by having opened H floor we are prevented using our power of “gobbing up” on H would then be cut away from you, as we should then have cleared away all Slate from H and all we should be covering up would be “unopened I floor .” In other words, as they would have worked out H floor, then they could leave the rubbish lying wherever was convenient, as it would only be covering up slate which could be worked from lower down. “Even on your own showing therefore we should be in a position to use for the benefit of our own shareholders the express terms of our lease, and we are advised that there can be no doubt that the words, which are as clear as the English language can make them, exonerate us from any obligation to remove rubbish when once we are below the lowest limit level. “ Presumably since G floor was the lowest limit level, they contended that any openings below that level, i.e. on H floor, or even lower could be filled up. “At the end of the Lease, therefore, you enter on the Quarry with only five forebreasts of thirty five feet each from which to make Slates, even if, from the slow working of the Upper Quarry, there would be room to go on at all (already we are completely stopped by it on our upper floor) and I may add that the quality of Slate deteriorates as it goes westward. “ 5 forebreasts, one each on C, DE, F, G and H “Should you wish to open a Lower Floor ? You have a long operation before you - should you wish to work away the remainder of the walls uncovering them from the top? You have a Herculean Task which must take a long time and much money.” The former statement referred, of course, the fact that the rubbish lying on top of I floor would have to be removed first! “An estimate we had last year gave us five or six years and about eighty thousand pounds (I speak from memory) as the time and money required before reaching Slate, working under pressure of time. In short it would take some years after you came into possession before you could get into any real make of slates. “ “Add to this that you would have to begin by purchasing our plant and machinery (under the terms of the lease) and I cannot suppose that the sum required for that would be much short of Twenty-five thousand pounds - this following several years of diminished royalty. “ “The foregoing remarks naturally apply equally to the case of your leasing to some party at the end of our Term, as to the case of your wishing to work it yourself. “ “Forgive me for alluding also to the question of borrowing to which you adverted when I saw you - I imagine there would be difficulties which perhaps you do not foresee in borrowing on a Life Interest as Largely as you seemed to anticipate.” “2. Now take the reverse of the Picture and see how much brighter it is.” - 83 - Oakeley Slate - 12. The Welsh Slate Co’s New Lease 1870

“You give us a renewal for the usual term of forty years from now- we surrendering our present lease with the clauses so objectionable to you - we should at once begin to open a lower floor J (sic), and do so with a view to a still lower floor K - As these floors, from the increased hardness of the rock at a depth, can only be worked to a profit by the use of machinery for sawing and dressing, we should erect another wing to our newly built machine shed without delay. “ (Probably a reference to the Penybont Mill – the extension was not to be built until 1875.) “We had a proposition before us for this quite lately which was to cost us several thousand pounds - if we don’t do it then those who come after us must, and this must be added to the preliminary expenses they will have to confront - even now we might increase our make from H by more machinery but with so short a time before us we do not feel justified in increasing the expense. “ “We should probably also at once begin uncovering the pillars from the surface. The result would be that the present make from H would be increased and that as soon as H was worked out, instead of a falling off of your receipts, Floor I would be ready to take its place and the Slate of the Walls would be already on the horizon. “ “You would thus within the next half a dozen years be getting an increase of income not only from the higher scale of Royalty but also from the larger tonnage of slates made. “ “Take the last four years: we have spent in works for future make during that period. “ in 1864...... £5000 in 1865...... £3400 in 1866...... £4700 in 1867...... £7400 “This is what is enabling us now to pay the royalty we are paying. These expenses we must naturally now stop if our Lease is to end in nine years and the effect of such stoppage on the produce of the Quarry must necessarily be felt before the expiration of that time. We should be ready to give a very substantial increase to your income at once in whatever form you might prefer, whether as Royalty or as a Share of the Make, or as a Share of the Profits - or partly as one or partly as the other. “ “I would beg you in considering any figures to remember that capitalising the annual sum at compound Interest for nine years it would represent a premium of about twelve times its amount: thus £3000 a year given now would amount at the end of nine years to about £35,000. “ “I name this sum merely because it is what in your former negotiation you mentioned in your correspondence as about what you would then ask from the three Quarries combined.” “But the question of the figure is really one for commercial men and not for legal advisers. We believe you only wish to get what is right and reasonable and we desire to give neither more nor less. “ “Under the circumstances the Committee would suggest if you think that we cannot agree without it whether it might not be best to refer the question of the proper amount of increased income to be paid to you to some skilled or other person on whom we can mutually agree, for a report which would indicate to both parties what would be fair and reasonable. “ “We would not propose that we should either of us be bound by his decision, but his opinions, would, we hope, clear the ground for an agreement that would be mutually satisfactory. “ “We would answer fully and frankly any enquiries he might make of us, and, he would naturally have before him any correspondence that we may have had together. “ “Could you suggest anybody to us of the sort - it strikes me at the moment that some colliery or other mining agent who would be quite impartial between us would be the proper sort of person to consult, if it meets your views, “ “Believe me, Yrs. sincerely, Evelyn Ashley”

This letter has been quoted in full as it clearly indicates the way one of the most influential partners in the W.S.Co. was thinking. The idea of an independent consultant was agreed to by W.E.O. though one suspects that he distrusted the W.S. Co.’s motives. However, it would appear that as a result of the negotiations he and Ashley at least became friends, although he did not allow this to interfere with his business or duty. The consultant agreed on appears to have been one Matthews, a colliery mining engineer from Birmingham, with the inevitable confusion to the author of which Mathews is being referred to in the W.S.Co. correspondence of this crucial period. An indication of things in the wind began early in 1869 when the Rhiwbryfdir Mathews, the consultant Mathews, together with Major Johnson, now of course working for William Edward Oakeley, visited the W.S.Co. workings on the 2nd. of January. They looked through all the plans and asked the manager if he knew of any new veins of slate. Chessell replied in the negative, Edward Mathews commenting that “A thousand yards in a northerly direction would prove a good deal.” This may have been an allusion to the fact that the W.S.Co’s “Back Vein” was not really the same vein as that in Mathews’ quarry, and Mathews knew it well, – and driving a level north would not doubt not only prove that, but might also reach the true “north Vein” as well. Little then seems to have happened until July when the manager prepared “An Estimate of the Quantity of Slate in the Walls, the Cost of Untopping and the profit in the operation.” This was, in fact, a plan for a new quarry face or bon to be cut to the north of the existing one from the eastern workings as far west as wall 12, embracing all the slate down to H floor. The net profit was reckoned to be £310,000. It was not adopted. The secretary wanted to know how many bargains, that is chambers, could be opened and worked out in five years beyond Mr. Holland’s boundary line supposing that line to be removed. The manager made the logical reply that it depended

- 84 - Oakeley Slate - 12. The Welsh Slate Co’s New Lease 1870 how the quarry was worked. If the chambers were left in the staggered pattern required by the lease, then only seven, one on each of the floors. October 1869 seems to have brought a touch of urgency to the proceedings, and concrete proposals began to be made. The manager wrote, “I ...suggest that our boundary be extended in our new leases so far westwards as Mr. Holland’s present extreme boundary which divides the Oakeley from the Cwmorthin property. This arrangement would comprehend all the slate in the Tan y Bwlch Estate on the Rhiwbryfdir side.” “There would be no difficulty whatever in extending our workings in the other workings beside the main vein. Those very wide bargains under the granite roof in Mr. Holland’s North Vein are in good state, and which, if he do not open much faster for the future, will be available in 1877. In our main vein his workings have always been in very inferior rock.” Again, the North vein referred to was, in fact, the Back vein. Matthews, the mining consultant, visited the W.S.Co. at the end of October, the manager commenting; “(He) laid down on his plan all our workings....to arrive at the correct position of your advanced workings under and westwards of Mr. Holland’s main tunnel. It appears that Chamber 12 on F is directly under, while No. 13 on DE and 14 on C are beyond it. The object is, to ascertain the quantity of rock that is yet to open before the deep slate boundary can be reached.” “In reply to his question, ‘How long would it take for our workings to reach that boundary?’ I said two years with the five bargains on C floor by driving the new level the new way, providing the Upper Company made room. If these bargains are opened, those on the floor below would follow rapidly, so we should certainly reach it with all our floors, I included, before 1877.” “He enquired whether our future estimated make was based on 46,000; 48,000; or 50,000 tons a year. I answered that the future production was not limited and that with plenty of rock to unroof it would depend solely on the number of new bargains opened together.” “He mentioned that Mr. Holland had offered to relinquish his main vein to us. I observed that it was doubtful whether it had ever paid him to work it.” It appears that at some point in 1869 or early 1870, William Edward was introduced to the eminent Estate Agnet and suveryor, Alexander Dunlop of Dunlop, Naylor and Lightfoot. Perhaps Oakeley discussed something of the frustrations he was having with the lessees with him, certainly Dunlop was ever of the opinion that the current way of working the quarries was inefficient and the best way forward might be for to be one company. This seems to have struck a chord with Oakeley. It is not thought that Dunlop took part in the initial negotiations but perhaps his advice was such that William considered employing him. Certainly in early 1870 Dunlop was in negotiation with Robert Roberts, the mining agent to the receiver for the trustees of Richard Parry regarding the boundary between Llechwedd y Cyd and Ffridd Blaen, which belonged to the Parry estate. The boundary was settled in September 1870 and marked on Llechwedd’s plans. Probably as a result of both Dunlops advice and the comments made by Ashley, Oakeley appears to have dropped the idea working the quarries himself as well as inviting in a third party to work them, instead he appears to have suggested that the three companies should amalgamate into one, and that the consultants report might prove a good starting point for negotiations between them. Matthews the consultants subsequent report to the companies has not survived, as far as we know, and appears to have been less well received by the upper companies than by the W.S.Co., in particular as it seemed to suggest that the upper quarries were not worth as much as Holland and Mathews though they should be. Charles Holland took part in the amalgamation discussions as Samuel was otherwise engaged by his parliamentary ventures in London, Edward Mathew it appears represnted himself. It quickly became clear that based on the report, Holland and Mathews would be very much the minority partners in the enlarged Welsh Slate Company. This was obviously not to their liking and so Samuel Holland engaged one Thomas Roberts in 1870 to produce an independent valuation of their own. Sadly, it only confirmed the original. On the 14,000 tons of slate shipped by Holland the previous year, worth some £39,200, the Hollands had only made a profit of some £2530, after payment of costs and some £2100 in royalties. Thus, faced with the option of being a minor party in the new company, having surrendered their own quarry into the bargain in exchange for shares in the new venture, on which they would receive diminished profits due to the increased royalties demanded, Holland and Mathews withdrew from the negotiations. Samuel in particular was no longer young and more interested in parliamentary and civil matters than in the quarry. It had served its purpose well and given him his position in society, Charles, it would appear was not a well man and died in February 1870. There is no doubt that in their minds it was better to withdraw and work their quarries at the lower royalty until their leases expired in 1878, at which time they could be assured that any valuation of the quarries would come to them and not be swallowed up in the amalgamation. It is also clear that there was ill-feeling generated by the event. Indeed one pithy epithet later attributed to Edward Mathew was that he would “Get the heart out of the mountain and leave the rest to the devil!” In this case the devil appeared to be called Oakeley. From the W.S.Co. perspective, the others withdrawal meant that they had to now negotiate directly with William Edward Oakeley – even though they could not immediately hope to expand their territory, they could at least hope to do so when the upper quarries leases expire, unless some other accommodation could be made….

Using the report as a basis then, the W.S.Co. began to negotiate in earnes, producing a flurry of correspondence between the quarry and London. “I am of opinion;” Chessell wrote, “1) That a royalty of one fourth of the profits with a minimum of 7/9d a ton is extracting such a share of the profits should of itself be deemed sufficient, and I think 7/9d more than a full fourth if you include seconds and small sizes.” - 85 - Oakeley Slate - 12. The Welsh Slate Co’s New Lease 1870

“If, however, the tonnage rate be accepted then a minimum mine rent of £5,000 a year might be conceded. But you have the lessors ultimatum here that he will accept of nothing less than the one-fourth share with the 7/9d for which he still hold out there is this to be said in favour of concession it is only for eight years so you might accept of terms which you would not under other circumstances entertain. “ “2) As to the remainder of Lease. It is usual in Mine Leases to insert a Mine Rent, but considering the direction of the new boundary line, the contingencies of an underground quarry from falls and inundations, above all the variable and uncertain quality of the Slate yielding rock going westwards, I do not think £10,000 a year exorbitant.” “In the latter part of clause 1 7/9d is admitted for reasons given as security to cover one fourth of the profits, what, therefore, should cover the larger share? “ “The Lessor says 10/- you offer 4/6d, I would propose to meet him with 6/6d which would be ample for thirty-two years.” “There seems no objection to the Lessees covenanting to produce 10,000 tons of marketable slate in each year of term. “ “3) Territory.” “The proposed boundary line along the eastern face of wall 10 would give us to No. 7 wall only 90 yards of probable paying slate in Mr. Holland’s North Vein because eastwards of No. 7 it narrows and near No. 4 we find it on Mr. Matthew’s floor 4 only 22 yards wide, so that between walls 4 and 7 it is believed it would not pay. “ “In our main vein there are 50 bargains from C down to I floors yet unopened to the deep boundary line, these with the slate in the pillars, and at the back vein together with that in the main vein which Mr. Holland offers to relinquish to us are not nearly sufficient to last the whole of the term.” Chessels letter continues, after the section on Holland’s Quarry quoted earlier; the “Upper Company” here referring to the Rhiwbryfdir Co. “6) The Upper Company’s Quarry.” “I foresee some difficulties in negotiating the surrender of this lease.” “7) Suggestion.” “It might be done by compensating them upon the average profits of the last few years, which I imagine are very moderate, and repaying them the cost of unroofing those bargains from which no slate has yet been taken out - for instance the Clay Slant level going into and the uncovering of chambers 13 and 14 on floor 1 in the main vein and for similar dead work that may be done in Mr. Holland’s vein. If the stock of manufactured slate be taken it should be at a reduction of 20% upon second qualities fro deterioration and breakage, as this make is nearly all from the coarse and crooked vein. The plant and machinery to be taken at a valuation less £1,400, the probable cost of removing their fall of 1867, and it would be most desirable in the interests of the Welsh Slate Company that these payments, namely compensation, plant, and stock of slates should be made by instalments extending over a period of five years. “ “8) The Walls.” “The Upper Company’s interests should be negotiated by the Lessor, and compensation made out of the increased royalty. Considering it is in his province to provide slate enough for a longer term it is not fair that you should do this. The cost of untopping, added to the heavy royalty that would be payable on the production, are all you should be called upon to do, and if suggestions 5 and 7 could first be agreed upon the Lessor could hardly decline undertaking that negotiation himself.” It was May 1870, before anything else appeared of note, a letter from the secretary of the W.S.Co. to Chessell, giving the following: “I hope that we may consider the lease question practically settled although I am afraid it will be some time before it is actually so. “ “Difficulties cropped up in every direction and amongst other things it turned out we could not give the Landlord a share of profits, neither could we give one royalty now and a different royalty eight years hence. This prevented Mr. Oakeley from guaranteeing to grant us a lease of any of the Deep Slates west of our mine boundary on any terms to be now settled. That question must therefore be left until the eight years have expired. “ In other words, until Holland’s and Mathews’ leases ran out. “All we get, therefore, now is a lease of our present Territory for 21 years at a Royalty of 7/9d a ton from the present time and we trust Mr. Oakeley to give us, at the end of the eight years, an extension of territory at a royalty to be agreed upon, in which case we should give up the 21 years and take up a Lease of 32 years from that time (making forty years from this) of the whole of whatever may be leased to us. “ “If, therefore, at the end of the eight years we cannot agree upon terms for and extended (sic) all we shall have will be a 13 years lease remaining of our present territory at 7/9d a ton. Royalty. “ “However, I quite believe we shall have no difficulty at the end of the eight years about coming to terms, for I feel sure Mr. Oakeley is favourably disposed towards us and the deep slate will be so important to us that we shall be able to offer more for it than anybody else could.” Thus the W.S.Co. put their own interpretations on the actions of the lessor, with results which would only become apparent with the passing of time. The terms mentioned in passing above appeared too harsh for the Mathews or for Holland, and neither took up the option of a new lease. A final note at the end of the letter mentioned above may be significant, it reads: “Please do not speak of this to anyone, for, as I before said, the thing is not actually settled though the terms are agreed upon as far as above stated, and questions may arise when the draft Lease is submitted to us. I suppose it is in preparation of this Lease that Messrs. Matthew and Mr. Barber are paying you a visit.”

- 86 - Oakeley Slate - 12. The Welsh Slate Co’s New Lease 1870

By August 12th. 1870, the lease had been prepared by Oakeley’s solicitors and had been submitted to the W.S.Co. for approval and a copy was sent to Chessell for his comments which would be taken up by the Committee on their visit to the quarry. October brought the following significant remark: “Mr. Oakeley has agreed to insert thirty feet instead of forty feet as the minimum thickness of the walls in the new lease, and I am in hopes will agree to 25 feet, but there is a stipulation ‘that every wall which shall hereafter be left in continuation of an existing wall shall have its centre longitudinal line in a direct line with the centre of the wall now existing, and of which such wall to be hereafter left shall be a continuation.’” “I trust this has been carried out in the walls which have been reduced in thickness on H floor, but at all events you must see that it is so in future. I presume it would be the natural course. It is, in fact, taking an equal thickness from each side of the wall. Are any of the walls on H less than 30 feet now? If not, keep them to that thickness until 25 feet is agreed to.” Here is confession indeed; it is taken for granted that there were walls below the 40 feet thickness required by the 1838 lease! The 1870 lease cast a long shadow over the following years, and fortunately it has survived in the Quarry Records. In any case the most important of its clauses were quoted in the opening speech of W.E. Oakeley’s Counsel at the Arbitration hearing of 1884 into the Great Fall and in other parts of the W.S.Co.‘s correspondence. Several clauses give considerable insight into the actions of the W.S.Co. in attempting to obey or obviate them. The signatories to the new lease were Mrs. Louisa Jane Oakeley (at the request of William Edward Oakeley), William Edward Oakeley, landowners and lessors as parties of the first and second part and the Rt. Hon. W.F. Cowper-Temple, Hon. Anthony E. Melbourne Ashley and A.F. Paxton lessees for the Welsh Slate Company as parties of the third part. This would suggest that they were the remaining shareholders by this time. Mrs. Oakeley was described as “formerly of Plas-Tan-y-Bwlch in the County of Merioneth afterwards of Leamington Priors in the County of Warwick and now of Huntley Lodge Osborne Road Windsor in the County of Berks,” William Edward’s address being the Plas. Spellings given below are generally as in the original text.

Clauses 1 to 6 were recitals, clause 2 giving the terms of W.G. Oakeley’s will, clause 3 gave the proving of the will by Edward Oakeley, as one of the executors, clause 4 recited the indenture of 1868 whereby Mrs. Oakeley gave up the estate to William Edward and in particular her covenanting to exercise such powers as he might direct. Clause 5 was her agreement to the lease and clause 6 the operative part. Clause 7 gave the boundaries of the leased land and clause 8 the rights of way and easements and the rights under the other two old leases to Holland and Rhiwbryfdir. Clause 9 gave powers to take slate while clauses 10 to 14 gave powers to build and remove buildings, machinery etc., take waters, make roads and to preserve and keep in good repair the common quarry road, and at the same time reserving the right for a wheelrace to the lessor, in other words to reserve the right to carry water through the property to work a waterwheel . Clauses 15 & 16 gave powers to divert a road and to deposit spoil and rubbish on ground which was not over a proven slate vein. Clauses 17 to 20 were reservations of the rights of the lessors with respect to roads, timber, entry for minerals other than slate, the continuance and support of the three main limit level tunnels with walls 40 feet thick along their length. Clause 21 was significant: It reserved the present walls and pillars (and any future ones) for the lessor, not the lessees, as long as they were required to support the roof, but the lessor could not work them while the lease was in force. Tunnels up to 10 feet wide and 8 feet high through the walls at right angles were allowed for access, but had not “to affect the stability of the said walls.” Clause 22 gave powers to the lessees to remove the walls under the limit level tunnels when those tunnels were no longer required, which fact had to be determined by agreement, or arbitration. It also allowed them to remove the roof and then work away the pillars or walls which had formerly supported the roof but only as far as necessary, leaving the end or face of the remaining parts of the walls as nearly at right angles to the roof as possible. Clauses 23 to 29 reserved the right of entering and inspecting, of tramways especially the “Railway or tramway from Tal y Waunydd Slate Quarry to the Festiniog Railway” (this was Greaves Quarry access to the F.R. mentioned in the previous chapter, and which was itself the subject of a separate lease), roadways, game (in the sense of birds, rabbits etc.), the setting up of a clerk to have access to trucks, weighing machines etc., retaking the site of Rhiwbryfdir house by purchase or exchange and removing rubbish from a spoil bank. Clause 30 set the lease at 21 years from the last day of December 1869 to determine similarly in December 1890. Clauses 31 to 35 set the surface rent at £200, the royalty at 7/9d per ton, the definition of a ton and the arrangements for payment of royalties etc. The minimum royalty payable, which was to be made up by the lessees if the output was insufficient, was £3,875. Clause 36 referred to the failure of the slate veins and notice of quitting if the premises “cannot be worked except at a manifest loss”. Clauses 37 to 41 were concerned with covenants by the lessees to pay rents, taxes, maintain boundary fences and to fence pits. - 87 - Oakeley Slate - 12. The Welsh Slate Co’s New Lease 1870

Clause 42 was of importance, requiring the lessees to: “by the most efficient and approved means, work and carry on the mines in, upon, or under the said demised properties, so, and in such manner, as to render the same as fruitful and productive as reasonably may be, regard being had to the future working of the said slate and stone herebye demised, and due provision being from time to time made therefor.” Clause 43 set the separation of floors at 50 ft. or thereabouts and the manner of working them, while clause 44 bound the lessees to: “in the prosecution of all the several workings to the west and east respectively, fairly work out each lift, and will not, nor shall leave behind them any (underground walls excepted, or except for temporary purposes conducive to the easier or better working of the mines and quarries herebye demised, and then for a period not exceeding two years) rock which can be turned into slate.” In other words they had to remove all workable rock, except for that in the walls. Clause 45 referred to the walls directly: “while the same mines or quarries shall continue to be carried on in upon the underground principle, they shall be worked and carried on in chambers, with continuous walls of not less than 30 feet in thickness between each such chamber and the same chambers shall be of the same form, dimension and construction as nearly as maybe and of the same internal plan and arrangement in all respects as the present underground workings in or upon the herebye demised premises... and every wall which shall hereafter be left in continuation of an existing wall, shall have its longitudinal centre line in a direct line with the centre of the wall now existing and of which such will be hereafter left shall be a continuation.” Clause 46 was vital, in view of what had gone before and what was to follow: “And also that while the same mines and quarries continue to be carried on upon the underground principle, the lessees...will not nor shall, remove, take away, or diminish in thickness the walls or pillars at present supporting the roof of the said mines and quarries, but will and shall, by all means in their power, preserve and maintain the stability of the same walls and pillars, and of all walls to be hereafter left, as aforesaid, undiminished and unimpaired, except by such passages or communications as aforesaid.” Clause 47 provided for each open floor or lift to be in advance of the one beneath it and that all floors should be carried forward successively, while 48 related to the existing partially opened workings. Clause 49 enabled Mrs. Oakeley to relax covenants while clause 50 was an extremely long and circuitous one but which basically stated that any subsequent leases of the Holland and Mathew’s territory would contain the same sort of covenants, powers and protections as were embodied in the new lease. Clause 51 set rights of entry between the present lessees and those of adjoining quarries. Clauses 52 to 54 were covenants by the lessor to submit drafts of any such future leases and obtain counterparts. Mrs. Oakeley in particular not to be in any way liable to court action for any such events, while notice of any action had to be given to W.E. Oakeley Clauses 55 onwards were further covenants by the lessees. 56 forbade the deposition of any rubbish or spoil over a slate vein while clause 57 said that “on request in writing .....(the lessees) would clear and carry away all rubbish or spoil that has fallen been deposited or may fall or be deposited upon any of the slate beds or veins, or which shall otherwise impede or interfere with the due prosecution and working of the said mines, quarries and premises herebye demised.” Clause 58 was to leave walls 40 feet thick under the main tunnels. Clause 59 related to preventing any disturbance of roads, railways buildings etc. on the surface. Clause 60 related to underground roads and inclines, specifically mentioning roads along the sides of chambers, i.e. on benches. Clause 61 was that the lessees would: “at all times during the term granted in every respect use, work, and manage all and singular the mines, quarries and beds and veins of slate and stone in, upon or under the said demised premises, or any part thereof according to the best and most approved system from time to time applicable....and consistent with the provisions herein contained.” while clause 62 was to “And also will and shall work, win, get and manufacture all the slate and stone herebye demised in a regular, effectual and uniform manner throughout, and so that no good slate capable of being worked up profitably into any of the classes or denominations in the said first schedule particularly mentioned or specified may be wasted or thrown on the spoil banks.” Clause 63 referred to cross-cut blocks and 64 was “to prevent injury to lands” ! Clause 65 was also important and required that everything had to be kept in good order, the workings “ free and clear of and from all falls and accumulations of rubbish and spoil.” With regard to buildings either existing or which might be built they too had to be kept in good order ready to pass on at the expiry of the lease.

Clause 66 was related, “ And in particular that at the end or sooner determination of this demise the several faces of the bargains in the said chambers or in the said open lifts or floors (as the case may be), and the forebreasts in the several levels then being worked or carried on shall be left in such order and condition that the work of mining and quarrying may be immediately resumed or carried on by the said Louisa Jane Oakeley or her assigns, or by other the person or persons for the time being entitled as aforesaid without any delay or interruption whatsoever.”

- 88 - Oakeley Slate - 12. The Welsh Slate Co’s New Lease 1870

Clause 67 was not to cart slates along the road from Maentwrog past the mansion, 68 was to keep accounts of the slate raised and 69 were powers for the lessors to inspect them. Clause 70 was to keep up plans and drawings to a scale of not less than one inch to one chain. 71 related to weighing machines, 72 was to use the prescribed waybill and summary. 73 required the make of each year to be kept distinct and required that the whole make of each year should be shipped from the quarry before any of the make of the following year could be sent. Clause 74 was a covenant not to assign any of the lease without specific license from the lessors. Clause 75 was a power of entering, inspecting and making plans, while clause 76 dealt with giving notice to the lessees to remove falls, spoil or any unlicensed material which might lie on the slate rock at three months notice, as well as repairing buildings etc. in the same period. From 77 onward were provisos, 77 gave power to the lessor to weigh slate, 78 gave power of distress for rent, 79 gave power of re-entry on breach of covenant while 80 allowed for the bankruptcy of one or more of the lessees. Clause 81 allowed the lessor to take the machinery at the end of the lease at a valuation while 82 gave the lessees the power to remove the same if it was not purchased. Clause 83 dealt with the procedure of going to arbitration over disputes, much as the clause in the old lease had done. The final clause, 84, was a covenant by the lessor for the lessees to have quiet enjoyment!

The first schedule gave a list of slates to be sold by Tally and by Weight, the latter class including Queens, Rags and Moss slates of all sizes as well as any rough, sawn, cut blocks or slabs of any size or shape. The second schedule gave the required form of Waybill and Form of Summary. This lease, as is clear from the summary of clauses given above, more strongly than ever set out to protect the Oakeley estate from its lessees, the lessons of earlier times at least being learned by the lessor. It was unfortunate, if natural, that there was a conflict of interest in the lease which required the lessees to remove and work all the slate possible while at the same time safeguarding the future working of the quarry. It was in this conflict that the W.S.Co. especially in the person of Robert Owen, the manager during the major period of the lease, found itself almost unable to compromise and rather than achieve a balance they, not surprisingly, tended to err on the side of production and profit rather than long term safety. It is true, as they later argued, that effect of leaving certain rock unworked in chambers in order to support the walls was a breach of clause 44, yet it would seem that such action was clearly allowed for by other clauses, especially 46. Unfortunately whenever this sort of balance is suggested in W.S.Co. correspondence, it was almost always rejected for fear of being charged for slate opened and not taken. This fear was of itself destructive, for it accentuated the tendency to make certain a chamber was fully worked out by trimming the walls or removing the loose , practices clearly forbidden by the new lease. Again it is abundantly clear from the lease that even with the official width of walls reduced to 30 feet, once they had been formed, even if it was 40 feet or more, then they had to be left at that width and not reduced as they were the lessors’ property, not the W.S.Co.’s - a point the W.S.Co. seem to have been particularly blind to. Finally, an important factor to remember during the ensuing years, was, of course, the fact that, as described in the last chapter, the W.S.Co. were under the impression that this was an interim lease, to tide them over until the Holland’s and the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s leases ran out in 1877-8, the way being then clear for the Welsh Slate Company to re-negotiate for the whole site, or at least the deeper and more profitable parts of it. In this they did not allow for the possible effects of both time and their own behaviour on William Edward. What they didn’t realize was that the lease was also partially to prove their salvation, for by accepting and being bound by it, it being a true “lease and release” , they were effectively absolved from the terms of the previous lease and from anything they had done during it in contravention of its terms. This was to prove of no little consequence in the eventual climactic dispute.

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13. THE SLIPPERY SLOPE, 1870 - 77 Understanding of this and subsequent chapters will be helped by frequent reference to the plans in figs. 25 and 26. Alexander Milne Dunlop was senior partner in the firm of Naylor, Dunlop & Lightfoot, practising at 3, Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Born in 1841, he had begun his working life “in the office of Mr. Peter MacBey, of Elgin,a surveyor and valuer of the old school” where he accompanied his tutor “in visits to the numerous large estates under the latter’s control .” In 1860 he began working with H. E. Marsh, of Charlotte Row, as surveyor. Five years later he undertook the agency of large estates in Cheshire; but shortly afterwards was sent to the West Coast of Africa, where he surveyed and reported upon properties extending from Gambia to the Gold Coast. On his return to England he commenced business on his own account in Victoria Street, Westminster, and a few years afterwards removed to 3 Old Palace Yard, and then to 53 Parliament Street. He traveled widely both in Europe and the and in later years was responsible for the whole of the valuations and negotiations in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. He was largely engaged in arbitration cases in connection with most of the great railway companies and was a surveyor to the Board of Trade and the Charity Commissioners. He was a member of the Council of Surveyors, and an Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers, with long experience as a surveyor, both to public bodies and in measuring large estates. [0] For most of the period he lived at Bryn Mawr, where Major Johnson had lived before him. As mentioned previously, he was introduced to William Edward Oakeley in late 1869 or early 1870, and from December of that year was officially his chief agent in regard to both land and mining, replacing Major Johnson, of whom nothing more is said. In 1871 the Festiniog Local Board was formed, following the need for a Local Board of Sanitation after a severe outbreak of “Clefydd ‘Stiniog” in 1864 which was identified as Typhoid. Significantly, Edward Mathew had been one of the instigators of the Ynyschaiarn Local Board, at Portmadoc, along with David Williams of Castell Deudraeth. Here Durham was, no doubt one of the instigators, and he was elected as a member, subsequently becoming its Chairman, and “ took a great practical interest in all matters affecting the welfare of that district .” The other mebers of the original board being J.E. Greaves of Llechwedd, E.P. Jones, Owen R. Owen, Dr. Llwelyn Lloyd, John Edwards, David Williams, Robert Rowlands, Robert Griffith, Robert Owen of the W.S.Co., Andreas Roberts (or Robarts) of Cwmorthin and William Lewis. Dunlop stayed on the Board, being joined by Robert Roberts of Oakeley and Warren Roberts of Llechwedd in due course of time. He was instrumental in the forming of the Ffestiniog District Council in 1895, but soon afterwards he was forced to resign as he did not speak Welsh - in which it was decided the Council’s business should be conducted. This move into politics was to eventually lead to a rift with W.E.Oakeley when in 1882 he stood for Parliament as a “Radical”, leading W.E. Oakeley to comment in a letter “no agent of mine shall ever stand for the County of on Radical principles” later adding that although he couldn’t do anything about Dunlop’s position as manager of the quarry, he could certainly do something about his services as agent of the estate.[1] Thomas Jones, his principal assistant, began his career as a pupil for two years to one Kyrke Penson, the County Surveyor of Denbighshire, before serving eight years with Messrs. R. & B. Piercy, Civil Engineers and Mr. B. Owen; he had been engaged in surveying, levelling, laying out and constructing both the Cambrian Railways and the Wrexham, Mold and Connah’s Quay Railway. He then became Chief Assistant and Engineer to Naylor, Dunlop and Lightfoot where he eventually spent twenty years before his name was added to the firm’s title. With regard to the Oakeley lands, he was Dunlop’s assistant throughout his connections with the quarries, continuing in his own right when Dunlop eventually retired, and as we shall see, was rewarded for his work by subsequently becoming the Official Consulting Engineer to the Oakeley Quarries, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. It was during the period under review that the walls at last really began to show the effects of the stresses placed on them. These had a number of causes, imperfectly understood or ignored at the time. To appreciate these it is worthwhile to pause for a moment and consider the form of the chambers. In the Old Vein the dip of the clay slant roof was about 30 degrees to the horizontal, the natural cleavage plane of the slate was steeper at about 40 to 45 degrees to the horizontal, and the horizontal thickness of the vein from clay slant to bottom hard was about 180ft. The slate was extracted as layers of slabs from the working face or forebreast from the clay slant to the bottom hard, i.e. from north to south. This process was to as “working forward.” When all the slate had been extracted from a chamber, it was said to have been “exhausted” or “worked home.” Due to the slope of the roof, by the time a chamber had been exhausted, at the forebreast the roof was typically over 90ft vertically above the chamber floor – both inaccessible and virtually invisible. Since this process of working forward on either side of a wall cut off the original access levels at the clay slant on the floors above, these were often omitted from later or revised plans of the workings. Putting it another way, whenever a new floor was begun, say 50ft below the last, then the effect of working forward on this new floor would be to extend the length of the wall between the chambers from the surface by 100ft or more, and, of course, since it was deeper underground the pressure on the lower parts of the wall would increase. In the simplest case described above, then the height of the chamber above each successive floor would be much the same, however, if the vein was cut through by spar veins or whinstone dykes, which usually cut through the vein at a much steeper angle then that of the clay slant, say 45 to 60 degrees, then the roof formed by that layer rises away from the floor of the chamber much more rapidly. Fig 63 gives a section through chamber A5 and indicating some idea of the working forward there between 1870 and 1884, while fig.38 shows how the W.S.Co.s Main and Back Veins were related . The natural inclination of the rock was to form walls at a slight angle to the vertical, known as the “pillaring line” the wall effectively “leaning” over slightly to the west, see fig 31, thus any attempt to keep the wall surface fully vertical had the effect of thinning the wall at the top, just under roof on the west side of the wall, or undercutting it at the bottom on the east side. This process also produced “loose” parts where the imaginary line of the wall departed from that occurring naturally – removal of these “loose” parts simply creating others. The driving of additional levels lengthways i.e. north to south for - 83 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877 communication between the veins through the walls, such as that through wall No.1 on G floor, weakened them at that point by effectively reducing the thickness of the wall,, while excessive use of cross levels through the thickness of the walls also introduced additional weak points. Finally, the exposure of the rock to atmosphere and weather at the surface, where water could penetrate into the strata gradually weakened the cohesion of the layers, while natural faults in the rock also contributed to the general makeup of what was to come. Three main areas of weakness showed themselves. Walls 10 to 13 inclusive at the western end of the quarry suffered from the presence of a large bevel joint or slip fault in the rock, which crossed all the walls at a steep angle. This formed a line of weakness in the walls that accentuated the tendency of the rock along the bevel to “scribe” or break away from the main mass of the wall. At the same time there was a danger that any undue disturbance might cause the bevel to slip properly, with dire consequences. Indeed, for this reason, certain of the walls had been left extra wide by agreement, in an attempt to lock the fault and also to provide benches along the walls for tramway access to the working platform when the main floor of the chamber was worked away from below. Most of these agreements were made in Williams and Chessell’s time and so the reasons for the overly thick walls seem not to have been passed on to Robert Owen when he became manager, for he frequently commented that the extra width for tramway access was no longer necessary as the chambers were worked out. Figs. 28 and 29, based on later surveys by Thomas Jones, give an idea of the cross-sectional relationship of veins and workings in Sinc Fawr. An additional weakness in this area was caused by the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s communication tunnels between the Old and Back Veins which all ran lengthways through the walls in the area, almost above one another on floors 1, 2, 3 and 4. These reduced the effective width of the walls at the level of the tunnels. It was for this reason that the Rhiwbryfdir Co. had left the main wall, 12, double the normal width to allow for them. Significantly, in view of what was to happen, and what was to be alleged, these tunnels remained in use until long after the Welsh Slate Co. had quit the scene, and were only finally brought down by the domino effect of the collapse of the walls to the east of them. In the centre of the quarry there was a potential weakness in walls 4 and 6 due to the perilous “unroofing” operations, which had been carried out on them. No further serious falls had taken place, but the crack from 5 to 7 gave mute testimony that the area was not to be trifled with. Wall 7, it will be recalled, was “small rock”, which meant that there were a great many joints in it and it too, was therefore a potential trouble spot. To the east there was an almost continuous area of weakness from wall 2 to wall A2. The easternmost A walls in particular were very narrow and cut through at many points for levels and inclines. Wall 1 had a longitudinal tunnel through it on floor G, driven in 1868, but, unlike the Rhiwbryfdir walls, this was only the normal width, a weakness which was to prove fatal. These eastern workings were the most important in the whole of the W.S.Co. quarry. Not only did they carry the principal inclines into the workings, but the rock there, especially around walls 3, 2, 1, A5, and A4 was the best in the quarry, yielding large straight blocks of the best quality, and for that reason was in great demand. Here too, the quarry face, or bon, was ragged, forming a great arc pierced by the huge openings of the chambers. One can only be sorry that no picture seems to have survived of the appearance of the sinc before the fall, for it must have been a fantastic sight. Surpisingly, one has turned up recently, by Francis Bedford, showing the sinc from the eastern end, graphically revealing the sheer bon and its great height. A photograph by George Burrows taken in the early 1890s also gives a feel for it, as do photographs of the Votty and Bowydd quarries workings. Above the Old Vein, were the workings of the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s Back Vein, almost entirely underground, apart from ventilation shafts and the old Twll Clai, which marked the eastern end of the workings. The eastern edge of Twll Clai was roughly over chamber 3 of the W.S.Co.’s workings, but the principle Rhiwbryfdir chambers were more to the west of this, their wall A being over wall 5, and extending towards wall 12. It was the working of this Back Vein slate, which was once again to lead to heated exchanges between the W.S.Co. and the Matthew’s and their agent and ultimately with Oakeley’s representatives also. Strangely enough, the first couple of years were peaceful, the last large falls having occurred in 1869 when 1500 tons had fallen from the east side of wall A3 on G floor where there was an old gap. 900 to 1000 tons had fallen from the disturbed clay slant roof in chamber 5 on G, the bevel in wall 11 had given way and daylight was visible through it. This stopped both chambers 10 and 11 on DE floor for some time. During a November snowstorm another 100 tons fell from wall A3 on G, stopping H floor. Little of note was recorded until late 1872, when a 25 yard length of wall 2 collapsed, Chessell commenting[1], “There is no doubt the working forward of chambers 1 and 2 on the floor below has increased the pressure upon the wall and thus caused the weakened part to give way. The fall is all slate and the rest of the wall on G floor is firm.” The “floor below” was floor H. The secretary’s response was most curious when it is considered that the managers at the time thought that Spooner’s advice gave them too little rock!: “I am sorry to hear of the fall from wall 2 on G floor. It shows that Mr. Spooner was wrong in advising the taking portions of the three walls, and I remember both Mr. Williams and you felt distrust of the operation at the time.” This was followed by a fall of 250 tons from wall 11, under the DE traffic level and undermining the bridge. This had been anticipated and the bridge secured with chains. After the fall, the bridge was lengthened and additional suspended supports driven into the roof. Concern was now expressed over wall 1, for the men could hear cracking noises coming from it in the mornings, before the ordinary working noises drowned them. 1873 too, was relatively quiet, although about 1500 tons came down from the end of wall A5, blocking the traffic on DE and F floors for a few days. More seriously a labourer was killed and another injured in chamber 2 in June when about a ton of slate fell from wall 2. There were falls too from wall 11, mainly from around the bevel, which was inspected and found to be almost impossible to make safe.

- 84 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877

In 1873 a drawing was published in the “Engineer” which depicted a water turbine driven pump constructed by Mr C Brakell of the North Moor Foundry, Oldham, in Lancashire. It was said to lift about 22,500 gallons per hour from a depth of 150ft,working on a fall of 1020ft. It was said to have been installed some years previously. The actual location is not given, but from the meagre information given, we may assume it was placed on or above G floor to pump up from I floor. The feed would have to have been either Llyn Iwerddon, or possibly even Llyn Bach, though this seems unlikely. More to the point, by 1873 both production and the prices of slte had risen significantly, and although his royalties rose with them, Oakeley, possibly prompted by Dunlop now began to reconsider his original idea of working the quarries himself when the upper quarries leases ended. The death of Chessell in September 1873 “still in harness” was unexpected, Robert Owen being appointed manager in his stead. Gone was the link with the days of Williams and the agreements between the quarries. Gone were the clear accounts of happenings at the quarry, and gone too was a strong leadership in the quarry. Robert Owen’s first language was Welsh, and he was somewhat unhappy with his English, especially writing it. Thus his reports to London were written by one of his assistants to his dictation, to quote Owen, “ He put the words properly of many of them. ” Sometimes his dictation was in English, and sometimes in Welsh. In 1874, things really began to move. The year did not begin well –New Years’ Day resulting in a flood which was widely reported. The original source of the news was the Oswestry Advertiser (!) and was repeated by the Times as follows: “BURSTING OF A RESERVOIR” “On Thursday Evening, January 1st, there was an extraordinary fall of Rain in the neighbourhood of Festiniog. On the Dolwyddelan side of the Rhiwbryfdir Quarries there were some large lakes or reservoirs artificially formed for the use of machinery used at the quarries. In one of these, an immense reservoir, the water burst through the dam, carrying destruction in its wake. In the course of the flood at Talywaenydd there were some cottages, which were flooded, and in one of which two children were drowned in their sleep. The inmates of some of the others escaped through the roofs. At this place a cow was drowned. There were about 30 men working that night in a mine, which was afterwards flooded; but owing to the presence of mind of a young man who ran there in time to warn them of what had occurred they were able to reach a place of safety. In a a few seconds the mine was flooded” .In March there were falls into chambers A4, A5 and A2, Owen commenting, “I was afraid of it coming down the last three or four years...... I must say that I consider this part of the quarry more likely of coming down than any other, as too much of Pillars called A3 and A4 have been worked about 30 years ago, as well as the bargain between the two which has weakened the place and very often some small quantities of rock from the sides give way, at the same time, I believe many years may elapse before the top rock will crush the said pillars and cause a heavy fall. There is an open space worked through the middle of both pillars leaving the upper and lower parts separate, and the most weight of the top rock lies on the latter, and by working the lower floors I cannot see it will have any effect on the upper part so as to weaken it.” All this was most worrying, especially as chamber A5 had been decided upon as the site of a new incline from C floor down to H. The bon over the chamber was particularly worrying, as the machinery house was intended to be erected just underneath it. Men were kept at it for days, pulling down the loose rock in order to make all safe before the foundations were started. Despite a fall from A4, the wall was said to look secure and work began on the machinery, the incline bed, lying in the chamber itself, being already under way. This incline, in common with all the W.S.Co. steam powered inclines of this period, was a carriage incline, that is, the engine hauled a pair of balanced carriages up and down two parallel broad gauge tracks, the engine being used to offset the weight of a loaded wagon, much as water was used in a water balance. The new incline was clearly intended to replace or supplant the earlier inclines further east, whose approach levels from the west were gradually being worked away from below by the chambers working forward. Fig. 35 shows the location while Fig. 36 shows the general arrangement of the “New Lifting Power”. The bevels to the west continued to give trouble, with falls from walls 13 and 12. However, most threatening was wall 1, to the east of which was the new incline. 5 tons released from the wall without warning in November, and for no apparent reason. The wall was now referred to as “very shaky” and concern was expressed over the incline, but the hope was that the fall would occur into chamber 1 rather than A5. In other word towards the west, rather than the east. Now a bevel was found in chamber A4 and work there stopped, but as the chamber was almost exhausted there was little loss. December 1874 brought new falls from wall 1, blocking the traffic from the west to the new incline, which was already at work. A gang of men were put onto wall 13 on DE again to try and make it safer. Although an attempt was made to get the men to work in chamber 1 on H and I floor, the H floor men would not go in, as their bargain lay beneath the weak part of the wall. The secretary wrote, “I am very sorry to hear of further falls from the pillars and their present unsafe condition. I do not remember so many of them being in a bad condition before.” He was to hear a lot more. That month was full of letters about wall 1. Owen spent 8 or 9 days with 6 to 8 men trying to secure it, but with no success. He admitted that the working of bargain 1 on H floor would make it even more shaky and as the traffic roads were under the weakest part, he did not feel it safe enough even to let the men put the wagons on the incline carriages! January 1875 brought falls from A4 which threatened the machinery at the bottom. Loose pieces continually dropped from the roof and work stopped, in the end a timbered level was built on G to carry the traffic through the fall to the incline. As an aside from matters in the sinc, the second mill at Pen y Bont was under construction at this time, as the following shows: “Permission is solicited to obtain the following; three pieces of timber each 10 feet long, 16 inches by 8 in. required for bolting on the top of the walls as beds for the pedestal under gearing for transmitting the power before the roof is put on No.2 Mill on DE floor (which are not included in the contract) at a cost of £2 16s.” Sadly, we do not know who the contract was with…

- 85 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877

The worst happened in April 1875, Owen writing: “I am now prepared to send you more particulars of the disastrous accident at New Lifting Power on C floor. Three to four hundred tons released from the top edge of bon and fell right onto the drums, part of the Engine House and completely into the Coalhouse, where unfortunately both William Roberts the timekeeper and Robert Hughes the foreman were killed instantly, and several hours were occupied in digging out their bodies. “ “Also doing fearful damage to the machinery of the new Lifting Power there. I am sorry to inform you that the place looks very bad still and much more will very likely come down which may cause further damage. The expense of making up the damage will be very heavy and to restore it to working order. “ “After all it will be a most difficult job to make the bon entirely safe. The Quarry is quite disordered since the accident; C floor is stopped, also F and G floors, but I hope to have F at work tomorrow.” Fig. 35 shows this area at the time. The whole affair clearly unsettled Owen and he wrote at length on the subject: “Every precaution on my part was adopted to make the top of bone as good and safe as possible before a stone of the foundations was laid, even to diverting the course of a stream of water at great expense down the face of the pillar, to prevent it from running into joints as might be undetected in the rock to work it loose and give way. Eight men were employed for over three weeks blasting and pulling down all of what appeared dangerous and insecure above the site of this engine, who at last testified that the place was as sound as any other part of the bon from anything they could see, and since this accident happened after the engine had worked only five months.” A further letter laid the foundations for the row with Rhiwbryfdir, “Today I went to the top of bon above pillar no. 1 and am sorry to inform you that I have found a crack running a good distance from the bon, and an old level from Rhiwbryfdir Quarry is coming out just at the spot, and I am afraid that the water which once used to run through it has now made its course into the crack, as the level is quite dry, and now I must say that I cannot see my way clear to think of repairing anything in this place again. “ “I have men busy removing all valuable materials from the place, as cannot say what will be the end of all this. I am afraid that working the Back Vein of Rhiwbryfdir Quarry tends to weaken the Bon, and if this is the case, no doubt a great fall will come down, but after all the place might hang up for years again, but nobody can be comfortable under it, and now I am at a loss to know where I shall find a safe place to erect a new lifting power. There is also some disturbance above H floor in pillar No. 1 in the same place where a fall came down at the end of last year, and today the men have given up working Bargain No. 1 on H floor. Also Pillar No.11 above C floor in Rhiwbryfdir Quarry is at intervals coming down in small pieces, which has stopped chambers 10 and 11 on F floor. I am afraid that too much of pillar 11 on the Rhiwbryfdir Quarry has been worked away, and that it is almost impossible for it to stand up.” The fact that, as has been stated earlier, the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s Back Vein workings were at least three or four chambers and walls away to the west and certainly not above wall 1 seems to have been ignored. It is not clear what level is being referred to. We can only infer that this was one of the original levels, perhaps under the clay slant, from which the Rhiwbryfdir Co worked their chambers, and which had long been abandoned at this time, and as in later years, simply omitted from the plans as being inaccessible. This idea seems to have taken a firm hold on Robert Owen and in the end dominated his thinking to such an extent that he seems to have been incapable of any other thought except that the weakness in the walls was caused by workings above them, rather than by working the rock out between them. The main effect of the fall was to shift the main traffic back to the inclines further east, new traffic levels being driven through the walls in order to both avoid the fall and also to get round the worked out chambers. There was a lull in the east for a few months and attention was once again on the bevel ridden west end, where walls 11 and 13 continued to give trouble, endangering the bridges on DE floor and the main traffic level on F. In 1875 the W.S.Co. approached deWinton & Co. of Caernarfon regarding new pumping machinery to deal with the water on K floor. DeWintons proposal depicted two different forms of motive power, using both hydraulic and turbine driven beam pumps working in a vertical shaft. It is not known whether the intention was to sink a new shaft, extend the existing vertical balance shaft, or if the vertical shaft was merely for illustration purposes only. It is interesting that the turbine driven side bears a startling resemblance to the “Pwmp mawr” of twenty years later. June brought another incline to a halt when at least 250 tons fell onto the incline connecting H and I floors in chamber A1, smashing the roadway, the lifting carriages and the pump gearing. The following day, wall 11 gave way again and stopped all work on DE and F. The fall in A1 was from a “thickness” or layer of the roof, which had become loose. What was left was pulled down, and then the layer above appeared just as loose. Owen felt “compelled” to put in powder and blasted down the loose, only to find the next layer as bad. It was in the middle of the troubles at this time that the Metalliferous Mines Act of 1872 raised its head. This applied to all mines not covered by the Coal Mines Regulation Act, which included coal, stratified ironstone, shale and fire clay. The Inspector of Mines had a difficult job when he tried to enforce the Act in the Ffestiniog district and elsewhere in Meirionydd, as the quarry owners as a body objected, saying that they were quarries, not mines, so a Mines Act especially one with the title Metalliferous could not apply to them. However, Cwmorthin Quarry was successfully prosecuted in 1875 in the Queens Bench Court and the Judge decided that their workings were mines as they were approached by levels and that the title of “Quarry” did not alter the meaning of the statutes. In the same year the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act was passed which required the mines to send in an annual return of persons employed and the mineral raised - the make of the mines, to the Board of Trade, as it then was. In retrospect, it can only be typical of the W.S.Co. that having proved their workings to be a mine in court in 1867, they should then try to insist on the opposite only a few years later. Owen wrote, “I find that some of the sections are very binding indeed in connection with many things and will place both you as owners, and myself as Manager in a very awkward position, not only with the Government Inspectors, but the men - 86 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877 as well, who might, as the act stipulates, have communication perhaps irreverently with him the Inspector about a disturbed pillar or bon, or anywhere else in the quarry. “ “As an instance, it happens sometimes that one party might give up a Bargain or Chamber close to the disturbed pillar which will keep up for a long time in some places, and in a day or two a new party will come to me and ask me for it. Well, I consider it my duty in that case to let it to them, although I always on such occasions take the precaution to examine the said pillar and let the men know the result.” Falls continued from wall 11 and pieces kept falling out of wall 1 to such an extent that the men would not work next to it. In September the Clay Slant roof across chambers 10 and 11 gave way in parts, from 700 to 1000 tons of hard rock falling into the chambers. Wall 12 was also disturbed, but at least on this occasion Owen admitted that the cause was the large bevel which “runs through the grounds and extends into the three Quarries causes all the weakness.”. Owen was later to refute this, and blamed the Rhiwbryfdir Co. for working the pillars too thin. So many bargains were stopped, that Owen was paying those men extra payments so that they would do rubbishing until the places calmed down and they could return. Once again Owen put powder in a crack, this time in wall 11 in order to bring down the loose, but the result was much the same as it had been in A1, after the blast there was just as much loose as before. The problem in that end of the quarry was that the walls were now so high above the working floors that access to them near the roof was virtually impossible. He repeated his blasting twice in October 1875, on the last occasion bringing down “two to three thousand tons” , despite this Owen felt there was as much again to bring down and that he would not give up his efforts to make it safe. November focused attention at the east end again, as large pieces began to fall out of wall A4, the bargains on either side stopping work. This was a new trial for Owen, who had been ready to commence building a new incline to lift from I and the new K floors next to it. The falls continued throughout the month, Owen summarising at the beginning of December: “The condition of the pillars during this week may be stated as follows:-” “Pillar No. 11 on F floor has been settled this three or four weeks and good progress has been made in clearing the roadways. I do not suppose it will continue in that state for very long without further trouble. “ “Pillar No.1 on H looks very bad on one side and something must be done to try and make it better, in order to carry on operations in chamber 1 on I floor, one of the best bargains in the Quarry. “ “Pillar No.2 on H above Chamber 2 on I, seven men have been at work on it for the last nine days trying to make the part safe, so as to work the said chamber on I floor. “ “I have a small party working Chamber A4 on H under the bad pillar since Monday, and hope they can go on for at least a month. From the quantity that has fallen from the pillar they are able to reach the blocks without exposing themselves to any danger as to be directly underneath it should any piece give way whilst they are at work. The base of the fall always extends far, which is the advantage taken of in this case to obtain the blocks.” On December the 11th. Owen wrote as follows, “A large piece of rock fell from Pillar A4 some time in course of Tuesday night, damaged a crane and one slade. The condition of the pillar from very close and frequent observations is getting more critical every day. It cannot be expected to stand a long time, still there are no warnings as to suppose a sudden collapse to occur, but it is evident to me that, from its external appearance, in various parts, that it is getting weaker by degrees all the time. I cannot find anything to indicate in the grounds that the disturbance extends any higher up than the Clay slant at present.” A slade was the term used for a slab wagon. January the eighth brought disaster: “I am sorry to inform you of the great fall that happened at half past seven o’clock last night which came from the Bon above Pillar A4. All the quarry except eight bargains entirely blocked up. “ “The most important traffic tunnels leading to the different floors are buried under it from DE down to I floor. “ “Lifting Machinery greatly damaged but I floor steam engine so far wonderfully preserved but, I fear, however, that it will not escape as a large crack can be seen in the Bon above, so that an enormous quantity may yet give way and fall close if not on that engine, causing a serious damage indeed not only to the engine but destroying the pumps as well. “ “I fear more from the water than anything that has occurred in connection with the disaster, for if the chamber where the pump works gets buried you shall be in a very bad position not only as to the damage to these machines but where to find room to re-erect them in case the worst anticipations happen. “ “It is most important to keep the Lower workings dry, but it will be a matter of the greatest difficulty since all the water channels are buried by the Fall and a large quantity of water will find its way down to these workings until communication is obtained with the West part of the quarry. If we shall not be troubled by the water we may get over other difficulties by tunnelling in course of time.” “The platform on DE is buried to about half depth of that floor and a few yards up the inclined roadway of the New Hauling Engine. “ Presumably the C Bank Incline. “F floor is filled half the depth of the Inclined Roadway of the Balance, one tank completely buried, but the Drums House and Smithy close to it have been preserved. Also chamber A4 on F is buried. “ “G balance is all right, but the lifting tanks and Inclined Roadways are damaged, the latter of which is buried to about half its depth. “ “G floor is completely buried from chamber A4 to the end of I floor Steam Engine. “ “H floor buried in chamber A2, and a little in chamber A1, A1 Inclined Roadway smashed, carriages all right. “ “I floor, the machinery in chamber A1 are yet all right, but I fear will be damaged if not entirely destroyed. Chambers A2 and A3 buried.” “The mole and its connections smashed to pieces for all I can see and chamber A4 filled down to K floor. ” What exactly the mole was is not clear, it may have been a form of tunnelling machine, and it has been suggested in view of the fact that the Mole was also the name of an early W.S.Co. that looked as though it ought to have - 87 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877 supplied steam power to something in a tunnel as it was so small, perhaps the locomotive Mole was the salvaged power supply for a tunnelling machine - possibly one to Cooke’s and Hunter’s patents. The effect of the fall was most severe, 700 men were out of work immediately, 42 bargains being stopped. Five bargains were filled up completely and thus unworkable, and, what was worse, the appearance of the bon above the fall was threatening. A few parties were able to get inside and work, but little could be done productively until timbered levels were driven through the falls to re-establish communication. Owen reckoned the fall to be at least 500,000 tons, the most part of which was inferior and unpayable. However, I floor Steam Engine was put to work again very shortly and soon twenty bargains were again in work. The danger from the bon above the working engine was very obvious to see, but Owen felt he had no option but to use it, as if it was removed, the lower floors, which depended on it for pumping, would soon be drowned. Then it rained. Work stopped on H and I floors as the water flooded in, some running past the barriers down to K floor. In the midst of it all Mr. Thomas Fanning Evans, the Government Inspector brought a summons against the company for not having an up to date plan. The secretary wrote, “I think it is a great pity that Mr. Evans should have brought this summons, as, without acknowledging that our Quarry is under the control of the act, we have never, I believe, refused to do anything that Mr. Evans has asked us to do, and as regards the plan you now have, …I think must be all he can want.” Evans himself wrote in his reports, “The only prosecution I found it necessary to undertake during the year was against Mr. Robert Owen, the Manager of the Welsh Slate Company’s Works at Festiniog, the most extensive slate mines in my district. The slate mines, taken generally, were without plans when the decision of the Court of Queen’s Bench proved them to be remiss under the Act, and the few plans that did exist were so much in arrears as not to satisfy the requirements of the section, which says that every mine shall have a plan showing the workings to at least six months previously. I had repeatedly told several of the Agents that plans would have to be made without delay, and in reply invariably received promises that the deficiency would be supplied as soon as possible. After a sufficient time had elapsed to enable them to make their surveys and put them on paper, I again visited the mines, in order to ascertain what progress had been made, and calling first at the most important, found the agent unable to procure a plan as demanded by section 12. I then took out a summons against him, and the justices, all slate mine proprietors, inflicted a fine of 2s.6d. and costs.” Evans went on, commenting on the mine agents in general, but the remarks certainly were to apply to Owen. “It is a matter of regret to me to find that the agents of these mines are, with a very few exceptions, ignorant of the principles of ventilation, and of an act so simple and so essential to the proper arrangement of a mine as that of making a survey and drawing out a plan, I am assured that the art of dialling is so generally ignored among them, that instances of men passing one another when attempting to hole through from one level to another have been of frequent occurrence. The loss of time and money attending such blunders renders them unpardonable, and future aspirants to the management of these mines should regard underground surveying as a qualification no less necessary to them than it is to the metal miner who seldom venture to undertake an agency until he has mastered this important portion of his duty. The agents and men possess a skill in the raising and dressing of slate, which may without exaggeration, be termed invaluable and almost instructive, but I think it is a friendly act to hint to them that the advantages hence arising will not alone successfully avail them in a competition with the better educated mining engineers who may covet the higher appointments.” It is noteworthy that the secretary’s further response to the summons took this form: “In the meantime, if Mr. Evans should apply for the plans please produce those I sent you to him and inform him that the intended workings in the main vein are now being surveyed by Mr. Spooner.” Which, of course, they were not. Falls continued without let up from walls 11, 12 and 13 and Owen asked that the secretary write to Major Mathew informing him of the state of the walls and other parts of the workings above the Welsh Slate Co. where there was trouble, asking him to be particularly attentive in preventing anything falling. How he could do this when the W.S.Co. in advancing their workings had cut off his only means of access to the roofs one cannot guess. Again it is worth pausing and considering the means by which the workings of all the quarries, but particularly those of the Rhiwbryfdir company and the W.S.Co., were extended westward in the Old vein. The intention was for the W.S.Co. to “follow on” the Rhiw. Co. ensuring their walls were a continuation of the Rhiw.Co’s. Again, taking the simplest case, of the Old Vein and the clay slant level, this was the “opening level” for the Rhiw. Co’s lowest floor, floor1, and by the lease, had to be kept in advance of the W.S.Co.,s highest floor, floor C. Once the Rhiw. Co. had advanced by at least a chamber and a wall, and had begun to significantly work forward the chamber, the W.S.Co. miners were able to drive their own opening level westward, following the clay slant until they had progressed a distance from their last chamber equal to the thickness of the Rhiw.Co. wall, plus a width for the new chamber. At the end of the newly extended level, the miners would drive a slanting shaft upwards, the “roofing shaft,” under the clay slant to emerge in the at the western side of the corresponding Rhiw Co. chamber. Once this connection was through, which gave much needed ventilation to the new level, the miners could proceed to “widen” the new chamber by removing a layer under the clay slant roof giving a working space on top of the slate rock, and also by removing the first parts of the slate on the southern side of the opening level to give a working space for the rockmen who would actually work in the new chamber. In the first instance only the narrow roofing shaft actually opened into the chamber on the floor above, thus reducing the chance of fragments from blasting in either chamber finding their way into the other! Once all this was done , the rockmen could begin the process of “working forward” already referred to. Eventually there would come time when the working face or forebreast had progressed so far to the south that it reached the floor above across the full width of the chamber. By this time the chamber on that floor should, of course, also have been worked forward, and since it would have been begun much earlier, the forebreast there would be very much further

- 88 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877 south indeed. Since working forward the lower chamber would obviously remove the floor of the clay slant level, and thus the support for the main traffic tramway, an alternative had to be found. The original approach was to anticipate the working through and by excavating the floor of the chamber along the level, make room to fit a timber bridge across the chamber to carry the tramway. This might consist of four long stout beams of rectangular section on top of which was laid a timber floor, which carried the tramway. The beams were supported from underneath by a number of equally stout cross-beams, about 5-6 feet apart. Iron rods were driven into the clay slant roof and the cross beams suspended from them by adjustable iron links or chains. With the bridge in place, the rock beneath it could be worked away and the lower chamber worked forward again. If the upper chamber was not yet exhausted, then access was still required from the clay slant traffic level to the working floor immediately in front of the forebreast. This was achieved either by leaving a bench of rock unworked on the western side of the chamber, along which a connecting tramway could be laid, or by constructing a “side bridge” between the main bridge and the working floor suspended initially from the roof and then from rods driven into the wall. The bench was generally preferred as it did not require continual maintenance or extension, as a side bridge did. When the chamber was exhausted and or tramway access to the forebreast was no longer required, the bench could be worked away again – indeed provision for this is specifically mentioned in the lease. The alternative was to drive additional levels through the walls further to the south, nearer the forebreast, as the forebreast was worked forward. This then provided a traffic route nearer the working faces, and left the clay slant level clear for the working through form the lower floor. Whether the Rhiwbryfdir Co. used bridges in their main vein workings we do not know, none are shown on the 1864 plan, although they certainly did in their own Back Vein. The W.S.Co.s workings are odd, to say the least. By 1870 Floors C, F, and G all show a traffic level passing through the walls distant from the clay slant level then gradually moving towards the north as they go west, finally regaining the clay slant level a few chambers from the extreme extent of the workings. In the case of C floor, the traffic level may well have been below the bottom hard, actually in the top of the “New Vein.” DE floor began by the main traffic tramway running to the north along a bench on the eastern side of wall A5 until it reached the clay slant where it turned through a right angle and headed west under the clay slant across the first of many bridges. Thereafter, every chamber was bridged as far as wall 11, with benches carrying tramways to the forebreasts in chambers 8, 9 and 10 – see figs 25 and 26. Quite why this had been done this way is far from clear. One can only imagine that having gone a good distance in this fashion, it was considered prohibitively expensive to go back to wall A5 and drive a very long connecting level for 9 or 10 walls and chambers to use the alternative method. In that case, why had C floor, the older and higher floor or F been changed over, if indeed they had? The 1870 plan gives no clues, for no clay slant levels are shown on C, F or G before wall 12, and only a couple on G – if they existed, and they must have done – they were omitted as mentioned before. The problem with the DE bridges was , of course, that they formed a single vulnerable route, if a bridge was damaged or broken, then all the traffic had to stop until it was fixed. The “bridging” did not stop in 1870, but continued so that by 1884 there was a bridge over chamber 20 on DE. In April 1876 a crack was discovered in the Bon above the I floor steam engine, that is the engine which worked the I floor incline, the word “engine” being used interchangeably to mean either the actual steam engine or the incline itself, a usage which makes deciphering some reports somewhat confusing as the engine was in a specific location while the incline extended over a considerable distance. The crack was over six feet deep and extended for several yards. In view of this and the fact that the I floor incline was now the principal one from the best workings to the surface, an alternative site for an incline was sought, chamber A2 being decided upon. However, the bon was also bad above this chamber. The following month Owen also ran foul of Dunlop, William Oakeley’s agent on one of his periodic visits to the quarry in connection with this incline, who wrote: “When at the quarry the other day you pointed out to me that you wanted permission to cut out of the wall A3 on floor I a sufficient block of slate rock to enable you to place your engine under so as to work K floor by an incline up chamber A2. You had already severed the rock from the wall and therebye reduced the support that the wall was intended to give to the overlying hard and all above. In future be good enough not to commence such works, or lessen the thickness of the walls in any way, before obtaining Mr. Oakeley’s sanction in writing through himself or his agent, and oblige.” Owen claimed that he had called Dunlop’s assistant, Thomas Jones’, attention to what he was doing before he began, which was not the same thing at all as putting it in writing. Thousands of tons of rock continued to fall from wall 11 at various points, while walls 2 and 1 were “uneasy” and slips also occurred in the vicinity of wall 9 above C floor. All the walls from 9 to 13 were now in what can only be described as a poor state, and it would appear that here at least there was some justification for Owen’s complaints, for Robert Roberts, the later agent of the Rhiwbryfdir Co, and later still overall Manager of the Quarries, himself later stated that those walls had been “undercut” by R.P. Williams, the then manager or agent of the Rhiwbryfdir Co. Matters were still fairly cordial between the companies and Owen met Major Matthew at Rhiw and got him to agree to divert that quarry’s water through their lowest limit level tunnel as far as it was possible, to avoid it going into the W.S.Co. workings. He also agreed to send an equal number of men to that sent by the W.S.Co. to secure any areas which needed it. By this time the falls from wall 11 were releasing at the height of floor 3 of the Rhiw. workings to crash down into the W.S.Co. However, it is recorded that Matthew did not like the idea of securing these areas, which were in his leased ground, by removing the loose rock. This was because he considered that when he had worked out all the slate in a chamber and had given it and its adjacent wall up, then under the terms of the lease, it was no longer his property, but that of the Oakeleys, and should not be touched or worked. September brought new anxieties, Owen wrote: “I am sorry to inform you of the great change that has occurred in the Bon above I floor engine. ” “The cracks in the ground are fast opening, and I am afraid that a large fall might soon come down again, and as all the machinery are placed under it they will all be smashed if it comes down, also the mouth of the lowest limit level will be - 89 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877 closed up as well as the communications to G, H, I and K floors. The above is so important that I am at a loss to know what to do under the present circumstances and something must be done because if the fall will come down the Quarry will be drowned as high as DE floor.” That was September 11th. The second major fall was the following day, and Phillips the secretary of the W.S.Co. being present, wrote his own account to Cowper-Temple: “As telegraphed to you the expected fall came down yesterday afternoon. The great change that occurred during Monday night showed that there was danger of a Fall very soon, and the lower workings were immediately cleared of all wagons and cranes in fact everything that could be moved at once, the last one being brought up just an hour before the Fall came down. “ “The fall may be called a continuation of that which occurred in January being from the cracks which Mr. Owen pointed out to Mr. Ashley when he was here last. It extends about 30 yards back, i.e. 30 yards in width of the surface has fallen and about 70 yards in length, the depth of rock fallen away is also about 70 yards. “ “There are, however, many thousands tons left hanging near the top of the Bon which must be brought down if it does not come of itself, and it is impossible to say what further damage may occur when it comes.” “The consequences to the Quarry are much more serious than those of the Fall in January, because it will take so long to re-establish the machinery.” Again Owen resorted to powder, “About 5 o’clock on Saturday evening, 15 cwts. of powder was placed in the cracks behind the overhanging rock left at the Bon after the fall, and at least 40 tons of soil and clay was placed on top of the powder, and though a great quantity was thrown down, I am sorry the trial to get it down did not meet with our expectations, and a large portion of the hanging rock remains again to be taken down.” As a result, new inclines had once again to be constructed to serve the workings, but before considering those, it is now worthwhile looking at what surface changes had taken place since 1870. The problem of waste disposal was the most urgent. The vertical balance had only a limited capacity and was relatively slow in action, with priority having to be given to slate rock for the mill. Lefel Galed was narrow and also had to carry slate rock to the DE mills at Pen y Bont. A new location and route was necessary, so in the early 1870s it had been decided to utilise the increased height of C bank for tipping over the wide and wasted areas of the Office floor. However, the existing water balance from floor C was too slow as well as being unable to deal with waste from floor DE, which had become the main traffic floor. Thus the decision had been made to erect a large steam engine on C Bank to drive a conventional incline of four tracks, which could then haul the waste up from the C and DE floors directly for tipping, thus relieving both Lefel Galed and the vertical balance of any waste rock haulage. The only fly in the ointment lay in the position of the existing incline from Pen y Bont up to the Office floor. This clearly had to be displaced and a number of plans were drawn up to re- position it. Further complications arose as a result of the various surveys and plans for the construction of a railway from Bettws y Coed along the Lledr valley under the pass to Blaenau, emerging in all cases near Pen y Bont. Several plans of this period survive showing various complex and imaginary arrangements of the intersection of Ffestiniog Railway, Bettws Railway and quarry tramway tracks. The nearly final plan (!) for the W.S.Co. showed a curving junction below their viaduct passing onto a long inclined plane which ran roughly over the site of their original inclines straight up onto Clogwyn Mawr, the promontory above Pen y Bont, thence across the Office floor in an almost direct line, terminating at the foot of the incline up to Bonc Siafft which had, by this time, moved from its original location at the end of the mill a few hundred feet further east, leaving room for a large stacking yard between the mill and the incline head. This was adopted, with the exception of the initial arrangement under the bridge. Instead, the existing track and incline on the east side of the bridge was maintained, a new incline being constructed from the old DE dressing floor onto Clogwyn Mawr, thence following the planned route. This final arrangement is shown in Fig. 48 This diversion seems to have been completed by 1874 or 75, erection of the new winding engine on C bank being under way in December of 1875, hopes being expressed at that time that it would be complete and the new incline in working order before there could be an even greater fall - they only just made it. It also seems reasonable that the “New Lifting Power” destroyed in A5 was also part of this plan, the whole of the main floors then being worked by two modern inclines. The C Bank Incline could not help with the workings, but at least there was now an efficient way of disposing of the spoil, provided it could be got to the incline. This was clearly another early plan for a wholesale untopping of the quarry to gain access to the whole of the slate rock by removing the overburden and depositing it to the north, a scheme that was to emerge time and time again in the years to come, both of the Welsh Slate Co. and the Oakeley quarries. Although details of the engine and its machinery has not survived, details of a similar project for a new incline to the north of the quarry in 1878 for a similar purpose have, and are worth quoting. Owen writing to the Secretary: “Although it is intended to erect the lifting machinery at the most elevated position as can be conveniently fixed upon, it is not considered that the depth for tip will scarcely be sufficient without raising it to at least one floor higher by means of a timber framework as shown, when a large area for depositing the rubbish will present itself, but nearly all on the Rhiwbryfdir and what was originally known as Holland’s Slate Property.” “To erect the Winding Engine, bring up building materials and subsequently to raise coals and lower perhaps the few slates as will be made, it is arranged to construct a feeder roadway a single line which is marked on the plan and of which a Section is prepared separately. It can be constructed at a moderate cost from the Vertical Balance Bank to the height where it is proposed to put up the Winding gear and employ a small independent engine to work it.”

- 90 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877

“Such is the natural formation of the ground at the top of Bon that it is impossible to raise the different floors down to G floor without Two Engines. The Engine shown on the plan is proposed only to raise two or three floors at the top and after the floors have been fairly started it would in my opinion be easier to fix upon a proper site for that power.” “A new Engine is required to work the four roadways proposed to be laid as also the new drums and gear as Shafting, Spur and Wheels etc., The Engine to be of the Horizontal class with a pair of cylinders coupled to the same shaft of the diameter of 15 inches and 2ft. 6in. stroke. two boilers would be necessary to work it 20ft. by 5ft.6in. external diameter of the Cornish type having a single flue 2ft.9in.” “You have a boiler of the size now on hand as was saved and repaired after being under the fall and which drove I- floor Winding Engine. This might work the new engine for a year or two then add a second, and provide the building large enough at first for doing so.” “Also you have to a large extent saved from the fall a small Engine, Boiler and Drum as would work the feeder roadway only it wants repaired and altered to suit the special duty of a single roadway. Several other things in the machinery are lying about saved from under the fall from the broken engines as may be usefully employed.” It was the new C Bank Incline or just “C Incline” as it came to be known, that was to be the salvation of the W.S.Co. following the falls of 1876 and the Greater Fall that was to come, certainly, without it, the removal of the falls from the sinc and the re- establishment of any workings would have proceeded at a very much slower rate, if at all. As it was, the waste lifted soon produced a blossoming spoil heap, which spread in all directions, south westwards towards the Rhiwbryfdir inclines, east towards Clogwyn Mawr and to a degree north eastwards across the office floor. Eastwards and northwards too, spread the tips from the vertical balance, indeed, so fast were the tips spreading that Dunlop once again became involved, several times writing to Owen to protest at the tipping of waste over what was thought to be a valuable slate vein eastwards, and demanding plans of the eastward workings. Clearly the Company needed professional advice and they sought it elsewhere than with the Spooners. The Secretary now sought out Brunton & Co., Surveyors and Civil Engineers of 13a, Great George Street, Westminster. The principal partners were the father and son team of John and William Alexander Brunton. John was one of the several sons of William Brunton (1777-1851) who became famous engineers. John, born in 1812 had gone out to India in 1857 as Chief Resident Engineer to the Schinde Railway, William going with him as Assistant Engineer. Both returned to England by 1866, John setting up his office in 1870. William Alexander joined him in 1871 after a sharp attack of fever caused him to retire from District Engineer of the Oudh and Rohilkund Railway. In Blaenau, the company was already involved as Engineers and Surveyors to the Maenofferen Slate Quarry, so perhaps it is not surprising that the Welsh Slate Company turned to them. It was initially William who was engaged by the W.S.Co as follows: The secretary wrote: “His terms are £5.5s. a day for his own time and £2.2s. a day for his assistant, and acting under Mr. Ashley’s instructions, I have written to him today requesting him to go to the quarry as soon as possible and to report on cutting the Bon, on pumping the water from the Lower Floors and on the Quarry generally. Also to advise Mr. Owen on the spot in any matter on which he wishes to consult him.” Brunton considered that the longitudinal tunnel through wall 1 on G floor was the cause of a great deal of weakness and proposed filling it up with masonry, arguing that this would check the crushing action going on. The secretary wrote to Owen saying, “He does not guarantee it will save the pillar..... if the pillar were to fall in, the consequences would be most disastrous, as the next pillar is one which was worked away some years ago and if this pillar should give way, the roof would be 180 feet wide which Mr. Brunton says could not possibly hold up.” Owen did not agree, “I am sorry to say that after all the said work will be completed, it will be of no value to serve in keeping up the pillar, as it gives way below the said pillar.” Owen continued, “ At the time when driving forward with H floor under the tunnel, it was then that the cracks in the pillar made their first appearance, and since we have stopped working in chambers 1 on H and I the pillar has been settled, and the level is not cracked further than when the lower floor has been worked, which proves that the weakness is caused by working forward the rock below the level, and if this part will give way, the Mason work will be down.” Despite his own feelings in the matter, at the behest of the Committee, Owen agreed to do as Brunton wished, although he washed his hands of the value of it, preferring to leave 5 yards of rock below the level to keep it up. William Brunton had other problems, apart from Owen’s disapproval. Evan Pierce, Brunton’s own superintendent mason reputedly took one look at the job and “threw up his engagement from fear of the danger in carrying out the work.” This caused a re-think, Brunton proposing an arch of masonry in the chamber to support the walls on either side. In his report of 18th. December 1876, he put it this way: “....You will see that the width of the openings No.1 and A5 being 48 ft. only, 10 feet total width of each is occupied by the walls or supports of the arches for a length of about 70 feet. The floor of the bargains on H comes exactly opposite and underneath the weakest portion of the pillar No.1, and it is on this floor I propose to build the two arches”. He then referred to Owen’s idea of a cross wall and the problem of the amount of slate this would bury. “Were these arches and cross walls once built ( and if they to be so at all no time must be lost ) the rock in both of the bargains No.1 and A5 could be worked, leaving in only a very small portion as support to the arches, the royalty on which could be estimated and paid to Mr. Oakeley if he were so unreasonable as to ask it under the circumstances.....I propose to build these arches of hard vitrified Staffordshire brick, set in concrete and 4ft. 6in. thick. The cost….. I estimate to be about £2000.” He went on to say that at least 19,000 tons could still be worked out of the two chambers giving a net profit of about £35,500. He proposed the use of the small engine and boiler that had worked the slab mill and were lying idle (this is odd as the slab mill had a water wheel, so why would it need a steam engine? perhaps as a stand by.). The engine could be used to raise the water from K to I, the existing pumps raising it the rest of the way. He pointed out that he now proposed two cross walls and two arches for the purpose of steadying No.1 pillar. He brought this about because of the men’s fear, which Mr. Owen had communicated to - 91 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877 him, “I must again repeat that I consider it would be a great calamity to allow this pillar to give way, if it can possibly be prevented.” he said. This, as might be expected, provoked a row, this time invoking the lease, as the arch would prevent some of the rock from being worked and a penalty would therefore be involved for rock opened and not taken. Owen rose to the occasion, feeling that no matter what form of construction was adopted, it could not withstand the force of the pillar’s collapse, and even if it did, he did not think that it could withstand the repeated shocks of blasting and the natural splitting of the rock, he wrote, “Sometimes, with huge blocks, the whole ground in a particular locality shake terribly.” He also felt that the men would be in further danger working under such a structure than working beneath the shaky pillar itself, he also objected on the unsurprising grounds that A5 and No.1 were two of the best chambers in the quarry and if worked would yield more slates monthly than any other in the quarry and he counselled against any hasty decisions to abandon the place. Typically, he put forward his own plan: “My plan would be which I do not hesitate to propose is to pull down the bad place of the said pillar, for it cannot make such a dangerous hollow after all, nor cause the grounds in the immediate vicinity to be so far disturbed as to cause a serious calamity by no means, as pillars A5 and No.1 from G floor up to the bon are as sound as any other pillar in the Quarry. And supposing it were decided to erect quay walls and arch the place over, it would be impossible to find men as would venture to work at the job under an overhanging rock and pieces dropping now and again from the cracks. “ “Your rockmen are more venturous and courageous than any other class of men underground, but they have given up the place, and it is really unreasonable to ask any sort of man to go near the spot to do anything under the condition it is in at present. I have very little faith but that the tunnel will be down before it can be filled with masonwork. The men, however, are prepared to start on the work the first thing on Tuesday morning.” Owen estimated that the rock that would be lost if A5 and 1 were abandoned would be of the order of over 10,000 tons, a lost profit of about £20,000 which even the secretary referred to as “a very large sum.” The secretary was informed by Brunton that he was certain of the power of the arch to stay the pillars despite Owen’s objections. However the two protagonists met at the quarry in December 1876 and discussed the affair. Brunton was adamant that chambers A5 and 1 were not to be worked forward even after the G floor tunnel was filled, Owen said he preferred the fall to come down into the chambers rather than waste good masonry (and, no doubt, good slate too), he also reinforced his argument to pull down the loose and let the fall do what it would. Brunton’s letters and plans annoyed Owen, he felt that no- one could be found to do the job, that working 28 feet of rock that would be left in the chamber would not pay, that using baulks of timber to shelter the men was impossible as these would have to be 50 feet long to cross the chambers and that such beams could not be got down the levels. Brunton disagreed with Owen, but even he had to give up the attempt in January of 1877, saying that it appeared to be too late to do any good. He had got involved in a dispute over the price of Staffordshire bricks and .… “In the meantime the filling up of the level with masonry sanctioned by you was proceeding. But on Wednesday the 10th., on examining the pillar with reference to the cracking and crushing, I found it to be proceeding with considerable and alarming rapidity. In consultation with Mr. Robert Owen, your manager and with Mr. Lloyd, the foreman, it was decided that the place had become too dangerous for men to work in, and that, in fact, remedial measures were too late.... It is now clear that the northern end of this pillar must come down either by being taken down, or by allowing it to fall of itself.” It is clear from the context that this end of the G floor tunnel was at the point where the H and I floor workings in Chamber A5 to the east and Chamber 1 to the west were parallel to it. On the 19th. January 1877 Brunton recommended removal of the tops, the term once again referring to the overburden over the slate vein, by a succession of carefully arranged falls. “By this means I estimate that you could dispose of 150,000 cubic yards of rubbish per annum, the whole bon being thus removed in 10 or 12 years. The pillars, the rubbish in the chambers, and all the slate temporarily left lying underneath it as e.g. in chamber No. 1, would be cleared away parri passu, and when these are removed down to the floor on which the retaining walls stand, all slate remaining on the lower floors, south of such walls, can be worked out.” In effect he was advocating the creation of a new Bon further to the north. “The first pair of chambers to be thus treated are those adjoining No.1 pillar, namely A5 and No.1, where an advantageous footing for the retaining walls exists on H floor. Should you, therefore, elect to cut this bon, the operations referred to in the first part of this report, would have first to be carried out in order to make all safe for the building of the retaining walls.” “The sites and extent of the falls of rubbish from the faces of the bon can always be regulated to secure economy, and the safety, and slope of the new bon. It will be a matter for future consideration, whether, under this new system, the line of bon cannot be carried with advantage, further to the north.” “I will now call your attention to the following estimate of outlay, previously to the receipt of any returns from slate pillars, or elsewhere. “ Two additional inclines and engines complete, at £2,200 each = £4,400 Retaining walls, four at £250 each = £1,000

N.B. This is the estimate cost of selecting and arranging the rubbish in the proper form, the rubbish itself would be supplied at a saving from F and G floors.

Cubic yards of bon rubbish sent down face into chambers, 150,000 at 3d. = £1,875 - 92 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877

Arching over roads, forming floors , and contingencies, say =£1,000 Total £8,275 “But, inasmuch as it is not probable that receipts from the first pillar attacked will at once cover the cost of continuing the general operations, we may safely increase this amount by 50%, or to say £12,500. “ “ Now supposing this plan to be carried out to the extent of the accompanying drawings, the total quantity of rubbish which must be removed is 856,000 cubic yards. This must all eventually be sent over the tips, and I estimate the cost of doing this at 2s. 9d. per cubic yard. This gives £117,000” Owen triumphantly suggested that Dunlop be advised and asked what Owen could be allowed to do. Dunlop sent Jones to look at the problem, he suggested a wall of masonry forty feet thick across chamber 1 to support the roof. Owen dismissed this out of hand as it would block the chamber, and, he thought, do no good at all. In fact this method was used successfully in all the major Ffestiniog quarries in several locations. Dunlop forbade Owen to take down the pillar, but suggested that the bargains in A5 and 1 be abandoned until a fall came down. He would not comment on a suggestion of Owen’s to take down the overhanging parts and then work the bargains forward. Dunlop put his thoughts in writing, but carefully ignored Owen’s suggestions. Owen was not having any of it, he would not abandon A5 and No 1 as suggested and “...sooner than sacrifice so large a body of valuable rock I do advise to let the matter stand over until operations are regularly started on I floor. “ “Then I will endeavour to pull down the loose pieces that overhang in the pillar, and make it look so dangerous and stop at that without causing any more disturbance, when most likely we can manage to work the bargains forward.” Owen’s guiding principle was that as he had not been forbidden to do it, he had tacit permission to do it! As can be seen from the above, he was ignoring his own expressed opinion of the effect of working forward the bargains as well as the fact that Oakeley’s agent had given him clear permission in writing to abandon the two bargains without penalty. Despite it all, he carried on in his own way. This was to be his greatest mistake, for wall No.1 was, with A5 next to it, virtually the key domino in the row of walls. If it was to give way, then a gap would be opened to the east, and all support on the east side of the sinc would be lost into which wall after wall would be free to slip and fall. While all this had been going on, the western workings had been constantly troubled with falls. In March he had commented, “Twelve men were employed all this week at the dangerous place in pillar and chamber 11 above DE and F floors. The part insecure and loose is of such a height as being almost inaccessible and great trouble was experienced to reach it. Three long ladders were spliced end to end, and great skill and labour was necessary to raise them up and handle to and fro of such a length. I hope that we have managed to make the above chamber safe to work in now, just at the particular spot that cost so much trouble.” However, this was not to last, April brought more falls, together with an inflow of water from Rhiwbryfdir caused by blocked drainage pipes. The roof, Owen admitted at last, was many yards beyond reach. Wall 5 now began to give trouble again, no doubt as the chambers below it were worked forward, although no comment was made on this. In June wall 6 on the opposite side of the chamber also started up, huge blocks releasing at the touch of a crowbar. The east side of wall 10 came down blocking the traffic roads. Bargain 5 was given up in July owing to the danger from the wall. The water continued to pour in from Rhiwbryfdir, and on investigation the pipes were found to blocked again with debris. Owen felt them to be totally inadequate and should be replaced with wooden troughs as they were better able to carry the flow. He complained, “It is quite clear to me that R. Roberts, the Manager, is not trying to stop the water to come down into this quarry ,as a great current is coming down chamber 9 and 10 which affects all the floors from C floor down to I. Also he has some ventilating apparatus worked by water some of which flows down to our chamber 13.” Down below, the falls in the west continued, so in September Owen went to look at the situation in the Rhiwbryfdir workings himself with Robert Roberts. “He told me that he had mentioned it to Major Mathew after I had been there before, and he wanted to leave the place as it is until his lease will be up at the end of the year, but this will not do for us to meet the winter when we have many before that time. “ “There is some work to cut a place inside the tunnel for a troughing and 68 yards must be laid there, and I believe that about £20 will cover the expense. They consider the said pillar so bad that they do not like to disturb it by blasting, but careful men can do this without doing this at all, and I believe the water will cause much more disturbance to the pillar by running through the cracks than by blasting.” Nothing was done, however, the water coming down “...in torrents” . Owen went up to see Roberts, who was out, and found the pipes in just the same state as usual. Now wall 11 woke up again, and in November a hole came through wall 10, the clay slant above it being released. Owen, evidently annoyed, wrote to the secretary as follows: “I beg leave to call attention that an agreement had better be made again with Mr. Oakeley, or a definite understanding come to in respect of the mode of carrying on operations at Rhiwbryfdir Quarry under the Bon for such operations to be carried on in such a manner, as far as practically so as not to cause inconvenience in any way to the Committee at their works or weaken the pillars to such an extent that falls and disasters of that nature will be inevitable. I may refer to the cases of Pillars No.10 and 11 as not being scarcely over 12 feet in thickness just at the place mentioned on Rhiwbryfdir supporting the immense weight above them. This state of the pillars so close to the large bevel is another source of weakness to the place.” Not surprisingly, a rather confused secretary replied that he did not understand what Owen said. Did Owen mean that Mathew had been thinning the pillars by pulling down the slate or that he took no pains to make them safe and worked the slate when it fell out of them. Owen had, of course actually been carrying out just these sort of activities himself in the W.S.Co. quarry! In an internal letter, the secretary also told Cowper Temple that there was no point in writing to Matthew as his lease would be up at the end of the year. Fig.30 is an attempt to show Robert Owen’s ideas diagrammatically, along with Robert Roberts’ comments on them. - 93 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877

Some sense was shown however, regarding the new inclines in the sinc. Initially, the loss of the inclines in A1 to H and I floors had not been too great, for next door, as it were, the old Ashton Engine (of which nothing more is known) , was working to the east of wall A1, and this enabled clearance work to be done without hindrance until the November of 1876 when about 3000 tons released from the bon above A1 and buried the engine and boiler house. Some little discussion went on, the secretary suggesting that the engine would be hardly worth re- erecting. However, re-erected it was, for in May 1877 it was in use again, along with the “New Winding Engine on DE”. The next two major inclines to be built in mid 1877 followed the logic put forward by a letter in July 1877, “It is better to have the engine put up as soon as possible and I think it advisable to have it placed as far as we can conveniently do so to the south, so as to be clear of all operations as will be carried out when working pillars A3 and A4 and not to be exposed to the blasting, also safe from the Bon .” It is evident that chamber A1 was being cleared by two inclines, the Ashton and one temporarily laid over the fall, which Owen said was an expensive and slow process. He wished to clear chamber A2 so that it could be used for a permanent incline down to K floor, this requiring rubbish to be removed to a certain extent over five floors depth. The two incline locations concerned were thus chamber A2 for the incline to K floor, and chamber A1 for the Incline to H and I. The K incline either used or re-used a similar type of arrangement to that of the short lived A5 incline. A heavy timber frame was erected and bolted down on to a built up slab bastion in the mouth of chamber A2 on DE floor. Two broad gauge tracks were laid on braced longitudinal timbers themselves laid over the evened out rubbish down the length of the chamber to floor K. The tracks were stabilized by driving long iron rods into the rubbish. At the foot a “dock” was excavated into which the traveling carriages would fit. The ropes from the carriages passed up over large diameter pulleys in the top of the massive frame, and thence southwards, supported by auxiliary pulleys in an intermediate frame and onto the drums in the enginehouse proper. At the head of the incline, close by the frame, a cabin was constructed , containing the controls of the engine with a good view of the head of the incline and down the chamber. The cabin was connected to the enginehouse by a series of rod linkages, thus the driver and the boiler attendant were completely separated. This incline became known as the “K Trwnc” and survived, albeit with various rebuildings until the closure of the Oakeley quarries. The other incline, in A1, was a more conventional type. The original engine and boiler house had been on G floor in 1874, when the separate inclines in A1 from H to G and I to H had been of the carriage variety. but the new ones were constructed on the edge of DE floor, just to the east of the G water balance incline headgear. The incline had four drums, two working the incline tracks from H up to G floor, and the others the tracks from I up to G. The incline ropes were carried from the head of the inclines up to the drums on DE by some sort of trellis or framework, in order to clear the main tramways to the foot of the vertical water balance shaft on G. In later years, to be described in Volume 2, additional measures were taken to protect this incline. Masonry arches being constructed over the tracks, and the chamber filled with packed rubbish above them. As the inclines emerged onto G floor through a pair or prominent arches in a high retaining wall, the incline became known as the “Arches Incline” and the “HIK Incline” after one of the tracks was extended down to serve as an auxiliary connection to K floor. It is clear that the actual details of the W.S.Co.’s incline operations in the sinc over this period and that which followed underground would make a story in their own right. It is only a pity that few details of them have survived, Fig 44 can only give a hint of the situation as Owen strove to keep his inclines intact and working despite the falls. The situations were, understandably, not recorded on the W.S.Co. plans until after the Great Fall itself. It should be clear by now that there was an almost unbroken zone of weakness from east to west through the quarry, the weakness increasing in the east where the deepest workings lay and where the slate was best. Only in the central area around walls 7 and 8 was there a relative calm, but that could not last long. The holes through walls 10 and 11 threw extra stress on wall 9, already weakened, and so the stresses grew, the Great Fall was now almost inevitable, it required little in the way of disturbance to start it off. The question was not really whether it would happen, but when.

Summarising the problems: Walls Situation A1,A2,A3 Weakened by earlier working, levels etc. A4 Weakened by large chamber under Bone, part already down in 1876 fall. A5 Worked thin, weakened by working forward chambers. 1 Weakened by tunnel on G and working forward chambers. 2 Weakened by unroofing and working forward chambers. 3 Weakened by working forward, roof bad. 4 As 2. 5 Feeling strain caused by collapse of wall 6. Roof across chamber cracked. 6 As 2 and partially collapsed. Roof across chamber cracked 7 Poor rock. 8 9 Thin at surface. 10 Large hole through. 11 Large hole through. 12 Weakened by tunnels despite width. - 94 - Oakeley Slate - 13. The Slippery Slope 1870-1877

13 Weakened by Bevel along with 10,11 and 12.

That Owen and the Committee were aware of the potential disaster that hung over them there is no doubt. Owen in his letters often spoke of a “Great Fall” to come, but he vacillated saying that it would not be so disastrous, and then again that it would close up the quarry, as the mood of the moment and the state of the walls took him.

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- 95 -

14. OAKELEY, HOLLAND AND RHIWBRYFDIR, 1870-82

Initially, in 1870, William Edward’s mind was not on a “takeover” of the quarries, although Holland’s and the Rhiwbryfdir Co.’s would revert to him in 1878 and as we have seen, the W.S.Co. believed that when the upper quarry leases expired, then they would be able to take them over, thus achieving the amalgamation without having to share their profits with any others. Alexander Dunlop’s first formal visit to the quarries was in the June of 1870, when he and Thomas Jones went through the quarries with Mr. Oakeley, visiting also the Greaves quarries, significant parts of which lay on Oakeley land and was referred to as the Tal y Waenydd Quarry, the F.R. connection to it being styled the Tal y Waenydd Quarry Railway. Dunlop’s diaries, while incomplete and very sketchy, were quoted at the great fall enquiry, [2] do give some indication of the initial bustle over the settling of the lease and then the quiet before the storm. 1871 Jan. 2 Interview with Mr. Hawkins re Welsh Slate Company. Jan.26 Met Mr. Chessell on behalf of Welsh Slate Company re Rhiw House, buildings etc. Mar. 6 Interviews with Mr. Hawkins & Mr. Phillips re Welsh Slate Co. Mar.30 Going over the Welsh Slate Quarry with Mr. Chessell, Manager. May 2 At Welsh Slate Co.’s Offices re lease, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Present - Mr. Oakeley, Hon. Mr. Cowper Temple, Mr. Field, Mr. Barber, Mr. Mathews, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Hawkins May 10 At Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry all day. May 12 At Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry, going round with Mr. Chessell. Jun.24 Called on Mr. Phillips re Welsh Slate Co. Jul. 5 Called on Mr. Phillips re Welsh Slate Co.’s lease. Jul 20 Went to Quarries with Mr. Oakeley. Oct 26 Met Mr. Phillips, Mr. Chessell, Mr. Lee and Mr. Preston, and settled “incline” with the London and North Western Railway Company with Mr. Oakeley at quarries. Nov. 9 Had an interview with Mr. Phillips re. Welsh Slate. Dec.16 Interview with Messrs. Ashley, Preston, Lee, Francis, and Phillips re Welsh Slate Co. at Messrs. Frere’s, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. After Dunlop was appointed in 1870, he apparently urged upon William Edward the idea that the three quarries should be amalgamated and worked by a single concern. We can imagine that both Dunlop and William Edward initially considered that the ideal way to bring this about was for the Welsh Slate Company to take over the whole site when the old leases of Holland and Matthew terminated. Certainly this was the way the Welsh Slate Company read the omens, but it was not to be. Before this could happen Dunlop became disillusioned with the Welsh Slate Company. The first plan that came before Dunlop and Jones for their inspection was the original Spooner’s plan of 1870, which had been drawn up to accompany the Welsh Slate Company’s lease of that year. There were presumably much earlier ones, which were not consulted, indeed the earliest detailed plan which survives in the archives is dated 1864. However, the 1870 plan was not sent to Mr. Oakeley or Dunlop on his behalf until 1872. After 1872, Thomas Jones was sent to the “Middle” and “Upper” quarries, that is Holland’s and Rhiwbryfdir to make new surveys of those in order to update Spooner’s plan, and from the data that he produced, it seemed to the newcomers that there was something wrong with the surveys made by Mr. Spooner. Dunlop got William Edward to instruct him in 1874 to produce a complete survey of the quarries, and Thomas Jones was once again sent to make a new survey of all the three quarries, this being completed in 1875. Dunlop’s instructions to Jones were “...not to survey anything that he thought was correct in the Spooner plan, and therebye he thought to save Mr. Oakeley the expense of having the thing done twice over.” Jones found several things which he drew to Dunlop’s attention, and wrote to Dunlop with regard to the Welsh Slate Company saying, “I feel sure they have been and still are cutting away the sides of the walls all through the quarry and Robert Owen would be all the better for a little talking to. I think formal notice of this evident violation of the lease should be given, for if it is allowed to go on, there will undoubtedly be a great fall some day, as I feel certain they are weakening the support of the superincumbent rock at a most vital part.” Dunlop took no action at this stage, apparently because he felt the Welsh Slate Co. were responsible lessees and did not at that time wish to interfere with them more than was necessary. He waited to see how they would proceed in the future. His diary shows how busy this year proved to be: 1875 Mar.31 Met Mr. Phillips and Mr. Robert Owen at Welsh Slate Co.’s Quarry, and arranged to cut a ceiling bon on floor C over the post, so as to work the lower chambers. May 21. All day at Messrs Mathew’s and Welsh Slate Co.’s Quarries with Jones. Aug 24. At Welsh Slate Co.’s Quarry with Mr. Robert Owen Sept 1. Interview with Mr. Phillips, re Welsh Slate Quarry. Sept 20. All day in Welsh Slate Co.’s Quarry Sept 21. All day in Welsh Slate Co.’s Quarry These latter two entries are expanded upon by the entries recorded in detail in his quarry note book when he went through the Welsh Slate Company’s quarry with Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Lloyd, the under-managers – which gives us the first fairly complete description of the state of the Welsh Slate Company’s workings. It should be noted that the word “creak” is thought to refer to slate rock with a very fine but distorted cleavage, like ribbons, which made it liable to break up easily. A “Post” was a section of the slate which was extremely hard with no workable cleavage – it could often be seen like a wooden post in the vein, hence the name. - 96 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882

C FLOOR Wall A4 Fall from here about nine months ago. Wall 1 Fall from bon over here about four months ago, and smashed the engine and killed two men. Wall 2 Top looks very shaky. Wall 4 Is wider. Chambers 4, 5 and 6 are propped ( i.e timber levels through them) along this floor owing to the Middle Quarry fall. Chamber 8 A small bit of slate rock to get here. (Vide wall 8 - has it been cut since new lease was granted?) Wall 11 Is very dangerous, Lloyd says, owing to bevel coming through it. Wall 12 Measures 48 feet along level, which is nearly at right angles here. Wall 14 is 56 feet wide along level. DE FLOOR Roadway along wall A5. This is where the fall was about nine months ago, the wall is now full of cracks, all chambers worked out to chamber 10. Chamber 10 In this chamber is the pevel and crack in wall 11. Wall 12 Is 48 feet along level, about right angles. Chamber 16 is being opened, no sign of “Post” in it so far. Query - Is Middle Quarry opening on before this, or this quarry cutting ceiling bons and thus destroying a lot of slate rock. The clay slant (sic) roof here is very good, as also the floor above. F FLOOR Chamber 10 is stopped owing to the dangerous roof of wall 1, vide “pevel” again here more north. Chamber 11 is also abandoned through wall 11 being unsafe by “pevel”. Wall 12 is 49 feet thick here - no crack. G FLOOR Roadway along wall 1 to vertical balance, now disused, - a great crack in this wall, Lloyd says it is sure to come down. Chamber 3. There is a large block of slate left in this chamber, which is full of “creak” It is a sort of support to wall 3. Chamber 10. “Pevel” in W side of wall 10, and E side of wall 11, shows itself here. Chamber 11 must be left, owing to pieces falling down from wall 11, and making it dangerous to work. Wall 12 is 52 feet wide along level. Chamber 12 will last 3 years. “pevel” runs through this-the same one as in chamber 13, DE floor. H FLOOR. Where Chamber 12 is being opened. Good roof here (clay slant), vide “pevel” in pillar 12 in level. Chamber 11. Rock small in this chamber and full of “creak” Wall 12 is 45 feet along level, which is about right angles. This chamber 11 roof I consider dangerous. There is a piece of hard slate left between the clay slant and another slant near the rock which ought to be taken away. Chamber 10 is full of spar and “creak”, not being at present worked. The “pevel” you can see in the E side of this wall. Chamber 9. The rock is hard, no doubt through the influence of the “pevel” but not so bad as W of the “pevel” or in chamber 10. Chamber 8 through 4 reported as .” A good deal of “creak” here.” Chamber 3. The rock is better in this chamber than in any other along this floor. Chamber 2. “Creak” here again. Wall 2 is 24 feet wide. Chamber 1. Can’t be worked, owing to wall 1 falling in every now and then. Wall 1 is very cracky here, and Lloyd says dangerous - it was between this and wall A5 that the new incline was made when the fall stopped it being gone on with. Chamber A4, where the fall was from wall A4. I FLOOR. Chamber A4 stopped, owing to the fall. Chamber 1. This chamber is also stopped through the unsafety of wall 1. Chamber 5. “Creak” bad here. Chamber 6. “Creak” also here. Chamber 7. “Creak bad” This level is stopped for the present along this floor. As a result of this, Dunlop’s misgivings increased, but whether this was instrumental in Oakeley deciding that he would go into the quarries himself, rather than let the Welsh Slate Co. have them, we shall never know. The profits alone were tempting enough, to be sure. Dunlop’s diary then shows a number of meetings with W. S. Co., in 1876 and 1877. Dunlop seems not to have even mentioned a possible fall, nor shown the Welsh Slate Co. the new plan of 1874 at all. However, in February 1877, at the time of the crisis with wall 1, described in the last chapter, Dunlop wrote to the W.S.Co.’s secretary thus: “Wall No. 1 - Mr. Owen’s explanation of what your Company proposed doing with this wall, was to cut a considerable part of the wall away, (so far as the cracks extended), to prevent the pieces, he said, from falling on the workmen while winning the slate in the lower floors, in Chambers A5 and No.1. I examined this wall very carefully, and, in my opinion, this, if carried out, would entail the removal of a considerable part of the wall, and leave an opening in it similar and exactly opposite to the opening in the next wall (2) which you are aware has been partly cut away, and the great arena of roof which would be unsupported by this removal of part of wall 1, also in a similar manner, and exactly opposite to the opening in wall 2, would render it very unsafe, and I fear very much weaken the quarry at a dangerous part. The clay slant, at the base of these chambers, being cut through by the spar band, separating the old and back veins, renders the roof anything but reliable. I - 97 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882 think it would be most unwise for your company to endeavour to touch this pillar, and inadvisable on Mr. Oakeley’s part to give you his permission to do so.” Dunlop himself later said that he had never expected the Welsh Slate Company would repudiate the clauses of the lease any more than Holland and Matthew did, Dunlop did not give them three years notice before they left, he told them they would either clear their falls, or pay for them, and they paid for them. He expected the W.S.Co. would do the same. The fall, he said, was absolutely impossible to prevent, if they continued the working. He did not give formal notice except for the general warnings in 1876 re wall A3 and 1877 re wall 1 because he thought that they would not continue cutting the walls as they had been. He was of the opinion that they were lessees who were quite capable of clearing the fall, and if they had not been, he would have informed Mr. Oakeley. Holland’s Quarry was little involved in the events of the period, and appears to have simply gone on in its own way, working away at their two principal veins and ignoring the strife and dispute which festered beneath them. This is not to say that everything was satisfactory. Whether the Hollands were displeased by the actions of William Edward we do not know, certainly Holland’s diary simply refers to them working their quarry until the end of their term, so perhaps William’s actions were accepted as not unreasonable. In terms of work done in Holland’s quarry, however, operations did not quite carry on as normal. The carefully contrived staggered operations of the lease wherebye each floor had to be kept in advance of the one below it were apparently abandoned and three full chambers in the Old Vein were opened beyond the quarry’s western face on all the floors at once so that slate could be produced at a maximum rate, without the floors having to be kept in line with one another. Fig 65 illustrates the idea. From later accounts, the work, particularly in the Old Vein, appears to have been done at the least hastily and perhaps even carelessly. Robert Roberts, Matthew’s agent and later overall Oakeley Quarries manager and Thomas Jones, both referred to the Old Vein walls as “badly cut in Mr. Holland’s time.” In the Back Vein or Northern Quarry, the long water balance was now powered by the addition of a steam engine at the top, presumably to increase its working rate and also conserve the meagre Holland’s water supply, mentioned earlier. Also during this period, an incline was constructed between the Upper and Lower Mill sites, replacing the much earlier one further to the east, near the mill. The new incline was on the eastern extremity of the mill tip, allowing slabs from the quarry to reach the Upper Mill, and slates from the stacking yard to go down the incline to the Lower Mill and the big incline without interfering with one another. In the Old Vein quarry, the Upper Incline was extended by one floor to reach floor 9, (floor 13, in Oakeley days). Neither the Old nor the Back Vein fall was removed, except where necessary for access to the workings and in consequence of this and other minor irregularities (!), Holland had to pay in compensation to the Oakeleys on surrender. Once again Dunlop was involved as he described to the Great Fall Arbitration. He said, “Before their lease expired in 1877, I called the attention of Mr. Holland and Mr. Mathew to the falls that were then in the respective quarries. They both said, “Very well, how much have we got to pay? Will you insist upon our removing it, or will you take the money at the end of the lease?” “Well,” I said, “whichever suits you.” For instance, Mr. Holland, who commenced at the top side, said, “It will be more convenient for me to pay for the removal at the end of the term than to put more men on and remove it myself.” Consequently, we commenced negotiations on that footing. I may state that Mr. Holland was exceedingly obliging by allowing us to go on with the advanced working in the upper floors, and prosecute the dead work years before the lease was up. When the lease expired some six months before, then I settled with him for the removal of the fall.” This account also gives £406 as the claim for the fall on Rhiwbryfdir and £300 as the settlement, so the total figure of £10,000 sometimes given for this may be apocryphal. The details of the old Middle Quarry fall were given as follows: “Falls & rubbish unremoved. 2780 cubic yards. Quay built up on floor 2 in front of chambers 7 and 8,being north of the rubbish boundary line, weighing 1.75 tons per cubic yard=4865 tons. 4865 tons @ 1/3d =£304 1s 3d 100 tons deads and rubbish lying about the open workings. 100 tons @ 1/3d = £6 5s. 0d. 500 tons. Fall from wall 10 into chamber 9, floor 1 (will pay for removal) 500 tons @ 1/3d. = £31 5s. 0d. 1000 tons. Ditto into chamber 10 1000 tons @ 1/3 = £62 10s. 0d. 50 tons. Ditto from wall 12 into chamber 11 ditto 50 tons @ 1/3d. = £3 2s. 6d. All other chambers to be left clear = £407 3s 9d. -settled this claim with the company at £300 It seems clear then, that effectively William Oakeley, or rather his agents, began work at the Upper Quarry at least, well before the end of Holland’s term. Whether this means that the men engaged on the work, although employed by Holland’s, were, in fact paid by Oakeley, is a moot point. It is curious that, supposing that Dunlop and/or Jones had some supervision over the “dead work” activity, that they did not see anything of the “poor cutting”, although, to be fair, the original faults may have been, as in the Welsh Slate workings, well out of sight by then. Dunlop’s evidence suggests a good working relationship with Holland’s, so the whole affair has something of an air of mystery about it. What is certain is that Holland’s workings in the Back and North Veins, within the terms of the lease, certainly did affect the future development of the Middle Quarry floors by “cutting them off” as Robert Roberts later put it. Holland’s floors A and B were roughly on the horizon of the Rhiwbryfdir floors 2 and 3. Thus Holland’s Back Vein workings extended down in an irregular fashion into the area where the Middle Quarry - ex-Rhiwbryfdir - would expand their workings westward. - 98 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882

Somehow the two sets of workings, each with their own floor heights, had to be regularised before any extensions could be made in that direction. Roberts remarked, much later on the same subject, i.e. the Back Vein: “Mr. Holland had worked down to his lowest floor a number of chambers from Chamber N west as far east as wall E. He did not commence another chamber; he did commence cutting the bon for a fresh chamber. That being in the open he called it a chamber after the bon came down into it would hardly be a correct expression for it, because it would afterwards cease to be a chamber. He was cutting an aperture for another chamber in 1874 and then stopped. He stopped because I got Mr. Holland to cease cutting it. The Rhiwbryfdir Company were advancing under Mr. Holland’s floor 1 with chamber E on Rhiwbryfdir Slate Company’s 4th floor. As chamber E advanced as we were cutting underneath the bon which was being cut by Mr. Holland, Mr. Holland’s Manager and myself accidentally met one day at that place, and I asked him if he could not get Mr. Holland to stop. He accepted what I proposed, and his manager ceased cutting the bon.” In August 1874 Jones wrote to Dunlop on the same subject “....as to Mr. Holland cutting his walls so as to save Mathews cutting a ceiling bon in all the chambers on his floor 4. This referred to chambers J, K, L, M, N, and O to the westward of where the big bevel comes. These would be over chambers 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 of the Middle and Welsh Slate Co. The chambers had been worked out by 1874 by Holland, but he had cut his walls and worked his chambers so badly that it was quite impossible to cut the chambers on a proper kind of pillaring, and the problem was how to do that.” The projecting parts of walls 13,14,15,16 and 17 were cut off with the object of bringing the lower walls into a proper line of working, otherwise there would have been overhanging masses above the parts that were undercut. Once again, little information is available concerning the activities in Rhiwbryfdir, other than those already made by the Welsh Slate Company. However, in February 1873, R.P. Williams, the agent and manager of long standing at the quarry was dismissed, and replaced by his assistant, Robert Roberts. Williams had become manager in about 1864, having taken over from William Pierce. He had come from Cae Braich y Cefn in Nantlle. For nine years before the dismissal, Roberts had been a clerk and book keeper at the Rhiwbryfdir. Prior to that he had worked as a practical quarryman some six years or so, working at Rhiwbryfdir, Llechwedd and Welsh Slate Co.’s quarries. Robert Roberts subsequently frequently referred to it being R.P.Williams’ fault that the walls 10, 11 and 12 were undercut, but whether it was this or something else which caused his dismissal, we have yet to find out. At Holland’s Quarry the current manager was Rees Roberts. He had become under manager in 1862, working with another Robert Owen, (no relation of the W.S.Co. Robert Owen) who had joined Holland’s in 1848 as manager, previously having been manager of the Rhosgadfan Quarry in Nantlle. Robert Owen stayed with the Hollands until 1869, despite, in 1864, applying for and obtaining the post of manager to the large Dorothea Quarry, also in Nantlle. Exactly how Holland persuaded him to stay has not been determined! Under the terms of the agreement between Holland’s, the Rhiwbryfdir Co. and Oakeley in 1878 the men and management at Porthmadog and the quarries was to continue, Dunlop being the general manager in London. Rees Roberts initially continued at Upper Quarry and Robert Roberts of Rhiwbryfdir continued at Middle Quarry Jones clearly spent quite a lot of time in the quarry district and seems to have been “accessible”, as the information he got from R.P. Williams, on the 20th. December 1873 shows. Jones put it like this, “The Manager asked me to go over and see him, and he would tell me some things that were going on in the quarry. I went, and this is what he told me, and I took them down literally as he told them to me. Mr. Williams suggested that if the Rhiwbryfdir Company want compensation for machinery etc. they should be compelled to complete their own tunnel to the points and length mentioned in the lease, and of the requisite dimensions. The Rhiwbryfdir Company worked the old quarry in the back vein in the open until 1850, and there was a level on floor 3, through pillar 3, and on floor 4, to give access to the workings, now cut away by the Welsh Slate Company and the Rhiwbryfdir Company, after which time it was abandoned for eight or nine years, without any attempt to go on with it. In 1863 Nathaniel Mathew requested Mr. Williams to give him an estimate of the probable cost of opening, so as to get slate as quickly as possible; and about 1866 the level along pillar 12 on floor 4 was started, with a view of getting access to the old quarry, and the usual openings for chambers were left as the level was driven. “ “On floor 4, chambers 12, 11, 10, 9 and 8 have been worked by cutting a ceiling bon. That is referring to the Back vein in that time, and then the next, which is one of Major Mathew’s usual expressions, was to “get the heart out of the damned quarry and leave the rest to the devil.” These are William’s words to me, of course, not my own. Then in A vein “(this is vague, but probably the Stripy Vein between Old and Back Veins )” they are now cutting away the heart of one of the pillars on floor 1 between either 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 chambers and should be stopped. There are many thousands of tons of good slates left in the Back vein through not working on the open system between the old quarry and Holland’s fall, and Mathew has no right now to be working under Holland’s Water Balance till all his floors are worked out and all slate in proper ratio . That the top floor, after leaving it for 13 years and taking up and destroying all communication, while cutting into it in this manner and driving levels so far ahead to get chambers opened in the top floor.” The last phrase is incomplete, but perhaps should end “is not right.” Williams apparently used numbers to refer to the Back Vein chambers, not the letters. It is now impossible to say, of course, to what extent Williams was angry at his dismissal and replacement by a man who had been working under him, but from the charge and counter charges already quoted, it is clear that there must have been some “personal animus” at work within the Rhiwbryfdir Company during its last ten years or so. Although he finished with the quarry, Major Matthew seems to have stayed on in Wales at Wern until 1884, when he left for Guildford, where he died on the 26th. October, 1889 aged 77. He was buried with his father and mother. Wern house was leased again in 1884 to R.M. Greaves, the son of J.W. Greaves, by G.A. Huddart, Sir Joseph’s son, following whose death in 1885, the house was sold to the Greaves’.

- 99 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882

What exactly Oakeley’s motives were in reverting to his original plan of working the upper quarries himself remains undocumented, as has been mentioned there was the increasing buoyant market, demand, and therefore he wanted to remove the middle men and thus increase the profits to the estate, or whether he did it because of either the urging or the expressed doubts of Dunlop and Jones in the W.S.Co. we shall never know. Certainly in his opening address to the fall Arbitration, Oakeley’s Counsel put it like this[2]: “Mr. Oakeley, who was very anxious to work his own slate, knowing that very, very large profits were made by working the slate, and that the amount of capital invested in the slate mines was comparatively a very small amount, and knowing the enormous profits to be obtained from working of slate mines, he desired, as he was perfectly entitled to do, to work in 1877 the Middle and Upper quarries on his own behalf; and being tenant for life, and being desirous of not having the responsibility of such a large concern entirely on his own shoulders, subsequently, on the advice of Mr. Dunlop and others, he formed a company to be associated with him in working those quarries...... Mr. Oakeley had borrowed for the purpose of the quarries £50,000 from the Rock Insurance Company, (which required him to take out life insurance), and £20,000 from Hoare and Company.” Things were not that simple, of course. Oakeley not yet being tenant for life in his own right, and therefore not able to either grant a lease to himself, nor simply to work the land, a new lease was granted to one Henry Cunliffe Shaw, a close neighbour of his in the midlands who was to work the quarries as the trustee of William Edward Oakeley,. This lease was signed on the 27th. August 1878 as “A grant of lands and tenements with a view to quarrying on certain conditions to Mr. Shaw” – this was later often referred to as The Shaw lease. The parties to the lease were Mrs. Oakeley, acting for William Edward Oakeley, William Edward Oakeley, Henry Cunliffe Shaw and the Rt. Hon. William Francis Cowper Temple and the Hon. Evelyn Ashley . Ony a few clauses are worth noting, the reversioners being, in this case what would have been called the lessors previously: Clause 44: Was to ensure that where the quarries were being worked to the east of the “Extreme Mine Boundary of the Welsh Slate Co.” the new workings would follow the same pattern, i.e. be worked from the east end towards the west. Clause 45 - To work continuously. Clause 46 - To leave continuous walls of 30 ft. thickness. etc. Clause 47 - Not to remove or thin walls. Clause 51 “That, notwithstanding anything hereinbefore contained, it shall be lawful to and for the said reversioner or reversioners by writing under his or their hand or hands or under the hand of his or their principal estate agent for the time being, from time to time to dispense with and relax or modify all or any of the stipulations contained in clauses 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 and 49, of these presents, as to the working and carrying on of the said mines and quarries, in, upon or under the said premises herebye demised, or any or either of them, and working and getting the said slate and stone and as to the form and dimensions of the said chambers and lifts and walls respectively, and as to any other similar matters, so as to facilitate as far as can be the future working of the said slate and stone herebye demised under any new or altered circumstances that may hereafter arise, yet so nevertheless that such dispensing, relaxing or modifying do not injuriously affect the future workings of the slate and stone demised by the said indenture of the 19th day of May 1871.” Barely a month later, old Mrs Oakeley died and William Edward at last became tenant for life in his own right. Of Mr Shaw nothing further was heard – presumably he had served his purpose. It had already been agreed, in discussion between the various parties, that there would be no change in either workforce, or management at the quarries and port, the Holland’s and Rhiwbryfdir men simply changing their employer. The two quarries were worked independently for many years, overall control under a single manager not coming about until the mid 1880s, thus to a large extent the dream of a single unified quarry was not met, although there was much to sort out. Hence Robert Roberts continued at the Middle Quarry as Rhiwbryfdir became, along with Owen Jones as his assistant, while W.Rees Roberts stayed on at the Upper Quarry, ex-Hollands’ with Griffith Davies. The two managers exchanged positions in July 1883, a move which Rees Roberts did not like and wrote to Dunlop on the subject. In a letter to W.E.Oakeley Dunlop reported that Rees was feeling “very strange” at Middle Quarry, and that Rees felt that someone had misguided Dunlop about his health, he was actually suffering from the bereavement of his departed wife rather than ill-health. Dunlop had replied that he would spend a day with Rees at Middle Quarry. He hoped Rees would go through everything with Robert Roberts at Upper Quarry, but Dunlop did want to hear anything about any jealousy or nonsense etc..[a]. He was, however, made overall quarry manager in 1887, all the quarries then coming under his control. One of the first activities was the construction of a gravity incline to connect Holland’s old upper mill with the Rhiwbryfdir mills and at the same time to build a tramway to connect the foot of this incline with Hollands old Lower Mill. One can only imagine the idea behind this was to abandon the incline from the Uppe to Lower Mills behind the Lower Mill due its awkward approach to the Lower Mill. A plan for the scheme shows the new level tramway entering the Lower Mill from the North, rather than going round it, so it must have been intended for slab traffic. There seems to have been little reason for this, unless it was a temporary measure to allow the Lower mill to do the work of the Upper Quarry’s Upper Mill, pending their re-equipment. Before going on to look at the activities that were to dominate the thoughts and minds of all, it is as well to look at what went on at the Oakeley Upper Quarry, left behind as it was, in isolation on top of the mountain. What follows is taken from the letter books of W.R. Evans, the manager, and A.M. Dunlop, fortunately preserved, as is the first Oakeley Pay Book for the year 1878. Most of the letters from the manager were short, requests for equipment or statements of costs and output. Unlike Owen in the quarry below, there was little of catastrophic import to convey, and many pages were unused. On the 28th. February 1878, the following request was sent: “Please send up Lightening Conductor as soon as possible,”. Not only the - 100 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882 weather caused trouble, it is quite evident that the machinery was, shall we say, worn? Evans was most anxious about the boilers and on the 2nd. March requested that Messrs. Dalglish, the engineers of St. Helens in Lancashire, be sent up as soon as possible to examine them. He also complained about the F.R. wagons, or rather the lack of them. On the 23rd. March an order was sent out for frames for doors, side frames for flues and for a bottom flue, the boiler being 15 ft. long and 5 feet in diameter. Which boiler this was, was not stated, another flue had been ordered the previous day, so at least two boilers were in trouble. A new boiler arrived on the 27th and this was hauled up Holland’s “Inclen Fawr,” the big incline, from Dinas with some little difficulty. A new floor, No. 12, was started on April the 9th. whilst on floor 6 a level intended to communicate with the Cwmorthin quarry workings was begun, using a double shift. This was evidently treated as a matter of some urgency, why it is not clear, unless it was to enable precise surveying through the new level to determine the relationship between the Cwmorthin and Oakeley workings. This eventually broke through into the area of floor 7 south in Cwmorthin chamber 22. Later information suggests that this level was in fact driven under the supervision of Herbert Kirkhouse, the Cwmorthin manager, and using Cwmorthin labour, but was finished by Oakeley people. Fig.41 shows the surface arrangements of the new floors. By August 1878, concern was being expressed over the decrease in profit caused by cutting the bon, while on September 28th. a “lad” fell on a saw table and cut his arm. Further alterations were made in the following April, when a planing machine was added, presumably to the Lower Mill, by adding a 16ft. 6in. length of 3in. shafting. In May the Lower Mill was referred to again as having 40 to 50 machines driven by one engine, the attendant, it was said, could see a difference in the fuel consumption, this was put down to the oil being too thick ! August 1878 brought a curious correspondence with some contractors who were working on the old waterwheel at the end of Lefel Fawr, apparently in connection with the arrival of the L.& N.W.R. after tunnelling through under the mountain from Dolwyddelan, as related in a later chapter. The contractors were apparently installing a cistern and pipes to supply “your engine and driver” Their behaviour caused concern and the following letter was sent: “The complaints are against the overflow pipes, as in dry weather we are very short of water to work our water wheel there, ... and your men put the overflow pipes to the over flow gutter instead of the gates to supply our water wheel and that we want to repair the gates and run the overflow pipe to the gutter supplying our water wheel.” A later letter pointed out that the L. & N.W.R. had to understand that they could only have the water on Saturday afternoons and on Sundays in dry weather. New equipment was not limited to boilers, 1880 saw 71 new wagons (internal) delivered out of 126 ordered, while 3 new saw tables were wanted to work “soon”, but an order was given for 10. There were complaints, though, about the supply of F.R. wagons again the Oakeley manager writing to his counterpart on the railway: “I find that there are wagons standing at Llechwedd siding since yesterday afternoon unused & that you gave the W.S.Co. all the next two trains each, and all the while we are waiting for empties - I wish to know your reasons for giving such.” DeWintons, of Caernarfon, was the major supplier at this time and took on the repair and upkeep of much of the machinery. In September 1882, they accepted the tender to supply a “new loco” . A rare reference to the winding engine in October 1882 remarked on the fact that it was running at 55 lbs. per square inch and it should be 35. This was presumably the Back Vein engine working the old water balance incline. On the 14th. December 1882, the Welsh Slate Company handed over Tre’r Ddol cottage. Tre’r Ddol hamlet consisted of thirteen dwellings: Three were occupied by W.S.Co. workmen; one by a widow; six were barracks and three empty. Further locomotive interests developed in 1883, when a specification was sent to one J.H. Cousins, the loco being referred to as “No.3”. The Falcon locomotive works also became involved. Meanwhile, the water wheel raised its head again, and an order was sent to Owen, Isaac and Owen, Iron Founders of Portmadoc for a new pinion. In an all too brief reference to Middle Quarry, we find in August 1883, that a “New Mill” was to be built, and later that this was trusted to Messrs. Lloyd Hughes & Hughes, about whom nothing further is known . At the same time the chambers under the Middle Quarry incline were remarked on as being abandoned about 15 years or so before - about 1867. This New mill was built parallel to and to the south of the original mill. It was of the opposite “hand” with slabs entering the mill on the southern side. It was powered by a steam engine installed in a lean-to extension at the western end and was equipped with 15 slate saws and dressers arranged in the by then standard transverse arrangement. Some years later the southern side was considerably extended to include a further tramway, and presumably to give more space under cover for primary splitting. This is shown in fig. 55 Curiously the plan for the new incline between the Upper Quarry Upper Mills and Middle Quarry already mentioned clearly shows the Middle Quarry New Mill – but labels the old Mill, Matthews’ Felin Fawr as “New Mill”! Finally, illustrating the growing position of A.M. Dunlop himself in the local society, we find him writing the following to DeWintons in Caernarfon : “I have just seen the person who showed me your letter respecting the taking-on of his son. How can you expect him to pay £50 You must knock that off first or you must not expect any more work from Blaenau Ffestiniog.” The first pay book of the Upper Quarry referred to previously is interesting for a number of reasons. It was the first in the Oakeley era and the simplest. Later volumes were vast things, inevitably so when all three workings came under one management. The first was manageable.

- 101 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882

We find the following, a summary of tonnage made, total wages and the value of the slates: UPPER QUARRY WAGES BOOK 1878 Output Total Wages Value TO: Tons Cwt. Qtr. £ s d £ s d

January 26th. 976 9 3 3,025 2 4 February 23rd. 1,133 6 3 3,511 11 2 March 23rd. 1,043 2 2 3,337 15 2 4,002 15 10 April 20th. 1,098 15 3 3,321 13 11 4 243 14 10 May 18th. 1,118 19 2 3,338 7 8 4,316 9 5 June 15th. 1,016 7 0 3,150 3 10 3,926 16 11 July 13th. 993 2 1 3,075 6 2 3,798 16 7 August 10th. 806 2 0 2,876 6 10 3,073 0 10 September 7th. 1,073 3 0 3,226 4 6 4,135 17 1 October 5th. 857 11 1 2,969 11 4 3,298 10 10 November 2nd. 855 5 1 2,726 14 4 3,211 12 9 December 28th. 347 2 1 1,315 6 10 1,165 5 6 Deductions from the wages were made for powder, the quarry smith, candles, rents, and barracks, the sum hovering around £280 per month for most of the year. This is not the place to go into the wages system, but the paybook does give some idea of the staff of the quarry at the time. Each group of workers, each “partnership”, was known by a number - how this related to the chamber or bargain is not known and the book refers to no less than 37 partnerships of rockmen, plus 40 teams of miners. There were 16 teams of clearers, both inside the mills and on the surface - these people were sometimes known as rubbishers. The Back Vein Quarry was known as the “Smithy Quarry” while the Old Vein was known as the “Office Quarry.” Staff wages came to £23 each or overall per pay, weighmen got £18 12s. while the engine fitter got £10. Henry Dauncey, the “Engine Driver” , whether stationary or locomotive is not said, got £6 3s.9d. Several jobs were mixed, Robert Thomas, the saw-sharpener was also in charge of some horses, while there were both official quarry smiths and also smiths who worked on their own account in the quarry, paying for the privilege. The whole quarry at this stage was a curious mixture of methods of payment, only later sorted out, possibly a legacy from Holland’s time. The Upper Mills, it would appear, were still paying on the day wages system, while the Lower Mill was working to the full partnership and bargain system. At the same time many of the men were paid on a tonnage basis. It must, however, be said, that the Upper Mill at this time appears to have been short of work, while the lower one was full to capacity. A number of the upper men were on subsistence. Although the Oakeley Upper Quarry and the Middle Quarry worked independently for several years after 1878, it was quite clear to Dunlop that something would have to be done to enable the workings of both quarries to go on westward unimpeded. In the Old Vein it was reasonably straight forward – the Middle Quarry could continue the Upper Quarry walls and chambers downwards in the conventional fashion once it was clear of the difficult area under Pen Balance. True there was the problem of the overlap of the floors, but that was easily solved by suppressing the Middle Quarry floor 5, which had no underground anyway, and once past the limits of the Upper Quarry’s floor 1 underground, the Middle Quarry floor 4 could work the entire depth up to the Upper Quarry floor 2. Things could go on as usual. In the Back vein there was a greater potential problem. It will be remembered that according to the 1838 lease, Holland had been able to sink to any depth he liked west of the Extreme mine boundary of the other two lessees – which he had done. Therefore these deep workings formed a barrier whose floor heights did not in any way match those of the Middle Quarry. The solution, though awkward, was found by basically abandoning the Upper Quarry deep floors as such, and by maiing new levels through the walls and chambers from the Middle Quarry floors. Where the levels were above an old floor, rubbish was tipped to form an embankment, where they were below the old floor they were either worked up or simply driven as a level. Again, once the limits of the old floors were reached, new chambers could be opened up conventionally. What the Welsh Slate Company thought of the Oakeley takeover of the two upper companies and the work that was begun even before the end of the leases has unfortunately not been found. Perhaps they thought the whole business was an attempt to increase the value of the concerns so that when the time came for the W.S.Co. to bid for them there would be ample cause for them to have to pay more! We can imagine that Ashley in particular would have shaken his head, as Oakeley evidently ignored his 1868 advice regarding hazarding his own money in the venture. Perhaps he now fully expected Oakeley to inevitably exhaust his funds and that the W.S.Co. would then be able to step in and rescue him, no doubt at a knock down price on or before the time fro their own lease to expire in 1890. However by 1882 there was obvious concern in the W.S.Co. committee about whether they could cope with the coming and inescapable fall, and considering Oakeley’s reaction to their last attempt at expansion they were unsure whether they would be given a chance to renew in 1890 . However, during 1882, it turned out, as Ashley had predicted, the working of the Upper Quarries had not been entirely to William Edward’s liking, the amount of dead work to set the place right, and the replacement of worn out machinery had absorbed all the money he had borrowed. This coupled with a slump in the trade now made him think seriously about the future. The Hon. Evelyn Ashley, who had been a Member of the Committee of the W.S.Co. from 1865, had been instrumental in obtaining the new lease of 1871 which had been backdated to 1870. However, as the old lease ran on until 1877, what they had got was effectively only an extension of 13 years. Thus it was Ashley, apparently a close friend of Oakeley’s in London, who at last learned that all their hopes were barren.

- 102 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882

The fat was put into the fire by a meeting between Ashley and Oakeley, which Ashley described as follows: “In April 1882, Mr. Oakeley came to see me at the office whilst I was at the Board of Trade, and said to me that negotiations were going on to give the reversion of our quarry to a third party, a Company which was being formed. He said he did not think it was right, considering how long we had been lessees under him and his family, that that should be done behind our backs, without our having an opportunity of making an offer, and he asked me if I thought we should make a good offer in the matter. He said Mr. Dunlop was much opposed to our having it, but still he did not think it right that it should be given behind our backs without our being communicated with. I told him, whether we were enterprising or not, as had been represented to him with respect to quarries not connected with us, that, as far as our own quarry was concerned, we naturally expected and looked for, a renewal, and that we should be able to make a good offer, and I would call the Committee together and consider the terms. So he left me, at the same time begging me not to mention to Mr. Dunlop that he had been to see me on this matter. Five or six days after that, in order that he should have no excuse, or that other people should have no excuse to say that we were neglecting the question, I wrote to him saying that we were considering our figures, and would communicate with him as soon as we could, and I got by return a letter from him saying that the matter was virtually at an end, because the negotiations had been concluded during the interval of seven days with the third party, namely the Oakeley Company.” This was William’s reply: “Private. My dear Ashley, I intended writing to you to-day, when I received your note forwarded here. Since our conversation, Messrs. Hoare, the bankers, on hearing my inclination to get out of the responsibility of finding money to work the quarries, proposed at once to find all the money I considered necessary for working and further developing amongst themselves and a few private friends of my own, their customers, and giving one-half profits, leaving my staff of employees just as they are; the whole of this is so manifestly to my interest and exactly what I wished that I feel bound to accept it, but in the first instance I stipulated you should have a share if you wished it. And if, at the expiration of your leave, the Welsh Slate Company should merge in the Oakeley Quarries and not vice versa, that you should have the same interest in the whole as you have now, and a seat on the Board. I only saw Messrs. Hoare on this yesterday.” Ashley next received this on the 18th April 1882: “Private. My dear Ashley, your letter was forwarded to me from Windsor, and directly on receipt of it, I called at the Board of Trade and found you had gone to Ireland. I put off answering it until you returned to London for the meeting of Parliament. I never foresaw the idea of getting the capital for working the quarries from bankers, and the proposition came from Messrs. Hoare. The whole arrangement is most advantageous to me, and the only shareholders will be members of my own family, and personal friends whose names I have selected myself. The bank will take about 5 shares of the 24. Whether it will be necessary to make it a limited company or not is not determined. I have arranged that if you like to do so you shall have one share, and as you are the only one of the Welsh Slate Company who would care to continue in the trade at the expiration of your lease, I will so arrange that should your quarry merge in the whole you shall have the same share in the future as you now hold in your own Company. In no other respect will the new arrangement make any difference to your Company or anybody else. It will not come into effect until January 1883. I am quite confident that no arrangement I could have made with you would be so satisfactory as this one. As at present proposed, the shares will number 24, £5,000 each, of which £3,500 will be paid up.” Oakeley wrote again on April 22nd 1882. “Private. My dear Ashley, your letter was forwarded here. In the offer I made you as to a share in the Oakeley Quarries, I have ever since the renewal of the lease looked upon you and Lord Mount Temple as the Welsh Slate Company, and perhaps lately your brother, from Lord Mount Temple’s position, and age and wealth, I felt sure that he would never feel anxious to enter any new concern, or even to act with much vigour and interest in promoting the future of your old Company. It is therefore, you alone, and perhaps your brother, that I feel bound to consider in any arrangements I may have in contemplation. The whole scheme with Messrs. Hoare is not quite settled, but it is nearly so, and is to this effect. I having borrowed a sum from the Rock Insurance Company (and had to insure my life) for the purpose of working the two upper quarries, and with that sum having fully developed them (beside the purchase of plant), and also having during all these bad years paid premiums, interest on loan, royalty as fixed, and received a surplus? I am now anxious to free myself of all responsibility and obtain a further capital for the more speedy development of the new back vein, which has proved most flourishing. I therefore take partners or form a company who have in any event agreed to repay me (or rather the Rock) the money I have expended in the purchase of plant and development, namely £70,000, and to provide a further working capital to take over the quarries on January 1st. 1883, to pay me for stock on bank etc. and I to pay all my liabilities up to that date, and in future to go on; they finding all necessary money and taking half profits; and I taking half profits , the expenditure for ordinary dead work being deducted, but not new works like the new back vein. Under these circumstances it seems to me that our relations have in no way altered; and should the time come, at which you hint in your note, for a wish for renewal, I see no reason why an amalgamation should not at once be made, the interest of the younger of your Company be preserved, and the whole concern go on as one Company, which I believe to be absolutely necessary. On hearing from you that you wish to join in this, I will put you in communication with Mr. Charles Hoare, who will give you particulars. Until then I must still beg you to keep the whole matter private. I have kept no copies of my letters, and the whole thing is strictly between ourselves. Yours very truly, William E. Oakeley. P.S. I may say that Messrs. Hoare have gone with their accountants over the whole of the quarry accounts, which have been yearly audited by Messrs. Turquand & Young, ever since I began working the quarries which was long previous to the expiration of the lease as far as dead work was concerned.” - 103 - Oakeley Slate -14. Oakeley, Holland and Rhiwbryfdir, 1870-1882

Again on April 28th: “My dear Ashley, I am sorry to hear, from yours of the 27th. that your deed of partnership will prevent you from taking a share in the Oakeley Quarries. I should have been very glad if you had been able to do so, as the interests of the group of quarries are so identical, that I should have been very glad for you to have had an intimate knowledge of what was going on in top story (I may say attics) of your own working. I hope you do not now think, as you seemed to do in answering my first letter, that I had thrown your Company over. You will, I trust, now see that wishing to work my quarries without personal money responsibility, I am in the way of negotiating what I think will be very favourable terms for the object I have in view, and that the position as regards your quarry is in no way altered, and that whenever the time for amalgamation may arise, that the difficulties are in no way increased.” So that was that. William Edward Oakeley may not have kept copies of his correspondence with Ashley, but Ashley certainly did and they, along with everything else the W.S.Co. had written was put in as evidence at the arbitration – but we aregetting ahead of the plot again. “The Oakeley Slate Quarries Company Limited” was incorporated on the 13th. July 1882. The Capital of the Company was set at £255,000 divided into 51 shares of £5,000 each, 50 were A shares and one a B share. The people signing the Articles of Association and the number of shares taken up by them were as follows: William Stewart Forster, Solicitor, one share. George Whitley, Gentleman, one share. Alfred Hoare, Banker, one share. Edward Bond, Barrister at Law, one share. Alexander Milne Dunlop, Surveyor, two shares. Samuel Pope, Q.C., one share. James Samuel Beale, Solicitor, one share. Thomas Abercrombie Welton, Accountant, one share. Forster and Beale we shall meet again, in the Great Fall inquiry. The office of the Company was set at No.3, Old Palace Yard, Westminster, Dunlop’s Office. The B share, as might be imagined, was that given to Oakeley in part exchange for the purchase of the quarry, the purchase being debited against the A shares. When in later years the B share was broken up, every member of the company had one vote for every A share held and no less than 29 for every B share held. The first Directors were William Edward Oakeley, Lionel John William Fletcher, Charles Hoare, Thomas Welton and A.M. Dunlop, who was made Managing Director. Directors were required to hold at least one share, either A or B in their own right. The Agreement transferring the quarries to them was signed on the 15th July 1882, and was between the six members of the Oakeley family, William Edward; his wife; son and his three daughters; and the new company. It recited the title, the lease of 19th. May, 1871 (the W.S.Co. lease) and the lease of 27th. August 1878 (the Shaw lease). The Agreement provided that William Edward Oakeley would sell, and the Company would buy, the lease of 1878, “subject to the provisions hereinafter contained, and subject also to such alteration and extension (if any), as by virtue of arrangements now under discussion with the Welsh Slate Company, may be made with that Company with regard to their extreme mine boundary.” Clause 2 modified the Royalties to Mr. Oakeley which had been due under the 1878 lease. Clause 3 stated “Mr. Oakeley being tenant for life, it is provided that if his son shall attain 21, he and his son, or if his son dies, or he dies, he or the son alone shall within six months after attaining 21 accept a surrender and grant a new lease as hereinbefore mentioned.” Clause 6 referred to the W.S.Co. and was the clause which had spelled the end of the Welsh Slate Co. on the Oakeley Estate at Rhiwbryfdir “The said new lease shall contain several covenants on the part of the Lessors, according to their respective states and interests, that upon the expiration or other sooner determination of the Welsh Slate Company’s present lease, or if the Company shall, before the determination of the Welsh Slate Company’s lease, have become entitled thereto to purchase or any other means, then upon the surrender by the company of the Welsh Slate Company’s lease, which surrender the reversioner or reversioners shall, in such case (and so far as they lawfully can or may) accept, the Lessors will grant to the Company or its assigns a lease of the hereditaments comprised in the Welsh Slate Company’s lease... for a term ending on the date on which the new lease of the Oakeley Slate Quarries expires...” It went on, “That if at the time of execution of the new lease of the Oakeley Slate Quarries the Welsh Slate Company’s lease shall have determined, or the Company shall then have become entitled thereto, then the hereditaments comprised in the Welsh Slate Co.’s lease shall be included.” In other words, there would be no offer of a new lease to the W.S.Co. when their lease expired, everything would now pass to the new Oakeley Slate Quarries Company Limited. The Oakeley Company was to pay and discharge the sums of £50,000 and £20,000, representing the amounts William Edward had borrowed, and also were to pay him sums which were to be agreed on amounting to £37,947. It is presumed that these represented the value of stocks and equipment. Unlike many another quarry which was publicly sold at auction, and for which lists of equipment and plant etc. exist, all the Oakeley transactions were “internal” so to say, and until the 1920s no lists of plant can be found. Let us now return to the Welsh Slate Company and see what had transpired there in detail.

- 104 -

15. PRELUDE TO DISASTER, 1878 - 1882

In January 1878 Dunlop wrote to the Welsh Slate Company secretary, in reply to a complaint of Phillips’ about the main open quarry face, referred to here as the “bon” as follows. The word “bon” was often used in a variety of contexts, which can be very confusing. The principal surface use was to refer to the main quarry face, possibly because the appearance of the face in plan view with the chamber openings and intervening walls looked rather like a fish’s spine and ribs. Underground the bare rock on the southern side of an east-west level was referred to as Bon Mawr, and the northern, smaller side as Bon Bach. A sketch on fig 38 illustrates both the quarry bon and the use of bon underground. The welsh always spelled it “bon” but it was often anglicized to “Bone.“ Dunlop wrote : “I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favour of the 4th. instant, calling my attention to the weak state of certain of the walls under the bon, or rather, I presume, such portions of them as were unworked by the late lessees. I am quite aware they have been unfairly worked, and the recent fall proves how much they were weakened, but I cannot admit that these and other falls are solely due to the Rhiwbryfdir Company’s workings, and must call your attention to the fact that walls 9, 10, 11 and 12 have been unfairly worked in your own quarry, and this unfair workings, is, I fear, principally the cause of the falls you complain of. Your wall 9, on C floor, near to the top of DE is only about 20 feet in actual width; your wall 10 on the same floor, about 17 feet in the level immediately north of the present road; your wall 11 at the foot of the slant on DE, is only 15 feet; your wall 12, on floor 3 (?), in the level, crossing it north of the present road, only about 34 feet instead of 50. .... Your Committee are perhaps aware that there is no bon to walls 10, 11 and 12, and the superincumbent rock has been removed to a great extent over chambers 9 and 10, and the top over this part is lighter than any other part of the quarry, and I propose to continue on the cutting of the Bon, and uncovering the north, or back vein, eastward from where Mr. Holland discontinued it, and so lighten the walls as far as is compatible with safety.” Robert Roberts described the idea as follows: “It was proposed to cut the bon from the west side of chamber A of the wall B to start with on to chamber C, and over wall C it widened our chamber C, the bone of the wall D went to chamber D The bone of the wall E out of the chamber A at the west part of the quarry cutting the bon all along the line.” At the subsequent enquiry he was asked, “Was the proposal to unroof right away or cut a trench ?” He replied, “Cut a trench. It was really continuing this one to meet that which was done in the west side by Mr. Holland up to the year 1874. A bon had been cut by the Rhiwbryfdir Co. from chambers B, C, D and E and consequently had left a considerable quantity of slate rock between the bon and the outcrop, and we meant to get at that through the cutting of the bon I have just referred to.” Owen’s initial reply to Dunlop’s letter to the secretary is worth noting, “I carefully went over it, and admit that the walls have been worked below the measurements a little in some places, not, however, to the extent he says..... “There are hollows in these walls as considerably reduce the measurements caused by loose joints or bevels, over which nobody had any control, but were actually the natural result of opening the chambers”. “The course of operations on C floor have been carried out in your works just in the manner they were opened in floor No. 1 Rhiwbryfdir Quarry, and therefore if opened there in the chambers too wide, we were bound to open the same in order to follow them.” This is, of course, errant nonsense as chambers on lower floors did not have to be opened as wide as those on the floors above them, thus restoring the walls to the correct thicknesses. “We cannot justify ourselves in any way that the walls are of the proper width, but I am far from seeing that the cause of the frequent falls from these pillars is through bevels nor any other disadvantages from your works at the places referred to for the holes in pillars 10 and 11 above C floor are in solid rock free from bevels of any class, and the thickness averages at the narrowest part from 6 to 12 feet, and is simply in itself the cause of the weakness for the walls to give way.” “In relation to the matters mentioned about walls No. 10 and 11 on floors 2 and 3 Rhiwbryfdir Quarry, I beg to say that the portion of rock left on the underlying hard south side was not purposely abandoned to support the pillars, but? on account of its inferior quality and you have been compelled to carry out the same course in your works, owing to the rock not being worth the expense of working. Vibrations through blasting cannot, in my opinion, have any damaging effect to influences in causing falls.” Falls from walls 9, 10, 11, 12, in the west, and walls 2, 3, 5 and 6 in the east occurred throughout the spring and summer, Owen writing in July, “The repeated signs of unsoundness in the pillars cause the men to think seriously of their safety when staying underground and many of them feel anxious about the state of the different places they are working at. It is apparent to me that the grounds will give way on a large scale before long in the vicinity of Pillars No. 9, 10 and 11 and 12, in Rhiwbryfdir Quarry above C floor, for the continuous disturbances indicate that the pressure from above is acting with all its force against the pillars that have already become through so many falls and releases far too weak to sustain the enormous weight. The columns are devoid of material to serve as props for the roof, and must consequently in course of time give way entirely.” Here Owen was clearly aware of the natural properties of the slate rock under pressure, but his awareness of the nature of the structure of the quarry itself was less than perfect: “It never happened within my experience to find so many places in an unsettled state as there is now. Undoubtedly some extraordinary disturbances are going on in the grounds in a particular locality, or in the extensive operations carried on at Rhiwbryfdir Quarry in the Back Vein above the places referred to has something to do with it. They have proposed at that quarry to cut the bon also on all the pillars both east and west, which operation as it is carried on will be another cause to make the grounds release at the bon and perhaps a fall over a large surface and on a grand scale. “ “I had all the time grave apprehensions as to results of these operations so far as your interests are concerned for owing to the large bevel and other defects in the grounds things might turn out most disastrous in course of a short time. It is out of my province to know what powers the Committee have to interfere in matters of this character as per terms of lease.”

- 105 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882

“It is not, however, too soon to remind Mr. Oakeley of the consequences which would be serious and damaging and of great importance to prevent a large area of the works being buried for years.” Owen was right about that - if not about the cause ! Phillips queried Owen on this and asked him for a detailed report. Here he was supported by the Rt. Hon W.F.Cowper Temple who wrote thus: “We must bring the matter under the attention of Mr. Oakeley in such a way as to draw his serious attention to it, and it seems to me that in the matter of this importance it is best to send the letter direct to Mr. Oakeley if you think that Mr. Dunlop might take umbrage at a formal letter of this kind than through him. I will write it and sign it myself so that it may assume a more private character and this seems to me to be the safest way. We must exert ourselves to stop the great disaster that is impending over us. Send me a copy of Owen’s report that you are expecting so that I may be able to send it to Mr. Oakeley if I think it wise to do so.” Owen wrote as follows: “I went along with Mr. R.. Lloyd,” Robert Roberts under manager “ into the Rhiwbryfdir Quarry yesterday evening, and we examined most carefully the course of new operations at the Back Vein. “ “We found that two parties had already started to cut the bon one in the neighbour hood of pillar No.4 and the other about chamber No.9. Further information was obtained from Mr. Owen Jones, the foreman, that it had been decided to cut the bon on top of all the pillars from No.4 to No.9. It is not difficult to foresee what will be the result of opening the grounds at the back into one extensive hollow right up into Holland’s Quarry and we do not hesitate to express our opinion that all the grounds as lie in the same position as theirs herebye referred to will have their tenacity weakened at the very root of cut as proposed, and we are still inclined to pronounce against the plan when we take into consideration the large bevel that runs through the locality, and a combination of other defects tending to impair the stability.” “After the bon has been cut at the North into the hollow described an enormous portion of the same must depend on the pillars alone for its support, so that an excess of pressure is thus brought on columns as are already totally inadequate to bear it. “ “From the state of the grounds as being naturally bad in the neighbourhood of the unsettled state of your works on C floor &c., we are again of opinion that carrying on operations of such magnitude as are carried on in Rhiwbryfdir Quarry at the Back Vein above the disturbed places has a great deal to do with causing the droppings which are so troublesome and dangerous.” “We would therefore advise to oppose all such operations at Rhiwbryfdir Quarry as are likely to interfere and cause trouble at your expense, and loss of produce at your works as far as you may deem it proper to do so, and endeavour to be released from the responsibility of clearing such falls, as may be directly or indirectly caused by the new operations, and of course obtain compensation for any valuable rock as might be buried out of your reach for the remainder of the term of the Lease through such falls.” One has to look at fig. 30 again for Owen’s thinking. This was clearly not so dramatic news as Cowper Temple had expected, for he did not write himself at first, but directed Phillips to do so instead. Phillips, however, had other thoughts and after consulting one Mr. Francis, possibly William Francis Cowper Temple, wrote back that they thought it better if Cowper Temple wrote to Oakeley as he had originally intended, making the letter as informal and friendly as possible. Clearly they did not wish to offend their lessor. Further falls in the quarry from walls 9, 10 and 11 continued throughout July and August, the Committee, which consisted for this purpose of the Rt. Hon. W.F. Cowper Temple, the Hon. E.Ashley and Mr. Phillips, visiting the Quarry in September, and meeting with William Edward Oakeley, Robert Roberts and Mr. Dunlop in the disputed Back Vein. Although Dunlop and Roberts thought the precaution unnecessary, they did halt operations above chambers 10 and 11, Dunlop promising that if he saw the slightest danger affecting their quarry, acting on behalf of Mr. Oakeley, he would stop working at once. It was also agreed that no work would be done for a certain distance either side of the big bevel in any event. At the same meeting, having objected to the Middle Quarry untopping, the Welsh Slate Co. unveiled their own plans to remove the tops of the pillars and to tip the waste to the north, described in a previous chapter. As they intended cutting from east to west and removing the overburden as they went, this would have done much to relieve the walls of the pressure on them, but unfortunately, like many another scheme, it was never carried out. This particular plan foundered in a dire way for the Welsh Slate Company. A long correspondence began after the meeting, in which the Welsh Slate Co. felt that Dunlop was either not telling Oakeley properly of their proposals, or that he was just ignoring them. After Dunlop refused to accept their propositions for the second or third time, they decided to go over his head to Oakeley direct, enclosing copies of the correspondence. They were certain that Oakeley, who had seemed in favour of their scheme when they met at the quarry, would bear out their complaints - they were wrong! On December the 8th, William Edward wrote to Cowper Temple in these terms: “I am in receipt of your letter of the 2nd. I should be much pleased in joining with you in trying to clear up any misunderstanding that may have arisen between your Company and myself, and I should be most glad that our long standing connection should continue for many years to come. I have again gone carefully over the whole correspondence, and fully understand your first proposition for treating the walls as an undertaking distinct from the chambers and workings now under lease..... I consider the difficulties of carrying out such a proposition so incalculable and the complications in the future so inevitable, that I cannot for one moment entertain the idea. Whether there is an extension of lease or not, that of the walls and chambers must co-terminate. “I had not forgotten that in our first negotiations for the present lease a further extension of rock (I think below DE floor) in Holland’s Quarry was under consideration, but since then I have taken the Upper Quarries into my own hands the time has passed for entertaining any such idea, though I admit at the time it might have weighed with you in coming to the conclusion that half profits was a fair basis for renewal. “Since then I have become a Quarryman myself, and I am still more confirmed in my former opinion that I should not be justified in letting for an extended number of years or any other terms. It seems to me that your other proposition is practically an extension of lease at the present royalty until 1889 and a further extension for 18 years at half profits, this for - 106 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882 the reasons given above I should be unwilling to accept. I, however, cannot see why existing interests should not be calculated, and, if necessary, be arbitrated upon. I again say how anxious I am to meet your views as far as I feel justified in the interests of myself and those that come after me.” So now the Welsh Slate Co. knew who they had to deal with, but at least the door for a renewal of the lease when the 1870 lease terminated still seemed open. Although, as described in the previous chapter, it was to be slammed in their faces. Roberts had thought Owen’s objection to the cutting of the bon a most unreasonable one, as he thought it would have a tendency to lighten the weight which was on the bon underneath. “The superincumbent weight would have been reduced by removing that quantity of rock, and I considered also that the intervening rock between the Old Vein and the Back Vein - the 95 feet - was such that we could have done no earthly injury whatever to the Old Vein.” What Roberts had proposed , he said, was “… cutting the bon to the level of about the 4th floor, continuing the “cliff” on the North side of Twll Clai along until the Twll Clai met Holland’s. We commenced on the 28th. January 1878 to win a portion of the Back Vein rock in floor 2, on the east side of Chamber A.” Roberts later recalled making a “ somewhat rough remark ” to Owen at the time: “Mr. Owen would have it that the bon was cut, and if we went on mining we would certainly bring a fall about. Mr. Owen advanced that, and said it was like cutting the chain of a thing at the back, and the consequence would be that the quarry would fall forward. I said, “Nothing of the sort, Mr.Owen, and you know it perfectly well yourself; a collapse will take place; a fall will take place, and when that collapse does take place it will take place from underneath, and excuse me telling you (I says to him) you appear to me to be just like a man who has set his house on fire, runs into the street and declares it was his neighbour who did it.” The state and prospects of the W.S.Co. workings can be seen from the following table which was prepared in 1878:

C DE F G H H (B Vn) I I (B Vn) K Total No. of 0 5 6 5 11 4 9 5 Not 45 Bargains mentioned worked in December 1878 No. of 0 1 1 1 4 2 0 3 0 12 Bargains No.13 No.12 No.10 Nos. Nos. Nos. No to 3, 4, 7, 16 & 26 18, 20, 24 bargains Exhaust 11 to exhaust in 1879 to early No. of 4 2 0 2 2 0 0 2 5 17 Bargains No.s Nos. Nos. Nos. Nos. Nos. Original to be 16, 17, 18, 19 16, 17 10, 15 23, 27 A5, 1, 2, 3 gives Opened 18, 19 & 22 20! B.Vn

As can be seen from this, the prospects were fair, but not so good as they might have been had the old western boundary been removed. As it was the Company had to look again at the prospects for deeper mining at the eastern end on K floor and below, with all their attendant problems of pumping, lifting etc. Falls continued throughout 1878 and into 1879 from all the various points in the workings viz. 11, 12, 5, 6 and No.1. The incline in A1 to H and I floors was smashed again in March and cracks appeared in the bon above walls 9, 10, and 11, Owen writing, first of all logically: “There are indications now and then that the pillars are becoming as the lower workings are advanced underground, weaker to sustain the great pressure which rests on them as a long column has not the properties of a short one without extra material to meet the load and bear it with stability.” While this was going on, Owen had parties busily at work recovering the remains of walls A3 and A4, which had been uncovered, commenting that the fall had made it very easy to extract the slabs. Cracks were now evident at very many places in the bon and above it in the quarry’s ffridd or mountain pasture land, where the road from Tal y Waenydd made its way to Tan yr Allt farm, which was just to the north west of what had been Holland’s Northern Quarry. Pillar No. 2 was particularly bad, which boded ill for the strength of the eastern end of the workings. In October, Owen made a rare statement which makes it all the more difficult to understand how he believed the cause of the pillars collapse lay above rather than beneath the roof of the Old Vein: “I am afraid the bon and ground above the pillars is slowly cutting up as it were from below, when the pillars will finally be crushed and let all into the quarry” Owen was now constantly harping on in his reports of the danger of a “large fall” always caused by the collapse of walls 9, 10 and 11, repeating frequently the refrain that the whole security of the place depended on those pillars and ignoring the gaping weaknesses of the pillars to the east... In November he examined the Rhiwbryfdir Back Vein again, “Yesterday I went all over the place at Rhiwbryfdir Quarry... I found the state of the place to be very bad and observed cracks as were never seen before, also all the drainage of the Back Vein, Rhiwbryfdir Quarry was sucked into the crevices and oozed out on H floor in your works (!), which is a very bad sign of how things are; and I really believe the grounds are fast breaking up and that the fall here will be most disastrous in its results, smashing again all the timbered levels which have been driven with so much trouble and expense, also filling several chambers from the lowest places upwards and probably destroy the bridges across the chambers on DE floors. “

- 107 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882

“The subsidence I fear is only a question of time but it is hard to tell how long the process will take to cut up the pillars which are the only columns of support. These may stand for a while, not long, but the grounds are cut up already from all indications to a great extent.” There was, of course, no dispute about the weak pillars at the top in Rhiwbryfdir’s Old Vein as has been mentioned, and it is certain that there were cracks in the Old Vein floors in the areas described by Owen, but so convinced was Owen that the roof was held up by the cohesion of the rock layers making it up, and so adamant that the pillars were not the primary support, that the very evidence of what was occurring to the pillars at Rhiw where the load on the pillars was reduced was not related to what was happening to the eastern walls where the weight was not relieved, and where the rock had been exposed to the elements and worked the greatest and deepest. Once again, see fig. 30. , It was during 1879 that the Slate Mines Special Rules were established in the mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog. These laid down the rules for every working man and manager relating to practices for blasting, equipment etc. They were really a distillation of the regulations of the 1872 Act put in a way that every man could understand them. A copy was made available to every man and latterly there was a space for him to sign it or make his mark to show that he understood that he was bound by them and had read them or had had them read to him. The rules were also of necessity printed in Welsh, as that was the working language of the quarry. The Factories and Workshops Act of 1878 was now also held to apply to the quarry mills as these came within the definition of “pitbanks”. This and subsequent Acts regulated the employment of boys and imposed on the owners the need to fence machinery, provide sanitary accomodation etc. This meant in fact that the mills were now under two Inspectors one for each Act. Further mention of the Special Rules and how they were interpreted in the later Oakeley quarries will be found in a further volume. In November Owen had to admit that he could find no cracks in the surface above Rhiwbryfdir, but he could find cracks below. He decided the place might stay up for a long while. He was far from clear in his own mind and wrote: “I do not see how the bon in the locality can stand for long the disturbances that are going on without giving way on a large scale even as far as Back Vein of Rhiwbryfdir Quarry, for more decided indications of such being the case are observed every day in the great alteration that is taking place in the cracks, which proves beyond doubt that the grounds are breaking up to release bodily on a great area. The roof at the disturbed place has given way above your works (!) so as to form a large hollow, extending the width of two pillars and three chambers, and is therefore a long span unsupported to bear up the tremendous weight to the surface of the bon, so that its natural tendency is, after what has happened, to break up and fall, and of the probability of such an event some fresh evidence is discovered all the time.” “The Chambers and hollows at the Back Vein Rhiwbryfdir Quarry just opposite the weakness, is the cause of the ground to be so ready to cut up after the large quantity which has already fallen down..” The Secretary’s reply was somewhat muddled, stating that they were not bound by any lease to clear falls Owen’s large fall occurred on the 29th, June 1880, when the gap above 9, 10 and 11 in Rhiwbryfdir finally gave way, filling chambers 8, 9, 10 and 11 with rubbish. The traffic roads were blocked on floors C, DE, F and G, but only 18 bargains were stopped. Owen thought he would be able to get DE working again within a few days as he only had to repair the bridge which had been brought down. F and G, however, would take about 6 weeks to timber through the falls. He said, “It feels rather disheartening to fight against such bad grounds as in Rhiwbryfdir Quarry when all their rubbish is coming down into your Quarry, but under the circumstances I suppose I have nothing to do but to do my best with all the difficulties...” “I am afraid that more might give way above chambers 10 and 11 in Rhiwbryfdir Quarry.... Present fall has not done much harm to the above quarry yet, only about two days work clearing the traffic road... The whole mass of ground has come down into our quarry as well as the water finding its way down to us. The lowest limit level of the Upper quarry may give way, and if this will be the case, the water at the above place will find its way and spoil our works, and the present appliances for pumping will be found far too short...” Owen was also now troubled with walls 5 and 6 where the DE bridges rested on them. A fall in July resulted in desperate measures being taken to keep the bridge up. Forty feet was added to the length of the bridge. The bridges were “strengthened” by drilling holes in the roof to hold and fix extra transverse supports under the bridges hung by strong wrought iron stays - that is the weight of the bridges was hung from the roof itself rather than relying upon the walls at either end. Boulders “ran” down the fall in the chambers, striking the bridges and resting against them. The bridge in Chamber 1 had had to be repaired no less than 3 times. Several chambers were in fact so full by now that concern was expressed that any more blocks would slide over the fall and carry away the bridges completely. Once again Owen complained about the work in the Back Vein, in such terms as to confuse the secretary and having to clarify thus: “In my weekly letter of last Saturday I meant to say that the Back Vein in Rhiwbryfdir Quarry is worked at the present moment in the way I described, but they cannot work from Pillar 12 to 8 on account of the place having come down, but from pillar 8 to no.3 eastward the pillars are worked in every place where they can find slates in them. “ “They are taking out as much as they can of the valuable blocks leaving the rubbish behind in the chambers and no doubt they mean to pick out as much as possible of the good slate rock before the top portion of the ground will fall into it. Now the most important question to our Company is, will the thickness between their Back Vein and the Clay Slant of your quarry stand up when the upper portion falls in. I believe the thickness between them and our clay slant on their lower floors is much thinner than on their top floors, and therefore I am afraid when their Back Vein will come down it will break through our Clay Slant, and consequently let all the rubbish fall into your quarry. I feel more than anything that they are picking out the valuable rock near the gap in pillar 8, which so naturally weakens the place, and whatever the quantity that will release here it will run down direct through our chambers 8 and 9..... There is now a new bon made by the fall in the gap above Back Vein Rhiwbryfdir Quarry right down into Main Vein, therefore the thickness between both veins is cut through.” See fig 30 - 108 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882

Owen had tried to get an answer on the 30th. July 1879: “I have been through the Middle Quarry yesterday with Mr. Dunlop and Mr. Roberts, and talk over matters alluded to in your letters, and he promised not to work near the large bevel just opposite to what has already given way, but they are going on with other chambers opposite to 4,5 and 6 chambers. In my opinion some portion of the Back Vein will fall in, and they are of opinion that the thickness overlying the clay slant is strong enough to hold what may release so as not to come down to this quarry. If this will be the case the fall will do no harm to us so long as it will not push through the clay slant, but if the place will be too weak, no doubt it will spoil this quarry altogether.” And the following day: “On Monday I met Mr. Dunlop at Rhiwbryfdir Quarry to go into the matter of carrying on operations at the Back Vein on floors No.1, 2 and 3 of that quarry to the east of pillar 12. He has now it appears stopped operations altogether on floor 1, because several of the bargains have exhausted, but the pillars are dug into and removed bodily on the second floor. Mr. Dunlop and his advisers dispute the danger of doing any harm with the mode in which operations are carried on, but I am far from agreeing with them that the plan adopted is safe, and secure, because I have been taught to learn that the character of the ground is such that it will never bear the treatment that is applied to remove the valuable rock which is evident to any practical man. Had we some proof that the thickness overlying the clay slant and between it and the Back Vein have the tendency to hold together and stand after the vein is removed, we might be safe, but in the absence of such a fact, after the experiences of the late fall, we have no alternative but to complain.” Roberts was later to comment on this letter as follows: “Did the Back Vein “fall in” and knock a hole through the thickness between the Back and Old Veins - or did not the thickness scale off from the Old Vein upwards towards the Back Vein and expose, I believe, the Ithfaen Coch ? - Yes !” Regarding the walls 12 and 13 he also said, “They are up still and shows that the only thing wanted with the others was care. No.s 10 and 11 were referred to by Owen several times as weak in his own Quarry - note that thousands of tons came down as far back as July 3rd. 1880” Owen’s complaints were listened to as already described by Roberts, but neither side could see the other’s point of view. Dunlop stopped the work in this fashion: “... both Mr. Robert Roberts and myself were under the impression that Mr. Robert Owen left here satisfied with the mode of working this part of this quarry referred to; however, be that as it may, I have given directions to-day to stop the workings in chambers A and B on floor 2, at once, and in chamber C the end of this month. You may assure your Committee that nothing will be done by Mr. Oakeley in working the quarries in his own hands to the prejudice of his lessees. I cannot admit Mr. Robert Owen’s contention in the matter, but nevertheless give your Company the benefit of the doubt.” Owen demanded that Roberts guarantee that the Clay Slant could withstand such a fall as he described. Not surprisingly both Dunlop and Roberts refused to do this. In August, 1880 Owen claimed that Roberts had admitted that the Back Vein was insecure, Roberts naturally denied this, saying that what he had ventured to suggest to Owen was that the W.S.Co. quarry would subside and fall forward, dragging in the Back Vein with it in the manner that Owen suggested. Wall 5 finally gave way under the DE bridge in September 1880, the repairs this time being nothing if not dramatic - the new span of the bridge was now two chambers and one pillar and a few feet into pillar 6 over a “hollow”, the whole bridge being suspended from the clay slant roof by iron bars. Even Owen admitted that he did not know whether the slant could stand a loaded truck over the bridge as “we never had occasion to do such things before” . Owen was now anticipating a fall around wall 6, on account, he said, of the “bench” along it having been removed at the advice of Mr Spooner many years before. This he believed, would bury up the best spot in the whole quarry. January 1881 brought signs that the clay slant was at last beginning to show signs of weakness. Owen wanted help from the Committee, at least by sending Phillips up to see for himself and “to consult and arrange what had better be done to meet the fate of a worse calamity in every respect than any as can possibly happen to interfere with the value of their property” Jones appeared at the quarry on the 29th January, “.. and he gave me most particular instructions to work the chambers narrower especially on the lower floors. This will cause a great loss to our Company but after all as the pillars are rather small it may be the best course in the end.” This reference to pillars may refer to the lengths of slab got from the chambers, the larger the “pillars” (‘pillars’ in this instance meaning the blocks for slate making) the more slates could be obtained. This was sometimes referred to as “large rock.” Jones now began to complain about the walls, saying they had been undermined, and questioning the traditional method of laying out a chamber and pillar, which was to measure 90 feet along the clay slant, allowing 50 feet for chamber and 40 feet for pillar. Dunlop wrote to W S Co., “On the 25th. ultimo, in company with your Manager, Mr. Robert Owen, and the two sub-managers Richard Lloyd and William Owen, my assistant Mr. Jones, in pursuance of my instructions made an extended inspection of your Company’s quarry, and carefully measured the various chambers where it appeared the walls had been weakened by widening the chambers much beyond their normal width. And I regret to state the cases in which this has been done are very numerous, and the extent to which the walls have been weakened, make it in my opinion almost a marvel that the whole of the workings east of wall 12 have not collapsed long ago, and (while acting without prejudice to any claim Mr. Oakeley may have against your Company for improper working), I must call your Company’s immediate attention to the enormously increasing danger of collapse caused by greatly extending the length of the walls and the working of the lower chambers in widths that are neither authorised by the lease nor calculated to maintain the quarry in proper working order and free from falls. I do not know if your Company, or possibly yourself, have ever had the method of laying out the chambers properly explained to them, and Mr. Robert Owen admitted that he had never looked at it in its proper light before. the following explanation will perhaps simplify this letter.”

- 109 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882

“The Main, or opening level on each floor is driven under the clay slant, and the chambers are opened up from this to the floor above. In laying out the walls and chambers all through the quarry, it has been the invariable rule to measure off 40 feet for the wall and 50 feet for the chamber along the level, or 90 feet for wall and chamber.” “ As a matter of fact, however, the levels cut across the walls and chambers on the skew, and not on the square, and form an angle therewith of from 50 to 55 degrees only instead of a square or right angle of 90 degrees, and the actual width of the walls and chambers, although set out in the levels at 90 feet, is in reality but 78 feet when measured square across, or 34 feet 6 inches for the wall and 43 feet 6 inches for the chamber.” “Hence it follows that every foot the chambers are cut over and above the 43 feet 6 inches must be taken out of the walls, and as the undercutting or widening is always on the east side of the chambers, it is that part of each wall which suffers. Mr. Owen has unfortunately never looked at the matter in this light, and hence has always cut the chambers 50 feet wide at the least when measured square across, not considering that in doing so he was taking 6 feet 6 inches from the wall, thus leaving the wall only 28 feet thick instead of the 34 feet 6 inches as laid out.” “ Not only has this principle been pursued in the quarry generally, but even the 50 feet has been largely exceeded in many of the chambers where it was most desirable the walls should be left full strength, and I must specially call your attention to the width of the chambers on Floor DE, Chamber 15 = 52’6”, Ch.16 = 54’6”; Floor H, Chamber 3 = 58’, Ch.4 = 57’6”, Ch.5 = 58’, Ch.7 = 59’6”, Ch.8 = 60’; Floor I, Chamber 1 = 50’6”, Ch.2 = 53’, Ch.3 = 53’, Ch.4 = 57’6”, Ch.7 = 51’.” See figs. 31 and 32 for the relationship of the pillaring and working. Owen insisted it was necessary to consider the “average” width of a pillar when considering its strength, Jones objecting that the minimum widths were not being adhered to. Jones wanted all the walls to be left 40 feet wide, but Owen insisted that this was impossible as the whole quarry had been done the traditional way, and could not be changed. That this only required him to leave the walls wider as he worked the chambers forward does not seem to have been emphasised. An internal correspondence of some note now occurred as Owen and Phillips exchanged letters in which Owen had to admit that there were walls in the quarry that were not only less than the 40 feet, but less than the 30 feet required by the lease. He stated that this was “unavoidable” due to joints in the rock, accidents, places where parts fell out and so on, he even admitted, and was quickly hushed up for saying so, that chambers might have been worked too wide. Owen pointed out that what he meant was that if a chamber was more than 50 feet wide, he considered it worked too wide, as he relied on his measured 90 feet. If a chamber was 60 feet wide, he said, then the wall had to be 30 feet thick at that point. He assumed, of course, that all his chambers and walls were absolutely parallel. Phillips wrote to Dunlop on the 23rd. February as follows: “With regard to your remarks on the probability of a collapse of some of the walls, I am desired by the Committee to say that they have for a long time been painfully aware that there is a great danger of a further heavy fall in the Quarry, which would prove a very disastrous affair for this Company but they believe the cause of such a danger is not to be found in the mode in which the quarry has been worked by this company. My Committee have always been most anxious to do everything possible to prevent such a catastrophe, fearing that the results would be detrimental to the interests both of Mr. Oakeley and this Company, contrary to the opinion which you have often expressed, that a great fall would be for the benefit of both.” Dunlop was later to deny that he ever suggested that it was to the benefit of the Welsh Slate Co., although indubitably to the benefit of Mr. Oakeley because the measure of damages could be ascertained more easily than if it fell in 6 months after he took possession, when the question of dilapidations would have to be considered. He admitted that the fall would be in the interests of Mr. Oakeley, as the Welsh Slate Company would have to remove it, and he would gain an advantage therebye. The row developed again about the system of measuring the width with Jones and Owen at loggerheads. As in 1876 , Brunton was called in and predictably Owen even disagreed with his suggestions as to how the chambers should be opened, complaining that if he did so, 1ft. 6in. would have to be taken off every pillar. Again see figs. 31 and 32. In an effort to avoid the access to chambers being blocked or otherwise affected by the fall, it was decided to drive levels behind the hards wherever this was practicable, using short curved levels to enter the chambers. This had already been tried successfully in the W.S.Co.’s Back Vein, but unfortunately this method was both slower and more expensive than driving the opening level beneath the clay slant and was not taken up on a large scale. It was also suggested that dams be built along the edge of each floor to contain the water and divert the drainage, this was not followed up by the W.S.Co. for similar reasons, but was adopted as standard practice by the Oakeley Company and in other slate mines. There was now a hole right through pillar 5, making it a pillar in fact as well as name. Owen complained that the new tunnel he was driving for diverting the traffic on H floor clear of wall 1, or what remained of it, was going on very slowly as he could not get anybody to work the night shifts, as they were afraid that the pillar might suddenly give way and close them in. It will be noted that most falls occurred late in the evening or early in the morning and even today the men say that they do not like to go underground at night for then, they say, “the rock wakes up and speaks.” By February of 1881 chambers A5 and No.1 were still suffering as Owen steadfastly advanced them, they were still the best paying bargains, the slates being strong and finely cleaved. the approaches to the H and I inclines which fed the slate to the Vertical balance which had been completely buried were free again, but water was still a problem, and the K engine was constantly at work trying to keep the floor dry. Wall 1’s gradual collapse along with No.6 above H floor continued into March, finally exposing the old tunnel on floor G to view along its length. Fully half the width of old wall 1 was now down. Despite this, chamber No.1 on I was being worked forward unabated. Wall 8, which had so far been unscathed, began to show signs of strain when a small fall came - 110 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882 down from its eastern side in April, followed by further falls from A5 onto G and H. A1 gave way again damaging the newly repaired H and I inclines. On April 21 1881 Dunlop wrote to Phillips, in London, after a lengthy series of letters about the problems of the western mine boundary. It will be remembered that the chambers were supposed to be kept one in advance of the other throughout the workings, each floor above the other. However, now there was a problem.

“Re-Arrangement of Extreme Mine Boundary “ “Referring to your letter of May 24, 1879, and to the subsequent correspondence between us on the above matter, I have recently had my attention called to the fact that your Company (having been allowed to cut a ceiling bon in chamber 20 on Floor C and to abandon the chamber on that floor) are now working chamber 20 on DE and F floors and as that is the last entire chamber before the Mine Boundary is reached your Manager Mr. Robert.Owen on the occasion of our inspection of your Quarry on the 23rd. ult. pointed out the pressing necessity of an immediate understanding being come to for the re- arrangement of the Mine Boundary, so as to enable your Co. to keep the Quarry in proper shape and order and to maintain the make. “ “ I have therefore again gone fully into the whole question and as it is in the interest of both Lessor and Lessees that the Quarry should be properly worked and developed I am prepared (without prejudice to the Lessors claim that your Co. are bound by the working clauses of your lease to work each lift one Chamber in advance of the next lower one all through the Quarry and that you cannot work any floor in advance of those above.) to recommend the Lessor to agree to such an alteration of the Mine Boundary as will give your Co. a substantial increase of slate rock subject to your agreeing to certain stipulations hereinafter mentioned. “ “On the accompanying plan the present advanced workings on all the floors down to H, also the position of the Middle Quarry’s Advanced workings are shewn by the purple shading and colouring: the probable position of the extensions of the various floors down to K are shewn by Red lines; and the position of the Extreme Mine Boundary of the Lease as laid down on the surface June 15th. 1880 is shewn by the green line. “ “I am willing to recommend to Mr. Oakeley to do away with the Extreme Mine Boundary and to substitute for it the following arrangement viz.: that your Co. be allowed to go, on floor C as far as and including chamber 25 and for that purpose to be at liberty to drive and open up the chambers South of the present Clay Slant as in the lowest floor of the Middle Quarry, and if necessary to cut ceiling bones below the level of their Floor 1 where the workings are in advance of theirs; on floor DE up to and including chamber 24; on floor F up to and including Chamber 23; on floor G up to and including chamber 22; on H floor up to and including Chamber 20 and on Floor K up to and including chamber 19. “ “ This arrangement will give your Co. over the Boundary 5 additional Chambers on C; 4 on DE, as the greater part of chamber 21 will be over the Boundary under C floor.; 2.5 on F and 1 on G; or a total of 12.5 bargains (coloured pink on plan) besides enabling you to open and work chamber 21 on F, G and H; against which your Co. will surrender their claim to work part of chamber 22 on H, chambers 21 & 22 on I & chambers 20, 21, 22 & part of 23 on K, coloured green on plan or a total of 5 whole and two parts of bargains, and this is including floor K which you would recollect was not commenced when the lease was granted. “ “The stipulations on behalf of Mr. Oakeley are that the row of 6 cottages at Tre’r ddol under the Upper Quarry Mill Tip shall be vacated and given up as may become necessary for that tip; and that Mr. Oakeley shall have the right of tipping on the meadow adjoining, from his Quarries, this will require but a small proportion of it for some years and your manager will therefore suffer but little damage to or loss of his pasture field. “ “Of course this arrangement if entered into shall not be held to affect or vitiate any of the clauses stipulations or conditions of the lease except as so far as regards the Mine Boundary. “ “ I trust that in considering this your Committee will see that in advising Mr. Oakeley to meet the difficulty in a liberal spirit, I am anxious to prevent what on the one hand will be a sacrifice on your part of a certain amount of Slate rock, which you consider you are entitled to win, in the chambers affected by the present Mine Boundary; and on the other hand to obviate the necessity of resorting to measures for preventing a serious injury being done to the Quarry by your Co. throwing it out of workable form for future development either by yourselves or Mr.Oakeley. “ An answer at your convenience will oblige, “ It is clear that this was agreed to, for W.S.Co. plans of 1883 and 1884 show the new chambers beyond the boundary, and mention has already been made of the transfer of Tre’r Ddol. Falls from walls 4 and 5 continued into June, by July a lookout had been placed below the DE bridges to warn of any change. Wall 2 was also showing signs of imminent collapse due to the fast crumbling wall 1. In late July wall 4 at last gave way along the clay slant above the bridges stopping DE, F, G, H and I floors. The roof being carried away meant that there was now no way to restore the bridges , which had been supported from the roof. Chambers 1 and 2 on K floor were stopped by a fall from wall 1, chamber 1 now being worked on K floor below I. The bridges over chambers 2 and 5 were removed as of no further use. Wall 6 was on the move with a vengeance now, two falls in July being followed with a promise of more to come when a portion of the Clay Slant roof from chambers 1 to 6 came down. Another fall from wall 3 left a hole right through it, this was followed by a fall from wall 2 under the site of the bridge, while a bridge in I floor was also carried away. Falls from the roofs now became frequent, especially from the already disturbed roof above chambers 1 to 6, holes appearing in walls 6 and 3. Small falls also troubled K floor. In October falls came down from walls 4, 7, 2 and 3 the latter two running down to K floor. There were more collapses from the Clay Slant above chambers 4, 5 and 6. November brought falls in order from walls 3 and 5, the roofs of chambers A5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 while the rock was now able to run down to chamber 1 on L floor . which had only just been opened through to K – presumably it had been opened the full width as a roofing shaft would have been rather narrow for the - 111 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882 rock to run down.. All the engines were working round the clock now, hauling during the day and pumping during the night to keep K and L floors from flooding. Trial levels were being driven despite these difficulties as far as chamber 3 on L floor. Robert Roberts and Robert Owen began the year well by disagreeing about events occurring at wall 17 on C floor. Roberts insisting that Owen’s men were working incorrectly and Owen insisting, as usual, that this was purely accidental and part of the inevitable working of the rock. Owen pointed out that the Rhiwbryfdir Co. had cut a bench some 14 feet wide into the side of wall 16 for a roadway, reducing the width of the wall to 26 feet, while wall 17, Owen said, was at least 33 feet 6 inches wide. Dunlop agreed that the Middle Quarry should try to help prevent the water running down from their quarry into the Welsh Slate Co. but not surprisingly did not suggest how this might be achieved. Uncertainty continued as to the right to work falls from walls, Dunlop being quite clearly of the opinion that any work near the walls, or which tended to reduce their strength or support could not be tolerated. Owen, on the other hand, was certain that once the rock had fallen, they were within their rights to work it, whether their operations had any effect on the walls or not. Owen said of Dunlop, “ It is too hard for him to object to us having all such remains of pillars that are of no support to the roof. ” The point at issue seems to have been whether the fallen blocks were of any use, Owen feeling them to be redundant once they had fallen, Dunlop insisting that they be left to give what support they could. The test levels on L floor proved favourable and after trying the thickness of the vein and obtaining 27 yards, it was decided to drive further east and west and open more chambers. Falls in A5, 1, 2 and 3 filled up these chambers on I, K and L floors, restoring the position to that before the last fall had commenced. The rubbish in these chambers was now 5 floors deep. In February Owen wrote: “Our safety hereafter depends entirely upon the stability of pillars A5 and No.7 to bear up the weight overlying them. Should these give way as the others which have done so already, our doom is settled beyond question.” Wall 7, it will be remembered, was the one not unroofed in 1865 because it was “poor” rock with many joints..... Cowper Temple, by now Lord Mount-Temple felt sufficiently interested in what was going on to write to Owen enquiring as to the state of the quarry and suggesting that the hard trap rock should be left where it had fallen rather than go to the expense of clearing it. Owen tactfully replied that it was in his Lordship’s interests for him, Owen, to keep on clearing it as the “spot hereby covered over is the best and most promising in the quarry.” See fig 63 By March of 1882 Owen felt that falls from the roof of A5 and the increasingly rickety pillar no.1 were grave as “I feel more uneasy and anxious all the time the scene of disturbance is transported to this part of the quarry, because Pillar A5 stands in front and is the only column left in the line of the bad place to support the bon.” Falls also occurred from the roof of chamber 6 above I floor and from chamber 5. Owen wrote again to Lord Mount- Temple on the 28th. March: “As things remain at present, Pillar A5 and No.7 form the principal columns of support to the bon and ground above for a very long surface in a direct line East and West underground and although all of them are not altogether impaired at the outside at South End still the roof left without means to bear it up covers an extensive area even North and to South.” It is not known whether Owen was directly responsible for this particular piece of gibberish, or whether it was badly transcribed by his assistant. He continued, “Should the ground finally give way, which is embraced within the limits of the space referred to the result would be most disastrous in the extreme, and probably cut up as far as the Back Vein Rhiwbryfdir Quarry, causing all the spoil therebye contained to deposit onto your Lordship’s property, but leaving as far as I can judge beforehand, Rhiwbryfdir and Holland’s Quarries very little disturbed.” A copy of this was sent to the secretary and he replied that he supposed from what had been said about the vein north of their main vein, the probability was that it would be wider below L floor and asked if it would pay to go to M floor in that vein, or was the lease too short. He was clearly not going to worry his head about Owen’s tales of collapsing pillars, Owen had been predicting the total collapse of wall 1 for nearly ten years by this time, and it was still for the most part standing. It is thought that once again, the reference here is to the part of the vein to the north of the “North Spar”, not the true Back Vein, but in fact part of the Old Vein. In April wall 7 was mentioned for the first time as being “unsettled” while new cracks were discovered in pillar 8. May brought falls from the roof above the K incline and chamber A3 on I was stopped due to cracks in the roof. A fall occurred from wall 7 on I floor. Falls continued into June, Owen writing: “The best and most profitable blocks are fallen into H floor.... I hope in course of time to be able to reclaim them all and some extra-ordinary method must be adopted to get at them, which is a plan I propose to carry out by sinking down from G floor at the south side in each chamber until enough room is cleared at the bottom of H floor to go on in the ordinary way.... Some parts independent of the slate bargains must be depended upon to keep up the make whilst the slate rock continues so inferior in quality as at present.” Falls from walls 7 and 8 now blocked the roadway on H floor and a man had to be employed as a lookout during the passage of both men and horses to try and prevent any accident, although what he could have done remains in doubt. Owen commented, “From the frequent droppings and falls here and there in the neighbourhood of bad pillars... we are forewarned of a more serious catastrophe that will happen some day, for the place is fast undermining, but how long the process will take to cut up to the open ground is a matter for very careful observation.” Despite the frequency of falls, relatively few were injured by them. Owen’s timbered levels suffered more than anything, for no sooner had he constructed them than new falls came down or the waste slipped and crushed them. He commented, “Seeing that pillar A5 and A4 are undermining, I feel most anxious as to the ultimate result of the process, and the effect it will have on the state of the roof in the neighbourhood and for a great distance to the west. Until recently the pillar showed no signs of disturbance and formed, as it were, a keystone to all the others, so long as it would stand, and I trust it will yet . “ - 112 - Oakeley Slate - 15. Prelude to Disaster 1878-1882

“I also have to inform you that the advanced workings are not marked on the plans for more than 12 months. Her Majesty’s Inspector may press for them although he has not yet given me notice to that effect.” In July a horse was shut in by a fall from wall 1 on G floor and was not released until 10 o’clock the following morning when the roadway was cleared. Pillar A5 was preying on Owen’s mind, he wrote: “It is in a very disturbed state... I am afraid if Pillar A5 gives way on a large scale, our doom is settled.” Pillar 7, one of the former “keystones” was now described thus: “So much has already come out of it that there is very near a hole through it and on the other side of the said chamber pillar 8 is in a very bad condition, full of large cracks threatening to give way on a large scale, when if such be the case four different floors will be blocked up and the position of the quarry on that account is getting more critical every day when it is taken into consideration the large extent of the surface at the roof in a certain direction that is left unsupported, through so many pillars having given way.” One Robert Jones was killed at the beginning of August in chamber 3 on G floor, Owen supplying a coffin on behalf of the Company as was usual. Good progress was being made in clearing the falls on I and K, the secretary wanted to know what could be done to improve the ventilation on K floor, as the Inspector had complained about it, although not suggesting anything. In the event a small fan was put in, although how it was driven was not recorded. DE, F and G floors were blocked for a week by falls while further falls from A5 caused Owen to repeat his warnings. September brought no improvements, Owen writing: “Everything is going on at the quarry just the same as usual, but not without obstructions almost daily at some place or other and the condition of the roof is very unsettled, large quantities often release from the roof above the clay slant extending from chamber A5 as far as chamber 6 and pillars 7 and 8 are also in a very disturbed state.” By the 23rd. falls from the roofs of chambers 1, 2, 3 and 4 caused considerable trouble on the floors, Phillips casually remarking that it looked as though they were in for a bad time. Early in October a large portion came down from wall 8 above F and G and blocked the roadways again. The H floor timbered levels were smashed again, not even “a set of props left undamaged.” A further heavy fall from the roof above chambers 1 to 4 consisted of hard rock only - an ominous sign that the layers above were breaking up. More frightening at the time was this event: “Suddenly about 4 o’clock yesterday evening, a portion released from the roof of chamber A4 above the traffic roadway of H floor when four miners were driving a timbered level through chamber 7 on that floor, and another man had gone there to order them out. At this interval, a large portion came down, enclosing the five men without any means of access to come out, which created a great alarm throughout the quarry and all the men gave up work.” In consequence, Owen gave notice that no work should be carried on and only the mills were working. The men were fortunately able to work their way out through the rubbish about 6 to 8 yards with the others clearing a little at the east end. About an hour after the men had left the quarry, the whole top of chamber A4 came down and filled the place up even more. In November, Owen reported: “Pillar A5 is in such a condition that none of the men will venture to repair the timbered tunnel that was crushed by the fall. Of late we had to depend on the assistance of falls to keep up the make but for the last pay owing to so many difficulties the yield in this direction was greatly reduced and for new pay there is nothing very promising and on that account together with the stoppage of operations on H floor for the last 7 or 8 days the make of pay which ends today cannot be equal to the last pay.” A new fall from wall 7 made a hole clear through it. Chambers A4 and A5 were given up again owing to the rubbish in them and floor L was again flooded for several days. On the 10th. Owen examined the Middle Quarry tunnel to the Back Vein to look at the cracks “I was sorry to find a great change for the worse in them, all the openings and the ground breaking up as far as the top of the bon at the Back Vein. This is the main source of all the weakness and disturbances from which we suffer at present, as I predicted would be the case some years ago when I condemned the practice of cutting the base of the pillars at the place above mentioned.” One ray of light in 1882 was the passing of the Slate Mines (Gunpowder) Act which relieved the slate Mines from the section in the 1872 Mines Act which forbade the introduction of explosives into the mine in cases containing more than 4lbs. each. The owners had complained that the Metalliferous Mines Act had been drawn up and passed without consulting them (!), they pointed out that quantities of powder greater than 4lbs, were often required quickly for “second blasts” and that it was safer to carry the powder in the maker’s casks than in a tin. The new Act gave power to the Secretary of State to exempt the mines from that portion of the Act. By 1895, most of the larger Ffestiniog Quarries had received exemptions, but these were covered also by increased control by the Special Rules to prevent the powder being ignited by the rockmen’s candles. No sooner had A4 and A5 started again than they were stopped for another week by falls from the now fast crumbling wall A5. There were further falls towards the end of November and from the roof of chambers 5, 6 and 7. Owen finally wrote; “I am afraid we are daily approaching nearer to a great disaster.” Fig. 40 shows the eastern workings at this time and after. Lord Mount-Temple also wrote: “It is indeed a disastrous prospect and making timbered levels under expected falls seems a waste of strength, but I suppose Owen has employed men he thinks it best to take the chance of some good coming of it.” Phillips had a further discussion with Dunlop, and accepted the agreement to work the rock to the west of their old mine boundary - although only on the horizon of their own floors and give up the territory mentioned. This was good news, but falls from A5 continued to trickle down during the end of November and the beginning of December.

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16. RAILWAYS AGAIN When last we considered the quarries connections, the Ffestiniog Railway had been joined by the Ffestiniog & Blaenau Railway, a Holland inspired attempt to break the F.R.’s monopoly of the slate traffic. Following the successful application of steam power to the F.R., a sort of “Narrow Gauge mania” descended upon North Wales, none of the schemes being more grandiose than that of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways Company or N.W.N.G.R. for short. Their general undertaking, with its branches, connected together the towns and villages of North Wales from Corwen in the east to Caernarfon in the West via Bettws y Coed, Pen y Gwryd and . In the event, only a short line was built, but the idea alone was sufficient for the L.& N.W.R. to consider extending its from Bettws y Coed to Blaenau Ffestiniog in narrow, rather than standard, gauge. There were, as might be expected, several schemes under the L.&.N.W.R. Acts of 1872 and 1873, which gave 5 years for completion. The line was to run from Bettws up the Lledr valley through Dolwyddelan and thence tunnelling under Moel Dyrnogydd to emerge some 2 miles later by the Barlwyd at Penybont. Work had begun in earnest on the tunnel in February 1875, hand boring having been started the previous January, but the rock proved so difficult that the contractor failed, and the work had to be completed by the railway company itself, under their district engineer, William Smith. There is a stone above the Blaenau end of the tunnel commemorating his name. While this was going on, the N.W.N.G.R. general undertaking had also failed. As early as 1872 the L.&.N.W.R. had taken the decision to construct the tunnel to standard gauge dimensions and in 1873 they decided wisely to build their line to standard gauge throughout. This change of plan involved the company in considerable extra costs as the curves, viaducts etc. had all to be altered to suit the increased size and load of standard gauge vehicles. Instead of trans-shipment from narrow to standard gauge taking place at Bettws y Coed, it would have to be done in Blaenau itself The new tunnel had four intermediate shafts, two on the south side of the ridge: one of them close by the W.S.Co.’s Bonc Siafft tip and the other in the end of the valley higher up, just above Llyn Ffridd. The tunnel was through on the 4th April 1878 but completion of the line had to wait until June 1879. A temporary station was constructed immediately outside the tunnel entrance and opened on the 22nd. July. This lasted for two years, a comprehensive interchange, trans-shipment yard and station being constructed on low lying land between Rhiwbryfdir, Glanypwll and the new town centre of Four Crosses. Slate and rock waste was used to build up a substantial raised area where a comprehensive set of interchange sidings of both gauges were laid out, using standard gauge components, which gave the narrow gauge track a very massive appearance. The yard was connected directly to the F.R.’s Diffwys branch at its eastern end, which meant that in future any traffic from the Rhiwbryfdir site had to be carried there by the F.R. - not a good arrangement. However, to induce the quarries to use the new line and yard, the L.&N.W.R. constructed slate wagons similar to the FR pattern, but with L.N.W.R. axleboxes. These were run sideways onto standard gauge wagons which were intended to take the smaller trucks without unloading them along the new line to Deganwy. Here the railway company had constructed a substantial new quay where the narrow gauge wagons could be run off the trucks onto their own rails again and then unloaded into the ships. . Relatively little slate left this way at first. The inconvenience of having to use the F.R. to get their slate to the L.&.N.W.R. yard was a sore which festered for many years. Certainly, the F.R.’s sometimes wayward methods of supplying enough empty wagons to the quarries counted against them. After the bad period in 1882, mentioned in an earlier chapter, when the W.S.Co. seemed to be having it all their own way to the detriment of the Upper and Middle Oakeley Quarries, William Edward Oakeley himself threatened the F.R. that unless something was done they would make physical connection with the L. & N.W.R. and the slate would go that way. By 1881 both Oakeley and Greaves’ made direct connection to the L.& N.W.R. by means of sidings and wharves arranged on a narrow patch of land between the tips and the road, the L.&N.W.R. line splitting the site in two, with the F.R. curving beneath it and across the river to reach the Greaves’ incline. The Greaves’ connection was the simplest, the wharf lying alongside the road, fed by a branch from the foot of their incline to the F.R., giving a fairly lengthy but narrow wharf. The Oakeley connection was more difficult, it was reached by a branch which came of the lower of the two Middle Quarry inclines and curved under the W.S.Co.’s viaduct, across the W.S.Co.’s incline to the F.R., and over the outfall from Lefel Dwr. The wharf was built up from slabs and waste in a tiny cramped corner hemmed in by the railways and Lefel Dwr. There was a loop and a couple of short sidings. The L.&.N.W.R. facility consisted of a pair of short sidings, the points for which were actually in the tunnel mouth, and work on either the Oakeley or Greaves’ wharves required the shunting engine to do its work from within the confines of the tunnel. An early photograph shows the arrangement, and also the special device used to turn and run the narrow gauge wagons onto the standard gauge carriers. Fig. 49 shows Penybont in 1888. The wharf was really too small and inconvenient for the slate trade and it was soon demoted to the more pedestrian, but nevertheless essential, duty of coal wharf for the quarries many stationary steam engines. A number of photographs taken over the years show this, the wharf tracks almost buried under mounds of piled coal, the sidings full of wagons from Plas Power and Broughton collieries. The W.S.Co. had access to the wharf also, though whether this was from the beginning or was a later addition is not known. This was achieved by their incline from DE to the FR throwing of a track at the level of the wharf as a mirror image of the Middle Quarry connection on the other side of the high level bridge, their wagons then having to reverse direction to get to the wharf. It may be, as the Upper Quarry had no direct connection at all, that the odd gravity incline from the Upper mills to the Middle Quarry mills was to facilitate the movement of slate from the Upper Quarry to the wharf - an involved process. Getting the coal from the wharf up to the mills was presumably arranged by the simple expedient of balancing full slate wagons against the coal wagons at a convenient time. The arrival of the L.&.N.W.R. had caused changes to the old Welsh Slate Company viaduct. Clearly worried by the possibility of 2 ton slate blocks arriving vertically in their carriages and possibly frightening their passengers, it was strengthened and rebuilt. See illus. 40 The original structure had the form of a timber viaduct supported on three stone piers of which the westernmost was possibly the broadest, backed by a large retaining wall for the waste for much of its depth. The central pier was the smallest, - 114 - Oakeley Slate - 16. Railways Again being about 12 feet square at its apex. The eastern pier was of a similar size to its western counterpart. The viaduct consisted of a horizontal timber decking laid on cross timbers about 1 foot square which themselves rested on four longitudinal timbers approximately 1ft. 6in. deep and probably about 1foot wide which ran the full length of the bridge. These timbers were supported at either end by slab waste abutments, by the three main timber piers and by cantilevered timbers from the piers and the western abutment. Of the four spans, that at the western end was the largest, the span being about 40 feet, the centre two being about 30 feet and the eastern one about 22 feet. There were four canted beams at each end of each span to support the longitudinal timbers, with additional supporting span timbers between them at the top. The timber piers consisted of four thick single beams on a base frame. These four beams were cross braced by similar timbers. The tramway was placed on the centre, presumably with its rails over the two inner longitudinal timbers. It is possible that the rails were spiked directly to the bridge, but even a drawing which has recently come to light showing the bridge in its original state does not tell us. The base timber frame was bolted down onto the stone piers by four bolts on the north and south sides, the bolts being about 9 feet long. Their positions were later utilised to hold down the later structure. See illus. 44 The first rebuilding of the viaduct consisted of cast iron piers built up inside the original timber piers. These were made up of tubular form, approximately 10 inches in diameter, braced by rods of 1.5 inches diameter. These supported the bridge by substantial cross timbers and were themselves supported by cross timbers bolted down onto the piers. See illus. 47 and 48 for the remains. Some of this work may have begun earlier, certainly by 1878 the spans themselves were additionally trussed underneath by 1.25 inch iron rods, like the underground bridges. However, this was apparently not enough, and the inspecting officer of the L.&.N.W.R., Colonel Rich was unhappy, and instructed the L.&.N.W.R. that a man had to be placed on top of the viaduct to prevent trucks passing over the viaduct when the L.&.N.W.R. trains were due. However, he did say that when the strength of the spans was improved, then the man might be removed. See illus. 43 The next improvement involved replacing the iron and timber piers at either end of the span above the L.&.N.W.R. with brick, the existing iron piers and struts being embedded in the brick. The actual timber span was replaced with a narrow version of a standard plate girder bridge. This became L.&.N.W.R Bridge No. 172a. The viaduct remained in this form for many years. Just to complete the story of the viaduct, by 1900 all but the diagonal timber bracing had disappeared from the other spans, the iron columns bearing the full load. Shortly afterwards, the west span was replaced by a slab infilling between the western abutment and the western pier, while the iron columns of the second pier were encased in slab to the viaduct decking level. This was the final alteration before the viaduct’s destruction in 1969 when the Oakeley Quarries closed their doors. Samuel Holland, the promoter of the Ffestiniog & Blaenau, was at the back of an effort to get the Great Western Railway into Blaenau, using the F.& B. route. The company ostensibly planning to carry this out was the Bala and Ffestiniog Railway Company, backed by the G.W.R. and the intension was to construct a standard gauge line from Llangower, latterly Bala Junction, at the north end of Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake) via the valley of the Afon Treweryn, through the Arenig Mountains and thence over the ridge to Cwm Prysor. From here it passed by to an end on junction with the F. & B. at Llan Ffestiniog. The line was completed to Llan Ffestiniog by 1882 and opened in November of that year. The F.& B., had been bought by the B.& F. and therefore the G.W.R. in 1880. This was converted to standard gauge and opened throughout by August 1883. It too provided narrow gauge slate wagons and standard gauge transporter wagons to allow slates from the Manod and Craig Ddu quarries, whose lengthy incline debouched on to the F.& B. at Manod station, to be transferred to the G.W.R. at Blaenau without double handling - eventually this was found too tedious, and slate was loaded directly from the Manod wharf into open G.W.R. wagons. The new G.W.R. station at Blaenau was constructed on the old F.& B. site, but on a much larger scale. There was a station platform for the F.R. and a set of interchange sidings at various levels to facilitate the movement of goods and minerals to and from the narrow gauge. All has now gone, and the site has been buried firstly beneath a new primary school and secondly under the new F.R. and Network Rail stations. By 1884 the slate could go three ways from Blaenau, via the L.& N.W.R., via the G.W.R. and via the F.R. The threat to the F.R.’s trade was now real, the Ffestiniog and Cambrian Railways having signed a joint agreement in May 1881 in which they agreed to a joint slate rate which undercut the L.&.N.W.R.’s price of 14/11d. by 2d. In addition, the facilities at Minffordd exchange yard were improved. As a result of the competition, and the disgruntlement of the quarries, the F.R. made an agreement in 1885 with the L.&.N.W.R. to equalise charges, whichever way the slate went, but the damage to the Ffestiniog’s traffic had been done. By 1886 half of Porthmadog’s tonnage had gone to Deganwy, the cost there of loading was reckoned to be 7d. per ton less than at Porthmadog. In 1889 Oakeley leased a wharf at Minffordd yard.

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17. THE DOOM OF THE W.S.CO., 1883-1884

On the 6th. December 1882, Owen was able to write of the Great Fall at last, though it can have brought him no joy: “The long expected disasters have at last come upon us and all the quarry today is at a stand. Communications to DE, F and G floors have been blocked up completely and some rubbish covers the roadway on top of the K floor Incline. Also the incline itself have been smashed up so that we have no communication to any of the floors with the exception of I.” “This fall is much larger than the one which came seven years ago, and the rubbish heap is much higher to the Bon, and the base of the bon extends as far as the foot of C Incline and a great portion has already run down to the bottom of the K incline and we have no room to remove it only tipping into some chamber on L floor. But worse of all, a great portion of the ground yet stands up in the bon after having shifted considerably, very much like what stood up of the fall of 1876, and being immediately above K floor incline, and so dangerous that we cannot do anything to the inclines until it is taken down, and the bon made safe which will be an enormous work.” “I feel that the fall has thrown the quarry into much more confusion than the other one and I am at a loss to see my way through the difficulties as I am afraid very much of continued falls again from chamber 2 as far as chamber 8 where the pillars are cut through causing the ground in this locality to be very weak. Also the Back Vein Rhiwbryfdir Quarry will no doubt greatly assist this part to come down, and already the chambers have been filled with rubbish from such height right down to K and L floors, extending from chamber A2 as far as chamber 5” “.....I am quite at a loss to know what to do with L floor as the only possible communication was blocked up last night. The incline and machinery covered up with rubbish and now the floor is fast filling up with water. Also if the large portions of the ground that has already started will come down, Chambers A2 and A3 will be filled right to the top.” “The present disaster has done great damage to Inclines and machinery, Roadways on K and L floors...... nothing can be done until we first make the bon safe. The watercourses running through ground of Rhiwbryfdir Quarry on top of bon have been cut by the falls, so that the stream of water was all running down into the bottom of the quarry. We have only the new pump lately put in chamber 24 Back Vein on K which will not nearly be sufficient to pump out all the water in wet weather after having lost the service of the hydraulic pump that was in A2.” Owen continued his writing the following day: “The place from pillar 2 as far as chamber 6 is in a very disturbed state and coming down very often... I have been able to remove the engine and boiler from Chamber A5 on Tuesday last, which are ....in safety at the fitting shop... though we shifted one from chamber A5 the other... in chamber A3 as well as the gearing are buried by the fall.... the Bon cut much further to the east than we expected, that even the K incline and the pump in chamber A2 have been destroyed... I am glad to say that the engine and gearing are so far safe though the base of the fall extends as far as the building. ....Also after coming to within half a days work of completing the machinery ready to lift from Chamber A3 on L Floor, the fall came down covering the whole place.” Two days later he wrote again, “I am afraid... this... is only the commencement of continual falls until the whole ground extending from A5 to No.8 will come down... what came down... was part of pillar A4, all of pillar A5, parts of pillars 1 and 2 as well as a large gap to the north of the bon above the pillars mentioned, extending from the east side of pillar A3 to the east side of pillar no. 1. Really I was surprised to find the bon having cut so far to the eastward as I only expected it to break as far as chamber A4... The fall has extended much further to the north... the gap being almost parallel with the North side of the Vertical Balance Mill; the road leading from Tal y Waenydd to Tan yr Allt along the top of the bon has come down a distance of about 100 yards. ...We managed, however, to remove the small self-acting steam pump that was pumping from L on Wednesday, and is now in safety on K floor.” Further falls from the walls and bon continued but despite them Owen managed to complete an incline from G floor down to H and started a single incline in chamber 22 Back Vein on K to lift from K to I floor, and used the old slab mill engine which had been saved from A5. Owen was further troubled by falls throughout December and January as the bon kept giving way, only 4 or 5 bargains producing slates. He feared for the remains of pillar 1 coming down and smashing the semi-portable engine that was working K floor. Clay and rock was being thrown as far as the DE tunnel entrance and the H & I hauling engines outside it. Owen complained bitterly that “Having done everything in my power since the fall came down, I am now but just in the same position as a month since.” It did not help that as soon as he cleared the fall from the sidings at the foot of the C Incline, the weight of the rubbish pushed the fall over them again ! Robert Roberts wrote to Ashmore, the Oakeley Company Secretary on the 1st.Jan 1883: “The fall continues to trouble our neighbours, the Welsh Slate Company very much all day today; the pitmen were stopped this morning in the Welsh Slate. The fall over a very large area was visibly breaking up and looking so threatening that Mr. Owen felt justified in sending a messenger to me to say that he considered it unsafe even for us to work from the indications he saw both underneath and at the surface in the Welsh Slate. In consequence I stopped all our men as soon as possible after obtaining the message which found me about 11.30 p.m. In the meantime I had examined chambers B, C, D, E, F and G and our floor 2 and found nothing there to indicate a fall. I have also examined wall 12 and chamber 12, 2, A.V. and found no indications of anything fresh before I had learnt of all the mischief in the Welsh Slate. This afternoon I went to the Welsh Slate to see the cracks - at all events some of them - which had caused so much excitement in the Welsh Slate. The biggest and most threatening, about 15 inches wide at 2.30 p.m. (continually widening) is about 30 yards to 40 yards north of the extreme point of the break after the last fall. The strain on walls 1 and 2 is considerable, but most of the mischief is done by the breaking of the quarry from underneath. I fail, however, at present to reconcile myself to the thought it will interfere with us, unless of course, wall 12 go on account of great and frequent vibration.” Roberts continued on 2nd. Jan 1883: “With us the fall scare is over. We recommenced in earnest this morning, nothing having happened with us either yesterday or last night, nor could I find anything again this morning as likely to happen to us soon. Although the scare is over with us, it is not so in the Welsh Slate Company over a large area of the quarry. As I told you yesterday, the condition of wall 12 is bad, but then we have one alternative we could make ready in a couple of - 116 - Oakeley Slate -17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Co. 1883-1884 days or so in so far as floor 2 Back vein is concerned; I say nothing at present respecting floor 3 Back vein. The rough sketch - the dotted line will show you the ground that is now breaking up. The remotest cracks are about 271 feet in a straight line from the road to Tan yr Allt. The 15-inch crack which I spoke to you about yesterday, is this afternoon fully 2 yards, and several minor ones made their appearance since I was there yesterday. Two floors of the Welsh Slate Quarry have been flooded, and no wonder too, taking all the mishaps and the fall of rain into consideration. From the above, you will note that when wall 1 goes, walls 2 and 3 will probably follow, and the fall, when it comes, will work its way on a curve (having hollowed underneath to my Ffridd, where you will find the dotted circle, or thereabouts) first taking away a corner of the Back vein and on to wall 3 or 4 - probably 3 At present it is too confined a place to do very much more mischief. Should you think this report of sufficient importance, kindly forward it to Mr. Dunlop.” Meanwhile Owen was getting attacked from all sides. Colonel C.LeNeve Foster, the Government Inspector of Mines ordered Owen to cease working the fall in Chamber 7 on F Floor, as it infringed the Slate Mines Special Rules. Owen complained bitterly, while obeying, “This was the only place in the falls, all through the Quarry where I could find slates in!” He decided to leave the K engine where it was as pillar 1 was not much worse. Thomas Jones was also adding to the problems by insisting that the Tan yr Allt road be re-built by the W.S.Co. The C Incline was still buried at its foot and Owen stated, “We have not advanced an inch, only the depth of clay is getting thinner.” By the beginning of February, K floor was clear of water again and the Back Vein was able to restart work. However the Quarry was once again in trouble with the Inspectorate, this time over the death of one D.O.Roberts and Owen wrote: “To be up to the letter of the law when the quarry is in such a disturbed state places me in a very important and serious condition as being responsible for the safety of each individual person employed.” Falls occurred from walls 3, 4, 5 and 6 in “large portions” , Owen finally commenting on February 15th. 1883, “I am afraid that very soon it will give way in this place, (Chamber 4) to the Back Vein of the Middle Quarry, and after this will be the case it will naturally form an open side for a very large fall, I have always been afraid of this.” The irony was that Owen’s and his predecessors operations at the eastern end of the quarry had, in fact already provided the open side, it was really a matter of how long the rock could stand the strain. The final catastrophic fall could no longer be delayed, and on February 16th. 1883, the slate of the mountain had its revenge on its tormentors. Owen wrote in despair: “I telegraphed this morning of the great disaster that happened at eight o’clock. What I expected many years ago has taken place today, but on a much larger scale than I ever thought of, no man on earth would have dreamt of the bon cutting so far into the north as it has done, having cut so far that there is no choice of the water but to have its course any way only to run directly into the bottom of the quarry....” “...The area of ground that has come down this morning extends from pillar 1 to pillar 6 and both pillars 6, 7 and 8 very likely will be down before long, as the ground is very uneasy all day. The Men at Middle Quarry have stopped working this morning, though they can go on for anything that happened by the disaster today, but the ground above the ... pillars is too dangerous for them to venture under.” “I have stopped all the quarry until Monday morning at least. The semi-portable engine ... is covered up with rubbish, also the blacksmith’s shop , as well as the drumhouse of the F balance and F incline is nearly covered to the level of DE floor....” “The quarry has been all upset and thrown out of order with the exception of the G balance and H & I incline and machinery, also the pumps are all safe. The traffic roads at the bottom of C hauling incline are filled up to a good height.” “If I write for a week I cannot explain to you the disaster.” Owen now pleaded for Phillips and Ashley to come up and see for themselves. The secretary replied that he was astonished at the extent of the fall, and was most anxious to see it, but unfortunately he had an important meeting in London to attend while Ashley could not possibly come as he had duties in Parliament, but he did hope that the slate in the walls could be got at to help them in their trouble ! Robert Roberts described the disaster to Dunlop from his point of view thus: “ The great collapse happened about 7- 30 this morning. The pit men had all save the miners been kept on the bank; because the place had been noticed before 7 to be actively breaking up. If you have my report to Mr. Ashmore of January 2nd. of the then fall, it will enable you to follow me better, perhaps.” “About 7 a hole came through into the Ffridd of the Oakeley Middle Quarry at point A (see map). After a while there was a pleasant lull, sufficiently to justify myself with Owen Jones, my assistant, to go underground to explore before, as I thought, of sending the men inside to work as usual, having my suspicions that more slips might shortly follow.” “I first took the 4th. floor and down the old floor in chamber 8 and into 3 floor and so inside and along wall 12, down chamber I in the Back Vein on 2 floor and went as far as the bridge over chamber E and found that everything as far as wall C east was all right. I thus returned and came out along wall 12 on floor 2. On coming out I observed walls 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 were to look at much the same as they were yesterday, raising my head, however, I saw a crack through the Ithfaen Coch from top to bottom, right over chamber 5. I held my hand up, showed Owen Jones the crack and said to him, “It is up, let us be off!” I had a wagon in readiness at the foot of the incline on floor 2, signalled and up we went. In about five minutes after getting on top the whole bon from wall 1 to chamber 5 was moving and in a very few minutes it collapsed and was complete wreck burying the whole of the Steam Engine of Welsh Slate on D or DE floor, I forget the letters by which you call it.” “Pity everything connected with the slip was not so grand as to see such a mass moving and breaking asunder.” “Before the final crash, I had given warning to our men to get under cover. Some obeyed and some did not. In consequence however, one of the men who stood on the 5th. floor was hit by a stone which weighed about 1 lb. The stone came as though it came from a sling. The unfortunate fellow had to be taken home on horseback.” “At the time of writing, 3-30 p.m., we are all right. Walls 6, 7 and 8 are now standing and foot of incline clear, but I must confess I am now afraid of the collapse of wall 6 and of course, should 6 go, 7 and 8 will surely follow sooner or later. I was down between 2 and 3 on floor 2 with Owens, and the reports from the cracking which was going on in walls 6, 7 and 8 - 117 - Oakeley Slate -17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Co. 1883-1884 were loud and disagreeable. The fall won its way through from underneath into the Ffridd at point A and travelled East and Wall 1 began to reel, so to speak, and dragged in the ground within walls 2, 3, 4 and 5 and into the Back Vein in a line with wall C, thence deep into the North Vein along a thoroughly good joint, afterwards on a curve as shown in sketch.” “The place has gone down very much as I told you it would, I am much grieved that walls 3, A, B and chamber 6 should have gone down into the Welsh Slate Company and smashed, now, of course, the blocks are of little or no good. Should wall 6 keep up we get not a little of walls 5, 4, and 3. Walls 2 and 1 cannot be seen at present.” There is a stark contrast between this report and Owen’s. Roberts’ sketch is reproduced as fig. 42. Dunlop wrote to W.E.Oakeley, obviously giving him Robert Robert’s account and Oakeley replied in this manner: “This is indeed a very serious business even if it goes no further, and does not block the middle quarry. Thank god only one man is hurt (and that by his own fault). Robert Roberts and Owen Jones had a near shave for it. It does not seem to be a fall, but a general subsidence, and nothing like what you pointed out to Lord Mount Temple and Evelyn Ashley some years back (I remember the conversation perfectly), and you and we all thought that whenever the fall did come the bon would break at about the line of the old road, whereas this subsistence seems to have taken place right through the back vein, and that there is a crack 153 beyond.... It seems quite out of the question that this enormous amount of rubbish can ever be removed during the lease, and they will have to pay forfeit.” On the 20th. February he wrote again; “Dear Mr. Dunlop, - What a terrible collapse this is - it cannot be called a fall. I hope it may have come to an end, but doubt it from the amount of cracks so far back. The only good thing I can see about it is that it may speedily let us in to the North Vein, and from Robert’s remarks this may prove to be a better quality than we hoped.” He then went on to inquire why Dunlop had not gone at once to the quarry to attend to matters. His insistence on the use of the word “collapse” rather than “fall” was to make hay for the Welsh Slate Co.’s solicitor later on. Dunlop replied on the following day, obviously trying to get across to Oakeley the seriousness of the situation, “When I heard that none of the men were killed and that none of the men were thrown out of employment, I did not consider my presence necessary on their behalf. I have no control over the workmen of the Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry. Your interests and the interests of the Oakeley’s Quarries Company will be best served by my not being on the spot; in fact I have given orders not to touch a single ton of Debris except to close the lower part of our incline that is temporarily blocked, and any roadways that may be stopped up. This is a very serious matter, and involving very great interests, and therefore requires excessive care, one false step on my part might cost you a fortune, and I am very sorry that you should think that I have lost sight of this most important matter.” Dunlop said that he did not know how far Mr. Oakeley might be held responsible for touching any of the fall, hence his orders to Roberts. Oakeley replied, “I never for one moment intended to hint that my interests were being neglected in this matter, and I think it far from the case, and that you have very difficult cards, which must be played with great consideration. At the same time, I am very glad you are going down on Monday” Robert Owen at Welsh Slate had had enough and wrote, “I feel the responsibility is too much for me to face of such a state of things, and I wish to have some consultation as to the future proceedings at the quarry... It is evident that the quarry must be re-arranged and must be worked in future on a much smaller scale.” “....I believe much more will be down again before long, as I am almost certain it will not stop until it reaches the other gap above chamber 12 in Mr. Holland’s Quarry. The pumps must be at work night and day. but. they will not be sufficient. In reference to the blocks from the pillars, I am sorry to say it is impossible to approach them, and there is such a large quantity of rubbish upon them that you cannot reach them during the term of your lease. Twenty years time would not be enough to clear the present fall.” John Brunton was to come down with Phillips, Owen commenting sourly, “The state of the quarry is, in my opinion, even beyond engineering skill, as the large mass of ground is already down, and this in addition to what is again on the move is something enormous to think of dealing with in so short a time as 8 years.” This was, of course, a reference to the length of time remaining of the lease. Brunton reported on the 28th. February as follows: “In the first place I will endeavour to describe the position and movements which has culminated in this last and very serious disaster. The periodical reports of Mr. Robert Owen during many months lately, giving accounts of the frequent yielding of pillars, and consequent falls from the roof, not to mention the conclusion which I arrived at and reported to you on the 23rd. April 1881, must have prepared you, to some extent at least, to learn that the whole of the superincumbent tops above the chambers and pillars from A3 to No.7 have at last come down. The mass, which has fallen consisted in the upper part of peat, a considerable quantity of clay and bastard slate rock, which must have slipped down in the first place, and was followed by huge masses of hard rock, which, impinging on the peat and clay, forced forwards a species of wave of plastic material. This wave of clayey stuff in its progress caught the large semi-portable winding engine of your main incline down to K floor, completely buried it, and in its further course destroyed the smithy, store, and other buildings and came to a temporary rest a considerable distance up the rubbish incline.” “Most providentially no one of the numerous workmen was injured. The extent of the movement is shown by the numerous fissures and cracks which are visible on the surface of the mountain to the north. This large mass is still unfortunately not at rest. It is still moving forward and sinking, and fresh cracks are opening. The mass which has fallen has left a high cliff or bon to the westward, supported at present by a small remnant of pillar No.6.... While examining the condition of this remnant of pillar No.6, we were startled by a loud report, which was followed by the yielding of a considerable mass of slate rock from this No.6 pillar... convincing symptoms that a crushing action was going on. This was confirmed by an examination of the surface above, when cracks were visible. This enormous mass of rock will shortly fall, to be followed, I fear, by the portion at present supported by pillars 7 and 8, and quite possibly may extend yet further westwards. The fissures and cracks on the mountainside have naturally become receptacles of the water, both rain and spring water passing down the mountain side , and your energetic manager, Mr. Robert Owen, at once put men on to cut cross channels to collect and convey this water clear of fall. He did this with good judgement but as the movement is still going on, and fresh - 118 - Oakeley Slate -17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Co. 1883-1884 cracks are opening further to the north and west, the surface drainage works will have to be repeated. Upon this point I would observe that, on the return of heavy rainfall, there will be a considerable increase in the amount of water finding its way into your lower floors, demanding in my opinion, more powerful and more concentrated pumping machinery than you possess at present and I recommend immediate and energetic attentions to this.” He ended by remarking, “I cannot recommend at once beginning to clear this fall, I believe that when the ground is once settled the system of working the quarry may be advantageously modified, but action in the meantime would be premature, and the removal of any considerable quantity from the foot of the fallen mass would to a certainty not only start it again, but would cause more to follow. The movements in all directions must be carefully watched.” More and more cracks appeared above the bon, Robert Owen trying desperately to divert the water away from the sinc, and clear the clay off the C Incline tracks again. He gave up clearing chamber 8 on F and G on the 27th. February as he thought it unsafe. Lo! That night pillar 8 gave way and the fall from chamber 7 ran through the hole in the wall and filled up chamber 8, thus effectively stopping G and H floors, the only real slate producing bargains in the whole quarry. 120 men were sent home in consequence. Owen wrote, again emphasizing his total mis-understanding of the forces at work in the rock: “There is no doubt about the Back Vein of Oakeley’s Quarry having weakened the bon, at the underlying hard of the Back Vein being in a very flat angle when the overlying hard being very steep, therefore the thickness from the clay slant to the Back Vein at their lower floors was not nearly so much as at their upper floors. Also the pillars at the Back Vein were undermined to a great extent, so that extra very great pressure was laid on the pillars at our quarry which caused them to break and give way one after another.” Once again we can refer to fig. 30 for Owen’s thinking here. March began with Owen’s crews finding the remains of the semi-portable engine on F floor, where it had been thrown by the force of the fall from its perch on DE floor. But rumours began to fly as Oakeley consulted his solicitors, that he was going to bring an action against the W.S.Co. on the basis that they had undermined the walls and caused the collapse. This, and the question of what was in and under the fall was to become the nub of the matter. On being queried by Dunlop, Robert Roberts wrote this on the 2nd March 1883: “The walls that are down, namely, 1,2,3,4 and 5 can easily be attacked from the Welsh Slate Quarry on C, DE floors partly sideways and in front of them, thus leaving the back of the fall behind comparatively untouched. This in my opinion will be the game, and join issue with you by saying there is no slate rock underneath unwon, that the walls were improperly cut.” This remark was to lead to considerable argument in court as to its meaning and significance, suggesting that there was collusion between Dunlop and Roberts to deny the presence of workable slate in the fall. Robert Roberts went on: “However, permit me to supplement the view which I have from time to time expressed to you relating to this question with the following remarks. I have said before, and I say so again, that working at the Back Vein had nothing to do with the great collapse of the walls in the Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry. The configuration of the fall, as well as the position and direction of the stones, large and small, forming the fall, shows plainly the walls underneath must have collapsed in the Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry first; hence the fall.” “The working of the Back Vein is an argument of recent date; 3rd. August 1880 - at best August 1878 - introduced the question. However, directly it was pointed out to you, you gave me instructions to stop removing wall B on A2 floor, and working C on 3 floor Back Vein; but it was plainly stated at that time that you did not believe in the new theory advanced by Robert Owen. On the same occasion, I reminded him that Richard Lloyd, his assistant, was of opinion that the walls were getting too weak and too long to support themselves now, without talking of supporting the ground which was meant for them to support above. Is not the Back Vein being worked over all the walls from 2 on 2 floor, all but into Cwmorthin? and have the walls at either the Oakeley Middle Quarry, the Oakeley Upper Quarry or Cwmorthin suffered in consequence, and is not the same thing done at Percivals and at Maenofferen without endangering the walls underneath.” “I believe the same system is being adopted all round the neighbourhood with safety. Permit me to go back to the time when this quarry was being worked by Major Mathew & Co. Did not that Company work the 2A vein in chamber 12 on floor 1, 2 and 3 immediately over chamber 12 Old Vein, with walls 12 and 13 on either side, with only a ceiling of about 5 feet (blue hard) intervening between the Old Vein and the 2A vein, without receiving any complaints? Yes they did. Well, if chamber 12 on floors 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the A Vein could, with only 5 feet thickness between it and the Old Vein, be worked with safety, surely a vein, the Back Vein, 100 feet north or rather above the Old Vein, could be worked with safety? That the walls of the Welsh Slate Quarry have collapsed must be attributed to two reasons: (1) The walls had been seriously undercut all over the quarry. I will give you two instances - (a) there was a hole through either wall 2 or 3 about ten years ago. It was between G and H floor. In H a level was wanted through the wall in question. Robert Owen arranged to put two gangs on with the view of getting through quickly - said one William Owen Gam - “employ two miners only, and you will find you will be through by morning.” William Owen was addressing Robert Owen at the time. The miners commenced and were through before morning. In this case you might have kicked the wall through almost. A small hole was through wall 4 or 5 to about 10 years ago. If you observe, the region of these walls from 6 to wall 5 is that portion of the quarry which has suffered most as yet. Walls 6, 7 and 8 are now standing with us, although directly underneath the working of the Back Vein. Walls 9, 10 and 11 have certainly collapsed in this quarry, no doubt owing to undercutting the walls by R.P.Williams.” “It is reported, too, that the late Manager of the Welsh Slate Quarry, Mr. William Williams, often said that attacking the walls in the manner we have seen would sooner or later bring the quarry down. The walls were left, I do believe, at 40 feet by Mr. Owen’s predecessor, I mean Mr. Williams, but were afterwards reduced by Mr. Owen or by Mr. Chessell, or both, in very many places below anything shown on the plan. “ (2) To carry out the provision of section 45, page 11, of the lease required not only practical knowledge, but practical knowledge combined with knowledge of dialling. To dig into the walls for the difference between 30 and 40 feet, and to strike - 119 - Oakeley Slate -17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Co. 1883-1884 out the walls and chambers at random was most injudicious, and the Company is very much to be blamed for allowing such a thing to have gone on for such a length of time. The report of Thomas Fanning Evans, Esq., for the year 1876 will bear me out on the point, if not directly, certainly indirectly.” “Place the remarks of Mr. Evans side by side with section 45, page 11 of the lease, and picture Mr. Owen without knowledge of dialling, or even of a plan, on the contrary always ignoring dialling. Mr. Robert Owen, but more especially the Company, who are educated people, and therefore ought to have known better, to my mind have rendered themselves unpardonable. The fall has been breaking up for years from underneath, layer after layer falling in gradually, but surely working its way to the surface and the position of the back vein lies between the clay slant and the surface, how therefore was it possible for the Back Vein over the walls which collapsed not to subside.” This was the argument which would resound over and over again in the Cocoa Rooms in Blaenau and the more sedate Law Institution in London, but let us return to the practical problems of the quarry for a moment. By April 1883, Robert Owen was at last able to relay the sidings after many months of burial at the foot of the C Incline and bring it into use for clearing the clay and rock more effectively. 12,000 tons had been already cleared in March, the end of April seeing the C Incline in full operation again. However, early in May, Owen had to cease clearing operations again on the lower floors, as there was a shortage of water and the water balances could only be used to lift paying slate slabs to the mills. Only 5,954 tons were cleared in May as a result. Clearing the lower floors required a good incline and no time was lost rebuilding the K carriage incline in chamber A2, which was being worked from the surface for its full length down to K. This was to become the most faithful servant of the quarry, serving the Welsh Slate and the Oakeley quarries almost to the end of their days. I and K floor traffic in the mean time all came up the H & I incline to G floor. Owen felt that little improvement could be made until the new K incline was complete, this would then load the C incline to capacity. June 1883 brought another set back when falls from high up on walls 6, 7 and 8 smashed the new timbered levels on F, G and H floors that had been made through the falls. Owen estimated that it would take at least a fortnight to re-timber them and described the whole business as disheartening. A further fall on the 22nd. from the bon above A3 rolled into A2 and smashed the timbers of the new incline as well as the new boiler steam pipes (where to ?). The Middle Quarry came to a temporary halt while their own traffic roads were re-arranged to avoid the fall and its consequences where it reached above the Welsh Slates into their own area. Robert Roberts insisted, among other things, that the reason that the front of the bon was still standing was that it was supported by the walls of the Middle Quarry, while the ground 70 - 100 yards north was to be supported by the walls of the W.S.Co. If no work had been carried out at the Back Vein, then the fall would have been down that much sooner and the very fact that the eastern part away from the Back Vein came down first proved that beyond dispute. July and August were filled with acrimonious correspondence between Owen, Phillips and Dunlop that would be tiresome and repetitious to give here. Owen claimed repeatedly that if anybody had cut the walls thin, it was the Middle quarry. Dunlop firmly insisted, backed by Roberts, that their working could only have reduced the load on the W.S.Co. pillars and that if they were too weak to bear the load, then it could only be the W.S.Co.’s fault. Robert Owen wrote, “I do not feel too bold to boast that no little amount of skill has often been required to meet the difficulties of underground operations in a slate mine laid out on such a large scale.” “And even if everything has been carried out to the full in all details and stipulations as enacted in the lease with relation to the walls, I could never guarantee that the bon would stand after the chambers had been worked out on the lower floors to leave the walls in long column,”, which was probably true. K Floor was at work again by August 1883, Owen being gently nudged by Ashley that if they could put on record that in the working of their walls by the Rhiwbryfdir Company and later by Oakeley’s Middle Quarry they had found it impossible to maintain the 30 feet at every point, it would justify the W.S.Co. as in some cases they had occasionally encroached on the prescribed width! L floor flooded again in September and K floor too was partially inundated. In response to complaints from Owen, Dunlop now said the matter of the fall was out of his hands and in those of Oakeley’s solicitors. Jones complained again and again about Owen’s rough and ready methods of setting out chambers and walls, but Owen had his own answers, “I always measure the pillars and chambers at the commencement beyond what they ought to be and never attempted to reduce the thickness or undercut in any way any pillar since my connection with the quarry, but I must admit that by working the long distance from clay slant to south side hard which is the thickness of the vein, few of the pillars have gone thinner than I would wish them to go and that quite accidentally as it is impossible to keep them to exact measurements where there are so many joints and bevels running through them and the pillaring of the vein goes quite unnatural in the pillars on both sides of a chamber because of the heavy weight of the pillars affecting the course of pillaring.” Regarding Owen’s measurements Roberts remarked, “Mr. Owen says in his report of July 10th. 1883 that the width of chamber 12, 2A vein was 25 yards on floor 3, but in his report for Dept. 28th. 1883 he says that Ch.12 2A vein was 70 feet and that in its widest place. He also says in that report of Ch.12 “A vein No.2 floor that it was 51 feet and in his report of Sept.29th. 1883 that it was 75 feet. How is Mr. Owen going to reconcile all these discrepancies? He also says in his report for July 10th. 1883 that wall 12 is only 30 feet wide while in his report of Sept.29th. that it is not more than 30 ft.?” Permission was asked and granted for John Brunton, for sadly William, his son, who had initially been involved, had died in 1881, now acting as W.S.Co. engineer and surveyor to measure the Back Vein Middle Quarry pillars and chambers, so Brunton and Hughes, Spooner’s assistant from Porthmadog started in November 1883. Owen now complained that the Middle Quarry plans did not show the operations of the last few years east of wall 12 and therefore was not a true record - a true case of the pot calling the kettle black.

- 120 - Oakeley Slate -17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Co. 1883-1884

By January of 1884 36 bargains were in work compared with 46 in December of 1882 before the fall, the total fall cleared to date being some 74,041 tons at a cost of about £4,000. The W.S.Co. Committee now felt that they qualified for a reduction in rates now that the quarry was in such an “inferior” state. Total confusion reigned for a while as Jones now began giving direct orders to Owen regarding the walls and chambers, while at the same time Dunlop was also giving orders to both Owen at Blaenau and Phillips in London. Acrimony increased as Owen felt Dunlop and Jones were deliberately trying to blacken the W.S.Co.’s name by insisting that they were working incorrectly. Owen was particularly angry about chamber 22 on DE floor writing: “If the width of this chamber on DE will only be 52ft. 6in. after leaving a 6 foot bench on each floor, the width on K floor will only be 22ft. 6in. under the clay slant.” This, he said, would be of no value. Even more annoying and confusing to Owen was the following: “In reference to opening chamber 21 and 22, Mr. Jones himself was at the quarry on the 19th January 1883 and he wrote with his own hand in my diary what was to be the width of the pillar and chamber 21, to be, saying that wall 21 was to be 48 feet and chamber 21 55 feet, and this to apply all the way down the quarry.” “Lately I received a tracing from him, showing the width of pillars and chambers from No.19 to No.22 on which he has changed the width of pillars and chambers and showing wall 21 to be only 49 feet and chamber 21, 45 feet; and now he wants me to have wall 22 40 feet across the pillaring and chamber 22, 52ft. 6in. on DE and of this chamber on DE will only be 52ft. 6in. it will, after going down so low as K be scarcely nothing if we have a bench of 6 feet on each floor or taking a bench of 6 feet for five floors Chamber 22 will be reduced to only 22ft. 6in. when Mr. Jones has given me instructions how to proceed with the opening of new chambers about a year ago and changing the figures afterwards it is impossible for me to know how to go on, and having now opened chambers 19, 20 and 21 on DE and F it is impossible now to change Notice of the action going to arbitration was given in February 1884. The W.S.Co. Committee, tired of Jones, Dunlop and Oakeley’s attitude, said that all directions regarding the workings were to be put in writing and dealt with in that form. The W.S.Co.’s main inclines and underground connections by 1887 are shown in figs. 46 and 47 The Arbitration hearing began in Blaenau on the 20th. October 1884 at the Cocoa Rooms, Blaenau Ffestiniog and is described in the next chapter, it was to go on intermittently until 1887. The Welsh Slate Co. in the ensuing period continued to remove the fall, but only in so far as was necessary to keep their tracks clear, being careful to keep a record of all that they did, and at the same time trying to prove: i) that the fall could be cleared in less time than the Oakeley camp said it could. Yet... ii) that they were not conceding anything by removing it ! It is, however, clear, that the vastly reduced make, combined with the uncertainty of the future as the case dragged on led them to reduce all costs wherever possible, presumably to get as much profit as they could while they had possession of the site. Maintenance was deferred or ignored, and the whole place began to take on a peculiarly bedraggled appearance, what the men thought of it all has unfortunately not been recorded. What had happened in the mean time in the Oakeley quarries? At Middle Quarry a new mill had been built parallel to Felin Fawr, being smaller it naturally became known as Felin Fach. It was 218 feet long and 60 feet wide ultimately, of the by then standard pattern, containing some 14 saws and dressers arranged with the slabs entering on the southern side and waste exits on the northern side. This was the opposite hand to the big mill and meant that it shared the stacking yard. Both mills were subsequently widened by lean-to extensions over the slab tramways. In particular, Felin Fawr was extended at its eastern end to house an additional steam engine to drive the shafting at that end of the mill. See fig. 50, which shows the general surface layout. In the Upper Quarry a new incline was constructed from floor 6 down to floor 4. This was a carrier incline, but unusually the tracks were of 2ft. rather than a wider gauge. The old 6-5 incline was abandoned, together with the tramway along the floor 6 tip past the smithy. The Upper Quarry also acquired a new mill. This was constructed on the Upper mills tip, just to the south of and parallel to the old mill. The mill design is a curious anomaly, for although latterly fitted with 10 saws and dressers arranged in the standard fashion, the walls show the presence of the older form of windows above dressing positions, perhaps it was initially intended to re-use the old vertical guillotine dressers. However, this may have been due to the orientation of the mill, which unlike almost any of the others had its long axis north-south. The mill was 130 feet long and 50 feet wide. Its north end abutted the engine house, which had been constructed for the old mill, while at the south end was a saw shop. Fig 45. shows the general Upper Quarry situation, while fig 55 shows the Upper Mill complex itself. All the slate from the Old Vein from floors A and above was now going via the Engine level on floor 4, the old route more to the north having been abandoned as the tunnel through the Pen Balance ridge was cut into by the Old Vein sink. The Welsh Slate Company were not the only ones in trouble. On the other side of Allt Fawr, the Cwm Orthin Slate Company under a variety of names had been working the freehold Cwmorthin Isaf Estate in both the Old and Back Veins. In 1884 their Back Vein workings both underground and on the surface collapsed in almost a copycat of the Great Fall. This was to have severe repercussions for the western workings in all the floors of the Oakeley Quarries. The most immediate effect was to create a series of huge cracks on the surface on top of the ridge between the two quarries mirroring the line of chamber and wall. One opened up in the bed of Llyn Bach, eventually draining it into the workings below. All three letter books are strangely silent about the whole event, so perhaps the reservoir may have already been given up by then, although it is marked clearly on the 1887 Ordnance Survey maps. The real effect was to reduce the already meagre water supply to the Upper Quarry. The Cwm Orthin Company had been in trouble before this event. The principal bone of contention had been the determination of the boundary between the Oakeley and Cwmorthin Estates. There was one boundary on the surface and quite another underground. This had naturally led to mis-understandings, the Cwm Orthin Company apparently working beyond their boundary into Oakeley land. This “trespass” was ratified by an agreement in 1876 between the Cwm Orthin Company and William Edward Oakeley, who was then still managing the Estate “on behalf of” his Aunt. In 1884 the agreements were - 121 - Oakeley Slate -17. The Doom of the Welsh Slate Co. 1883-1884 transferred to the new Oakeley Slate Quarries Co. Ltd. and further agreements were made, regarding the working by each of the Companies under the others land. On Cwm Orthin Company plans the Oakeley Co. workings are described as “encroachments” on Cwm Orthin land while the Oakeley records refer to these as trespass chambers ceded to the Oakeley Company. Cwmorthin chambers 28 and 29 were those in question, worked by the Cwm Orthin Company for 6 floors in depth down to the level of the Oakeley floor 4. It is interesting, though difficult to follow, that on the Oakeley Estate plan, a small triangular section of the mountain was labelled as “Part which William Edward Oakeley has power to lease from Cwmorthin” so perhaps there was an exchange. We shall return to Cwmorthin again in a later chapter. See figs. 43 and 47.

- 122 -

18. THE QUARRIES IN COURT, 1884 - 1887

The Arbitrator appointed to hear the dispute between Oakeley and his Lessees was one W.C.Gully. The Welsh Slate Co. had at one point heard that Evans, the Government Inspector who summonsed them before might be appointed, but they felt that as he knew little, if anything of the Middle Quarry Back Vein workings, he might not be a good choice. What Gully knew of them at the start of the hearing is not recorded, but he certainly knew a great deal more by the end. The first day of the hearings was the 20th. October 1884 at the Cocoa Rooms, Blaenau Ffestiniog, later the Library and now the Red Dragon Club of the Welsh Fusiliers. Latterly the hearings were transferred to the august surroundings of the Law Institution, London. Mr. Webster, Q.C for the Oakeley side, requested that, before the hearing opened, Mr. Gully, accompanied by Thomas Jones for Oakeley and Hughes for the Welsh Slate Co., went specifically to see again chambers 16, 20 and 21 in the Welsh Slate Co.’s Quarry. When the case started, the opening speech was made by Webster, Q.C.[1] “In this case, sir, I appear with Mr. Beal and Mr. Sutton for Mr. Oakeley, and my friend the Solicitor General, Mr. Reid and Mr. Higgins are for the Welsh Slate Company. In form there are two actions referred to you, but although, as I said just now, I appear for Mr. Oakeley, it seems to me quite possible that when the actual matter comes to be considered, the interest of some assignees of Mr. Oakeley will arise. I only mention that at once, because I think it quite possible that some question will ultimately arise as to whether all the necessary parties are before you. Now, sir, the case is one of very great magnitude, and, as far as amount goes, probably as large as I or many of the persons here have been engaged in, and I do not shut my eyes to the fact that in some way it is a case of some difficulty. I am not suggesting to you - at any rate until you understand more about it - that there are questions upon which I shall feel any great difficulty, but I can imagine issues will be raised on both sides which require very careful consideration, and to a great extent will be difficult, because we are dealing and shall have to deal with a subject matter which is new and foreign to many of us, at any rate.” “ “The principal question which we have to discuss in the broad is this. Somewhere about 6,000,000 tons - speaking roughly, between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 tons of rock and slate - have tumbled down. They have buried up valuable slate; they have broken down valuable slate which is in that quantity which has fallen; they have rendered workings which would have been reached through the part which has fallen more difficult to work; they have injured slate which was above in other veins; and the main and principal question is, by whose fault, if by anybody’s fault, that mass of stuff has come down? That is one and the principal issue in this arbitration, of which you will hear a great deal from me and my witnesses. “ “There is a second issue which also arises with reference to that main fall. Even assuming that it has not fallen down by the fault of anyone, the landlord - that is Mr. Oakeley - alleges that the Welsh Slate Company, his lessees, are bound to remove that fall, that they are bound to remove it under certain covenants in the lease, so as to leave the hereditament in a proper state for working at the time of the expiration of the term. I am not quite sure, but I assume for the purpose of the argument, that it may be contended that in fact it is not such a fall as the lessees are bound to remove under the terms of the lease. We may have to consider that question later on, but at any rate, an important question will arise as to what is the damage sustained by the landlord from the non-removal or non-intention to remove by the lessees as distinguished from the larger question of injury to the slate broken by the fall having taken place, assuming there should have been improper quarrying. The broader questions are those I have put before you. The Solicitor-General, on the part of the Welsh Slate Company, in a cross action, alleges that by breaches of covenant and collateral deeds, and possibly some other breaches of duty - I am not quite sure whether it will be founded on that - the working in two other quarries or one other quarry which existed has injured the property of the Company, and has involved them in expense...... ” “Now, sir, as to the first and main question, to which I have already referred, namely the damage sustained by the falling of between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 tons of stuff, I apprehend from the correspondence that has passed my friends will contend that, not only was the fall not occasioned by improper working or breach of covenant on their part, but was directly contributed to by the act either of Mr. Oakeley or his sub-lessees, or by want of proper precautions, and, possibly, breaches of covenant on their part...... ” “You have seen this place - all of it once, and some part of it twice - and what you have seen today perhaps bears upon the most important feature of the whole case. We say that this enormous quantity - millions of tons of the stuff - was let down because both by improper quarrying, in the ordinary sense of the word, and by actual breach of the stipulations of the lease, a large number of pillars which support the strata which is not workable in the mountain were cut gradually too thin, were cut improperly, and have let the mountain down. We say that, in effect, for years the liability to that accident has been present to the mind of the landlord, and has been pointed out to the lessees. We say that they themselves ought not only to have known it, but, to some extent, did know it for years before, and what they saw and what they were told ought to have brought to their minds the absolute necessity of further precautions and greater care, and, possibly, of some active measures being taken to prevent the calamity which I cannot help thinking at the end of the case you will be satisfied any prudent man would have foreseen, had he directed his attention with sufficient care to the matter.” Webster then went on to describe the physical arrangements of the quarry as they were before the fall with the help of a large model which had been constructed. After having described the manner of working, he said this: “Now we say that, in fact, they did not maintain properly the walls between the chambers. We say that, in fact, they did not leave proper walls where they dug out the chambers and extended them, and continued them downwards. We say that they did both contrary to the principles of good mining and contrary to the express terms of the lease to which I want to call your attention very shortly presently.” He then explained how the opening of chambers and the working forward of chambers on lower floors, the driving of new traffic tunnels and so on, enabled the thickness of the walls to be measured for a long period of time. Reference was made to the natural lie of the rock: ”....these chambers, practically parallel, are not at right angles to the bon, or to the face, as you - 123 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887 see it here; or, in other words, in ordinary circumstances, a tunnel run through probably would very often be slightly askew, but owing to the dip or lie of the strata, or, having something to do with the slate, the walls, however you please to call them, assume this - what we should call this diagonal lie, and the lie of the walls is always in that direction.....” ( (See Figs 31 , 32 ) “Now the fact that these chambers are on a skew, as you look at them, and the stratum is such that it breaks off in that direction, makes it all the more difficult for the workmen to be accurate as to the thickness of wall they are leaving..... Of course, such men would not know what was happening in the next chamber; but the overlooker, or manager, ought to know exactly what is happening in each chamber. Very often slabs are got with great ease from the walls, so that it is a temptation to the men to thin the walls, and they would be dangerous. The fact that all these causes have an influence makes it absolutely essential that proper measurements should be from time to time taken in order to ascertain the thickness of the walls; and I believe, when you have this matter explained to you by witnesses who are much more expert than I, you will see there is a ready means, known as dialling, which is, taking observations by which the actual angles can be ascertained, the line from which measurements can be taken either laid down on a plan, or readily recognized by persons experienced in this sort of working; so that if proper observations are taken, there is no difficulty in always keeping the walls of a proper thickness. I do not want to anticipate the learned Solicitor-General’s case, but as far as I am instructed, I believe it will turn out that no proper dialling observations were taken - that if they were, they were not properly regarded, and certainly if any such observations were taken, they were not taken to anything like the necessary extent. I think it would be found that the managers themselves have admitted the fault in the walls, which I think ultimately will not be, or cannot be, denied. The fact, I ought to say, perhaps, that the walls had been seriously thinned, was due to this - that they were measuring by some sort of rule of thumb measurements, without taking care to see whether they had the faces of the two walls parallel, or whether they had become converging, and so become narrower at an internal or external point, so as to be a less support. I say, having regard to the way in which these chambers lay, precautions often pointed out by the Government Inspector as essential to safe mining, ought to have been adopted by the Welsh Slate Company, and I believe it will be found in this case they were not adopted, and that a great deal of the condition of the walls was due to the fact of these observations not being properly taken.” Webster then read through the terms of the 1870 lease, though not without some interruptions and doubling back. On clause 21 - to reserve walls and pillars etc. he commented: “I understand it to mean that all present walls and pillars were reserved under the demise; they were not given to the lessees; Mrs. Oakeley could not work them, and of course they, the lessees, could not work them. I say they were to cut the chambers properly so as to leave a proper wall..... It is difficult to say whether the wall low down was a present or future wall. I say when those walls had become walls the lessees had no power whatever to cut into them at all, and if, as I shall satisfy you, if my evidence is correct, they did from time to time pare down the walls and got slate from the side of the walls in a way which rendered it dangerous, not only for keeping up the roof, but actually pared away the sides of the walls, I say they were guilty of breach of covenant, and we shall show what the damage is.” He added at a later point, “If a future wall was left as a wall dividing two chambers, and the wall had been left there, they had no right to go and cut it down, even though it might be more than 30 feet..... I say it became a wall when the chamber was worked out. I am now dealing with the difference between cutting the chambers too wide and paring down a wall after the working out of the chamber had finished.... These walls were getting lower and lower down. As they get lower, possibly they may get into less sound stratum; there may be faults, or there may be other things which might make it necessary to have a thicker wall. I say the whole of this working, and the whole of the provisions which are inserted in the lease in reference to the thickness of the walls, is governed by the paramount principle that the mines and quarries must be properly worked, and that even if the walls must be left of a greater thickness than 30 feet in order safely to work the mines, it was the duty of the lessees so to leave them. I shall prove what is a breach of the most ordinary covenant in relation to the proper working of mines, namely, that they have walls of a less thickness than they ought to be, the upper part being of a greater thickness than the under part; in other words, large portions of the walls are overhanging and have no support. They knew at the time the effect of that was to endanger the stability of the walls...... It is not that they are to work to 30 feet, but that the walls are not less than 30 feet. It implies that they may go to 30 feet if they can do so safely, but the whole of it is governed by their obligation to work it properly.” After dealing with the business of the quarry plans and surveys which had been made, by Spooner, by Brunton and by Jones, he then dealt with the question of the representation of the Oakeley Slate Quarries Company, Limited, and its representation in the person of Mr. Oakeley. He put it this way: “It is manifest that all the quarries ought to be worked as one concern. There is not the slightest doubt about it, both from the economical point of view and from every consideration, the way in which the thing should be worked and the working laid out - the division between the upper and the middle and the Welsh Slate Quarries was not a desirable thing; and accordingly he entered into an arrangement... by which a company was incorporated for the purpose of assisting him in the working..... the agreement is dated the 15th. July 1882 ..... I need not tell you that in order to fulfil this agreement, he must have his quarry intact, and that he and the beneficiaries so to speak - are entitled to have this quarry subject to the covenants having been fulfilled. ....In the first place we shall have to know, sooner or later, whether the company are going to remove the fall or not in pursuance of the terms of the lease. I suppose it will have to be dealt with in the alternative. If they do not remove it, they will have to pay damages for not removing it, as the other lessees did, I believe, both Holland and Mathew. All I can say is in all probability the removal of that 5,000,000 odd tons of stuff will cost near £400,000, and out of that will be the stuff to be won back, because, of course, out of the heap which is there, there will be slate which is workable and can be got.....” “Then there is the loss in Royalties due to the working of the Company in the event of your finding that this fall is not a natural cause of their working, but caused by careless working, loss of royalties during the term of the lease. We know from their own statements their power of output is enormously reduced, and that they are not able to make so much as they would but for the fall, which has crippled them to some extent.... As far as I can make out, that damage sustained by the estate of Mr. - 124 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887

Oakeley and the Quarry, in respect of which he is entitled to damage, is somewhere between £250,000 and £300,000 - I do not know if the damage will be made lower by my friends.” They did, of course. It would be tedious to go through all the evidence given, the transcripts run to many folio volumes, all well bound and mounted.[2] Many extracts from the various pieces of evidence have already been given in earlier chapters. It will suffice here to list those who gave evidence: The principal witness for the Oakeley side was, of course, Thomas Jones, who was supported by Robert Roberts and Dunlop. Additional evidence was given by Owen Pierce Jones, the under manager of the Oakeley Middle Quarry, Evan Hughes, William Williams and Owen Jones who were Welsh Slate Co. rockmen, John Smith was one of their miners. He was followed by Richard Jones and Owen Griffith both rockmen. Then Thomas Williams, the manager of the Croesor Slate Quarry and formerly of the Rhiwbach, gave his evidence - principally on costs and causes. David James, Griffith Meyrich Jones, Joseph Ephraim Jones, Joseph Owen, Robert Edward Jones, William Morris were all quarrymen, whose evidence, it must be admitted was either obscured by the need to translate, or minimally helpful. Rees Roberts the current Middle and ex-Upper Quarry manager, John Mackay, a railway contractor, John Evans, manager of the Penrhyn Quarries, Herbert Kirkhouse, mining and quarry engineer and for 7 years manager of the Cwmorthin Quarry, J.G.Tuxford, the manager of Rhiwbach Quarry, Evan Thomas, manager of the Llechwedd Quarry and even Sir Frederick Branwell, the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, put the weight of their experience and expertise behind the Oakeley case on costs and estimates of removal, and where they could on the forces in the rock. Time and time again Thomas Jones or Robert Roberts were recalled to go over the ground for either Webster and his associates, or Reid. It was during the proceedings that the Solicitor-Generalship changed hands, and Mr. Reid found himself referring to his opponent, Webster, as the Solicitor General. At one point it became clear that Reid was selectively quoting from the W.S.Co. correspondence, and as a result the Oakeley side pressed for, and got, the whole of the correspondence entered as evidence, allowing the W.S.Co. to be hoist with their own petard.[3] On the 12th. day, proceedings were halted while the opposing counsel left to consider a W.S.Co. proposal for settlement, the first of many, but nothing came of it and the gruelling duel went on as though nothing had happened. W.E.Oakeley, it would appear, had authorised Dunlop to negotiate with the W.S.Co. What exactly was involved is not clear, but the sticking points on both sides were that the W.S.Co. wanted absolution from responsibility for the fall and objected to what they felt would be an increased royalty in the last years of their lease arising from the fall clearing which would be to the Oakeley Co’s advantage when the lease was given up. The former was unacceptable to the Oakeley Co. and the latter rankled the W.S.Co. In many ways, Sir Frederick Branwell’s evidence, given last, came closest to stating the obvious. He was the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and his stated opinions had to carry weight. Questioned by Webster he said, inter alia, “I am of opinion that those walls (A2, A3, A4), by supporting the roof above them, which roof was in continuation to the eastward of the roof that remained after the fall were of great importance as giving a lateral support to the roof, particularly over wall A5, and therefore to wall A5 itself; that is to say, if A5 were to be exposed to any sideways thrust it was far more competent to stand it before the fall of 1876 than after that fall, which took away from it the support it had on the eastern side.” Question: “If I gather your meaning rightly, it is that the fall of 1876 weakened the quarry to the westward by removing the continuous bon to the eastward of A5, and of course the walls underneath that supported that bon ? “ Answer: “Yes.” Question: “Now, quite apart from any fall, looking to the shape of the quarry and the hill, do you consider that the eastern walls, whatever their numbers may be, are of importance or not ?” Answer: “I consider that they are of importance, and I think that is shewn by the falls which appear to have been from the east towards the west.” Question: “I am coming to that question of the order in which the falls were, but do I gather that you think the stability of the walls to the eastward is of more importance, or of as much importance, as the stability of the walls to the westward, or do you put them all in the same category.” Answer: “So long as the walls were at work supporting the roof, as what I may call a beam-roof, having intervals of only the width of each chamber, and looking at the fact of the thickness there was above the old vein, between the old vein and the back vein - the real back vein, not the back part of the old vein - it appears to me that there would have been no lateral thrust to speak of; and, therefore, the walls were practically of about the same relative importance; but when that condition of things was altered I should give a different answer.” Question: “In the fall of 1876, which brought down A2, A3 and A4, what do you say of the importance of A5 after that?” Answer: “That, in so far as at that time the roof to the west of A5 was no longer a beam-roof, but was made into an arched roof, and still more so after that arch augmented, then A5 became of extreme importance, as in truth carrying the eastern side of that arch.” This was later disputed by Reid who averred that the western fall of 1880 was just as destabilising as the 1876 fall, if not more so, as the tendency of the walls was in that direction. Branwell went on to explain how the disaster might have been averted by reducing the strain on A5 and 1 and 2 by leaving the pillars wider, or rather, the chamber narrower as they were worked down, he put it this way: “It appears to me that they might have had the slate extracted from them (the chambers) without injury to those walls in one of two modes: One would have been by working continuously along the length of the chamber, but to a narrower width than the chamber was above, and the other would have been to work it leaving cross walls unworked at intervals with openings through them for the purpose of carrying on the working of the quarry.” - 125 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887

The question of the western fall was brought up: “You have heard, no doubt, a suggestion has been made that this fall is to be accounted for by something which happened to the west of this quarry, and not the giving way of the support to the east. ....having looked at the walls now standing, - that is to say, part of wall 8, I think wall 9, and wall 10, and the strata which are above them - do you see any indication whatever of any release of tension or release of holding power to the west which has caused this quarry to go down ?” His answer was unequivocal: “No.” Question: “Now, Sir Frederick, you have heard a suggestion that something has been done in the Middle Quarry to cause this fall.... do you think that anything which could have been done in the way of taking away the walls, or removing the roof in the Back Vein of the Middle Quarry, could have caused this fall ?” Answer: “I cannot conceive it.” Question: “Will you, in your own way, explain why you have formed that opinion ?” Answer: “Going back to my term, a beam-roof, the old vein was intended to have its roof supported by walls at frequent intervals, over which there was to be a stone beam. Above the stone beam, which I believe I may take as practically 100 feet thick, measured normally, was the back vein. I cannot conceive that any workings of the back vein above the beam, could have any prejudicial effect whatever upon the walls below that beam; on the contrary, I should have thought that if it had any effect at all, it must have been to mitigate the weight that came upon the walls below the beam, and to some trifling extent, tend to put them in a better position; but how the reduction in weight above the beam could in any way tend to the destruction of the walls below, is beyond my comprehension.” Question: “Did you notice yourself whether, in addition to what you have described as the 100 feet, there were any partings or not in the strata.” Answer: “Yes, that is with respect to another suggestion, as it appears to me, and that is that in some way these upper strata acted as a sort of tie-back or chain.” Question: “Will you give me your opinion of that ?” Answer: “That, I presume means to resist motion in a southern direction. In the first place, there is no trace that I can see in the stumps of the pillars which are left any tendency to throwing forward in a southerly direction, but in the second place this material above the old vein is first of all separated from it by an absolutely lubricating matter, stuff you may take out and kneed between your finger and thumb, the three-quarters of an inch of clay. Then at about nine inches above that there is a similar material; and then throughout the whole of the 100 feet of thickness there is a variety of different strata, each of them having its own separation, and having, moreover, no doubt separations in themselves. I cannot conceive there was any attachment. In the first place, if there had been, I cannot see what good it would have been; and in the second place, I cannot conceive any such attachment.” On cross-examination, although Reid tried valiantly to get Branwell to bring out the importance of the 1880 fall, and the other main W.S.Co. theories, Branwell would only make slight agreements, and those only in the abstract - even this was later pounced upon in Reid’s opening and blown out of proportion. In the main the point was made again and again that had the Welsh Slate Company walls been of the correct thickness, had they been measured correctly and laid out correctly in the first place, had the chambers to the east been worked forward less drastically, then the fall might have been averted, though to what degree was uncertain. In March 1885 there was another hiatus as backstage negotiations occurred again, the W.S.Co. now suggesting an amalgamation of their company with the Oakeley. This broke down over who was amalgamating with whom, and when. The W.S.Co. wanted amalgamation after a period of 5 years or so – the Directors of the Oakeley Company said this would give them an unfair advantage and refused to negotiate except on the basis of an immediate amalgamation. The Oakeley directors wanted the W.S.Co. committee to meet with them and discuss the matter over the table, but the W.S.Co. committee refused to meet them and insisted that all matters should be dealt with by correspondence, suspecting, quite rightly, that what was said, but not written would not be binding. By June, the W.S.Co. committee had more or less agreed to an Oakeley proposal of a “DRAFT AGREEMENT for compromise of litigation and for temporary joint working and eventual amalgamation of the undertakings of the Welsh Slate Company and The Oakeley Slate Quarries Co. Ltd”, but then added their own terms. They agreed to amalgamation if the proposed arrangement was accepted over an interim period, that they were paid £3000 for general dead work and £7,000 for removing the fall, as well as £3,000 for clearing it near the boundary of the Middle Quarry annually for 5 years. They also insisted that the Welsh Slate Co. be represented on Board of Directors. This was too much, and the matter was dropped again – and it was back to court. By the time the Oakeley case had been put, it was December 1885 and no less than seventeen days had been spent on the hearings and three and a half volumes of transcript made. Mr. Reid’s opening address, coming as it did after all the Oakeley evidence was lengthy, to say the least, and here is severely abridged. He first of all dealt with the claim: “The claim is put on two grounds, the first is a legal ground as to whether my clients have been guilty of negligence or not, that they entered into a covenant or covenants, by which they are absolutely bound to remove the whole of this fall, and the second is a legal claim also, based upon the fact that there was negligence or neglect of the proper precautions as alleged.” “Now, sir, not in the least with the view of prejudicing your mind... but with the view of seeing what the situation of these parties is, and what their dealings have been, before entering into any question as to how the fall took place, I would like to tell you the story of their relations. For something like 60 years this quarry was worked under an old lease. The system of working it was then very ill understood, without any doubt of any sort or kind, and provisions were made in the earlier lease to keep up the roof during the time of the lease, and 40 feet pillars were required, not walls at all, and, indeed, at least one of these 40 feet pillars I have seen myself, and so have you, just to the east of the wall A5. After that the parties commenced to leave continuous walls, and the width which was left and adopted as the width was 30 feet of these walls. Until we had the

- 126 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887 inexpressible advantage of hearing Mr.Jones’ testimony, and the other witnesses, no human being ever suggested the 40 feet which had been worked for so many years was otherwise than wise and proper. “ “During the working by the Welsh Slate Company, which is an association of partners, and of whom, few, if any, of the present partners were partners 20 years ago; certain workings took place, and for different reasons falls had taken place before, and there is no doubt, to a certain extent, the walls of the old quarry were not as thick or as strong as the subsequent advice of Mr. Jones would lead you to suppose they ought to have been. However, by mutual consent in 1870 or 1871, these parties agreed to surrender the old lease and to grant a new lease, for the breach of which they have now brung their action. What the opinion was of Mr. Oakeley of the previous action of the Welsh Slate Company, is best evinced by the fact that he granted a new lease in 1870 or 1871, and further that in 1875 or 1876, I forget which date it was, and that is a very important date, because you will please remember that it was between 1871 and 1874 that Mr. Jones reported, or thinks he reported, did in fact report, in a letter to Mr. Dunlop divers breaches of covenant which Mr. Dunlop did not think proper to take any notice of whatever, and certainly did not send any formal notice of after all that, and that after the plan of 1874, on which reliance has been placed, in 1874 there was communication between Mr. Evelyn Ashley, on behalf of the company, and Mr. Oakeley, whom I have not had the advantage of asking questions on the subject as to the further renewal of the lease.” After 1876, he said, the parties had gone on working together, and then suddenly, without warning, without any rumour of the 1874 plan, the Oakeley Slate Quarry started work and, as he put it “has not turned out as advantageous and profitable a concern as might have been liked.” He pointed out that it was Dunlop that had suggested how the Oakeley Slate Quarries Company might be formed and reminded the Arbitrator that it was Dunlop, not Oakeley, who had been instrumental in suggesting that the new Oakeley Company should have the reversion of the W.S.Co.’s quarry. Reid then suggested that the sole prospect of success for the Oakeley Slate Quarries Company Limited was to obtain the reversion of the Welsh Slate Company’s Quarry. Mr. Oakeley himself, Reid said, had called it a collapse, not a fall, but the Oakeley Company, no matter whether the Welsh Slate Co. were guilty of negligence or not, said the fall had to be removed. Reid put it this way, “Even if we were responsible at all, the utmost we did was to accelerate by a very short time the collapse which has taken place.” He referred to the fact that Dunlop had on several occasions expressed anxiety that the fall should occur during the term of the Welsh Slate Co.’s lease so that the lease could be invoked to make them clear it, as, if it occurred afterwards, it would be very difficult to prove the Welsh Slate Co. liable or arrange for it to be moved at their expense. He referred to the condition of the quarry in 1871, pointing out that it was only what had been done since that time, the granting of the new lease, that mattered. Webster, he said, had not given a shred of factual evidence that the walls had been trimmed subsequent to that time, Jones too, had stated that the only evidence he had was the comparison between his plan of 1874 and the Spooner plan of 1870. He pointed out that for the Oakeley case to stand, it was necessary for them to prove that the collapse was due to the working since 1871, more especially between 1871 and 1876. He made great play of the fact that no formal warning of undercutting or improper working had been given, except for one specific instance. Jones, he said, did not communicate his feelings about the inadequacy of 30 foot walls at the time, just as he did not communicate his opinion as to the dangerous condition of the quarry in 1871. The plan of 1870 already showed that many walls were less than the 30 foot thickness, yet the then current lease required 40 foot pillars. Even Jones had had to admit that had the walls been left thicker - say 40 feet - the disaster might not have been averted, that in any case no preventative measures could have succeeded after 1876 and only to a very limited extent after 1871. If the complaint was that 30 foot walls were insufficient and 40 foot better, why had the 30 foot measurement been set up by the lease? Only because both sides had thought it enough. The 1874 plan had never been seen by the Welsh Slate Co. before the hearing - why not ? Had Dunlop wanted the W.S.Co. to go on as they were doing, wanting the fall to come in their time so they would have to remove it, or was it because Mr. Jones’ plan could not be used as a basis of complaint and he knew it. Reid never contested, he said, that the fall of 1876 did contribute to the weakening of the quarry as a whole. He referred to Sir Frederick Branwell’s evidence when he said that the 1876 fall weakened the east side, so the 1879 fall weakened the west side, leaving a free side, and, as the general inclination of the walls was to the west, it was more weakened to the west than the east. Who was to blame for the 1879 fall? Only the Middle Quarry and its predecessor the Rhiwbryfdir Company. He pointed out that there was a line of holes through the walls along the eventual breakage line - roughly the line of the DE bridges. The holes, he said, had been a considerable time coming, they had come in the weakest part of the quarry. The parts of the walls which had been worked since 1871, were, almost without exception, to the north of the breakage line, the line of the break lay in rock untouched since the start of the lease - in the older workings and those most exposed to the effects of climate. He contended that it was the weaknesses antecedent to 1871, the exposure, the pressure and so on which had led to the 1876 fall, giving the free side on the east, the 1879 fall gave a free side to the west, so that the geology of the ground, not forgetting the Rhiwbryfdir’s injudicious Back Vein workings, caused the fall unconnected with the Welsh Slate Company’s workings since 1871. Mr. Owen’s reports, he said, clearly showed what the causes had been for the various openings in the walls and their weaknesses and that they all came about from causes before 1871. He still considered it significant that the Back Vein workings of the Middle Quarry destroyed the cohesion of the rock and that the 1880 complaint had caused the Oakeley Quarries to stop working the Back Vein even though it was the most beneficial, if not the only paying part of the quarry from beginning to end. (He carefully ignored, or forgot, the fact that the only section of the Back Vein which was stopped was the eastern end of it - it extended for a greater extent to the west beyond the Welsh Slate Co.’s westernmost boundary towards Cwmorthin

- 127 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887

He considered the whole business of the reversion and the insistence on the removal of the fall an example of the “extreme unfairness as between man and man,” - he claimed that because the fall took place within the term of the lease, the Company had had to be saddled with the “whole result of the working of 50 or 60 years” He offered to meet the proposition put forward by the Oakeley side that the fall should be cleared by the Welsh Slate Co. in any event. He said it was not a legal obligation as Oakeley himself had called it a collapse not a fall, not in the meaning of the lease. It was not a fall “in the working”; former falls were removed - because they were profitable, as this one would be. The W.S.Co. were only too glad to remove them, they would clear this fall too, as this would be a source of great wealth to anyone who has to remove it, as the Oakeley Quarries would have to . In other words, come what may the fall would have to be removed, and as there was no doubt a lot of slate blocks in the fall, then the work of quarrying had been done for them, so to speak, and the Oakeley company would be able to make money from them when they took over. The Welsh Slate Co. he said, were not bound to remove it, nor pay damages, because it was not capable of removal within 20 years. The lease had only 5 or 6 years to run and they had already got expert witnesses who had given at least 16 years as the time required. He referred to the insignificant failures of the W.S.Co. to comply with the lease, saying that the collapse was expected, even looked for by Mr. Dunlop as a thing of great benefit and advantage. He was happy to agree with Mr. Jones that there was about 840,000 tons of workable slate under the fall, not in it. Of course this 840,000 tons could not be got at until the fall was removed, so the lessees had been effectively deprived of working it. The reversioners who were claiming such tremendous damages would, of course, benefit to that extent as the rock would be left for them to work in their reversion. The Welsh Slate Co. had lost very heavily as it had been prevented from dealing with what should have been dealt with and the only ones to gain would be the reversioners. Who had suffered by the acceleration of the fall, if such there had been? Why, only the Welsh Slate Co. who were accused of causing it. He regarded the whole claim for damages as bogus, grossly exaggerated and without consistency. Th “reversioners” were, of course the Oakeley’s and therefore, in effect, the Oakeley company. In his opening Mr. Webster had suggested damages of £300,000, but there would be a large profit to the reversioners from the slate in the fall. Originally the figures suggested had been the cost of removing 6,218,543 tons of rock at 1s.4d. per ton, 1,066,018 tons of this being hards and cherts causing a supplementary cost for them of 9d. a ton. The inclines, engines etc. cost £27,500 giving a total cost of £482,040. The Oakeley side had given credit for Old Vein at 42s. 9d., Back Vein at 35s. and the 2A vein at 35s. Subsequently the figures had been modified by increasing the amount of cherts etc. to 1,218,306 with a concomitant increase in cost and a decrease in the amount of slate rock. Robert Roberts had given the yield of the veins as 1 in 24 for the Back Vein and 2A Vein and 1 in 14 for the Old Vein, yet under cross examination, he had admitted the normal yields were 1 in 7 for the Old and Back Vein and 1 in 12 for the 2A Vein. Conflicting evidence had been given by Robert Roberts and Thomas Jones at different times he said. It was only by bolstering up the cost of removal and whittling down the produce of slate that the balance was in favour of the Oakeley Quarries. Jones had suddenly managed to increase the cost of the enterprise from £264,000 to £297,632 by the simple expedient of changing the rate for Old Vein from 42s. 9d. per ton to 37s. 6d. for the most miserable reasons that the market might fall. He pointed out that every 1d. difference in the cost of removal made a change or £30,000 in the total amount. Reid suggested that there had been a degree of collusion between Dunlop, Jones and Roberts over the figures, though not in so many words. He said, “The whole thing is done with an inimitable dexterity, worthy of the position skill and science of Mr. Jones.” It was clear to him that in working out the cost they were making the removal as expensive as possible. For example, they were charging for raising the whole amount and tipping it, yet of that there would be the slate rock going into the mills, not all of which by any means would be tipped or wasted. They did not allow for the ease with which the slate rock could be extracted from the fall, which was essentially an open quarry. In a chamber the yield was reckoned to be 1 in 6 because about a third was wasted by the creation of the necessary free side and unroofing to work the chamber. The actual blocks yielded at something like 1 in 4 when you neglected this. Yet the calculations of the rock in the fall and under it were giving half the normally accepted yield and nearly six times the possible yield from open working. They constantly referred to the cost of untopping, yet untopping was demonstrably more expensive than removing a fall. Mr. Jones had begun with a single incline for the tipping, this had grown to two and then three - why did he have to stop there? If it was left to him, they would only be able to get at the Back Vein in 5 years after a lapse of 2, the 2A Vein in 4 after a lapse of 5 and the Old Vein in 9 after a lapse of 7 years - pillars that were visible now should not be touched for 7 years - that was too much. In all their calculations they assumed 50% of the slate in the fall would be crushed and useless, even the Back Vein, which had fallen on top of the rest. A more realistic figure was 25%. The whole thing was ridiculous, not only did they want the damages for the royalties they would not get because of the fall, but they would get the rock as well. He said the whole thing was a perfect mine of wealth, the Welsh Slate Co. were only too willing to remove it, Reid said, “My clients will be too delighted, though they hold that they are not responsible, and they look forward to make a Golconda out of this fall. They believe they can do it, and they are willing to do it. They know they will not be permitted, or rather they fear they will not be permitted, not for any reasons, but because the desire is here to try and force them if possible (and it certainly will not be successful) to abandon the remaining term of their lease and give it up to these reversioners.” His clients, he said, did not wish to avoid their liability, but what had been done since 1870 were mere scratchings compared to the entire work done in the previous 60 or 70 years. He summed up this way: “I ask you, sir, what interest could my clients have in breaking this contract? They wanted to keep this wall up and they wanted to do it honestly.” He said that the first complaint clearly referred to negligence, for which he said there was no grounds.. The second was an attempt to enforce a covenant to remove a fall, because it happened to fall during their lease. “What an inequitable view!” he said, emphasising that the W.S.Co. had gone to great lengths to remove it, and would remove it, if they were only left alone to get on with it. If this was done, the slate below it would then be easiliy accessible. In fact if they were allowed simply to go as they were doing, paying their royalties on what they produced - 128 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887 from the fall, then it would not cost Oakeley & Co. a penny, and they would all benefit from what had happened because at the end of the lease the Oakeley company would not have to untop the quarry to get at the Old Vein – it would have been done for them by the removal of the fall. It would be very nice for them to get the claimed £148,000 damages in their pockets of course, but why not just let it be and give them leave to get on with it. At this point the Arbitrator intervened and said that he had no jurisdiction to do that. Reid said he could order what should be done - and he said it could be done in 14 years. Shortly afterwards he read the arbitration clause out to the Arbitrator who still held that it did not give him power to extend the lease, or to control a party to execute a deed. Reid said he was not asking for an extension. The Arbitrator demurred, saying it was practically that, or an easement or something. Reid replied that it would be such a thing, but then went on: “… and if the Quarry Company representing Mr. Oakeley, were to say; ‘Oh, here we are landed proprietors all round, and do not intend to let you have tipping ground; you will have to tip it somewhere in the Irish Channel, ‘ of course it would be absurd, and we could not do it. I point out that the basis of the whole thing being done reasonably, would be that we should have the reasonable facilities which they would enjoy themselves, of course with the strictest obligation on our part, not to interfere with their working. You will understand it is merely such facilities as would be used by themselves in the course of working out this. But, of course, time.” This was a pointless statement, coming on behalf of the Welsh Slate Co. whose directors certainly were landed gentry! The Welsh Slate Company’s principal witness was, of course, Robert Owen, who gave his evidence in Welsh, much to Webster’s annoyance, as the ‘rules’ of evidence meant that he had to be cross-examined in Welsh also. Webster tried in vain to get him to answer in English, but he would not, insisting his English was only colloquial and he might make a mistake. After some little time, however, Webster complained: “It is clear to my mind that Mr. Owen does understand everything I put to him, and instead of answering the questions of the interpreter put in Welsh, he gives the answer that he has thought of in answer to my question that is in English.” The. Hon. Evelyn Ashley and Phillips gave evidence regarding Oakeley’s and Dunlop’s attitude to the Welsh Slate Company, while John Sylvester Hughes, Spooner’s partner and John Brunton formed the other pillars of the W.S.Co. case. Evidence was also given by William Owen, the only Ffestiniog quarry manager apparently willing to take the W.S.Co.’s side. He was manager of Maenofferen and prepared an estimate of clearing the fall. A number of Nantlle managers gave evidence, however. There was Owen Thomas Owen from Dorothea, William Davis from South Dorothea, John Roberts of Pen yr Orsedd and William Williams of Cilgwyn, all testifying to the lower cost of removing a fall. The fact that the rock and strata generally were different in the quarries with which they were familiar to that of the Ffestiniog mines not being pointed out. Even Fanning Edwards, the ex-Inspector of Mines who had originally criticised the quarry managers as a body, gave evidence on the contributory nature of the Back Vein workings to the fall. William Owen, the Welsh Slate Company’s timekeeper, and Robert Owen’s writer, and who, incidentally, was the son of the old Upper Quarry manager, together with Richard Lloyd, the foreman, supported Robert Owen’s views, while additional evidence was given by Robert Cadwallader Owen, Evan Jones, Griffith Evans and Owen David Jones, W.S.Co. rockmen, this being as useful as the similar testimonies for Oakeley had been, and just as inconclusive. In the midst of it all, after several vague and mysterious comments, the Welsh Slate Co.’s offer to clear the fall was disclosed in full. On the 16th. January 1886, the Welsh Slate Co.’s solicitors finally put in writing their clients offer to remove the fall: “Messrs. Frere,Forster & Co. 36 LINCOLN’S INNFIELDS, LONDON W.C., Dear sirs, In accordance with the desire expressed by the Attorney General on page 1056 of shorthand writer’s notes that the offer of out clients the Welsh Slate Company as to “removing this fall” should be put into writing and in a more formal shape than has already been done by our leading counsel Mr. R.T.Reid in his speech we beg to say that the offer referred to by the Attorney- General which we now repeat in specific terms is as follows:- 1.- The fall to be cleared by the Welsh Slate Company within 16 years from this date free of expense to Mr. Oakeley. 2.- Reasonable facilities on fair terms to be given to the Welsh Slate Company for their workings of the fall including tipping ground and any other ground required for mills inclines roadways or otherwise in connection with the removal of the fall and manufacture and sale of slates. 3.- All reasonable provisions to be made to prevent the work of removing the fall from interfering with or being interfered with by other working in the Quarries. 4.- In the event of differences as to what facilities and provisions under Clauses 2 and 3 shall be stipulated for in the proposed lease the same to be adjusted by the Arbitrator or at his option by some person named by him. 5.- In the event of any further falls during the said period of 16 years interfering with or retarding the removal of this fall the same to be cleared by the Welsh Slate Company on the same terms as this fall and with a proportionate extension of time for such clearing to be settled by Arbitration in the event of difference. 6.- All slate contained in the fall including any portion of the walls still standing south of the line of break to be taken by the Welsh Slate Company without payment of Any Royalty. Having regard to the Welsh Slate Company’s Articles of Partnership the best method of formulating the above terms is by means of a lease inasmuch as it is quite certain that by their Articles of Partnership the Welsh Slate Company can accept a lease whereas there might be doubts as to any other method and therefore you will please understand that our client’s offer is to take a contract in the form of a lease of this fall as a quarry comprising the above terms - the lease to be settled in case of difference by the Arbitrator. You will please understand that this is a definite offer in settlement of all matters in dispute and is open to acceptance for fourteen days from the present date. - 129 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887

If you require further time to consider this offer we have no doubt it will be readily granted. Yours truly, FIELD, ROSCOE & CO. EVELYN ASHLEY, on behalf of the Committee of the Welsh Slate Company.” Just how long this arrangement would have survived, had it been accepted, without further acrimony, is open to doubt. This is especially the case when one considers that the fall progressively worked its way westwards until the first World War, when it reached the Cwmorthin boundary. In effect, the Welsh Slate Company would have got an almost indefinite extension of lease, at zero royalty, something the Oakeley camp, who were well aware of the chances of further falls, were most unlikely to accept. After due consideration, the Oakeley side gave its answer through the Attorney-General. He said that the W.S.Co. suggestion was inadmissible in its present form as: a) It involved great injury to the property as a whole. b) It would deprive Mr. Oakeley of the Royalty he was entitled to. c) It would interfere with the position and rights of the Oakeley Slate Quarries Company. However, a modified form of the offer might prove acceptable, and he suggested certain alterations, the numbers referring to the same sections in the W.S.Co. offer. “1) The fall to be cleared by the W.S.Co. from the top down within 16 years free of expense to Mr.Oakeley, no undermining of the fall being permitted. 2) Reasonable facilities on fair terms to be given to the W.S.Co. including tipping ground to the North and North East of the broken ground or any other ground (not interfering with the operations of the O.S.Q.Co.) required for walls , inclines, roadways, or otherwise in connection with the manufacture and sale of slates from the fall. 3) All reasonable provisions to be made to insure the removal of the fall being properly executed and to prevent it from interfering with or being interfered with by other working of the quarries, and for giving security to Mr.Oakeley for the due fulfilment by the W.S.Co. of their obligations. 4) In the event of differences as to what facilities and provisions under this agreement shall be stipulated for in the proposed lease the same to be adjusted by the Arbitrator or at his option by some person named by him. 5) In the event of any further falls during the said period of 16 years occurring without default of the W.S.Co. the same to be cleared by the W.S.Co. on the same terms as this fall and with any necessary extension of time for such clearing to be settled by Arbitration in the event of difference. 6) All slate contained in the fall, including any portion of the walls still standing, south of the line of break and above the level of floor H and east of wall 9 to be taken by the W.S.Co. at the present Royalty for the term of their present lease and thereafter on similar terms as regards Royalty to the Oakeley Quarries lease. 7) The Arbitrator to determine what if any damages are payable by the W.S.Co. and Mr.Oakeley.” This was, of course, unacceptable to the W.S.Co. so the whole business started off again. J.S.Hughes was recalled and then given a merciless grilling by Webster on the subject of his and Spooner’s plans. Plans which the W.S.Co. now tried to suggest were only intended to show the relative positions of the forebreasts as the chambers were worked forward and not the locations and thicknesses of the walls. Reid objected strongly, claiming that Webster was deliberately using Jones’ advice overnight to concoct questions for which poor Hughes had not the same time and deliberation to work out answers. Webster remarked drily that he was only following the same precedent that Reid had laid down in his cross-examination of Jones and Roberts. W.E.Oakeley was at last called to the stand, but contributed little, only saying that when he had first met Ashley in 1882 he had been on the point of giving up the quarries entirely, and he had been unaware of Dunlop’s overtures to Messrs. Hoare & Co. as he had been very concerned about his son’s illness at Eton and had been up to see him. It was Dunlop, he said, who had been very upset at his idea and did not want him to do it, William was apparently even willing to let the W.S.Co. have the whole lot. He did, however, deny ever giving Robert Owen any verbal permission to work the chambers in the east forward, or pull down the loose. It was October 1886 before Reid began his summing up, in which he went through the whole of the evidence again, to be followed by Webster on the 15th December, who did exactly the same thing, but from the Oakeley point of view. Webster claiming that it was perhaps the most difficult task he had ever had to perform in his life. The final claim for damages put the net cost of removal of the fall at £301,103, with a yield and consequent profit value of £217,754 less a royalty of £44,509 giving £173,245. The total cost of stuff to be removed being put at £442,171. He called Reid’s whole case hypothetical. . It was August 1887 before Mr. Gully gave his final pronouncement as follows: [4] he first of all recited the “Action for Damages” brought by W.E.Oakeley and the counter actions by Evelyn Ashley and Baron Mount-temple. Then stated his position with regard to the actions, explaining that whereas he was supposed to have made his award by December 1884, he had taken upon himself to increase the time to December 1887. He stated that he found the action for W.E.Oakeley and said that he was entitled to recover £97,600 from Ashley and Mount-Temple plus his costs, the others having to bear their own costs. He also ordered that judgement be entered for W.E.Oakeley in the counter action in which Ashley and Mount-Temple claimed that W.E.Oakeley was in breach of the terms of the covenants of the 1871 lease. However, he did find that no breaches of the terms of the lease committed by the W.S.Co. in respect of the way in which the quarry was worked, or for not removing falls should be held against them, nor used as a means of making them forfeit the lease. Any actions that the W.S.Co. would have to take, or W.E.Oakeley might ask them to take was included in the award, so there could be no other matters of difference between them. So judgement was given to Oakeley, but at much reduced set of damages. By virtue of obtaining the lease of 1871 the W.S.Co. had gained absolution for their activities of the 1860s which, without any shadow of a doubt, had contributed enormously to the final disaster. Thus the W.S.Co. still had their quarry and could still work it, they did not have to remove - 130 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887 the fall which was there, other than in the normal course of their work, and they could not forfeit the lease by not removing it in the time remaining. However, it was equally clear that the two principal W.S.Co. shareholders, Lord Mount-Temple and Ashley, could not afford to pay the damages awarded. Through their solicitors a meeting was arranged between the two warring groups and a tentative suggestion was made that perhaps the W.S.Co. might surrender the remaining term of their lease in payment of the damages? This produced a flurry of correspondence between the solicitors and the whole mess seemed about to start up again... After the meeting, Frere, Forster & Co. opened the batting for the Oakeley side by suggesting that the amount of damages £97,600 and £12,000 costs, a total of £109,600 might be met by the following: A surrender of the Lease on the 31st. December 1887, the remaining 3 years of the lease being valued at £50,000, the Oakeley Quarries Co. taking the wharves, machinery etc. at a valuation in further discharge of the Award and also the stock of slate at 7.5% discount! Any balance being paid in cash. 21 days were given to accept the offer from the 14th September. Field Roscoe & Co., for the W.S.Co. replied on the 20th.: “We placed your letter of the 14th. inst. before our Committee who have given it their best consideration. They desire us to say that they accept in principle the offer it contains and feel confident that it affords a basis of arrangement which will put an end to further litigation.” “As to details & figures they wish to make a few remarks.” “They do not agree with the value put upon the remaining 3 years of the lease on the side of Mr.Oakeley and the Oakeley Slate Quarries Co. They consider the Quarry is worth at least £80000 having regard to what can be made out of it in the three years by work and saving in dead work. And they think it is worth more than that to Mr. Oakeley and the Oakeley Slate Quarries Co. even without looking to the great advantage they would gain by having the whole of the Quarry at once under the same management.” “As to the amount of your costs our Committee of course have to rely on our views and we have not felt able to advise them that these costs would if taxed come out to more than £10,000 on the outside. Our Committee however desire to meet your clients in that view we are authorised to add to their previous offer of the Quarry the whole of the Plant and machinery and also the Wharves ,these they estimate to be worth about £30000 so that in the above figures they are offering:” Quarry £80,000 Plant & Wharf £30,000 £110,000 “It would not be possible at this time of year to secure a meeting of our proprietors in the 21 days you require & moreover our Committee feel it would be very much wiser to place before them a proposal which they can submit as having their entire approval & of which they can unhesitatingly urge the acceptance.” “They have considered this part carefully and are satisfied that both time and trouble will be saved by the course indicated.” They also suggested that everyone should get together for another meeting. Frere & Co. responded on the 22nd. stating that they considered it useless to go to the trouble of arranging a meeting as they too would have great difficulty in getting their clients together. In any case, apart from the difference over values, their letter of the 14th was already an acceptance of the original offer that had been made by the W.S.Co. Field & Co. thanked them on the 30th. for the kindly terms of their letter - they wanted nothing more than an amicable settlement. They said that they had obtained the value of the remaining three years of the lease by taking the average of the last seven years profit, ignoring 1884, when the profit was exceptionally small, it came out at £33,807 per year. With the diminished competition and other advantages that the O.Q.Co. would enjoy, they anticipated that the O.Q.Co. could return about £101,421 in the three years, even just basing it on 1887’s profit, it came to over £75,000, so they suggested £70,000 as a figure. This their Committee would accept! The Oakeley camp did not like that at all. They wrote back on the 6th. October, pointing out that the tables the W.S.Co. had put in at the Arbitration showed for 1883, 1884 and 1885 a total profit of £86,383, which, after deducting Mr. Oakeley’s royalty of £33,302 came down to only £53,081, an average of £17,693 per year. As a matter of business, they said they could hardly expect two years purchase in money down, giving £35,386, even if they agreed to three years it would only give them £53,081. They agreed that 1883 and 1884 were confused years and ‘85 and ‘86 better, but they felt that £50000 was both fair and liberal. There was, they said, little use in arguing on such basis, “We think the right view on either side is what will it suit us to pay or receive, rather than continue cutting one anothers throats. This we shall urge on our Employers.” The 17 th October brought further demur from Field & Co. who could not agree that 1883, 1884 and 1885 gave a good estimate of the profit. They pointed out that in 1883 the working of the quarry was stopped for many months by the fall. 1884 had been disturbed by an experimental increase in the discount rates for slate sales, which had proved disastrous. In any case, it wasn’t £53,081 (less royalty) it was £65,013 giving a yearly average of £21,671. There had been, they pointed out gleefully, a note on their submitted table which said that the figures of profit were after deducting the arbitration costs and other abnormal expenses. They still thought that 1885, 1886 and 1887 were the only years on which a good estimate could be relied upon. Still, they were willing to make the concession by reducing the value to £65,000 for the three years. The reply was to the effect that the no figure higher than £60,000 would be acceptable. Finally on the 19th October 1887, Field & Co. wrote at last, on behalf of the Welsh Slate Co.: “The Meeting of our Shareholders was held yesterday and the correspondence between you and ourselves was laid before them. The Committee are authorised by that meeting to accept the terms of your letter of the 14th. September as modified by yours of the 17th. October viz. fixing £60,000 as the value of the lease.” The Oakeley Quarries Board of Directors passed the following resolution at their meeting on the 26th October.:

- 131 - Oakeley Slate - 18. The Quarries in Court 1884-1887

“That the Directors are prepared to accept a surrender to Mr. Oakeley of the Welsh Slate Company’s Lease on the 31st. December 1887 and to acquire their Wharves, Machinery and Stock in or towards settlement of Mr. Gully’s Award upon the following basis: “ “The amount of damages interest and costs as on 31st.December 1887 to be taken as £110,000 “ “The Lease of the Quarry and Wharves to be taken at a value of £60,000 “ “The Machinery to be valued as under clause 81 of the lease and to be subject to deductions for any dilapidations on buildings if any and if acceptable to consider clause 65 of the lease the net amount of valuation to be taken as payable on 31st. December 1890 and to be subject to a discount of 5% per annum for pre-payment.” “The stock to be taken by the Company to be at card process less 7.5% but the amount not to be increased during the remaining months by an increased make beyond the average monthly make for each man for the past 12 months. Any balance of cash payable by either Company to be paid within three months.” “The Working of the Quarry from the present time to be carried on under the superintendence and according to the reasonable Directions of the Oakeley Quarries Company they having the right to execute at their own cost any dead work required by them before the 31st. December.” “The Welsh Slate Company is to concur with this Company in any reasonable notices to customers or other agents necessary to enable the Oakeley Quarries Company on that basis without demur or delay to carry on uninterrupted and to give the Oakeley Company access to their books and accounts.” “It must be distinctly understood that this Company assume no obligation directly or indirectly to continue the services of any employee of the Welsh Slate Company but that the directors are free to exercise their discretion in this respect.” “That if the above terms are accepted Mr. Frere & Co. and Mr, Dunlop be authorised to make all necessary arrangements for giving effect to them.” It was all over bar the shouting, the Welsh Slate Co. was finished at Rhiwbryfdir. Dunlop was still concerned, however and wrote to Frere & Co. pointing out that the £60000 HAD to include the Wharf leases, that the valuation had to come under clause 81, and that they had to get possession of the levels in floors C, DE, F, G and H at once, and the W.S.Co. had to pay the cost of driving the C floor level (which this was is not clear – one can only presume it was the level to avoid the fall). It only remained to see what could be done with the whole sorry mess.

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REFERENCES by CHAPTER for Part One

References for Chapter One: None specific – but readers are refrred to the author’s previous publications for general background: Candles to Caplamps A Walk into the Slate Mountain Cwmorthin Quarry Slate from Blaenau Ffestiniog

References for Chapter Two: [1] The Memoirs of Samuel Holland, Extra Publications No.1 Merioneth Historical & Record Society Pp1 [MSH/MHRS] [2] Burkes Landed Gentry [BLG] [3] Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog Pp 87-88, G.J.Williams 1880 [HPF] [4] Gloddfeydd Llechau Ffestiniog, Traethodydd 1868, Robert Owen, Methodist Minister Pp 374-5 [GLF] [5] Ibid [GLF] Pp355 [6] Ibid [BLG] [7] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] [8] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] Pp 4 [9] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] Pp 6 [10] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] Pp 6 [11] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] Pp 7 [12] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] Pp 10 [13] Ibid [MSH/MHRS] Pp7,8 [14] Holland Papers National Library of Wales Mss 4983, 4984, 4985, 12293 - Courtesy Michael Lewis [HP/NLW/ML]

References for Chapter Three: [1] Minutes of Reports of Commissioners of H.M. Woods, Forest & Land Revenue 1823 xi Pp117 [CRES 25/29] [2] Ibid [CRES 25/29] 1834 xv Pp 481 [3] Ibid [CRES 25/29] 12186 Also 6/143 Pp342-3 [4] Ibid [CRES 25/29] 12229 [5] Ibid [CRES 25/31] 12624 [6] Ibid [CRES 25/31] 12790 [7] Shrewsbury Chronicle 28 th January 1825 [8] Ibid [CRES 25/31] 12905, 12935 [9] Ibid [CRES 25/31] 12935 [10] Ibid [CRES 6/31] 15625 [11] Ibid [CRES 6/31] 15626 [12] Shrewsbury Chronicle 14 th July 1826

References for Chapter Four: [1] QMJ Dec 1942, quoted by Dylan Pritchard. [2] MSH/MHS p11 [3] MSH/MHS p11 [4] MSH/MHS p12 [5 ]MSH/MHS p12 [6] MSH/MHS p12 [7] MSH/MHS p13 [8] The Times, March 28 th 1825 [9] The Times, May 30 th 1825 10] The Times, May 30 th 1825 [10a] The Times, June 27 th ,1825 [11]North Wales Gazette Aug 31st 1826 [12]The Times April-Oct 1826 [13] In correspondence with Michael Lewis [14]Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – entry for Peter Moore

- 133 - Oakeley Slate -References for Part On e

References for Chapter Five: [1] MSH/NLW 4984 [2] MSH/NLW 4984 [3] MSH P15 [3a] The Times, Tuesday May 2, 1837 [4] Discussed at length in How Ffestiniog Got its Railway, MJT Lewis, RCHS 1968 and in FR Vol.1, JIC Boyd 1975 Edn Ch.1 [5] Ibid FR Vol.2 1975 Edn Pp546-548, FR Vol.1 pp42-43 [6] Ibid FR Vol.2 1975 Edn Pp546-548, . FR Vol.1. 1975 Edn. Pp 30-32 [7] Uncatalogued box of Oakeley Deeds and Papers, Z/DAF /2 [8] Ibid FR Vol. 1, FR Archives 007001 [9] FR Archives 007002 [10] HFGIR P36 FR Archives 000478

References for Chapter Six: [1] FR Archives 500050 [2] FR Archives 000408A

References for Chapter Seven: [1] Spooners’ Survey of Holland’s Quarry 1859, Z/DAF/2301 [2] WSCO. letters; evidence from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865- 1884 available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded. [3] A pay being 4 weeks

References for Chapter Eight: [1] FR Vol. 1 various [2] Hanes Porthmadog, E.Davies 1914 P.172 via MJT Lewis [2a] London Gazette March 1844 [2b] London Gazette August 1867 [2c] The Mining Journal September 16 th 1859 [3] WSCO. letters, evidence from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865- 1884 available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded. [4] Oakeley deeds Z/DAF/2 Uncatalogued [5] ibid HPF [6] ibid HP

References for Chapter Nine: [1] Law Journal 1868 Part1 Vol 37 Michaelmas 1867-1868 Courts of Chancery pp125-6 [2] –do- pp126 [3] HPF [3a] Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers, Vol 57 January 1879 p299 [4] WSCO. letters, evidence from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865- 1884 available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded. [5] HPF [6] Spooner’s 1870 Plan [7] -do

References for Chapter Ten: [1] FR Vol.2 1975 edn pp 462 [2] FR Vol.1 1975 edn [3] FR Vol 1 1975 edn [4] FR Vol 1 1975 edn [5] FR Vol.2 1975 edn. Pp 455 [6] FR Vol 1 1975 edn [7] FR vol 2 1975 edn pp 444 [8] FR Vol.1. 1975 edn. P54 [9] – do – [10] FR Vol 1 1975 edn pp 89 [11] FR Vol 1 1975 edn [12] Narrow Gauge Railways in South Caernarvonshire Vol 1, J.I.C Boyd [13] FR Vol.1. 1975 Edn. Pps90-94 [14]-do- Pp121-122 [15]-do-Pp122 [16]-do-Pp103-104

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References for Chapter Eleven: [1] Uncatalogued box of Oakeley Deeds and Papers, Z/DAF /2 – in a folder described “Legal Advice” [2] Almost all quotes are from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865-1884 available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. Not recorded. [3] A history of Plas TanyBwlch, its estate and occupancy, Arthur Lambert, 1985

References for Chapter Twelve: [1] Again, most quotes are verbatim from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865-1884 available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded.

References for Chapter Thirteen: [0] Obituary in the Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers, 1907 [1] Almost all quotes are from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865-1884 available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded

References for Chapter Fourteen: [1] GA XD103/2/2/24 1882 Nov. 28 [2] Transcript of Arbitration Proceedings. Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. Vol.1 , at The Cocoa Rooms, Blaenau Ffestiniog and afterwards at the Law Institution, London. [a]GA XD103/2/1/10 1883 July 10

References for Chapter Fifteen: Most quotes are verbatim from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865-1884 various copies available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded. Others from the transcript of the Arbitration proceedings 1884-1886 – see CH.17 references for volumes. Page refs. not recorded

References for Chapter Sixteen “The Conwy Valley Line, Blaenau Ffestiniog to Junction” - Scenes from the past 12: Railways of North Wales, W.G.Rear, Foxline Publishing 1991 gives many pictures and station plans of the LNWR line. “Bala junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog” – Scenes from the past 25: Railways of North Wales, D.W.Southern, Foxline Publishing 1995 gives many pictures and station plans of the GWR line. “Narrow Gauge Railways in North Caernarvonshire Vol .3”, James I.C. Boyd, Oakwood Press 1986, includes a section on Conway Valley Railway Proposals.Pp 214-218 “Narrow Gauge Railways in South Caernarvonshire Vol.1”, James I.C.Boyd, Oakwood Press, 1988 gives details of the Ffestiniog & Blaenau railway and it’s predecessor the Merionethshire Railway, as well as the BettwsyCoed & Ffestiniog Railway proposals of 1872. Z/DAF/2476 Plan of proposed re-construction of Penybont High Level Bridge 1960 Z/DAF/2477 Plan showing alteration to Penybont Bridge nd. Oakeley Slate Quarries Co.Ltd. Plan of DE Bridge Leading to Mills Viaduct at the Welsh Slate Company Quarry Festiniog (sic) Coloured Pen and Ink Drawing (per WE Roberts, Gloddfa Ganol) Welsh Slate Co’s High Level Viaduct at Blaenau Ffestiniog- planned removal of bay over L & N W R, W Smith 1881 PRO MT6/30019 Plan of Sidings at the Oakley Slate Quarries 1883 PRO MT6/ 344/6

References to Chapter Seventeen: Most quotes verbatim from “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865-1884 various copies available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded.

References for Chapter Eighteen: [1] Transcript of Arbitration Proceedings. Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. Vol.1, at The Cocoa Rooms, Blaenau Ffestiniog and afterwards at the Law Institution, London. (Copy originally held by W.E.Roberts, Gloddfa Ganol) [2] Transcript of Arbitration Proceedings, Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. : Vol.II – March 1885 GA Z/DAF/2146 Vol III – July & October 1885 GA Z/DAF/2147 Vol IV – Dec 1885 GA Z/DAF/2149 Vol V – Jan 1886 GA Z/DAF/2150 Vol VI, VII – Feb, Mar, Oct 1886 CA Z/DAF/2151 Vol VIII – Nov 1886 GA Z/DAF/2152 Vol IX – Dec 1886 GA Z/DAF/2153 [3] “Reports of Welsh Slate Co.” re arbitration proceedings Oakeley vs Welsh Slate Co. 1865-1884 various copies available as Z/DAF/2142,2143,2144,2145 Page refs. not recorded. [4] GA XD103/2/2/108 Copy of Award of W.C.Gully - 135 -