By: Derek Chai, 8-7

I was peacefully sleeping in my mansion back in London when it all began. Servants woke me, which they have been instructed

never to do. Quite angry, I demanded why, and what news they bore that they deemed worthy enough to wake me up. They handed

me an official roll of paper with the stamp still on. I ripped it open, and was horrified to find that my mine, the Pendyrus Mine, had

collapsed and killed 57 miners and 80 horses. I pushed past my servants, and then went to my older brother, Alfred, to tell him the

news. As I made my way through the lush hallways, I look back at how far we have come in the past 115 years- sure, we had a few

explosions here and there, including this one, but mostly it was improvement after improvement.

In the beginning, all everyday work was done by hand. I hadn’t been born yet, but I have heard many stories of the years where

weather was the factor of life. All labor depended on the weather- all work revolved around the four seasons. Life was difficult, and

sometimes growing food was almost impossible. Eventually, a genius named James Watt came along and found that the current

steam engine left a huge waste of steam and power, and reinvented it to make its potential maximum. This began everything we do

now, as the steam engine was a huge commercial success. After expanding his steam engine again to produce rotary motion,

people went crazy for it. This lead to manufacturing more and more of them, and the mining for coal began. As coal was needed to

run the steam engines to heat the water, coal needed to be mined and sold. Father, who started the business, sniffed a quick buck

and instantly bought a coalmine, employing miners to work and mine coal for him. As coal was in high demand, the coal was sold at

high prices, and Father became very rich. He began buying more coalmines, and eventually Alfred and I inherited a few of them, with

our job being to look after them. Eventually, we hit a difficulty- there were sometimes water in the mines. We coped by expanding

our tunnels to fit steam engines, and pumped out the water that way. It was a huge success, and we became extremely wealthy.

My HouseA steam engine

It’s now been a few hours since I awoke and told Alfred of the news. I was waiting by myself outside of his study to meet with him

again to talk about future decisions, including what the Blaenavon Ironworks would do now that one of its main sources of coal had

closed down when suddenly I was hit by a flashback of Alfred telling me of the history of the ironworks.

In 1788, long before I was born, my great uncle, along with two other friends, used their life savings (from boxes under their bed) to

buy the Blaenavon Ironworks and use the newest technology and innovations to make huge sums of profit. They built three blast

furnaces using steam power within a year, and it quickly turned into a huge booming business. After they grew too old to continue

owning it, they passed it on and the newer generation inherited it. It continued this way, each generation adding a little something to

it while still pulling in huge sums of money, which they split with the family. Currently, my uncle owns it, but in 1805, it was the first

time that the ironworks got passed on towards my other uncle. Back then, coal was needed in excess, so Father began new

coalmines. This brought even more money to our family, and our money skyrocketed. However, working in the ironworks didn’t lead

to skyrocketing money. In fact, the number of deaths skyrocketed- it was a dangerous job. I recall a really long time ago, there was

one specific incident where a worker got seriously burned and died due to the molten iron. What they did in the ironworks was first

burn limestone with the coal to produce off-the-charts heat, and that could melt the iron. However, the molten iron was extremely

hot and was like lava- it would burn and incinerate anything that came into contact with it. There was a foolish worker a long time

ago named Gwallter- he knocked out the stone with a firing-iron and the iron inside poured onto him. He was instantly cremated,

and burned alive. I remember shuddering when I first heard the story, now, I’ve grown used to hearing stories like these regularly

when workers were killed or seriously injured due to the dangerous work. I always felt sorry for the workers, and urged my parents

and older brother to spend more of the money on improving the working conditions and higher wages for the dangerous work instead

of spending it on lavish decorations for our house. None of us truly know what its like to work there, and I hope that no one in our

family will have to live that horrendous life.

The Blaenavon Ironworks

How the

ironworks worked

I have just returned to my room after the conversation with my brother, having eaten a small meal served by my servants. Bored, I

decided to take a flip through my photo album to see the pictures of me as a kid. This reminded me of my talk with Alfred, where we

both came to agree that although the Mines Act took away some of the laborers in our mines, which meant less coal and therefore

less money, it was for the better- when accidents like this happen, its lucky that there were no women or young children employed

anymore. Then I came across a photo of me when I was seven, and my mind wanders to that year… and suddenly, the flashback

comes, clear as if I was just experiencing it.

1842… just four years after the fatal accident ended the lives of 26 unfortunate children. I was seven at the time, when I overheard

my parents talking about how the mines were become unstable, and how the truth was leaking out to the public. And then I saw the

full truth, how 26 children slightly older then me, not even at adulthood yet, had been killed in the mines that we owned. I was

shocked, and even more so at such a young age. Queen Victoria had requested an inquiry into the accident, and the result, which

was published, was an eye-opener for the entire population of Britain. The investigation was commenced by having

commissioners visiting almost all the coal mines, including ours, and filing a report with detailed illustrations and personal accounts

from the workers. The result? Queen Victoria and Lord Ashley, whom headed the royal commission of inquiry, delivered a speech

to the Parliament, demanding that a bill, which would regulate the employment of children and women in the mines, be passed. At

the beginning, I was quite happy with this, as it meant that children and women would no longer be dying in mine accidents.

However, my parents explained to me that this was not the case. If children and women would no longer work in the mines, then

there would be less people working, meaning that less coal would be extracted, which lead to less money for the family, and

ultimately, me. As I was still young at the time and quite selfish, greedy, and immature with no respect for other people’s lives, I

found myself wishing for the bill not to be passed more and more as time passed. Eventually, the bill did get passed, and I quietly

said a “dang it” to myself. However, now, after the collapse of my own mine, looking back, I realize that it was a good thing for the

benefit of the entire population of England, and for me, as almost no women or children died in my mines, due to them being

completely prevented from working in the first place.

A child working in the mines The Parliament of England

Half an hour later, I was still flipping through my photo album, quite bored and reminiscing about the past. I was thinking about our

mine, the Pendyrus Mine, which so untimely collapsed, when I realized that I was looking at a picture from its groundbreaking

ceremony, when it had just opened…

34 years after the Mines Act from the Parliament of England, our income was beginning to decrease a little due to having fewer

laborers. A full adult at the age of 41, I had spent the past few years developing ideas for another coalmine to look after. I was

partnering with my brother, Alfred, for ideas and a new coalmine. Eventually, we built a new coalmine using our parent’s money, yet

with our own ideas. Alfred collaborated with the builders, and built the coalmine to attract new workers looking for a fresh start. To

manage a larger population of workers, I proposed that we build a whole new town to go along with the mine so that our workers

could live there, and therefore we would have a larger capacity of miners, which would lead to a higher income of money over the

long run. On top of that, the British Empire was building new ships for the navy, and they needed more coal to supply the ships so

that it could sail. This lead to higher supply and demand for coal, meaning that less coal could now be sold for more. Our family

always aimed to be rich and come out on top, so Alfred and I contributed to that by building our own coalmine so that there would be

more coal extracted which would lead to more money for us. We decided to name the city after ourselves, and christened it

Tylertown. As for the mine, we named it the Pendyrus Mine, because my best friend’s cat, named Pendyrus, died, and we decided

to dedicate our new mine in his honor. At the beginning, all fared well. Just as we expected, the new coal mine and city attracted

miners by the hundreds, all flocking towards our city with the prospect of higher wages, a fresh start, and a better life. Our business

quickly boomed, and the money began rolling in, just as we planned. However, over time, the amount of new people entering our city

began declining, as word spread that there was hardly a difference for the miners- the work was still the same, the wages the same,

only the fact that it was a new mine with hopefully safer conditions kept people coming. Mostly it was safe, and yes, there were

some accidents, but no major ones that impended our business. At least not for the first 20 years…

Pendyrus Mine

Tylorstown, the town we made

It’s half past five in the evening and I’m still sitting here in empty room staring at photos and thinking about the 57 miners who

perished in the disaster in our mine just twelve hours ago. As more details and reports of the explosion came in, more and more

grisly news came in, to the point where I almost had them stop bringing in the news. However, a final report came in, tallying up the

final totals and a hypothesis of how the explosion came to take place.

It ran that there were fifty-seven miners and eighty horses in the coalmine at the time of the explosion, which took place at 5:30 in

the morning. The devastating explosion occurred in the in-between time between when the night shifts ascend to the surface to

end their session and when the morning shifts descend down to begin their shift. This meant that it was actually quite fortunate for

us that the explosion took place at this time, instead of being earlier or later. It is estimated that if the full shift of workers were in the

mine at the time of the explosion, there would be countless more casualties, as the full shift consisted of over three hundred people

at once. If the full shift had been at work during the time of the explosion, most likely all or most would have been killed, which would

be bad for me as well, given that I am the mine owner in charge of the safety of the mine. As it is, with the death toll at 57, I have

already received countless letters criticizing my poor effort in improving the safety in my mines and keeping it dry, dusty, and

therefore extremely flammable. The letter ended with a theory on how the explosion came to be. As the Pendyrus Mine was a

“fiery” mine, meaning that it ignited quickly, I had ordered, in the interest of the safety of the workers, that there was a locked-lamps

and no shot firing policy. This meant that no naked flames, except at lamp stations was allowed, as well as no shot firing being

allowed during a shift. I had asked my men to reinforce the policies especially in the past few days due to an accumulation in of gas

in the mines. Anyways, the letter stated that in the investigation, it appeared that a fireman had negligently fired a shot in a stall,

which instantly caused the gases to ignite, and fire to spread through the coal dust in the air. We assumed that explosion was

faulted from no one currently alive anymore.

Even though I was lucky that there were only 57 miners in my mine at the time of the explosion, instead of the full shift, which would

have been a certain end to my career, I still worried that my mines would no longer be used as they were proved to be unsafe and

dangerous work. This explosion was a bad mark into my succession of coalmines, and I began to fear for a lack of workers in my

mines. What would I do now?Coalmine

elevator The explosion

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