Going underground

Three years ago I was contacted by an heir hunter from south Wales who was searching for the descendants of the Wilcox family. A distant relative who was unknown to me had left a small legacy and he had no descendants of his own. This led to a discovery about two brothers and one sister of my Grandfather, William Wilcox, who left London to start new lives in the coal mining valleys of Wales.

This is a preamble to my Welsh connection and the stories behind Frederick and George and their sister Marguerite Wilcox. The two brothers left London shortly after the beginning of the 20^th Century, and their sister joined them after the First World War. They changed their name to Francis and all three married and settled in the Sirhowy Valley, in the mining town of Tredegar.

I have to set the scene for this section of family history and I need to take you to a coal mine.

The Big Pit was a working coal mine which opened in the 19^th Century and closed in 1980. Big Pit is in Blaenavon, Gwent in one of the south Wales valleys that became world famous for its coal mining industry. It is not a deep mine, descending 80 metres to the main gallery. In 1983 it was opened to the public as a charitable trust and then it became the National Coal Mining Museum in Wales. It is part of a European trail of industrial heritage sites and museums, preserving the stories and artefacts of industries that have now disappeared.

Our guide at Big Pit told us they frequently welcomed coach tours from France. All the remains of French coal mines have been filled in or built over and relatives and descendants of coal miners come to Gwent to understand what their fathers and grandfathers did to earn their living. I came here to understand what my two Great Uncles did when they fled London for Wales. The following picture shows the Big Pit Museum at Blaenavon.

Before entering the cage that would take us into the pit, our guide instructed us to remove any electronic devices and gave us hard hats and miners lamps with special battery packs. The cage descends slowly and when we came out of it I was surprised how calm and safe it felt. There was no sense of being deep in this mine. We were led through the main tunnel and shown various mechanical artefacts that were introduced during the 20^th Century to make work safer. The emphasis of the guides talk was always on the work of the miners and the very strong comradeship that was developed which also protected them and kept their families safe. He was an ex miner who now had a new vocation. We walked through the heavy wooden doors that were used from the start of the mine, opened and shut by boys who remained in the dark for eight hours unless they had to open it for the waggons or miners who carried a candle or a lamp. These doors maintained a steady flow of air through the mine. We followed the rails along which the waggons were pulled by pit ponies. A large number of pit ponies were kept in the mine. They never saw the light of day other than the two weeks of the mine’s annual holiday in the summer. This might have been as shocking as learning about boys working in the dark in the early days. However, pit ponies were working up until the 1970’s. There is no doubt that they were cared for and looked after by the men. However, in the museum were saw original publicity from the RSPCA who campaigned to stop the practice after the Second World War.

Above all the guide emphasised the tight community that coal miners had – protecting and caring for one another because no one could guess the potential dangers that might happen to them.

The Big Pit sits just below the brow of the hill that separates Blaenavon and Nantyglo. Coming up into daylight and we take a short walk up to the bath house which was created in 1941. Prior to their creation, miners had to walk home in their dust laden clothes, to their houses in whatever weather to have a tin bath prepared for them by their wives.

The bath house now has become a museum display. The following picture shows the basic tools of the miners’ trade.

Two valleys along, in the Sirhowy Valley, is the town of Tredegar. It has a very famous place in political history being the birthplace and workplace of Aneurin Bevan, responsible for spearheading the creation of the National Health Service. In this town were more coal mines owned by the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company. I’m unclear about exactly which mine but Frederick and George both worked in one of the pits. In the 1911 Census I can see that one brother worked as a Hewer below ground and the other as a Timberman above ground.

I was introduced to Tredegar, my Great Uncles hometown, by my newfound cousin who I was meeting for the first time. She is the youngest Granddaughter of George Francis. She had much pride in showing me streets and a park that George and Frederick would have been well acquainted with. Then she showed me the cemeteries where they and their sister, now rested.

The stories of Frederick and George Wilcox and Marguerite Wilcox, who left London to start new lives in Wales, who changed their names to Francis to begin a new identity, are not complicated on paper and in records. But they do leave lots of questions unanswered and these might change as I tell the stories of their lives.

If you are interested in learning more about coal mining there is a short introductory book by Richard Hayman, “Coal Mining in Britain”, published by Shire.