1925 Gordon Pocket Map of the South Wales Coal Fields

A comprehensive c. 1925 map of the coalfields and coal mining operations in South Wales, prepared by mining engineer George Edward Gordon and published by Waterlow. At this time, South Wales was one of the most (if not the most) prolific coal producing regions on the planet.

A Closer Look

Ranging from Kidwelly to Newport, and taking in Swansea and Cardiff, the map covers South Wales, including the counties of Carmarthenshire, Glamorganshire, Monmouthshire, and Brecknockshire in whole or part. The titular coalfield is indicated with dark brown shading covering much of the map. Cities, towns, railways, and other features are labeled throughout. Collieries are marked with black circles and industrial works of various sorts with red rectangles. Both list the name of the enterprise and its owner(s), and the type of mine is recorded according to the legend at bottom-right. Colliery rescue stations, created in response to the constant, acute danger of fires, are marked with large red circles. A red line running across the map represents an anticline, a convex fold in the region's rock beds. An inset map at top-left displays a wider map of South Wales, while a table at bottom-left lists the collieries in South Wales along with the number of men employed at each.

Historical Context

In the decades before World War I (1914 - 1918) and into the Interwar Period, South Wales was a global center for coal production and export. Beginning in the late 18th century, coal deposits discovered in southern Wales were exploited using new technologies of the early Industrial Revolution. The coal dug there fueled further industrialization throughout Britain and beyond. The population of the region exploded, due to both increasing wealth and immigration, with the population of Wales as a whole quadrupling between the early 19th and early 20th centuries. The first decade of the 20th century saw the population of Wales grow at over 20 percent, driven by the expansion of the coal industry. Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport all developed into major cities of over 100,000 inhabitants. These drastic changes had social, cultural, and political ramifications, including labor unrest, democratization, and the relative decline in the use of the Welsh language in public life.

Publication History and Census

This map was prepared by mining engineer George Edward Gordon and published by Waterlow and Sons. It is undated, but the phrase 'new edition' in the title indicates that it represents the edition tentatively dated 1925 in the OCLC. Earlier editions, which were dated, were published in 1913, 1901, and 1897, though the earliest two may be lost now. The map is quite rare in any edition, with the present edition listed among the holdings of the National Library of Wales, Swansea University, Cardiff University, Brunel University London, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.