As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure.

Home / Periods / Long Nineteenth Century / Industrial Wales

Period

Industrial Wales

1800–1914 CE

During the nineteenth century Wales became one of the most intensively industrialised parts of Britain. Coal and iron transformed the valleys of the south, while slate quarrying in the north, copper on Anglesey and expanding docks and railways connected Welsh labour to national and international markets. New towns grew rapidly around furnaces, collieries and quarries.

Industrial growth created wealth but also dangerous workplaces, overcrowded housing and sharp divisions between owners and labourers. Trade unionism, Chartism and repeated local disputes developed from these conditions. The period provides the broad setting for much of Alexander Cordell’s Welsh fiction and acts as a parent for more specific episodes such as the Merthyr Rising.

Related people for Industrial Wales

Dic Penderyn1807/1808–1831

Series

Series about Industrial Wales (2 series)

Mortymer Saga in Order

by Alexander Cordell 7 books 4.3(1,188)

The Mortymer Saga traces one Welsh family through the upheavals created by industrialisation, political protest and empire. It begins with This Proud and Savage Land in 1800, continues through the three novels originally marketed as the Mortymer Trilogy—Rape of the Fair Country, Hosts of Rebecca and Song of…

Second Welsh Trilogy in Order

by Alexander Cordell 3 books 4.1(122)

Cordell’s second Welsh trilogy returns to the history of labour and protest through three separate protagonists and regions. The Fire People centres on the Merthyr Rising of 1831 and the execution of Dic Penderyn; This Sweet and Bitter Earth moves from North Wales slate quarries to the Rhondda…

Books

1 Best Novel About Industrial Wales