Peerless Powell Duffryn of the South Wales Coalfield by Leslie M. Shore

Lightmoor Press  2012  £24.99

Sir George Elliot founded Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company in 1864. He ran the company in a style that concerned the company’s shareholders but in 1883 put Edmund Mills Hann, a County Durham mining engineer, in charge of the company’s collieries. Hann introduced engineering improvements to ensure that the PD collieries in the Cynon and Rhymney Valleys became models of efficiency. In spite of industrial conflict and natural disasters, by 1914, PD was a byword for Welsh steam coal around the globe. In 1935, Edmund Lawrence Hann led the merger of PD with Welsh Associated Collieries to create the most powerful company in British coal mining.