Mining and Manufactures.—Down to the middle of the 18th century the county had no industry of any importance except agriculture. The coal which underlies practically the whole surface of the county except the Vale of Glamorgan and West Gower was little worked till about 1755, when it began to be used instead of charcoal for the smelting of iron. By 1811, when there were 25 blast furnaces in the county, the demand for coal for this purpose had much increased, but it was in the most active period of railway construction that it reached its maximum. Down to about 1850, if not later, the chief collieries were owned by the ironmasters and were worked for their own requirements, but when the suitability of the lower seams in the district north of Cardiff for steam purposes was realized, an export trade sprang up and soon assumed enormous proportions, so that “the port of Cardiff” (including Barry and Penarth), from which the bulk of the steam coal was shipped, became the first port in the world for the shipment of coal. The development of the anthracite coal-field lying to the north and west of Swansea (from which port it is mostly shipped) dates mainly from the closing years of the 19th century, when the demand for this coal grew rapidly. There are still large areas in the Rhymney Valley on the east, and in the districts of Neath and Swansea on the west, whose development has only recently been undertaken. In connexion with the coal industry, patent fuel (made from small coal and tar) is largely manufactured at Cardiff, Port Talbot and Swansea, the shipments from Swansea being the largest in the kingdom. Next in importance to coal are the iron, steel and tin-plate industries, and in the Swansea district the smelting of copper and a variety of other ores.
The manufacture of iron and steel is carried on at Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, Cardiff, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry, Pontardawe, Swansea, Gorseinon and Gowerton. During the last quarter of the 19th century the use of the native ironstone was almost wholly given up, and the necessary ore is now imported, mainly from Spain. As a result several of the older inland works, such as those of Aberdare, Ystalyfera and Brynaman have been abandoned, and new works have been established on or near the sea-board; e.g. the Dowlais company in 1891 opened large works at Cardiff. The tin-plate industry is mainly confined to the west of the county, Swansea being the chief port for the shipment of tin-plates, though there are works near Llantrisant and at Melin Griffith near Cardiff, the latter being the oldest in the county. Copper-smelting is carried on on a large scale in the west of the county, at Port Talbot, Cwmavon, Neath and Swansea, and on a small scale at Cardiff, the earliest works having been established at Neath in 1584 and at Swansea in 1717. There are nickel works at Clydach near Swansea, the nickel being imported in the form of “matte” from Canada. Swansea has almost a monopoly of the manufacture of spelter or zinc. Lead, silver and a number of other metals or their by-products are treated in or near Swansea, which is often styled the “metallurgical capital of Wales.” Limestone and silica quarries are worked, while sandstone and clay are also raised. Swansea and Nantgarw were formerly famous for their china, coarse ware is still made chiefly at Ewenny and terra-cotta at Pencoed. Large numbers of people are employed in engineering works and in the manufacture of machines, chains, conveyances, tools, paper and chemicals. The textile factories are few and unimportant.
Fisheries.—Fisheries exist all along the coast; by lines, draught-nets, dredging, trawling, fixed nets and by hand. There is a fleet of trawlers at Swansea. The principal fish caught are cod, herring, pollock, whiting, flukes, brill, plaice, soles, turbot, oysters, mussels, limpets, cockles, shrimps, crabs and lobsters. There are good fish-markets at Swansea and Cardiff.
Communications.—The county has ample dock accommodation. The various docks of Cardiff amount to 210 acres, including timber ponds; Penarth has a dock and basin of 26 acres and a tidal harbour of 55 acres. Barry docks cover 114 acres; Swansea has 147 acres, including its new King’s Dock; and Port Talbot 90 acres. There are also docks at Briton Ferry and Porthcawl, but they are not capable of admitting deep-draft vessels.
Besides its ports, Glamorgan has abundant means of transit in many railways, of which the Great Western is the chief. Its trunk line traversing the country between the mountains and the sea passes through Cardiff, Bridgend and Landore (on the outskirts of Swansea), and throws off numerous branches to the north. The Taff Vale railway serves all the valley of the Taff and its tributaries, and has also extensions to Barry and (through Llantrisant and Cowbridge) to Aberthaw. The Rhymney railway likewise serves the Rhymney Valley, and has a joint service with the Great Western between Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil—the latter town being also the terminus of the Brecon and Merthyr and a branch of the North-Western from Abergavenny. The Barry railway visits Cardiff and then travels in a north-westerly direction to Pontypridd and Porth, while it sends another branch along the coast through Llantwit Major to Bridgend. Swansea is connected with Merthyr by the Great Western, with Brecon by the Midland, with Craven Arms and Mid-Wales generally by the London & North-Western, with the Rhondda Valley by the Rhondda and Swansea Bay (now worked by the Great Western) and with Mumbles by the Mumbles railway. The Port Talbot railway runs to Blaengarw, and the Neath and Brecon railway (starting from Neath) joins the Midland at Colbren Junction. The canals of the county are the Glamorgan canal from Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil (25½ m.), with a branch (7 m.) to Aberdare, the Neath canal (13 m.) from Briton Ferry to Abernant, Glyn Neath (whence a tramway formerly connected it with Aberdare), the Tennant canal connecting the rivers Neath and Tawe, and the Swansea canal (16½ m.), running up the Swansea Valley from Swansea to Abercrave in Breconshire. Comparatively little use is now made of these canals, excepting the lower portions of the Glamorgan canal.
Population and Administration.—The area of the ancient county with which the administrative county is conterminous is 518,863 acres, with a population in 1901 of 859,931 persons. In the three decades between 1831 and 1861 it increased 35.2, 35.4 and 37.1% respectively, and in 1881-1891, 34.4, its average increase in the other decennial periods subsequent to 1861 being about 25%. The county is divided into five parliamentary divisions (viz. Glamorganshire East, South and Middle, Gower and Rhondda); it also includes the Cardiff district of boroughs (consisting of Cardiff, Cowbridge and Llantrisant), which has one member; the greater part of the parliamentary borough of Merthyr Tydfil (which mainly consists of the county borough of Merthyr, the urban district of Aberdare and part of Mountain Ash), and returns two members; and the two divisions of Swansea District returning one member each, one division consisting of the major part of Swansea town, the other comprising the remainder of Swansea and the boroughs of Aberavon, Kenfig, Llwchwr and Neath. There are six municipal boroughs: Aberavon (pop. in 1901, 7553), Cardiff (164,333), Cowbridge (1202), Merthyr Tydfil (69,228), Neath (13,720) and Swansea (94,537). Cardiff (which in 1905 was created a city), Merthyr Tydfil and Swansea are county boroughs. The following are urban districts: Aberdare (43,365), Barry (27,030), Bridgend (6062), Briton Ferry (6973), Caerphilly (15,835), Glyncorrwg (6452), Maesteg (15,012), Margam (9014), Mountain Ash (31,093); Ogmore and Garw (19,907), Oystermouth (4461), Penarth (14,228), Pontypridd (32,316); Porthcawl (1872) and Rhondda, previously known as Ystradyfodwg (113,735). Glamorgan is in the S. Wales circuit, and both assizes and quarter-sessions are held at Cardiff and Swansea alternately. All the municipal boroughs have separate commissions of the peace, and Cardiff and Swansea have also separate courts of quarter-sessions. The county has thirteen other petty sessional divisions, Cardiff, the Rhondda (with Pontypridd) and the Merthyr and Aberdare district have stipendiary magistrates. There are 165 civil parishes. Excepting the districts of Gower and Kilvey, which are in the diocese of St David’s, the whole county is in the diocese of Llandaff. There are 159 ecclesiastical parishes or districts situated wholly or partly within the county.
History.—The earliest known traces of man within the area of the present county are the human remains found in the famous bone-caves of Gower, though they are scanty as compared with the huge deposits of still earlier animal remains. To a later stage, perhaps in the Neolithic period, belongs a number of complete skeletons discovered in 1903 in sand-blown tumuli at the mouth of the Ogmore, where many flint implements were also found. Considerably later, and probably belonging to the Bronze Age (though finds of bronze implements have been scanty), are the many cairns and tumuli, mainly on the hills, such as on Garth Mountain near Cardiff, Crug-yr-avan and a number east of the Tawe; the stone circles often found in association with the tumuli, that of Carn Llecharth near Pontardawe being one of the most complete in Wales; and the fine cromlechs of Cefn Bryn in Gower (known as Arthur’s Stone), of St Nicholas and of St Lythan’s near Cardiff.
In Roman times the country from the Neath to the Wye was occupied by the Silures, a pre-Celtic race, probably governed at that time by Brythonic Celts. West of the Neath and along the fringe of the Brecknock Mountains were probably remnants of the earlier Goidelic Celts, who have left traces in the place-names of the Swansea valley (e.g. llwch, “a lake”) and in the illegible Ogham inscription at Loughor, the only other Ogham stone in the county being at Kenfig, a few miles to the east of the Neath estuary. The conquest of the Silures by the Romans was begun about A.D. 50 by Ostorius Scapula and completed some 25 years later by Julius Frontinus, who probably constructed the great military road, called Via Julia Maritima, from Gloucester to St David’s, with stations at Cardiff, Bovium (variously identified with Boverton, Cowbridge and Ewenny), Nidum (identified with Neath) and Leucarum or Loughor. The important station of Gaer on the Usk near Brecon was connected by two branch roads, one running from Cardiff through Gelligaer (where there was a strong hill fort) and Merthyr Tydfil, and another from Neath through Capel Colbren. Welsh tradition credits Glamorgan with being the first home of Christianity, and Llandaff the earliest bishopric in Britain, the name of three reputed missionaries of the 2nd century being preserved in the names of parishes in south Glamorgan. What is certain, however, is that the first two bishops of Llandaff, St Dubricius and St Teilo, lived during the first half of the 6th century, to which period also belongs the establishment of the great monastic settlements of Llancarvan by Cadoc, of Llandough by Oudoceus and of Llantwit Major by Illtutus, the last of which flourished as a seat of learning down to the 12th century. A few moated mounds such as at Cardiff indicate that, after the withdrawal of the Romans, the coasts were visited by sporadic bands of Saxons, but the Scandinavians who came in the 9th and succeeding centuries left more abundant traces both in the place-names of the coast and in such camps as that on Sully Island, the Bulwarks at Porthkerry and Hardings Down in Gower. Meanwhile the native tribes of the district had regained their independence under a line of Welsh chieftains, whose domain was consolidated into a principality known as Glywyssing, till about the end of the 10th century when it acquired the name of Morganwg, that is the territory of Morgan, a prince who died in A.D. 980; it then comprised the whole country from the Neath to the Wye, practically corresponding to the present diocese of Llandaff. Gwlad Morgan, later softened into Glamorgan, never had much vogue and meant precisely the same as Morganwg, though the two terms became differentiated a few centuries later.
The Norman conquest of Morganwg was effected in the closing years of the 11th century by Robert Fitzhamon, lord of Gloucester. His followers settled in the low-lying lands of the “Vale,” which became known as the “body” of the shire, while in the hill country, which consisted of ten “members,” corresponding to its ancient territorial divisions, the Welsh retained their customary laws and much of their independence. Glamorgan, whose bounds were now contracted between the Neath and the Rhymney, then became a lordship marcher, its status and organization being that of a county palatine; its lord possessed jura regalia, and his chief official was from the first a vice-comes, or sheriff, who presided over a county court composed of his lord’s principal tenants. The inhabitants of Cardiff in which, as the caput baroniae, this court was held (though sometimes ambulatory), were soon granted municipal privileges, and in time Cowbridge, Kenfig, Llantrisant, Aberavon and Neath also became chartered market-towns. The manorial system was introduced throughout the “Vale,” the manor in many cases becoming the parish, and the owner building for its protection first a castle and then a church. The church itself became Normanized, and monasteries were established—the Cistercian abbey of Neath and Margam in 1129 and 1147 respectively, the Benedictine priory of Ewenny in 1141 and that of Cardiff in 1147. Dominican and Franciscan houses were also founded at Cardiff in the following century.
Gower (with Kilvey) or the country west of the morass between Neath and Swansea had a separate history. It was conquered about 1100 by Henry de Newburgh, 1st earl of Warwick, by whose descendants and the powerful family of De Breos it was successively held as a marcher lordship, organized to some extent on county lines, till 1469. Swansea (which was the caput baroniae of Gower) and Loughor received their earlier charters from the lords of Gower (see [Gower]).