Aneurin Bevan at Tŷ Trist Colliery

Aneurin Bevan, who as Minister of Health created the National Health Service, began work at Tŷ Trist Colliery in Tredegar at thirteen, beside his father. By nineteen he chaired his miners' lodge, and the colliery manager's attempt to sack him was overturned by the Miners' Federation as victimisation.

The mining history in this record

Bevan was born in 1897 in Charles Street, Tredegar, a town where most men worked underground for the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, his father David among them. He left Sirhowy School at thirteen and went into Tŷ Trist Colliery, by one account on his thirteenth birthday in November 1910, working with his father for seven shillings a week, by another in 1911; another gives his pay as about ten shillings, most of it handed to his parents.

At the pit he joined the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miners' Federation and, educating himself in the Workmen's Hall library and the Plebs' League classes, became a local orator and, in 1916, chairman of his lodge. The company saw him as a troublemaker, and the manager found an excuse to dismiss him; the Federation took up the case as victimisation and he was taken back. He and his brother later moved to the Bedwellty pit and Whitworth Colliery, in 1919 he won a Federation scholarship to the Central Labour College in London, and after his return the company refused to employ him. His father died of pneumoconiosis in 1925.

People

Aneurin Bevan, miner at Tŷ Trist and lodge chairman, later Minister of Health. David Bevan, his father, a miner. Walter Conway, his mentor.

Legacy today

Bevan opened his 1952 book In Place of Fear by describing himself as "a young miner in a South Wales colliery". The site of Tŷ Trist Colliery lies close to Tredegar Comprehensive School, and memorial stones to Bevan stand at Tredegar.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Aneurin Bevan went to work at Tŷ Trist Colliery, Tredegar, on his thirteenth birthday in November 1910, alongside his father, for seven shillings a week. (documented fact, disputed) ¹
• Bevan left school at 13 and began working at Tŷ Trist Colliery in 1911. (documented fact, disputed) ²
• At Tŷ Trist he earned around ten shillings a week, most of it going to his parents. (documented fact, uncertain) ³
• Bevan became chairman of his miners' lodge at the age of nineteen, in 1916. (documented fact) ^3,1,2
• The colliery manager found an excuse to dismiss Bevan, and the Miners' Federation won his reinstatement as a case of victimisation. (documented fact) ^3,1
• Tŷ Trist Colliery stood close to the site of Tredegar Comprehensive School. (documented fact) ²
• Bevan's father David, a miner with the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, died of pneumoconiosis in February 1925. (documented fact) ^3,1

Mines

• Ty Trist Colliery — Blaenau Gwent
  Aneurin Bevan worked at Tŷ Trist from the age of thirteen, from 1910 or 1911, and chaired the miners' lodge there by 1916 before the company tried to dismiss him.

Sources

1. (secondary) Aneurin Bevan — Spartacus Educational
2. (secondary) Aneurin Bevan memorial stones, Tredegar — History Points
3. (secondary) Aneurin Bevan — Wikipedia

Record created: 4 October 2026 · Last researched: 4 October 2026