Dinas Colliery

Overview

The first deep colliery in the Rhondda, sunk by Walter Coffin at Dinas in 1812 beside the levels he had opened in 1809, and joined by the Dinas Middle pit in 1832. Its No. 3 Rhondda coal was sold as 'Coffin's celebrated coal', a fine coking coal that opened the valley to the coal trade. It was also one of the valley's deadliest pits: explosions in 1839, on New Year's Day 1844 and in January 1879 killed three, twelve and sixty-three men and boys, the last blamed by the inspector on defective ventilation two months after the manager's certificate had been suspended. The pits closed in 1893.

History

Walter Coffin, a Bridgend tanner's son, opened levels at Dinas in 1809 and in 1812 sank Dinas Lower, believed to be the first shaft in the Rhondda valley; Dinas Middle followed in 1832, 560 yards away. Both worked the No. 3 Rhondda seam, whose fine coking coal was sold as 'Coffin's celebrated coal' and gave the valley its first export trade; the Taff Vale Railway's Rhondda branch reached Dinas in 1841. The pits were fiery. An explosion in 1839, caused by a candle igniting firedamp, killed three men, and the Children's Employment Commission heard of door-boys at Dinas and neighbouring pits badly burned by gas, their faces, in its words, turned into ugly masks; Coffin was the only local coal owner to favour a minimum age of eight for collier boys, the others preferring twelve. On New Year's Day 1844 an overman took the manager's son, a boy, with him to examine the headings before work began, and an explosion in a stall the boy had examined killed twelve men and boys, four of them children -- the first major explosion in the Rhondda. The coroner condemned the overman's conduct, but the jury made clear it would not support a charge and returned a verdict of accidental death. By the 1870s the colliery belonged to Colonel Edmund D'Arcy Hunt and was worked under the name Coffin and Company, following the deeper steam coals. On 13 January 1879 an explosion in the West Heading killed sixty-three men and boys and forty-four horses. The force of it threw one of the half-ton iron caps used to seal the shaft top, and the cage with it, into the wooden headgear, where they hung above the shaft mouth. The inspector attributed the explosion to defective ventilation in a district called Morris Heading; two months earlier the manager, John Chubb, had had his certificate suspended for six months for incompetence and negligence after the inspector found gas building up in two districts for want of ventilation. Among the rescuers was Daniel Thomas, who had won the Albert Medal for the Tynewydd rescue of 1877. At the time of the explosion the Lower pit, the downcast, was 329 yards deep and the Middle pit, the upcast, 407 yards. Dinas Lower and Middle closed in 1893.

Geology

The No. 3 Rhondda seam of the Upper Coal Measures, a fine coking coal, worked from the Dinas levels and then from the two shafts; the pits later followed the deeper steam coals of the Lower Coal Measures.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Levels from 1809, then two shafts 560 yards apart: Dinas Lower, sunk 1812, the downcast, 329 yards deep at the time of the 1879 explosion, and Dinas Middle, sunk 1832, the upcast, 407 yards. The shaft tops were sealed for ventilation with half-ton iron caps.

Closure

Dinas Lower and Middle pits closed in 1893, after eighty years of working. No account of the closure itself was found beyond the date.

What remains

Unknown.

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Dinas Isha Colliery — Confusable neighbours rather than one site: Coffin's Dinas Lower and Middle pits at Dinas, and Hugh Begg's Dinas Isha pits at Penrhiwfer, four miles south, opened in 1874.

Nearby mines

• Naval Colliery — 0.9 km SW
• Tynewydd Colliery, Porth — 1.6 km E
• Glamorgan Colliery — 1.7 km NW
• Cymmer Colliery — 2.0 km E
• Ynyshir Colliery — 2.2 km NE

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

People

• John Chubb · manager, 1878–1879 — Manager whose certificate was suspended for six months for incompetence and negligence two months before the 1879 explosion.
• Walter Coffin (1784–1867) · owner, 1809–1867 — Opened the Dinas levels in 1809 and sank Dinas Lower in 1812, the Rhondda's first deep pit; the only local coal owner to favour a minimum age of eight for collier boys when the Children's Employment Commission reported.
• Edmund D'Arcy Hunt · owner, from 1879 — Owner of Dinas Colliery at the time of the 1879 explosion, when the pits were worked as Coffin and Company.
• Daniel Thomas · rescuer, from 1879 — Albert Medallist for the Tynewydd rescue of 1877, and one of the men who pressed into the workings after the 1879 Dinas explosion.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Walter Coffin opened levels at Dinas in 1809 and sank Dinas Lower in 1812, believed to be the first shaft in the Rhondda valley, with Dinas Middle following in 1832 some 560 yards away. ^1,2
• Both pits worked the No. 3 Rhondda seam, a fine coking coal sold as 'Coffin's celebrated coal'. ¹
• An explosion in 1839, caused by a candle igniting firedamp, killed three miners, and on New Year's Day 1844 an explosion killed twelve men and boys, four of them children, in the first major explosion of the Rhondda valleys. ^1,3
• On 13 January 1879 an explosion in the West Heading killed sixty-three men and boys and forty-four horses; the inspector blamed defective ventilation in the Morris Heading district. ^1,3
• Two months before the 1879 explosion the manager, John Chubb, had his certificate suspended for six months for incompetence and negligence after the inspector found gas accumulating in two districts for want of ventilation. ^1,3
• By the time of the 1879 explosion the colliery was owned by Colonel Edmund D'Arcy Hunt and worked under the name Coffin and Company. ^1,3
• Dinas Lower and Dinas Middle pits closed in 1893. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Dinas Colliery — Welsh Coal Mines
2. (secondary) Dinas Rhondda — Wikipedia
3. (secondary) The Dinas Colliery Explosions and the heroics of Daniel Thomas — Gareth F. Harris, via People's Collection Wales

Record created: 20 September 2026 · Last researched: 20 September 2026