Following the development of the coal found in the
Cynon Valley,
Rhondda Valley, and
Merthyr areas of South Wales, the export of both coal and iron products required a sea connection to the
Bristol Channel if economic volumes of product were to be extracted. In 1794, the
Glamorganshire Canal was completed, linking the then small town of
Cardiff with Merthyr, and in 1798 a basin was built, connecting the
canal to the sea. By the 1830s, Cardiff became the pre-eminent iron-exporting port, shipping almost half of British overseas iron exports; between 1840 and 1870, the volume of coal exports increased from 44,350 to 2.219 million tonnes.
Bute Docks Increasing agitation for proper dock facilities led Cardiff's foremost landowner,
John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, to promote the construction of the (West) Bute Dock. The dock design was by Admiral
William Henry Smyth and the resident engineer was
George Turnbull. Two years after the October 1839 dock opening, the
Taff Vale Railway was opened, following much the same route as the canal. With the construction of the new East Bute Dock from 1855, designed by
James Walker of
Messrs. Walker & Burges and built by
Thomas Cubitt's firm, its opening in 1859 resulted in
coal supplanting
iron as the industrial foundation of
South Wales, with exports reaching 2 million tons as early as 1862. The
Bute Docks Feeder supplied the East Bute Dock with water extracted from the
River Taff at Blackweir in
Maindy, and now supplies the Roath Dock. It is largely an open canal through central Cardiff, other than a culvert between the
New Theatre and the
Cardiff International Arena.
Queen Alexandra Dock Frustration at the lack of development at Cardiff led to rival docks being opened at
Penarth in 1865 and
Barry, Wales in 1889. These developments eventually spurred Cardiff into action, with the opening of the Roath Dock in 1887, and the Queen Alexandra Dock in 1907. By then, coal exports from the
South Wales Coalfield via Cardiff totalled nearly 9 million tons per annum, much of it exported in the holds of locally owned
tramp steamers. By 1913, this had risen to 10,700,000 tons, making Cardiff second only to
Barry, Wales as the largest coal exporting dock in the world.
Shipping Cardiff's first steamship was the Llandaff of 1865, and by 1910, there were some 250 tramp steamers owned at Cardiff, by prominent firms such as
William Cory & Son, Morel,
Evan Thomas Radcliffe, Tatem and Reardon-Smith. Each day, the principals of these companies would meet to arrange cargoes of coal for their ships in the opulent
Coal Exchange in
Mount Stuart Square. This trade reached its pinnacle in 1913, when 10.7 million tons of coal were exported from the port. After the
First World War, there was a boom in shipping in Cardiff, with 122 shipping companies in existence in 1920. The boom proved short-lived, however;
oil was growing in importance as a maritime fuel, and the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles soon flooded Europe with cheap
German reparation coal.
Railways The
Taff Vale Railway was built to transport coal from the
South Wales Valleys to the docks. Its headquarters were a currently derelict building in
Cardiff Bay railway station. The building was turned into a railway heritage centre in 1979 by the Butetown Historic Railway Society. By 1994 the Society had started to run
steam locomotive hauled passenger services up and down 550 yards of track. However, as the
Cardiff Bay Development Corporation had no interest in the railway, the society changed its name to the
Vale of Glamorgan Railway and moved from the site in 1997 to
Barry Island railway station.
Decline From 1910 onwards capacity issues meant that the more modern and less tidal
Barry Docks took over as the largest volume export point of coal. Until the early 1920s, Cardiff docks continued to boom as a location for shipping companies, but the fall in demand for Welsh coal caused a dramatic fall in exports. ==Modern port facilities==