Profit and pollution in Swansea copper

Copper built industrial Swansea in the nineteenth century, and powered economic opportunities for smelters, shipowners and many workers. How did the industry work, who made money, and what were the impacts of the trade on the local community?
One tonne of ore takes several tonnes of coal to smelt, so in the early days of copper, ore from Cornwall was taken to Swansea to be smelted with local coal. When Cornish ore was exhausted, ships sailed to Cuba, Chile and Australia to bring back copper ore for smelting.

Shipowners

The first step in the chain, local entrepreneurs who owned and maintained ships, hired the Master and crew, and sent them to Chile or Australia to collect copper ore. One ship in twenty that rounded Cape Horn failed to come back, so the risks were high for the sailors and the shipowners. Yet many families prospered on running fleets of copper barques – Richardsons, Goldberg, Rosser, Bevans and many more. Small investors such as merchants and widows were keen to invest in shipping, so many ships were divided into 64 shares, and run by owners’ committees. Shipowners would sell their ore to the copper smelters and deliver it via the Tawe river.

Masters

Successful ship’s Masters could accumulate capital from their fees for skippering and their own trading on the side, buy shares in ships themselves, and build terraced houses on Swansea’s steep streets overlooking the Bay.

Smelters

Copper smelting dynasties were established in the eighteenth century, including Bath, Lambert, Vivian, Grenfell and Morris. In the mid 19th century Vivian’s Hafod works were the largest in the country, and Foster’s Morfa works were established right next door. Reverberatory furnaces burned coal and heated the ore to extreme temperatures, repeating the process many times to create pure copper. Copper was sold to shipping to coat hulls, for use in locomotives, telegraphy and electrical industries and even manufacturing pots and pans exported to India.

Copperworkers

Thousands of workers tended the furnaces and kept the works running. It was a skilled job and well paid, but workers had to endure high temperatures and choking “copper smoke” laced with sulphur and arsenic. Most smelters built worker housing near their main works – Morriston, Grenfelltown and Trevivian. Workers were provided with a school and chapel but had to live within the range of the copper smoke.

Profits

In common with many Victorian industrialists, the smelters took the lion’s share of profits as demand for copper boomed. The Vivians built grand houses such as Singleton Abbey, upwind of the copper smoke. They filled them with sculpture and art, and their descendants founded a public art gallery, the Glynn Vivian.

Pollution

The copper smoke, full of sulphur, arsenic, cadmium, enveloped the Lower Swansea Valley. Trees and vegetation died, and farmers reported deformities among livestock. Kilvey Hill was denuded and blackened. The copper workers themselves had sallow complexions, and many coughed up blood, eventually succumbing to “consumption.”

Smelters denied the ill effects on human health, and in an 1878 Royal commission, Vivian defended the industry, concentrating on the employment and economic benefits to the city, while dismissing the concerns of local farmers about damage to the environment. No action was taken by the government of the day against the smelters.

The land around the copper works is still contaminated, although since the 1960s there have been efforts to plant trees and regenerate nature.
In 2024 the Lower Swansea Valley Project was awarded £20m of government money for further regeneration.

Carolyn Morgan

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