b. 28/07/1842 Whitburn, West Lothian, Scotland. d. 04/07/1898 Pontypridd, Wales.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 11/04/1877 Ty Newydd Colliery, Wales.
William Russell Beith was born in Whitburn, West Lothian, Scotland on 28th July 1842, the son of John and Janet Beith (nee Russell). He was the third of their 12 children, and six others as well as William went into the mining industry in various forms. William found himself moving to South Wales, where on 19th April 1870 he married Ann Lloyd in Maentwrog. He and Ann went on to have four children and he worked as a mechanical engineer down the mines. On Wednesday evening, 11 April 1877, as the miners were getting ready to leave the Ty Newydd Colliery at the end of their shift, they heard the roar of rushing water. Although many managed to make it to the surface of the Greater Rhondda valley mine, after a head count, it was discovered that 14 men and boys were missing and presumed to be still underground. Word of the disaster quickly spread via the telegraph throughout the UK and beyond and the world followed along in the newspapers of the day as rescuers battled to reach the trapped men.
William spent his whole working life down the mines, before he died suddenly on 4th July 1898 in Pontypridd. He was buried at Glyntaff Cemetery in Pontypridd.
AM CITATION:
On the llth of April, the Tynewydd Colliery,situated near Porth, in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, was inundated with water from the old workings of the adjoining Cymmer Colliery. At the time of the inundation there were fourteen men in the pit, of whom four were unfortunately, drowned, and one killed by compressed air, leaving nine men imprisoned by the water ; of. this number four. were released after eighteen hours’ imprisonment, and five after nine days’ imprisonment. It wasjin effecting the release of these latter five that those distinguished services were rendered which the conferring of the ” Albert Medal of the First Class ” is intended to recognize. The rescuing operations consisted in driving through the barrier of coal ‘thirty-eight yards in length, which intervened between the imprisoned men and the rescuers, and kept back a large quantity of water and compressed air. This task was commenced on Monday, April the 16th, and was carried on until Thursday, April the 19th, without any great amount of danger being incurred by the rescuers ; but about one o’clock P.M. on that day, when ouly a few yards of barrier remained, the danger from an irruption of water, gas, and compressed air was so great as to cause the colliers to falter. It was at this juncture that the abovementioned four men volunteered to resume the rescuing operations, the danger of which had been greatly increased by an outburst of inflammable gas under great pressure, and in such quantities, as to extinguish the Davy lamps which were being used. The danger from gas continued at intervals until half-past three on the following morning, and from that time the above four men at great peril to their own lives continued the rescuing operations until three o’clock P.M., when the five imprisoned men were safely released.
BURIAL LOCATION: GLYNTAFF CEMETERY AND CREMATORIUM, PONTYPRIDD, WALES.
C.0029
LOCATION OF MEDAL: BIG PIT MINING MUSEUM, BLAENAVON, WALES.
