Edmund Thomas AM

b. 09/06/1831 Llantrisant, Glamorgan.  d. 19/10/1887 Penarth, Glamorgan.

DATE OF AM ACTION: 11/04/1877 Tynewydd Colliery, Porth, Glamorgan.

Edmund Thomas AM

Edmund was born in June 1831, the eldest of six children of Daniel and Margaret Thomas (nee Davies). His father was a colliery manager, and one of Edmund’s younger brothers, also named Daniel would also be awarded the Albert Medal for the incident at Tynewydd Colliery in 1877. At the age of 20, he married Catherine John and they had eleven children, six boys and five girls. Edmund followed in his father’s footsteps and in 1864 he jointly opened the Cwmclydoch Colliery. By 1870, Edmund was able to purchase his own colliery at Llywyncelyn. Following the Albert Medal award, he became a magistrate in Glamorgan in 1885 and was also on the Board of Governors of Ystradfodwy School Board and Burial Board. He died suddenly on a visit to Penarth to speak at a local meeting.

 

AM CITATION:

On the llth of April the Tynewydd Colliery, situated near Forth, 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 was in effecting the release of these latter five that those distinguished services were rendered which the conferring of the ” Albert Medal of the Second Class ” is intended to recognise. From Thursday, April the 12th, when the operations for the rescue were commenced, until Friday, April the 20th, when the intervening barrier of coal had been cut through and the imprisoned men released, the above-named eleven men were present at different times, and, while being of valuable service in the rescue, exposed their own lives to the great danger which would have attended an outburst of water and compressed air, or an explosion of the inflammable gas which at different times during the rescue escaped under great pressure and in dangerous quantities.

 

BURIAL LOCATION: CYMMER INDEPENDENT CHAPEL, CYMMER, GLAMORGAN.  

LOCATION OF MEDAL: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WALES, CARDIFF, WALES.

ON LOAN TO THE BIG PIT MUSEUM, BLAENAVON.