Looking at coursework

1. Looking at coursework Time to ask Lots of questions

2. This is what I was asked for last week • You are to investigate which factors were most important in locating a secondary or tertiary organisation of your choice – hopefully one which you have personal contact with: • 1. Introduction: The factors that can influence the location of a secondary or tertiary organisation (I hope you have done this already) • 2. Your chosen organisation: What is it? Where is it? What does it do? • Map of where it is - Photographs – annotated – to show what it does, what its like – its products or service –

3. This is what I was asked for last week • You are to investigate which factors were most important in locating a secondary or tertiary organisation of your choice – hopefully one which you have personal contact with: • 3. Those factors that have no influence at all on your organisation and why you believe that to be the case • 4. The factors that do/did have an influence on its location: • It could be that was another reason, besides the ones we have mentioned as being generally applicable, that affected the location of your particular organisation – please do include this at this stage. • For each one (one at a time)– what is it? How/Why does it have an influence? Where possible, evidence of that influence? • 5. Conclusion: which in your opinion is the most important?

4. This is what I was asked for last week • It is the bit about evidence that will be so individual that I cannot give pointers – but I fully anticipate that EVERYONE might want some help on this on a case by case basis. I am sure my ingenuity will come up with something provided I have enough info about your specific problem – I will then use individual problems to build up a body of ideas that might be more widely applicable and put those on the wiki on a page I will give you the link to once it is up and running: • So in order to make giving help feasible, I need the following: • What is the organisation? • Where is it? • What does it do? • Which factor do you need evidence of to show it had an effect? What do you know about that factor already?

5. Which one might cause you problems? Raw materials Energy Labour Government Policy Market Transport Capital Location and site Environment Any others we have not talked about?

6. Now we are going to start to look at an area that has changed over time (case study 3) We may not reach the end of this – but I have set aside the week after half term to complete this + a bit I have not yet completed about the future of South Wales

7. Wales

8. Wales

9. Watch as the labels turn green Raw materials Energy Labour Government Policy Market Transport Capital Location and site Environment

10. Some coal seams reached the valley sides, but by the mid-1800s these easily reached sources of coal had run out. It became necessary to dig down to reach new coal seams. The easiest way to reach them was to build a mine at the bottom of a valley. • Mining was a dirty and dangerous job and in the early part of the 1800s women and children worked underground alongside the men. The work was done by hand with a pick and shovel. Pit ponies dragged the coal back to the shaft to be brought up to the surface. The ponies spent all their working lives underground, only being brought to the surface when they were too old to work.

11. Accidents were common, either from roof collapses or gas explosions. On several occasions hundreds of miners were killed. Spending money on safety sometimes seemed less important for the coal companies than making good profits. Around 3,000 miners died in accidents between 1850 and 1914. • Notice from the diagram below that the coal seams in south Wales are quite narrow and at different levels. The mine shafts had to follow the coal seams as they went up and down.

12. At first coal was used mainly in the iron industry. But south Wales coal was of such high quality that it became popular all over the world. By the middle of the 1800s two major developments in transport provided a great boost to the industry. • A rail network was built throughout Britain and Europe - the steam trains ran on coal and south Wales coal was in much demand. The rail network made it easier to transport coal to the rest of Britain. Railways in far away British colonies such as India and in Africa used coal from Wales. • Ships switched from sail to steam power. As early as 1851 the British navy decided that Welsh coal was the best coal for its ships. Navies and merchant ships around the world used coal from south Wales.

13. In the early 1800s canals were used to transport coal from the valleys down to the dock. But when rail replaced canals the industry really took off. Railways from the Rhondda valley and other coal-mining valleys ran fairly short distances down to the booming docks at Cardiff, Newport and Swansea. • Notice how the river valleys naturally provided routes down to the coast. By 1870, 50% of the coal was being exported overseas. • The basic physical geography of south Wales had given the region a great advantage over other coal-producing areas. The river valleys gave transport routes and the steep valleys made it easy to mine down to the coal.

14. What are links here?

15. What are links here?

16. Watch as the labels turn green Raw materials Energy Labour Government Policy Market Transport Capital Location and site Environment

17. Labour • Coal mining depended on hard, physical labour. The industry was hungry for workers. The boom in the south Wales coal industry attracted people to move to the area from other parts of Wales and from the rest of Britain. • The Rhondda valleys became the centre of the coal industry. In 1860 they had a population of around 3,000 people. • This had jumped to 160,000 by 1910. People migrated from the rural parts of Wales, but also in great numbers from Ireland, Scotland and England. • The English speakers far outnumbered the Welsh speakers. The south Wales coalfield became a "melting pot" of different cultures and people.

18. Labour • The mining valleys developed their own unique culture. Strong communities grew up with people sharing the hardships that mine work brought. By and large the coal companies did little to help their workers. There were frequent disputes over pay and conditions. The miners formed unions to try and look after their interests and improve their pay and conditions. • Faced by conditions of poor quality housing, outbreaks of disease and the grinding hard work and danger of mining, communities organised themselves to make things better. The mining communities of the south Wales valleys became famous for their strength, and for their choirs, chapels, clubs and rugby teams!

19. Watch as the labels turn green Raw materials Energy Labour Government Policy Market Transport Capital Location and site Environment

20. 1914 – what next? • The period up to the First World War was the boom period for the south Wales coalfield. Coal production had reached its peak and the industry continued to make profits. At times there had been periods of depression when the price of coal had fallen and miners had lost their jobs or had their pay reduced. But the industry always seemed to be able to bounce back. • Things were starting to change. Just as steam had replaced sail in ships, steam was now being replaced by oil. Other countries were producing more of their own coal and didn't need to import it from Wales. • But the coal companies still felt confident about the future of "King Coal". South Wales still had huge quantities of high-quality coal and it was hard to see that the boom that had started back in the 1800s was about to turn to bust.

21. This is what happened • Confidence in the future of coal was still high in 1914 but it was soon shaken. A royal commission on the coal industry reported in 1919 that: "The prosperity of south Wales is entirely dependent on the export trade in coal." • This dependence was very real. The industry relied on exporting 70% of its production. The whole area, mining settlements and the docks, depended on coal. But demand for coal was falling and there were few other industries in south Wales. Iron and steel making, and the manufacture of other metals, were also in decline because other countries had developed their own industries. • The 1920s and 1930s were decades of economic depression and poverty in the coalfields. There were long strikes and bitter disputes between the company owners and the miners. The companies wanted to keep up their profits but often at the expense of miners' wages and jobs.

22. This is what happened • In 1934 unemployment rates of 60% were recorded in parts of the south Wales coalfield. People started to move away. Between 1931 and 1939, 160,000 people migrated from south Wales to look for work in the new industries being developed in other parts of Britain. • The decline continued after the Second World War up until the present day. The coal industry was nationalised in 1947 - that means it was taken over by the government. To modernise the industry, machines were needed instead of manual workers. Many of the coal seams in south Wales weren't suited to the use of modern mining machinery. • Coal was the vital fuel of the 1800s and early 1900s. But it is much less important now and has been largely replaced by other forms of energy.

23. Explain the reasons for the decline

24. Which ones will turn red as problems? Raw materials Energy Labour Government Policy Market Transport Capital Location and site Environment

25. Impact of closures • At its peak nearly 300,000 miners had been employed in the coal industry. In 1945 there were 125,000 miners working in 135 pits in south Wales. By the early 1980s that had shrunk to 22,000, and by the early 1990s to below 1,000. • Whole communities were devastated when their pit closed. Families lost their income and without the miners' wages, shops and businesses lost trade. People moved away to look for work, and those who stayed found it hard to find a decent job. • Ever since the 1930s the government has been trying to attract new industry to the valleys. The Welsh Development Agency continues this work today. But the valleys offer few attractions as a location for modern factories. • New companies setting up in Wales over the last 20 years or so have chosen locations near the M4, rather than in the narrow, built-up former mining settlements such as the Rhondda valley. • Today, the visible signs of the coal industry have largely been removed. Collieries have been replaced by supermarkets and small industrial units; the old slag heaps of waste rocks have been landscaped and planted with grass and trees.

26. Impact of closures • But the scars on the community are slow to heal, and most former mining communities face a range of social and economic problems. • Geographers at Cardiff and other universities have recently conducted a study of former mining communities in several coalfield areas in Wales and England. • Explore the diagram below to learn what the researchers found out.

27. Meanwhile the steel industry had moved on too • Can you explain why?

28. The local raw materials ran out and they needed to be imported from other countries • Proximity to ports were needed for bulk imports/exports • Steel works (as against iron works) need a lot of water for cooling and other processes • New steel works were integrated – a lot of different processes on one site – need a lot of space

29. Why was Margam located where it was?

30. Did we get all these?

31. After half term … • We will check this through again and then look at what has happened since – our last week on this Unit before starting the new one: • B6: Urban environments