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Slate Products at Llechwedd |
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England's Industrial Revolution, and the need for something more labour efficient than straw to roof the workers' terraces which sprouted around the "dark satanic mills," created the Welsh slate industry. New skills were needed to speed slate production, and J.W.Greaves was in the forefront of the required innovation. The 1852 Floor 2 Mill, into which visitors alight from the Miners' Tramway, contains several specimens of his ingenuity. He devised his own sawing table in 1850, using Blaenau Ffestiniog's abundant water-power to convert his newfound wealth into manageable blocks for splitting. One of these tables, made for Greaves by G.Owen. of the Union Iron Works, Porthmadog, is on display. It was 1852 before Greaves was able to plane his slate to produce slabs - selling his first four to C.H.Hawkins, of Colchester. An improved version of Greaves' sawing table was made in 1888 by the internationally famous de Winton & Co, of Caernarfon - to whom J.W.Greaves' youngest son, Richard M.Greaves, was apprenticed until 1874, later to become engineer at Penyrorsedd quarry, Nantlle, before joining his brother as managing director at Llechwedd. One of these 1888 tables is also on display. Another of John W.Greaves' inventions - also in 1850 - was the slate dressing engine, still used wherever slates need trimming for roofing, and still known as the "Greaves' engine," though now usually meaning the improved version patented by his son Richard in 1886. Some of the original 1850 machines are still to be found at Llechwedd, made by R.Jones & Sons, Porthmadog. The 1886 version which visitors see in use in the Floor 2 Mill was made by William Lewis, at the Ffestiniog Foundry, Tanygrisiau. This high technology of its era made 1850 the real turning point in the career of J.W.Greaves, for during his financial year ended 30 September, Llechwedd sold 1,128 tons of finished roofing slates, with a value of £2,114. After 14 years of investment and innovation he had joined the ranks of the big producers to leave behind a company still bearing his name, and still owned by his descendants. |
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