The Tribunal of Inquiry into the Aberfan Disaster (the Aberfan Disaster Tribunal), chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies, was established in 1966 to inquire into the causes of and circumstances of the Aberfan disaster. The report of the tribunal placed the blame for the disaster on the National Coal Board (NCB), naming nine of its staff as having some degree of responsibility.
On 21 October 1966, a colliery spoil tip on a hill above the Welsh village of Aberfan near Merthyr Tydfil collapsed, killing 116 children and 28 adults. [1] More than 1.4 million cubic feet (40,000 cu metres) of debris covered a section of the village in minutes. The classrooms at Pantglas Junior School were immediately inundated; young children and teachers died from impact or suffocation.
On 26 October 1966, after resolutions in both Houses of Parliament, the Secretary of State for Wales appointed a tribunal to inquire into the causes of and circumstances relating to the Aberfan disaster. [lower-alpha 1] It was chaired by the respected Welsh judge and Privy Councillor Lord Justice Edmund Davies, who was born two miles from Aberfan and had attended Mountain Ash Grammar School. [2] [3] Before the tribunal began, the Attorney General imposed restrictions on speculation in the media about the causes of the disaster. [4]
The tribunal sat for 76 days – the longest inquiry of its type in British history up to that time – taking evidence from 136 witnesses, examining 300 exhibits and hearing 2,500,000 words of testimony, which included the history of mining in the area together with the region's geological conditions. [4] The tribunal report observed that "much of the time of the Tribunal could have been saved if ... the National Coal Board had not stubbornly resisted every attempt to lay the blame where it so clearly must rest — at their door." Not until day 49 had an NCB witness conceded that tip safety arrangements had been inadequate; not until day 65 had one conceded that (contrary to the assertions of Lord Robens, the Chairman of the NCB) the instability of Tip 7 could clearly have been foreseen, and that this had been known within the NCB "even before the formal sittings of the inquiry had started" (italicised in original). [5] Robens was then invited to testify (effectively to explain NCB failure publicly to correct his statements once they were known to be erroneous). He said that he had known before the inquiry started that the instability of the tip was foreseeable. During cross-examination he "gave inconsistent answers": the tribunal was invited by NCB counsel to disregard Robens' evidence and did so. [6] [lower-alpha 2] The tribunal retired on 28 April 1967 to consider its conclusions, publishing its report on 3 August.
The report of the tribunal stated in its introduction:
"... our strong and unanimous view is that the Aberfan disaster could and should have been prevented. ... the Report which follows tells not of wickedness but of ignorance, ineptitude and a failure in communications. Ignorance on the part of those charged at all levels with the siting, control and daily management of tips; bungling ineptitude on the part of those who had the duty of supervising and directing them; and failure on the part of those having knowledge of the factors which affect tip safety to communicate that knowledge and to see that it was applied." [8]
The tribunal's findings were that:
I. Blame for the disaster rests upon the National Coal Board. This blame is shared (though in varying degrees) among the National Coal Board headquarters, the South Western Divisional Board, and certain individuals.
II. There was a total absence of tipping policy and this was the basic cause of the disaster. [9] In this respect, however, the National Coal Board were following in the footsteps of their predecessors. They were not guided either by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Mines and Quarries or by legislation.
III. There is no legislation dealing with the safety of tips in force in this or any country, except in part of West Germany and in South Africa.
IV. The legal liability of the National Coal Board to pay compensation for the personal injuries (fatal or otherwise) and damage to property is incontestable and uncontested. [10]
The specific cause of the collapse was a build-up of water in the pile; when a small rotational slip occurred, the disturbance caused the saturated, fine material of the tip to liquefy (thixotropy) and flow down the mountain. Although it was estimated that tailings constituted about 10% of the tip at the time of the disaster, the inquiry concluded that they were not a contributory factor in the fatal slide: "Owing to the geological and geographical features and the size of the tip, the expert evidence is that there would have been a major slide even had no tailings been placed on it." [11]
In 1958, the tip had been sited on a known stream (as shown on Ordnance Survey maps) and had previously suffered several minor slips. Its instability was known both to colliery management and to tip workers, but very little was done about it. The tips were the responsibility of mechanical engineers who had only a layman's understanding of tip stability issues. The attention of colliery management and engineers (whom the tribunal noted to be generally devoted and over-worked) was directed elsewhere:
...the great bulk of mining operations take place below ground and that most of the best men in the industry are employed there. It is there that coal is won and in that direction that the attention of those employed in the industry is naturally turned. Rubbish tips are a necessary and inevitable adjunct to a coal mine, even as a dustbin is to a house, but it is plain that miners devote certainly no more attention to rubbish tips than householders do to dustbins.
...
We found that many witnesses … had been oblivious of what lay before their eyes. It did not enter their consciousness. They were like moles being asked about the habits of birds. [12]
The disregard of the NCB and the colliery staff for the tip's unstable geological conditions and its failure to act after previous smaller slides were found to have been major factors that contributed to the catastrophe. The tribunal found that the tips had never been surveyed, and up to the time of the landslide were continuously being added to in a chaotic and unplanned manner. Repeated warnings about the tip's dangerous condition had been ignored; even after representations from Merthyr Borough Council. NCB civil engineers (who should have realised the dangerous state of the tip had they seen it) had not been involved: "if there had been a proper investigation with a view to allaying the fears and resolving the doubts, the effect on the course of events must, in our opinion, have been dramatic and decisive." The tribunal also described as 'an aspect which we have not overlooked' the argument of Mr Geoffrey Howe QC on behalf of the colliery managers that tailings had played an important role in the mismanagement of the tip: "they were believed to be the significant hazard, and with their stoppage, with their discontinuance on the site, it was believed that the hazard had been removed". [13] No blame lay with Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council or the National Union of Mineworkers; they had assumed that the NCB was acting on the basis of sound technical advice. [14]
The NCB paid out £160,000 in compensation: £500 for each fatality, plus money for traumatised survivors and damaged property. [15] [lower-alpha 3] Nine senior NCB staff were named as having some degree of responsibility for the accident and the tribunal report was scathing in its criticism of evidence given by the principal NCB witnesses. Lord Robens, addressing the National Union of Mineworkers in 1963 had said "If we are going to make pits safer for men we shall have to discipline the wrongdoer. I have no sympathy at all for those people—whether men, management or officials—who act in any way which endangers the lives and limbs of others." [17] No NCB staff were demoted, sacked or prosecuted as a consequence of the Aberfan disaster or for evidence given to the inquiry (one notably unsatisfactory witness had been promoted by the time Parliament debated the Davies Report); [17] Lord Robens and the board of the NCB retained their positions. [18]
Following the report's publication, Robens wrote to the Minister of Power, Richard Marsh, offering his resignation. Although Robens had a combative relationship with the government and several cabinet ministers argued strongly that he should go, in September 1967 the Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Marsh refused to accept Robens's resignation offer. [19] According to Ronald Dearing, a senior member of staff at the Ministry of Power, who briefed Marsh on the matter, the fact that Robens was "taking the coal industry through a period of painful contraction without big strikes" and the strong support for him within the coal industry and the union movement were crucial to the decision to retain him. [20] Leo Abse spoke for many other critics: ..."when I saw what I regarded as the graceless pavane danced by Lord Robens and the Minister, as the Chairman of the Coal Board coyly offered his resignation and, equally coyly, the Minister rejected the offer, I thought that it was a disgraceful spectacle." [17] Papers released in 1997 under the thirty-year rule show that Robens worked with the NUM to gather support, then agreed to the wording of a letter from Marsh refusing Robens' resignation before offering his supposed resignation. [21] In an interview broadcast in 2006, Marsh, after talking about a discussion with Robens, said:
We went through this and I said "Well, you send me in your resignation, and I will send you back a letter saying 'quite understand it, but I don't accept it'"
— Richard Marsh [22]
204 ... In our view, Lord Robens, an administrator who expressly disclaimed any technical knowledge, under cross-examination laid claim to having already possessed by the time the Inquiry opened a degree of knowledge which in all probability he later acquired only by that assiduous reading of the daily transcript of evidence to which he himself testified. Had he been called at an earlier stage he would probably have been in no position to express a worthwhile opinion or define an attitude in relation to foreseeability or as to any of the other issues which occupied so much time.
205. But as Lord Robens himself knew nothing beyond what he was told by others in the calamitous circumstances then prevailing, it was unwise of him to imply at Aberfan that he had knowledge, and it is understandable that his statement was bitterly resented by the residents, who possessed the intimate local knowledge which he lacked. [7]
Thomas George Thomas, 1st Viscount Tonypandy, was a British politician who served as a member of parliament (MP) and Speaker of the House of Commons from 1976 to 1983. He was elected as a Labour MP.
The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.
South Wales is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales. The Brecon Beacons National Park covers about a third of south Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia.
The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "vesting day", 1 January 1947. In 1987, the NCB was renamed the British Coal Corporation, and its assets were subsequently privatised.
Ronald Ernest Dearing, Baron Dearing, was a senior civil servant before becoming chairman and chief executive of the Post Office Ltd.
The South Wales Valleys are a group of industrialised peri-urban valleys in South Wales. Most of the valleys run north–south, roughly parallel to each other. Commonly referred to as "The Valleys", they stretch from Carmarthenshire in the west to Monmouthshire in the east; to the edge of the pastoral country of the Vale of Glamorgan and the coastal plain near the cities of Swansea, Cardiff, and Newport.
Wansbeck is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Ian Lavery, a member of the Labour Party.
Alfred Robens, Baron Robens of Woldingham, PC was an English trade unionist, Labour politician and industrialist. His political ambitions, including an aspiration to become Prime Minister, were frustrated by bad timing, but his energies were diverted into industry: he spent 10 years as Chairman of the National Coal Board, and later – despite the Aberfan disaster – headed a major inquiry which resulted in the Robens Report on occupational health and safety. His outlook was paternalistic; in later life, he moved away from his early socialism towards the Conservative Party. His reputation remains tarnished by his failure to have foreseen and prevented the Aberfan disaster, followed by actions widely regarded as grossly insensitive during the aftermath of the disaster.
Stephen Owen "S.O." Davies was a Welsh miner, trade union official and Labour Party politician, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Merthyr Tydfil, previously Merthyr for nearly 38 years, from 1934 to 1972. In 1970, well past 80, he was deselected as parliamentary candidate by his local party association because of his age. He fought the election in the 1970 general election as an independent candidate and won comfortably, a rare example in British politics of an independent candidate defeating a major party's organisation. In a BBC TV interview the day after that election, he claimed to be 83 years old.
The South Wales Coalfield extends across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen. It is rich in coal deposits, especially in the South Wales Valleys.
The Senghenydd colliery disaster, also known as the Senghenydd explosion, occurred at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales, on 14 October 1913. The explosion, which killed 439 miners and a rescuer, is the worst mining accident in the United Kingdom. Universal Colliery, on the South Wales Coalfield, extracted steam coal, which was much in demand. Some of the region's coal seams contained high quantities of firedamp, a highly explosive gas consisting of methane and hydrogen.
This article is about the particular significance of the year 1966 to Wales and its people.
Herbert Edmund Edmund-Davies, Baron Edmund-Davies, PC was a British judge.
Sir Alun Talfan Davies was a Welsh judge, publisher and Liberal politician.
The Minnie Pit disaster was a coal mining accident that took place on 12 January 1918 in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys died. The disaster, which was caused by an explosion due to firedamp, is the worst ever recorded in the North Staffordshire Coalfield. An official investigation never established what caused the ignition of flammable gases in the pit.
Aberfan is a former coal mining village in the Taff Valley 4 mi (6 km) south of the town of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
Wharncliffe Woodmoor 1, 2 and 3 colliery was a coal mine that was located at the junction of Laithes Lane and Carlton Road, about 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of Barnsley, South Yorkshire and a quarter mile east of Staincross and Mapplewell railway station, on the Great Central Railway. The branch line junction was about 200 feet (61 m) from Staincross that connected it to the colliery via a private line. The line finished up between the three main shafts and the coking ovens.
David 'Dai' Beynon (1919–1966) was the deputy head of Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, Wales. He is known in Wales and throughout the UK as one of the heroes of the Aberfan disaster of 1966, dying in the disaster as he attempted to shield the children in his class.
The Industrial Revolution in Wales was the adoption and developments of new technologies in Wales in the 18th and 19th centuries as part of the Industrial Revolution, resulting in increases in the scale of industry in Wales.
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough is located in the historic county of Glamorgan in Wales and takes its name from its largest town. The county borough covers an area of 111 km2 (43 sq mi) and had a population of approximately 58,900 in 2021. There are three sites on the register of parks and gardens in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough. Two are listed at Grade II*, and one is Grade II.