The rise and fall of Newport Docks
Newport docks was once a thriving hub of business activity and its past remains a key element of the city’s history.
FROM its Roman amphitheatre to its association with the Chartists, Newport has a rich history to look back on.
And one of the most fascinating elements of Wales’ third city is that of Newport docks – once a bustling hub of industrial trade and said to have the largest extent of water in any dock in the world.
Although the docks has declined in years since, it was once a key link between Newport and the rest of the world, harnessing the city to global trade and transforming it from a sleepy port town to a thriving business hub.
From smugglers to war and tragedy, Newport docks has a story worth looking back on.
The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century led to an increasing importance of the south Wales Valleys as sources of iron and coal at the time and Newport’s location gave it great potential to become a trading hub.
Then a port town, Newport had been used for trade since the Middle Ages for items such as food, clothing and wool.
By 1830 Newport was Wales’ biggest coal port and trade was becoming such a prominent feature that Parliament granted permission in 1835 to construct a dock to cope with the demand.
The old Town Dock opened on October 10, 1842, at a cost of £195,000, according to John Hutton, who wrote Railway Heritage: The Newport Docks and Railway Company.
Situated about a mile up the River Usk from where the expanded Alexandra Docks would later be developed, the Town Dock was primarily devoted to coal shipping, imports and general exports.
The trade from the Town Dock was mainly in timber, with other shipments consisting of grain, hay and potatoes, which suited smaller vessels that used the docks.
However, the continuing growth in trade made it clear that further expansion was required.
By the time the extension, known as the inner basin, was opened on March 2, 1858, annual shipments at the original dock had risen to 250,000 tons and were continuing to rise.
The increase in trade prompted what became known as the Alexandra Docks, which opened in 1875 with the north dock and lock.
“The Alexandra Docks was the brainchild of a group of influential businessmen who realised that the Old Town Docks were fast becoming congested with the increase in water and inland traffic,” Hutton wrote.
“On the instigation of the First Lord Tredegar, a movement was started towards the building of separate and larger docks.”
Hutton wrote there were many problems with the digging out of the Alexandra Docks, both with the north dock and with the south lock excavations many years later.
During the excavation of the north dock the remains of a Viking longship were discovered just 12ft beneath the surface.
Later, when the south dock was being extended in 1903, the damming of the River Ebbw proved tricky as it had to be done at four different points to complete the quay that enclosed the extension.
Because of the tidal flow of the river, Hutton wrote, “work had to be done by day and night... [and] because artificial lighting was used, the normal risks involved with excavating and shunting were increased threefold”.
Other difficulties which had to be overcome at the time included the “treacherous” soil known as bungham, which Hutton wrote “needed only the briefest spell of rain to convert it into a liquid mud”, making the construction of the dock a risky endeavour for those involved.
What was the source of the growing trade through Newport?
The city has historically been a prime location for the trade of goods such as tobacco, as it was easy for ships to arrive in Newport and other lucrative hubs nearby like Bristol.
At the time of the expansion of the docks in the 19th century trade through Cardiff was growing and Newport was keen to assert its position.
With this in mind, the Second Lord Tredegar, along with other members of the board of the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway Company (ANDR) which owned the docks, decided to build a railway line starting at Pontypridd and heading west towards Caerphilly and leading to Alexandra Docks.
At this point in history the awareness of competition between Newport and Cardiff was notable. Businessman and Conservative MP Sir George Elliot, for example, supported the development of Newport docks as an alternative to Cardiff.
Hutton wrote that Sir George convinced the board that “until the railway rates between the south Wales coalfields and Newport were made equal with the rates of those coalfields and Cardiff, the earnings of the Alexandra Docks would only be made secure if the coal traffic from the south Wales coalfields went to Newport” via the proposed railway.
The railway was signed into an Act of Parliament in 1878 and opened to coal traffic on July 7, 1884, covering
23 miles from Pontypridd to Newport docks.
Although the docks always had a focus on minerals and other industry, there were other uses for it. For example, the Salvage Factory was used for the conditioning of shell cases and ammunition boxes and other items which were returned from the battlefields of France and Belgium during World War I.
Staffed mainly by female workers at this time, the factory was some distance from the dock entrance so the ANDR provided a train service between the two points, reflecting the scale of the docks at that time.
The docks handled a huge variety of cargo including railway material, tin plate and corrugated tin, as well as coal – not just from the Valleys coalfields but from the Forest of Dean and the Monmouthshire coalfields.
The importance of the docks in Newport can be exemplified by the fact that on October 26, 1962, Queen Elizabeth paid a visit – one of only three such royal visits to the city during her reign.
Such large industrial activities often come with a risk of disaster and Newport docks was not to escape tragedy.
On July 2, 1909, at approximately 5.20pm, an accident took place during construction of the new south lock when supporting timbers in the west wall excavation trench fell, being “catapulted into the air before falling into the trench” and on to the team of men 50ft below.
Railway engines all over the extension workings began sounding their whistles to raise the alarm but the efforts of up to 500 men, including valiant efforts by then 14-year-old local boy Thomas Lewis, to rescue some of the men were largely unsuccessful. Some 15 men were rescued alive but injured (though one later died from his injuries) but the combination of the fallen timber and the tide coming in resulted in the tragic deaths of 39 workmen.
A year later, in December 1910, a further 17 bodies were recovered, leaving 16 still buried beneath the south dock in a tragedy which left a dark mark on the history of the docks.
At times Newport docks also had links to more nefarious business than the authorised ships moving in and out every day.
According to Dr John Appleby, a historian at Liverpool Hope University, a Welsh pirate called John Callice made good use of the docks for his own personal gain.
Back in 1576 Callice attacked four French ships and took more than 20,000 French livres’ (pounds’) worth of goods.
In October of that year he was known to be hiding out in Newport, but he remained on the run for the next year, looting more ships as he went along. The goods from one of the ships ended up in Newport docks in 1577, being sold off by his supporters.
Callice eventually ended up at the Tower of London later that year for his crimes, although he was soon pardoned by Queen Elizabeth I on the agreement that he would go on to work for her.
The surge in the popularity of tobacco also saw Newport, among other areas, become a hub of smuggling in the 17th and 18th centuries, with ships easily able to dock in Newport, Chepstow and Goldcliff and goods easily shipped in smaller vessels across the Severn.
A number of elements contributed to the eventual decline of the docks. The impact of two world wars and the economic depressions that followed hit the docks hard, both in terms of trade and employment numbers.
The nationalisation of the railways, including the line to the docks, in 1948 and its closure of various links, as well as the decline of the mineral industry in south Wales, further accelerated the fall in activity at the docks.
The decline has not been helped by the closure or trimming down of major companies providing a source of trade, such as the steelworks in Llanwern.
Today, the docks are owned by Associated British Ports (ABP) and still export the likes of steel, timber and minerals both locally and abroad – albeit not to the same scale as in the past.
Many elements of the docks have been phased out or filled in completely. In 2017 Newport City Homes purchased a 10-acre plot on the old Town Dock site, which was filled in during the 1930s, and plans for nearly 150 new homes on the site were revealed last month.
The port of Newport also holds one of the UK’s largest explosives licences for a non-Ministry of Defence port.
Although it lacks the economic power it had in the past, the story of Newport docks remains a key element of the city’s history to this day.