Archibald Hood

Mining engineer and entrepreneur. Born and brought up in Kilmarnock (East Ayrshire) by his widower father, who was a colliery foreman. Hood had a limited education and was working in the local mine by the time he was a teenager. When his father became a manager of a colliery close to Glasgow, this gave Hood the chance to study and qualify as a mining engineer.

Hood was to make his mark, initially, in the Midlothian Coalfields. In 1856, he leased Whitehill Colliery at Rosewell from Archibald Primrose, the 4th Earl of Rosebery (1783 - 1868), and went on to greatly modernise and extend the workings. Eventually he operated pits at Carrington, Eldin, Gorton, Polton and Skelty Muir. He improved social conditions for the miners, realising that a happy work-force were a productive work-force and built and ran the village of Rosewell, owning everything except the school and churches. He also extended the Polton and Penicuik railways to service his pits.

He saw that an amalgamation with the Newbattle pits owned by Schomberg Kerr, 9th Marquess of Lothian (1833 - 1900), would be mutually advantageous and together they formed the Lothian Coal Company (1890). In the same year they began sinking the shaft for the show-piece Lady Victoria Colliery, in the deepest part of the coalfield. The village of Newtongrange was greatly extended to service this pit, which now forms the Scottish Mining Museum.

In 1862 Hood began operations in the Welsh coalfields, establishing the Glamorgan Coal Company, modernising and extending old pits while opening new ones. The colliery occupied an area from the Powerhouse, north of Tonypandy, to the Hay Stores in Llwynypia.

But the colliery did not rely solely on coal production. Women, using hand moulds, produced many thousands of bricks each day, too each brick bearing the name Glamorgan’.

Together with Coedelv Colliery, in the Ely Valley, and other collieries in South Wales, The Scotch Colliery had a substantial number of coke ovens. The high-quality coke manufactured became known as ‘Hood’s coke’.

By 1867, he had moved permanently to Wales, becoming a leading citizen in Cardiff. He extended his commercial interests building an enormous brick-works and state-of-the-art coking plant, yet still carefully managed his Midlothian interests.

Hood became a prominent figure within the coal trade, and on January 13, 1885, a meeting with many influential South Wales members present was convened at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff. This meeting was called to discuss the proposed amalgamation of the Taff Vale Railway and the Bute Dock interests.

Archibald Hood was in the chair, and among those present were J Cory and 0 H Riches, W Simons (solicitor) and W Gascoigne Dalzsel (secretary). Following a long discussion it was decided to introduce a bill to Parliament containing traders protection clauses. By 1896, The Scotch Colliery had a workforce of 2,331 and in 1913, when coal production in the Rhondda Valleys reached its peak, the number employed there was 3,907.

Archibald Hood’s concern and care for his workers was legendary, and, following his death in 1902, tributes and praise flowed

Hood died in Cardiff, where he is buried, and is remembered by a statue at Llwynypia, the site of his Glamorgan Colliery. Upon the death of Archibald, his son James became owner of the Scotch Colliery, but he also died four years before its closure in 1945.

The colliery closed in 1945 but needed to be maintained for pumping for the next 20 years. Eventually the Rhondda Water Board installed a pumping station on the colliery site, and extracted and purified water for domestic use.

When collieries were nationalised in 1948 The Powerhouse was used by the National Coal Board as the central stores and workshops until the early 1960s.