[ˈkəm rɨ] ( listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain

Industrial Wales

See also: Glamorgan and Lower Swansea valley

Dowlais Ironworks (1840) by George Childs (1798–1875)
Prior to the British Industrial Revolution, which saw a rapid economic expansion between 1750 and 1850, there were signs of small-scale industries scattered throughout Wales.^[72] These ranged from industries connected to agriculture, such as milling and the manufacture of woollen textiles, through to mining and quarrying.^[72] Until the Industrial Revolution, Wales had always been reliant on its agricultural output for its wealth and employment and the earliest industrial businesses were small scale and localised in manner.^[72] The emerging industrial period commenced around the development of copper smelting in the Swansea area. With access to local coal deposits and a harbour that could take advantage of Cornwall's copper mines and the copper deposits being extracted from the then-largest copper mine in the world at Parys Mountain on Anglesey, Swansea developed into the world's major centre for non-ferrous metal smelting in the 19th century.^[72] The second metal industry to expand in Wales was iron smelting, and iron manufacturing became prevalent in both the north and the south of the country.^[73] In the north of Wales, John Wilkinson's Ironworks at Bersham was a significant industry, while in the south, a second world centre of metallurgy was founded in Merthyr Tydfil, where the four ironworks of Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Plymouth and Penydarren became the most significant hub of iron manufacture in Wales.^[73] In the 1820s, south Wales alone accounted for 40% of all pig iron manufactured in Britain.^[73]

Penrhyn Slate Quarries, 1852
In the late 18th century, slate quarrying began to expand rapidly, most notably in north Wales. The most notable site, opened in 1770 by Richard Pennant, is Penrhyn Quarry which, by the late 19th century, was employing 15,000 men,^[74] and along with Dinorwic Quarry, it dominated the Welsh slate trade. Although slate quarrying has been described as 'the most Welsh of Welsh industries',^[75] it is coal mining which has become the single industry synonymous with Wales and its people. Initially, coal seams were exploited to provide energy for local metal industries but, with the opening of canal systems and later the railways, Welsh coal mining saw a boom in its demand. As the south Wales coalfield was exploited, mainly in the upland valleys around Aberdare and later the Rhondda, the ports of Swansea, Cardiff and later Penarth, grew into world exporters of coal and, with them, came a population boom. By its height in 1913, Wales was producing almost 61 million tons of coal. As well as in South Wales, there was also a significant coalfield in the north-east of the country, particularly around Wrexham.^[76] As Wales was reliant on the production of capital goods rather than consumer goods, it possessed few of the skilled craftspeople and artisans found in the workshops of Birmingham or Sheffield in England and had few factories producing finished goods – a key feature of most regions associated with the Industrial Revolution.^[73] However, there is increasing support that the industrial revolution was reliant on harnessing the energy and materials provided by Wales and, in that sense, Wales was of central importance.^[73]