Penrhyn Quarry

The first reference to slate extraction at Penrhyn is from 1570, when the quarry is mentioned in a Welsh poem. The quarry was developed in the 1770s by Richard Pennant, later Baron Penrhyn. Much of his early working was for local use only as no large scale transport infrastructure was developed until Pennant's involvement. From then on, slates from the quarry were transported to the sea at Port Penrhyn on the narrow gauge Penrhyn Quarry Railway built in 1798, one of the earliest railway lines. In the 19th century the Penrhyn Quarry, along with the Dinorwic quarry, dominated the Welsh slate industry. In 1868 eighty workers were sacked for failing to vote for George Douglas-Pennant, the son…

The quarry is significant in the history of the British Labour Movement as the site of two prolonged strikes by workers demanding better pay and safer conditions. The first strike lasted eleven months in 1896. The second began on 22 November 1900 and lasted for three years. Known as "The Great Strike of Penrhyn", this was the longest dispute in British industrial history. During the strike, the community was divided between those who laid down their tools and those who crossed the picket line. Many locals wrote "Nid oes bradwr yn y tŷ hwn" or "There is no traitor in this house" in their front windows. William John Parry, one of the founders of the North Wales Quarrymen's Union, and an…