Born this day 1890, in Tenby

Nina Hamnett - artist and writer who became known as the Queen of Bohemia.

After leaving the London School of Art, Hamnett went to Paris to study and became a well-known bohemian personality.  Over the course of her life, she was associated with many leading figures in the artistic community, such as; Dylan Thomas, Augustus John, Amedo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso and Serge Diaghilev.  She was flamboyant, unconventional and sexually promiscuous, one story says that she once danced nude on a Montparnasse café table just for the "hell of it".  She died in 1956 after falling  forty feet out her apartment window.

Born this day 1983, in Sennybridge, Powys

Rhydian Roberts popularly known as Rhydian, is a classically trained baritone, musical theatre actor and television presenter, who is best known for finishing as runner-up on The X Factor in 2007.  

Born this day 1829, in Tregaron 

Thomas Benbow Phillips, who was a pioneer of an attempted Welsh settlement in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. 

In May 1851, Phillips was sponsered by cotton traders from Manchester to establish a colony in Brazil to grow cotton for their mills in Lancashire and was joined by six groups of Welsh immigrants. However, the settlement failed, because most of the immigrants had backgrounds in the mining industry and found work in the Brazilian coal mines more profitable than growing cotton. 

He later moved to the Welsh colony of Y Wladfa, in Patagonia, becoming one of it's most prominent members, travelling to London in 1898  to present the British government with a list of the community's grievances against the government of Argentina. However, the government in London refused to entertain demands that it should assert sovereignty over the settlement.

The Landshipping mining disaster

On 14th February 1844, 40 men, women and boys were killed by the flooding of the Garden Pit coal-mine at Landshipping on the eastern branch of the Cleddau River.

The pit extended out under the river for as much as a quarter of a mile and when water suddenly burst through the walls of the mine, trapping the 40 miners underground at the time.  The cause of the disaster was put down to the pressure of the water, as that particular heading had not, previously, been worked at high water.

Coal mining in Pembrokeshire; 

Pembrokeshire once had a thriving mining industry.  There had been mining in the area since the Middle Ages but it was transformed in 1800, when Sir Hugh Owen brought in a steam engine at his mine in Landshipping and soon over 10,000 tons of coal were being produced each year.  The industry developed further with the subsequent building of a quay at Landshipping , after which over 50 pits and mines were located throughout the county.

Some remains can still be found, at Wisemans Bridge, Cresswell Quay and Trefrane Cliff Colliery near Nolton.  The demand for coal declined at the second half of the 19th Century and this led to the closure of most of the collieries.  However, Hook Colliery remained open until 1948 and the one at Wood Level at Kilgetty until 1950.