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15th February
William Henry Preece
Born this day 1834, in Caernarfon
Sir William Henry Preece electrical engineer and inventor. He is regarded as the communications pioneer who was instrumental in bringing the telephone to Britain and helped Marconi to give radio to the world.
Preece, who was chief engineer for Britain’s General Post Office and Marconi began their association, when Marconi came to London hoping his invention would appeal the Brish Navy. With Preece's support and successful experiments in South Wales, Marconi successfully transmitted from Cornwall to Newfoundland in 1901. Later Marconi set up a powerful radio station at Waunfawr, near Preece's hometown of Caernarfon.
On 15th February 1996 the Sea Empress ran aground at the entrance to Milford Haven harbour.
The grounding of the Sea Empress resulted in one of the largest and most environmentally damaging oil spills in European history. Approximately 72,000 tonnes of crude oil escaped into the sea, with more than 100km of coastline becoming seriously polluted. Thousands of birds were killed as a result and shore seaweeds and invertebrates were also killed in large quantities.
The fact that the spill occurred, in February, when many migratory animals had not yet arrived back in Pembrokeshire for breeding and the stormy weather which would have dispersed the oil was not as bad as initially predicted, meant that by the spring of 1997, there was very little evidence of the oiling and by 2001 the affected marine wildlife population levels had more-or-less returned to normal.
The Sea Empress was repaired and renamed, it is currently known as Wind 3, but remains prohibited from entering Milford Haven.
Walter Coffin (1784 – 15 February 1867) is generally regarded as the first person to mine coal in the Rhondda Valley on an industrial scale.
Coffin initially joined his families tan ning business in Bridgend, but in 1809, he decided to prospect for coal at Dinas Uchaf Farm near Llantrisant, which was owned by his father. He began by digging into the mountainside and soon struck a good quality seam, which encouraged him to sink a vertical shaft, which again was successful. Coffin now realised that he needed to address three major problems if he was to capitalize on his discovery of good quality bituminous coal.
1) There were few skilled miners in the locality;
The Rhondda at that time was a very rural area, so Coffin built rows of miners cottages for workers from areas such as Bridgend, Llansamlet Penderyn, Llantrisant and Llanharan.
2) There we re no nearby transport links;
Richard Griffiths, had constructed a tramroad from his coal levels near Pontypridd to meet the Glamorganshire Canal, for onward transport to Cardiff Docks. So Coffin constructed his own tramroad to connect with Griffiths's and the two men made an arrangement to ensure that all coal from the Lower Rhondda used their transport system.
3) There was no proven market;
Coffin started to market his coal as "Coffin's Coal"and it gained an excellent reputation for its quality. Then he moved to Cardiff in 1812 and improved his profile by becoming a Justice of the Peace, an alderman, the mayor of Cardiff and finally MP for Cardiff.
In February 1998 Britain's first official register of landscapes of outstanding historic interest was published by Cadw, listing 58 of Wales' landscapes.
The Register is an attempt to safeguard the distinctive characteristics of each place and how they have evolved, to aid planners and developers to be sympathetic to the historic character of the landscape,when introducing changes.
