^t 
 
 ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON
 
 ^^OHcy
 
 JOHN NIXON 
 
 PIONEER OF THE STEAM COAL 
 TRADE IN SOUTH WALES 
 
 A MEMOIR 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES EDMUND VINCENT 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1900
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 /) -7 N(y ^ 
 
 00 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Mr. Nixon died, full of years and honour, before 
 these pages were ready for publication, but the 
 alterations required in the text have not been 
 very considerable, for the probability of such an 
 event was always present to me as I wrote. I 
 may be permitted to say that the duty of writing 
 this brief Memoir of a successful man grew more 
 
 w and more interesting as it proceeded, not merely 
 because it consisted in tracing the progress of the 
 
 ^ yeoman's son and colliery overman from the 
 status of three-and-sixpence a day to that of a 
 millionaire, but because of the striking incidents 
 of that progress. Mr. Nixon's bold venture at 
 Nantes, which laid the foundation of his fortunes, 
 certainly partakes of the nature of the romance of 
 commerce. He staked his all and he won, for he 
 staked wisely. For the rest I have been interested 
 mainly in the development and the manifestations 
 of a character which commanded success. Mr. 
 Nixon had his share of good fortune, no doubt ; 
 notably when he secured money at the nick of 
 
 419014
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 time at Werfa. He had something nearly- 
 approaching to genius in matters of mechanics 
 and engineering, as he proved abundantly by 
 his many inventions and in his valuable con- 
 troversy with Sir John Rennie. But, for all that, 
 his great success in life was the direct outcome 
 of his strong character. Those qualities in him 
 which were essentially moral, helped him not less 
 than his acute intellect. He was cautious in 
 forming judgments, but when formed they were 
 far-seeing, and he followed them with unswerving 
 courage. His schemes were conceived on the 
 grand scale ; they were carried out with indomi- 
 table energy and perseverance. " Fairness and 
 firmness " was the abiding principle of his life ; 
 and in building his own fortunes he brought 
 prosperity to many thousands of human beings. 
 I thank Sir William Lewis, Mr. Nixon's life-long 
 friend, and Mrs. Nixon, his sorrowing widow, for 
 entrusting to me a very pleasant, if a very 
 responsible, duty. 
 
 J. E. VINCENT. 
 
 Chelsea, October 1899.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ........ i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP • • • • 33 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 46 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 68 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN lOI 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SEEKING WELSH COAL I18 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 1 26 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SINKING AT WERFA 154
 
 vlii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION l66 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 178 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 199 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 RAILWAYS, "rings," SLIDING SCALE .... 219
 
 ^ 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 THE task of composing a Memoir of John 
 Nixon, coal owner upon a very large scale, 
 and one of the first and most courageous pioneers 
 of the great industry which is the very life of 
 the industrial districts of South Wales and Mon- 
 mouthshire to-day, is by no means free from 
 preliminary difficulty. Let it be said at once 
 that it has been undertaken at the urgent request 
 of some of the most intimate friends of the 
 subject of this book, and that this request was 
 made in the convinced belief that the story of 
 Mr. Nixon's ascent from the position of a 
 Durham yeoman's son to that of one of the most 
 successful coal owners in the kingdom was worthy 
 to be told in some detail, not only by reason 
 of those elements of the romance of commerce 
 which it contains at various periods, but also by 
 reason of the practical lessons for the conduct
 
 2 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 of life which are embodied in it. The main 
 difficulty to be faced is found in the fact that, 
 while Mr. Nixon's name is well known in South 
 Wales and Monmouthshire, and while the in- 
 fluence which he exercised in the development 
 of the commercial resources of that district is in 
 some measure understood, although his days of 
 activity are long past, his name is not known 
 and the importance of his life's work is not 
 recognised as it deserves to be by the world 
 at large. Busy politicians in the great world, 
 soldiers and sailors, lawyers not connected with the 
 Parliamentary Committees, men of letters, zealous 
 students of the passing events of the day, may 
 well be pardoned if they ask, " Who was this man 
 that his life should be written ? " for they have 
 not so much as heard his name. Parliamentary 
 history, as it is written in the newspapers, con- 
 tains no mention of him ; although, if the annals 
 of the committee-rooms were to be written, the 
 name of John Nixon would soon become pro- 
 minent, and the influence which he exercised in 
 his generation would quickly force itself into 
 recognition. He never made, nor did he ever 
 attempt to make, any figure in the sphere of 
 politics : he never posed as the apostle of a 
 cause, or professed himself an ardent and un-
 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 selfish benefactor of mankind. He would have 
 been slow to assert that his life had been passed 
 and his conduct of affairs based upon altruistic 
 principles. He would have said, we imagine, 
 and certainly his life's history says for him, that 
 enlightened self-interest was the guiding principle 
 of his life, and that through all the long years 
 of his career strict attention to his business had 
 been his principal rule of conduct. There is no 
 desire on the part of those who have caused 
 this volume to be written to elevate John Nixon 
 upon a pedestal, or to pay to him that reverent 
 respect, that homage of hero-worship, which is 
 due to the man who sacrifices himself in the 
 service of his fellow-men. To present him in that 
 light, or to attempt so to present him, would be 
 but an act of fulsome and unreal flattery ; for 
 he was a man who had lived his life, and that a 
 great life in its way, in the pursuit of his own 
 interests for his own sake, and for the sake of 
 those who were near and dear to him. Nor do 
 we claim for him anything approaching to per- 
 fection of human character. Just and firm he 
 had shown himself; wide grasp of mind and 
 shrewd foresight he had certainly proved himself 
 to possess ; to generosity, in great matters rather 
 than in small, he was by no means a stranger.
 
 4 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Yet, to him who has studied the story of 
 John Nixon's increasing fortunes from the begin- 
 ning to the end with anxious care, the temptation 
 to build the pedestal and to place the hero upon 
 it has very often been strong. There is real 
 foundation for the scriptural saying, " By their 
 fruits ye shall know them ; " and, if we apply the 
 underlying principle of those wise words to Mr. 
 Nixon's life, if we estimate his services to the 
 community by the incidental results of the many 
 great stones which he laid in building the edifice 
 of his own fortunes, we cannot resist the con- 
 clusion that, apart from all questions of motive 
 on his part, his life has been not less but more 
 useful to the world than that of many another 
 man whose purposes have been entirely untainted 
 by considerations of personal interest. In a word, 
 a successful man of business, especially if his 
 energies be concentrated upon productive enter- 
 prise, may be of infinitely greater value to his 
 fellow-men than the high-flown idealist whose 
 one and absorbing motive is the elevation of 
 humanity. Hence comes it that, when we 
 study the incidental results of the acts to which 
 Mr. Nixon was prompted by enlightened self- 
 interest as one of the pioneers of a great trade, our 
 admiration of his courage and his sagacity grows
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 apace, and we begin to think that, when all is 
 said and done, analysis of motive is misleading 
 and untrustworthy. Be it granted that the 
 original and continuing desire of the subject of 
 this Memoir was to rise in the world : in rising 
 he raised others ; every step which he took in 
 the development of a great trade meant, of neces- 
 sity, an increase in the numbers of the men en- 
 gaged in that trade in every grade. His wise 
 boldness in enterprise was shown, no doubt, in 
 the pursuit of his own advantage ; but the effects 
 of it were far-reaching ; and as his position grew 
 more important, it became necessary for him to 
 consider, not only his own interests in this junc- 
 ture or that, but those of the trade at large. 
 For nothing is more clear than that the great 
 employer of labour — and Mr. Nixon became 
 that and more after many bitter struggles with 
 circumstances — has a position of heavy responsi- 
 bility, and the greater the employer the deeper 
 the responsibility, since every mistake or mis- 
 calculation that he falls into must inevitably react 
 upon the men who depend on his prosperity for 
 their livelihood. To the writer, who has found 
 it necessary in the course of his professional life 
 to pay close attention to the principles upon 
 which great industrial enterprises are conducted,
 
 6 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 there has come, in course of years, a feehng that 
 the mere visionary obtains far more credit than is 
 due to him, and that the honest and unpretentious 
 man who attends to his own business and pro- 
 fesses no high-souled motives is the best friend 
 of the community. That feeling has certainly 
 grown stronger as the pages of John Nixon's life 
 have become more numerous, and as the benefits 
 to others which followed upon his many triumphs 
 have been multiplied in evidence. 
 
 This Memoir, then, is devoted to the remarkable 
 and inspiring career of a man whom the vulgar 
 would call self-made, though he himself would 
 have been first to protest that he had not been 
 the sole architect or the only builder of his own 
 great fortunes, and the first to express that heart- 
 felt gratitude to that guiding authority, infinitely 
 above all that is human, which none but the most 
 ignoble of men will hesitate to acknowledge. 
 
 It is not, however, merely because John Nixon, 
 starting upon life in modest circumstances, and 
 with no apparent advantages, made for himself a 
 great place in commerce and accumulated great 
 riches, that his biography has been undertaken. 
 Many men whose lives are not worthy to be 
 written have achieved that measure of success, 
 and the manner and methods of the achievement
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 have not always been commonplace. Some ele- 
 ments of romance, some striking incidents, some 
 crucial and exciting periods of development are, 
 indeed, to be found in the history of the building 
 of the majority of large fortunes ; and sometimes, 
 it is to be feared, each step in the accumulation 
 of riches by single individuals has been accom- 
 panied by incidents which are not pleasant in the 
 contemplation. Fortunes have been founded on 
 successful frauds, undetected, or steering clear of 
 the criminal law, and the larger the fraud the 
 greater the fortune ; also, in many cases, the 
 more romantic the story. Many men have 
 grown rich through the sufferings of others, 
 whom they have deluded into sinking all that 
 they had in the purchase of that which had no 
 value ; many have risen in the world by taking 
 advantage of the necessities of their helpless 
 neighbours ; and there was something of cynical 
 truth in the observation lately made by one who 
 was invited to be present at a banquet celebrat- 
 ing the successful floating of a joint-stock enter- 
 prise out of which the promoters alone profited, 
 that he preferred not to feast at the expense of 
 widows and orphans, or to revel at the cost of 
 simple-minded victims of the company promoter 
 in the rural districts. In the stories of fortunes
 
 8 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 thus acquired, if they be told truthfully, which is 
 a rare thing, may be found the romance of un- 
 punished crime, of heartless cruelty, of crafty 
 chicanery ; but in the reading of them there is 
 no profit, and the knowledge of them not only 
 sickens every honest mind, but tends to make 
 men despair of human nature. 
 
 Nothing of that kind is to be found in John 
 Nixon's life's story. The soul of fearless honesty, 
 he might fairly boast that no man, woman, or child 
 was ever the poorer for the money that came to 
 him. But he might claim, or we may claim for 
 him, a far higher merit than that, for the prin- 
 cipal, indeed the only, reason why the life of John 
 Nixon is now written is, that he was one of the 
 chief founders and a pioneer among the principal 
 promoters of the prosperity of a great district of 
 the country, and that in the course of a long 
 business career he contributed as much perhaps 
 as any man living to the support of a huge and 
 thriving community. It is on that ground, which 
 will be established abundantly and demonstrated 
 beyond question in the sequel, that the career of 
 this successful man is worth recording ; and in 
 the record an earnest effort will be made to give 
 a faithful picture of the character of the man who, 
 by his life's work, has conferred benefits so great
 
 INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 upon his fellow-men. We shall endeavour also 
 to lay emphasis on the particular abilities which 
 enabled one man to accomplish so great a purpose, 
 and to explain the principles, followed without a 
 moment of indecision or inconsistency from be- 
 ginning to end of a long career, which guided the 
 actions of a strong man at every crisis of his life. 
 In that life there were, almost as of course, many 
 striking incidents, many critical occasions upon 
 which the balance seemed to lie evenly between 
 irretrievable failure and well-earned success. Of 
 such incidents and occasions our object will be 
 to give as complete and intelligible an account 
 as may be possible. But the character and the 
 abilities and the principles of the man are the 
 essential matters. These and these alone enabled 
 John Nixon to perceive opportunities to which 
 others had been blind, and to seize them at the 
 right moment ; these and these only enabled him 
 to pass triumphantly through crises which would 
 have overwhelmed many other men, and to meet 
 grave difficulties in a fashion which few other men 
 of his time could emulate. 
 
 It can surely not be wrong to preface the story 
 of a remarkable life by a brief summary of the 
 qualities and the powers and the principles which 
 made that life remarkable ; and in reading that
 
 lo MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 summary any man entering upon life may wisely 
 console himself with the reflection that, if Mr. 
 Nixon possessed talents which are given to but 
 very few persons in a generation, the principles 
 which he followed, and the rules of conduct 
 which he obeyed, are within the reach of all 
 men. First and foremost amongst them may 
 be placed unswerving and unflinching honesty, 
 which was never affected by even the most 
 severe temptation. Mr. Nixon, as he rested in 
 well-earned leisure at Brighton or in Scotland, 
 never separated from the faithful terrier appro- 
 priate to a Durham man, took honest pride and 
 pleasure in fighting his old battles over again. 
 But he was constitutionally modest, and averse to 
 discourse upon his own merits. He never said 
 a word about his honesty. Yet those who pursue 
 this narrative a little further will see that, early 
 in his career, he resisted instinctively, and without 
 a moment's hesitation, temptation as urgent as any 
 that ever assailed any young man. The resist- 
 ance is the more to be commended in that Mr. 
 Nixon was at no time blind to the present value 
 of money in hand, and as acute in driving a bar- 
 gain as any of his contemporaries. Detail would 
 be out of place at this point ; suffice it to say that 
 temptation came early, in an urgent form, and was
 
 INTRODUCTORY 1 1 
 
 resisted manfully. Thus, when Mr. Nixon was 
 still quite young in business, and when he had 
 very little experience to look back upon, he re- 
 ceived an important appointment in connection 
 with some coal and ironworks in France, owned 
 by an English company, at a salary of ^500 a year. 
 The salary may not seem great, having regard to 
 the sums of money with which he was afterwards 
 called upon to deal ; but in comparison with 
 his previous circumstances it was, in his view, 
 almost princely. He found himself, however, 
 unable to enjoy it for any long period, and he 
 was prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice it at once. 
 Examination of the mining ground convinced him 
 in a short time that the company's concession 
 was valueless, and he forwarded to his employers 
 a report to that effect. It is impossible not to 
 see, and there is no doubt whatever that Mr. 
 Nixon was fully conscious, that by sending in 
 this report he was jeopardising his position, and 
 virtually inviting his employers to dismiss him 
 on the spot. Had they done so, he would have 
 been deprived of the whole of his means of sub- 
 sistence ; but, once convinced of the worthless 
 character of the concession from the business 
 point of view, he never hesitated for a moment, 
 and all the efforts of the directors to induce him
 
 12 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 to modify his opinion were unavailing. How the 
 directors upbraided him, how they subsequently 
 sent out another engineer, hoping for a more 
 favourable report, and how they afterwards re- 
 quested Mr. Nixon to continue in their service 
 for a while, shall be told in the proper place. 
 The point for the present is that, at the first 
 severe trial, and of its severity no person who 
 has enough imagination to put himself in Mr. 
 Nixon's place will entertain a doubt, the purity 
 of his purpose, the sincerity of his mind, and his 
 instinctive incapacity to be dishonest, even when 
 there were plenty of plausible excuses at his com- 
 mand, were immediately made manifest. The 
 same qualities marked him through life, and it 
 is not too much to say they are within the reach 
 of all men. 
 
 It is not pretended that the story of Mr. Nixon's 
 life is that of a man quixotically generous in all 
 his dealings ; but it is urged that the spirit of 
 undeviating honesty animated him throughout 
 his career, and became a persistent instinct. 
 
 In harmony with that ever-present instinct 
 was the motto — often quoted in old age — upon 
 which Mr. Nixon constantly strove to regulate 
 his dealings with the very numerous bodies of 
 working men, and with others who held higher
 
 INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 positions in the business world, whom he en- 
 countered during his active life. " Fairness and 
 firmness," he was accustomed to observe to his 
 friends of age, " are the two guiding principles 
 of life." Whenever friction arose between him 
 and those who were in his employment — and, as 
 every employer of labour knows, friction there 
 must be, in the nature of things, from time to 
 time — he always devoted himself with patience 
 to the consideration of alleged grievances and to 
 reflection upon the question at issue. But when 
 once he had reached a decision, when he had 
 made up his mind upon the course to be pursued, 
 he was absolutely resolute and inflexible ; and 
 when this became known in South Wales, when 
 the working men recognised the justice and the 
 strength of the man with whom they had to 
 reckon, friction naturally became less frequent in 
 its occurrence. It is almost antediluvian to quote 
 Horace in these days, but surely the lines — 
 
 " Justum et tenacem propositi virum' 
 Non civium ardor prava jubentium,' 
 Non vultus instantis tyranni 
 Mente qualit solida. . . . 
 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis 
 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse " — 
 
 are as applicable to Mr. Nixon as they were to
 
 14 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Augustus himself. Even in his declining years, 
 when he was among the men who are "so strong 
 that they reach fourscore years " and more, con- 
 versation with him left the clear impression, 
 which a knowledge of his life justifies, that he 
 had been the sort of man who never was beaten, 
 who would have faced commercial ruin rather 
 than yield a position which he had taken up 
 deliberately, after full consideration, and in the 
 sincere conviction that he was right. A signal 
 example of Mr. Nixon's steady pursuit of these 
 principles will be found in his conduct upon the 
 great question of the " Billy Fairplay," of which it 
 is enough to say here that, after months of ignorant 
 opposition and loss through the stoppage of his 
 collieries, he succeeding in substituting an in- 
 fallible machine for a frail and fallible man, to 
 ascertain the proportions of small and large coal 
 brought up from the pits. The episode, looked 
 back upon from the haven of later years, is not 
 wanting in its amusing features. It is almost 
 laughable now to think that men resisted for 
 a long time, at the cost of great suffering to 
 themselves and their families, and to the great 
 pecuniary loss of their employer, the introduction 
 of a machine which, demonstrably, could not lie, 
 and which is now in universal use not only in the
 
 INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 coal-fields of South Wales, but in the Midlands 
 and the North. But it was not at all amusing 
 then. 
 
 Meanwhile, an appreciation of Mr. Nixon's 
 conduct upon that critical occasion in his career 
 can hardly fail to be of service to the captains 
 of industry now. They also have their trials 
 to encounter — trials similar in nature, albeit not 
 identical in point of detail, with those which 
 beset their forerunner — they also are compelled 
 to resist prejudices seeming to those who know 
 better to be founded on incredible perversity 
 and ignorance. To resist those prejudices firmly 
 and patiently is to follow the principles of Mr. 
 Nixon ; to combine that resistance with patience, 
 and to combat prejudice without indulging in 
 the feeling of resentment, remembering always 
 that working men are easily led by those who 
 set themselves up as leaders of their fellows, 
 and that past history has given them some just 
 cause for suspicion of employers, even when 
 their designs appear to be innocent — that also 
 is to follow the example of a man who is well 
 worthy to be imitated. 
 
 It cannot justly be said that to be fair and 
 firm is beyond the attainment of any man, 
 although, in fact, many men are unfair, and
 
 1 6 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 many are irresolute, and very few attain to 
 firmness and fairness in combination. But it 
 must be confessed that Mr. Nixon owed his 
 great victory in this case to a power outside 
 these quahties — a power which he possessed in 
 no common measure of fulness, a power which 
 is exceedingly rare. The initial difficulty stared 
 him in the face. He had to deal with a mob 
 of men who had half-murdered the "cropper," 
 or guesser at the proportions of large and small 
 coal — in whose interests, as an institution, but 
 not as an individual, they were prepared to 
 fight to the end of a bitter struggle. It was 
 at this point that Mr. Nixon's genius, for it 
 was nothing less, came into play. On the spur 
 of the moment, so to speak, he invented the 
 mechanical appliance which was to solve the 
 whole difficulty at once and for ever. The 
 advance was as great as that from the period of 
 calculation as to the time of day based upon 
 rough observation of the sun's position to that 
 of the chronometer. The invention was an 
 inspiration. Moreover, it will be found that at 
 all stages in his wonderful career Mr. Nixon 
 was always capable of inventing, and did, in 
 fact, invent and perfect, time after time, what- 
 soever machinery was required to cope with a
 
 INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 new difficulty, or to remove a long-standing 
 hindrance. To the attainment of that kind of 
 faculty there is no royal road, perhaps no road 
 at all which is attainable by ordinary men. It 
 was inherent in Mr. Nixon's nature, that is all ; 
 but we suspect its presence, in embryo and 
 undeveloped form, in many men who have 
 never been at the pains to try how much they 
 could do. 
 
 Fairness and firmness, patience in calcula- 
 tion, prudence in judgment, and resolution in 
 accomplishment were also shown in a high 
 degree by Mr. Nixon in connection with the 
 support and the carrying out of the sliding- 
 scale system, of which Sir William Lewis was 
 the true discoverer. Of this institution, which 
 has done marvels to insure the steady continu- 
 ance of industry and prosperity of South Wales 
 and Monmouthshire, so far as the coal-fields 
 are concerned, we shall speak at some length 
 later, since we are assured that it confers un- 
 qualified benefits, and those of large value, upon 
 master and man alike ; that it is capable of 
 extension to other coal-fields ; and that there are 
 other trades than the coal trade into which it 
 might be introduced with advantage. But the 
 time to describe it, and to make it understood 
 
 B
 
 1 8 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 more thoroughly than we believe to be gene- 
 rally the case at present, has not come yet. 
 
 No apology is offered for the space devoted to 
 the description of our subject's character and 
 powers, since the description is essential to a 
 right understanding of his career. If his fair- 
 ness of mind, his indomitable resolution, and his 
 mechanical genius were the first factors which 
 went to the making of a great career, they by 
 no means stood alone, and there was still the 
 master- quality behind them. Mr. Nixon had 
 eyes to see, as most men have ; but he was not 
 satisfied to see alone — he observed keenly, which 
 is a very different process to mere seeing, and a 
 far more intelligent ; and when he had seen, he 
 reflected ; and if reflection convinced him on 
 reasonable grounds that the things which he 
 had seen done on a small scale could be accom- 
 plished on a large scale, he set himself to work 
 to carry them out on that large scale. He was 
 observant, enterprising, prudent, courageous, 
 and indomitable ; and for shrewdness of fore- 
 sight and width of ideas he had but few rivals 
 in his generation. 
 
 Many men must have seen Welsh steam coal 
 burned on a Thames steamer before Mr. Nixon 
 saw it almost in a casual way. But of the others, 
 
 I
 
 INTRODUCTORY 19 
 
 few, if any, paused to inquire concerning the 
 characteristic qualities of the fuel, or to put 
 questions to the man who was using it. Mr. 
 Nixon, as we shall see, not only paused to ask 
 intelligent questions, but also applied his mind to 
 the consideration of the meaning of the answers. 
 In fact, that little voyage on the Thames steamer 
 was one of the turning-points of his life. His 
 observation and consequent questions, and the 
 answers given by the fireman to his inquiries, 
 were the seed of a great idea, which soon germi- 
 nated and began to grow, and eventually became 
 a mighty tree, which, scattering its seeds year 
 by year, spread, so to speak, into a forest. Mr. 
 Nixon saw, in fact, what hundreds of men must 
 have seen ; but his distinctive merit was that he 
 took practical advantage of the things which 
 he saw, and seized a great opportunity. He 
 recognised that this fuel was not only suitable 
 for steam purposes, but far more convenient, 
 economical, and effectual than that with which 
 he was familiar, above ground and in the 
 bowels of the earth, in his native county of 
 Durham. Forthwith his active mind began 
 to work, and soon he had devised, in outline at 
 any rate, the ambitious scheme which was to be 
 the foundation of his great success in life. He
 
 20 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 would, he determined, develop this idea ; he 
 would turn to practical uses the results of his 
 observation. He would find or make a foreign 
 market for this unique product ; he would begin 
 by arranging for a supply from South Wales to 
 France, with which he had some acquaintance 
 already. He would introduce the fuel to the 
 great manufacturers, sugar-refiners, and others, 
 whom he had seen using very inferior materials 
 during his years of residence abroad. Steamers 
 stoked with Welsh coal should navigate the 
 waters of the Loire. If England was so far blind, 
 or almost blind, to the value of a store of wealth 
 which since those days has been proved to be 
 incalculable, if not practically inexhaustible, France 
 should lead the way and show the example. He 
 might have to wait before realising his ambition ; 
 but he would assuredly not forget his object, nor 
 miss an opportunity. 
 
 Nothing in Mr. Nixon's career is more vividly 
 illustrative of some of the qualities which made 
 him a successful man than the story of the intro- 
 duction of Welsh steam coal to Nantes. It shows 
 in him a mental habit which so far we have not 
 had occasion to notice. Indomitable we have 
 seen him ; we have spoken also of his absolute 
 honesty of spirit. But amongst his other charac-
 
 INTRODUCTORY 21 
 
 teristics was a constitutional inability, so to speak, 
 to be contented with that which was merely 
 satisfactory, so long as he was convinced that 
 there was room for improvement. Perfection 
 was his goal — not safe mediocrity. He lived as 
 though the lesson embodied in the parable of 
 the Talents had sunk deep into his heart. Thus, 
 no doubt, to refer to the incident of the "cropper" 
 already noticed, Mr. Nixon could have found 
 more croppers to be stoned and half-drowned 
 in their turns, and could have jogged along in 
 his business as a coal-owner for years in some 
 comfort; but the idea of "Billy Fairplay " 
 flashed upon him, and, by forcing it forward, he 
 introduced, while pursuing his own interests, a 
 reform of which the benefit extended to others. 
 In like manner, as the sequel will show, when 
 first he visited South Wales he found the 
 collieries worked upon a system which, wasteful 
 and improvident as it was, satisfied the locality, 
 and was established on an apparently immovable 
 foundation of tradition. He might have tolerated 
 that system, as others tolerated it. But tolera- 
 tion of that ignoble kind was not in the nature of 
 the man. It was repugnant to his practical mind. 
 It revolted against his conviction that employers 
 who desire to go to the front in the struggle for
 
 22 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 fortune must put an end at once to systems 
 which are obsolete and wasteful. 
 
 To see work carried on in any other than 
 the best and most effectual fashion irritated 
 him beyond bearing. That which was best was 
 to his mind the only thing worth having. So, 
 when Mr, Armstrong, now Lord Armstrong, in 
 competition for a prize offered by the Glamor- 
 ganshire Canal Navigation for the best device 
 for loading coal into vessels, submitted a fairly 
 serviceable machine and won the prize, Mr. 
 Nixon immediately suggested an improvement 
 which added incalculably to the value of the 
 invention. Development, ceaseless striving after 
 that which was best, restless dissatisfaction with 
 that which was inferior, marked the man through 
 all his days ; and it is not too much to say that 
 the man who combined cool, prudent judgment 
 with these aspirations contributed much to the 
 welfare of his neighbours in following his own 
 fortunes, great as those fortunes became in the 
 long-run. Such was the case in the enterprise 
 at Nantes, to be recounted later, which is a re- 
 markable instance of the romance of commerce. 
 The sugar-refinery would have been satisfied 
 to go on in the old way ; the formidable 
 obstacles of ignorance and prejudice had to be 
 
 I
 
 INTRODUCTORY 23 
 
 overcome among the ship-owners and their 
 men ; the South Wales coal traders would have 
 been satisfied to carry on their business in their 
 own slow and crystallised fashion. But John 
 Nixon saw at a glance all the great potentiali- 
 ties of the situation, and determined that, poor 
 as he was, and dear as his hardly-earned money 
 was to him, he would be the man to realise for 
 his own benefit the opportunities which coal 
 owners at large were wasting, and that he would 
 devote his life to the promotion of the South 
 Wales coal-trade. With characteristic energy 
 and enterprise he threw himself into the breach, 
 and in the end carried his scheme to triumphant 
 success, sparing no effort and no personal exer- 
 tion, showing in his own person an example 
 of tireless industry and unfaltering resolution. 
 There is a saying in Lancashire, quoted very 
 often at the time when the accomplishment of 
 the construction of the Ship Canal seemed hope- 
 less, which seems appropriate to John Nixon's 
 career : " Manchester never was beaten," men 
 used to say ; it might be said with equal truth 
 that John Nixon never was beaten either. It 
 was the unflinching courage with which he threw 
 himself — choosing Nantes as the field of opera- 
 tions — into the development of his great idea,
 
 24 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 that added the romantic element to the story. 
 In commerce, as in war, there is room for bold 
 adventure. As by great heroism on the field 
 of battle, or by wonderful exploits, a soldier 
 may win high renown, so the soldier of com- 
 merce, who risks all that he possesses in the 
 pursuit of a grand idea and succeeds, wins 
 reputation and the esteem of his generation. 
 Such was the case of John Nixon. When he 
 started on that expedition to Nantes he was a 
 poor man, possessed of no more than a few 
 hundred pounds, the savings of a few years 
 during which Fortune had been by no means 
 prodigal of her smiles. All those savings he 
 staked upon the practical value of his idea, and 
 we shall see that in proving himself to be right, 
 and in positively forcing men to be of his 
 opinion, he carried out his experiments with 
 every circumstance of generosity. Hence comes 
 it that every step which he made at Nantes, 
 every triumph over prejudice that he secured, 
 every cloud of ignorance which he dispersed, 
 is a matter of deep and human interest. It was 
 not indeed a case of sic vos non vobis. To 
 make the fortune of John Nixon was his primary 
 and principal object. But the effect upon the 
 world for good was as great as if he had been
 
 INTRODUCTORY 25 
 
 simply a preacher of improvement. No man 
 can be the pioneer of a trade or open a new 
 market for himself alone ; whatever his motives 
 may have been, others, who have not sown, 
 must reap part of the benefit. 
 
 How Mr. Nixon performed many other great 
 achievements, how he opened new coal-fields, how 
 his dominant personality influenced the develop- 
 ment of the coal trade, how in early days he was 
 instrumental in enlarging the ideas of the Bute 
 Dock Trustees, how he maintained his views 
 against the most eminent engineers of the day 
 and was proved by results to be in the right, how 
 he forced the unwilling Great Western Railway 
 Company to meet the needs of the coal trade, it 
 is neither necessary nor appropriate to record at 
 this juncture. It is enough to say that, by uni- 
 versal admission, he is entitled to claim the honour 
 of being one of the principal pioneers of the co- 
 lossal coal trade of South Wales. In other words, 
 he is the man who evolved the idea of developing 
 the trade in Welsh steam coal, and forced the 
 whole commercial world to recognise its value, the 
 late Marquis of Bute having previously provided 
 the necessary dock accommodation. 
 
 It can hardly be out of place here to give a 
 general indication of the results of the great work
 
 26 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 accomplished by these two great men ; for each 
 was great in his own way, and the exertions of 
 each no doubt contributed to the ultimately suc- 
 cessful results of the efforts of the other. We do 
 not say that the trade in Welsh steam coal would 
 not have grown without Mr. Nixon's intervention, 
 nor do we place him side by side with the late 
 Lord Bute as a benefactor to the community. Lord 
 Bute comes first by a long way ; for certainly, but 
 for the public-spirited enterprise and colossal ex- 
 penditure of Lord Bute in the construction and 
 subsequent extension of the docks, of which the 
 first, the West Bute Dock, was opened in 1839, 
 the coal trade could not have moved so rapidly 
 as it did under the impetus originally given to it by 
 Mr. Nixon principally, which impetus was followed 
 by continuous pressure on his part. An outlet 
 for the mass of pent-up riches lying in the heart 
 of the Glamorganshire hills would have been 
 found in time no doubt, for there were plenty of 
 sagacious men of business in South Wales. Still, 
 Mr. Nixon was first among the first to introduce a 
 spirit of enterprise which would brook no denial, 
 and to him, as to others, the Bute Docks were a 
 godsend. It may be that if the Bute Docks had not 
 been built at great cost and risk to the Bute Estate, 
 other docks would have been constructed, as in fact
 
 INTRODUCTORY 27 
 
 other docks have been constructed since. Still, 
 the docks were there, ready to the hands of Mr. 
 Nixon and of those who followed in his train, 
 and offering incalculable advantages to him in the 
 development of his great idea. Moreover, in 
 the absence of municipal enterprise, which could 
 hardly exist in the little town of 6000 inhabitants, 
 which was all Cardiff was when Lord Bute secured 
 his first Act of Parliament for the West Bute 
 Dock in 1830, Lord Bute was the only individual 
 in the vicinity, and the Bute Estate was the only 
 institution, which could prudently undertake the 
 vast speculation of the docks, or which could by 
 any means obtain the necessary funds for the 
 purpose of construction. 
 
 Even for him the enterprise was in no common 
 measure courageous and public-spirited. The 
 thoughtless man casting his eye over the long 
 length of quays, the crowded shipping, the 
 labourers engaged in unloading, the huge buckets 
 of coal descending into the holds to be dealt 
 with by the armies of trimmers below, is a little 
 too prone, seeing so much of the evidence of 
 great wealth before his eyes, to assume to-day 
 that the whole scene before him is proof positive 
 that great profits are flowing directly into the 
 pockets of the dock-owner. Those who have
 
 28 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 paid serious attention to the problem of our ports 
 are better informed. They know from examina- 
 tion of figures that there are but very few docks 
 in England or Scotland which, having regard 
 to the amount of capital represented by them, 
 pay anything that could be called an adequate 
 commercial interest upon that capital. There is 
 no doubt whatsoever that the construction of the 
 docks at Cardiff, an enterprise for which the late 
 Lord Bute deserves lasting credit, placed him and 
 the estate in severe pecuniary straits. The West 
 Bute Dock alone cost, exclusive of timber and 
 stone from the Bute Estates, no less than ^^3 50,000. 
 A large part of that money, of course, had to be 
 borrowed, for a great peer, with a thousand calls 
 upon his purse, to which he was at all times 
 ready to yield when they appeared to be worthy, 
 was the last man in the kingdom to have so 
 vast a sum in cash accumulated and ready to 
 his hand. It is indeed an open secret that for 
 many years the gradually-increasing docks did not 
 return directly to their owner much more than 
 half the sum which was payable by way of in- 
 terest on the money borrowed for their cost. 
 
 Indirectly, of course, the docks were a profit- 
 able investment ; but the profit was indirect only, 
 and the lion's share of it went to swell the riches
 
 INTRODUCTORY 29 
 
 of others than Lord Bute, of individuals and 
 corporations and estates that had not staked 
 their very existence upon the issue of the great 
 adventure of construction. It would be rash to 
 say how much the value of the coal properties in 
 the Glamorganshire hills has grown since 1830, 
 or how manifold is the value of land in and 
 about Cardiff with its teeming population of 
 to-day as compared with its value when Cardiff 
 was little better than a considerable village. 
 Only it must be pointed out that neither in the 
 hills nor in Cardiff, extensive as the Bute Estates 
 are, is the land the property of Lord Bute alone. 
 In a word, numberless other owners have reaped 
 where he has sown. If what is called "unearned 
 increment " were to be redistributed, as some 
 political fanatics hold that it should be, on the 
 principle that he who made the increased value 
 should receive his reward, while the community 
 should take that to which no man could prove a 
 clear claim, the Bute Estates would be even richer 
 than they are, for there is no end to the benefits 
 conferred, not merely to a vicinity or to a district, 
 by the creation of a great port, the promotion 
 of a vast industry, and the development of a 
 huge trade. 
 
 Such, we take it, is the great work which
 
 30 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the late Lord Bute and his successor, aided by 
 men of unusual ability and foresight in their 
 employment, and receiving priceless support and 
 encouragement from such men as Mr. Nixon, 
 who may be called the father of the steam-coal 
 trade, may claim to have done for South Wales. 
 Moreover, the value of their work is enhanced 
 by the fact that they came to the rescue of a 
 dying industry, and were able to rescue from the 
 misery which comes of wageless and unwilling 
 idleness a population already considerable. It is 
 well known, or ought so to be, that the iron ore 
 of South Wales used to be extracted for smelt- 
 ing purposes in great quantities in South Wales, 
 and that now it has been entirely supplanted. 
 The discovery of the potentialities of steam coal 
 by Mr. Nixon — for it virtually amounted to 
 that — the impetus which his energy gave to the 
 trade, and the opportunities for the creation of 
 a great port at Cardiff which had been given by 
 the Bute Estate, saved the miners and the popu- 
 lation formerly employed in the ironworks from 
 starvation and ruin, and provided employment for 
 a population infinitely larger than South Wales 
 had ever contained before. The most striking 
 evidence of the inestimable work done principally 
 by Lord Bute, but largely by Mr. Nixon — they
 
 INTRODUCTORY 31 
 
 are deliberately called great men — is to be 
 traced easily in the wonderful rapidity of the 
 growth of Cardiff. At the beginning of the 
 century the population was but 1018 ; it was a 
 mere hamlet. In 181 1 Cardiff contained but 2457 
 souls; in 1821, 3521; in 1831, 6187; and then 
 began, with the development of the mineral 
 wealth of the country — a development rendered 
 possible only by the construction of the docks, 
 but in which John Nixon took a very leading 
 part — such an increase of population and wealth 
 that Great Britain can afford no parallel to it. 
 Following successive decennial censuses, we find 
 a leap, stating the inhabitants in thousands, from 
 6000 to 10,000, from ten to eighteen, to thirty- 
 two, to fifty-nine, to eighty-five, until now Cardiff 
 has a population of more than 150,000 persons, 
 and is the first coal-exporting port in the world. 
 And still this Cardiff, with its thronging popula- 
 tion, continues to grow larger every year, and can 
 also boast that, in spite of party quarrels amongst 
 those who govern it, it may challenge comparison 
 with any city in the kingdom by the excellence 
 and abundance of its public buildings and the 
 comprehensive and convenient design upon which 
 it is laid down. It is emphatically a great place, 
 having a rateable value of nearly three-quarters
 
 32 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 of a million of money ; and in the making of its 
 greatness, John Nixon, a man who began his 
 business career as a modest yeoman's son from 
 the distant county of Durham, a stranger, without 
 money, and without even the foundation of a 
 complete education, but possessed of great com- 
 mercial talents and qualities, played a leading 
 and a principal part. That, beyond question, 
 was a great achievement, and worthy to be 
 recorded.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 
 
 JOHN NIXON first saw the light on the loth 
 J day of the month of May 1815 — that is to 
 say, during the armistice preceding the great 
 battle of Waterloo, and just before the Prince 
 Regent conferred his final title upon the Duke of 
 Wellington. The place of his birth was Barlow, 
 a village in the northern part of the county of 
 Durham, which was situate seven miles to the 
 west of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and three miles south 
 of the famous river itself 
 
 Certainly when the infant was born none could 
 have foreseen the direction which his subsequent 
 career was destined to take. He was the son, 
 and, as things turned out, the only son, of a tenant- 
 farmer ; and his father came of a stock of Nixons 
 who had held the family holding for four con- 
 tinuous centuries. To have prophesied a bril- 
 liant career in far lands, and in a distant part of 
 the country, for the child born in such circum- 
 stances, would have been to invite laughter. 
 "Nay," the neighbours would have said, "the
 
 34 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 lad is a Nixon to the backbone. Tough and 
 long-lived, for it is the custom of the Nixons to 
 live to a great age, he will succeed his father in 
 the farm, and till it, and flourish in his modest 
 way, like his ancestors before him." Yet to those 
 who had skill to read the signs of the times it 
 must have been plain that a wholesome spirit 
 of unrest was awake in the county of Durham, 
 and that a farmer's son who possessed the re- 
 quisite qualities might go far to the front and win 
 many a victory in the battle of life. In the pre- 
 ceding year George Stephenson, having begun 
 work at the age of seven as a " trapper " (an office 
 inferior to that of the "waiter," who earned but 
 five shillings a week), had been hailed as the dis- 
 coverer of the safety-lamp, and had received for 
 a testimonial a thousand guineas and a silver 
 tankard. In the preceding year this same George 
 Stephenson had placed his first locomotive engine 
 on the rails at Killingworth. In a word, the age 
 of steam and coal had begun, and its birthplace 
 was in or about the county of Durham. True it 
 is, that James Watt of Glasgow had long before 
 this made such improvements in the application 
 of steam-power to stationary engines, as to be 
 rightly hailed as the inventor of the steam- 
 engine ; but the locomotive, which was the very
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 35 
 
 embodiment of the spirit of unrest, was a product 
 of Durham, and the invention of a Durham man. 
 Other young men born in the county were also 
 at that time at the opening of careers destined to 
 be great, amongst them being he who afterwards 
 became Sir George ElHott. 
 
 Still, John Nixon's early education was not cal- 
 culated to rouse ambition in the mind of a lad 
 whose life seemed to lie plainly before him. Like 
 other village lads, he was sent to the village 
 school, and there is no reason to suppose that 
 the Barlow school was any better in quality 
 than other villag-e schools of the time. But the 
 sturdy northern farmer seems to have discovered 
 some signs of promising ability in his little boy, 
 for when the lad was still quite young he took 
 the step, a serious one for him, of sending him 
 to Dr. Bruce's Academy at Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
 Whether Dr. Bruce's school was large or small 
 we are not aware, but it is at least certain that 
 Dr. Bruce was a teacher of the highest ability, 
 and that quite an extraordinary number of lads 
 passed through his hands to become, in due time, 
 mining- and civil-engineers of the highest repute. 
 Young Nixon did not meet the immortal Robert 
 Stephenson as a schoolfellow, for Robert was 
 twelve years his senior. But Dr. Bruce had
 
 36 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 educated Robert Stephenson, for whose education 
 George Stephenson had made great sacrifices. 
 " I have known the day," said the elder Stephen- 
 son once at a pubHc dinner in Newcastle, "when 
 my son was a child, that after my daily labour 
 was at an end, I have gone home to my single 
 room, and cleaned clocks and watches in order 
 that I might put my son to school." Certainly 
 the boy Nixon saw a good deal of the Stephen- 
 sons, father and son, and he remembers now 
 the way in which, when anything went wrong 
 with colliery machinery, George Stephenson was 
 always sent for, and never failed to perceive, with 
 flashing rapidity of intelligence, where the defect 
 lay, and how it could be remedied. Other distin- 
 guished engineers educated by Dr. Bruce were 
 Mr. Nicholas Wood and Sir George Bruce. 
 The Mr. Nicholas Wood here mentioned was 
 probably the son of the gentleman of the same 
 name into whose employment at Killingworth 
 Robert Stephenson entered three years after his 
 father had placed the first locomotive engine on 
 the rails at the same place. 
 
 Many great mining-engineers have risen from 
 comparatively humble positions to high place, 
 and it is their modest custom to attribute their 
 prosperous lives not so much to any special
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 37 
 
 ability in themselves as to their good fortune in 
 meeting excellent mathematical teachers in early- 
 life. One of them, described by Mr. Nixon as 
 " incomparably the best mining-engineer in the 
 kingdom," has been heard to express in this man- 
 ner his debt to a certain Mr. Williams, once "the 
 cleverest teacher of mathematics in Wales," but 
 now forgotten. If this prince of engineers, who 
 is also a strong commander of men and the 
 dominant influence in a great district, is proud of 
 anything, it is of the pains which he took to walk 
 to his teacher, night after night after a day's 
 hard work of twelve hours. It never seems to 
 have occurred to him that something near akin 
 to genius was necessary before the pupil, even 
 of the best master, could turn his mathematical 
 acquirements to brilliant uses. Still, when one 
 private school sends out such a succession of 
 notable engineers as that which came from Dr. 
 Bruce's Academy, it is just to conclude that this 
 Dr. Bruce was not only himself a mathematician 
 of the highest quality, but also capable of im- 
 parting his knowledge. Certainly, in the young 
 lad from the farm at Barlow, Dr. Bruce found 
 an apt pupil. Very early in his brief career at 
 the Academy, we find young Nixon permitted to 
 enter for a prize which he was too young to be 
 
 41f:KH.4
 
 38 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 qualified to take, and acquitting himself with such 
 distinction that a special prize was awarded to 
 him ; and a little later the same Dr. Bruce, in 
 the course of an examination of the lad in Euclid, 
 was so deeply impressed by the readiness and 
 accuracy of his answers that he closed the book 
 with the observation that, since the pupil clearly 
 knew as much as the master, it was waste 
 of time and trouble to continue the process of 
 examination. 
 
 To the public-school boy of to-day this accom- 
 plishment of young Nixon's may seem no great 
 matter ; most public schools could produce at 
 any moment numerous boys to whom Euclid 
 is child's play, boys who have soared into the 
 ethereal mysteries of the higher mathematics. 
 But these so-called boys are really young men of 
 seventeen and eighteen, in the training of whom 
 the most expert teachers have been engaged for 
 many years. Those were not the principles on 
 which a farmer's son in the North Country was 
 educated in pre- Victorian days. Young Nixon 
 went from the village school to Dr. Bruce's Aca- 
 demy to complete his education, and his education 
 was considered to be complete when he was no 
 more than fourteen years of age. The active 
 life of the Tynesider began at this tender age.
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 39 
 
 In fact, when the writer saw him last, in full pos- 
 session of all his faculties, with a keen eye on his 
 complicated business connections, full of reminis- 
 cences grave and gay, Mr. Nixon could claim 
 that he had earned his own livelihood (and a 
 great deal more) for nearly seventy years. He 
 began the work of life, in fact, at the age at 
 which the youth of to-day begin the serious part 
 of their education, whenever they take education 
 seriously at all. 
 
 At this point there seems to have been every 
 danger that John Nixon's mental development 
 might recede instead of going forward. It 
 seemed to be foreordained that he should con- 
 tinue in the same rustic groove which genera- 
 tions of sturdy Nixons had moved upon before 
 him. The familiar old song sums up and de- 
 scribes his daily occupations for the next two 
 years. He may or may not have said to his 
 
 father — 
 
 "So, wilt thou me employ 
 To plough and to sow, 
 To reap and to mow, 
 And be a farmer's boy ? " 
 
 Certainly those were his occupations ; and when 
 the wind sweeps from the North Sea in winter 
 over the farm-lands of Durham, there are elements 
 in the life of the northern farmer which are not
 
 40 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 in the least suggestive of pastoral poetry. No 
 doubt, however, so far as the mere animal part 
 of him was concerned, the lad enjoyed the rustic 
 life keenly ; for the man, at all periods of his life, 
 always showed the most intense zest for life in the 
 open air, and he was never happier than when, 
 after the fruits of his labour and energy permitted 
 him to engage a grouse-moor every year, he 
 tramped the heather, gun in hand, from morning 
 till night, at a pace which tried the endurance 
 of his lustiest friends and companions. No 
 doubt, also, the hardy life in sun and storm 
 during these two years helped to fortify and 
 establish the iron constitution which was invalu- 
 able to him in after life. 
 
 But the limits of the ancestral holding were 
 not wide enough to satisfy the budding ambition 
 of John Nixon or to provide a vent for his abun- 
 dant energy. He could not be content to re- 
 main upon it. Husbandry is the first and the 
 most honourable of occupations, and it calls for 
 that which it does not always secure, intelligence 
 and capacity in the husbandman. But as in 
 husbandry one does not take a keen razor to 
 mow hay, so there are men of intellect so sharp 
 and of brain so large that for them to content 
 themselves with the pursuit of the farmer's
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 41 
 
 occupation would indeed be a case of burying a 
 talent in a napkin. 
 
 So John Nixon determined to make his ven- 
 ture in the great world of business and of com- 
 merce, and living as he then did in the middle 
 of the coal district, chose that form of business 
 which lay nearest to his hand. He accordingly 
 apprenticed himself to Mr. Joseph Gray of Gares- 
 field, then well known in the colliery world as 
 one of the leading mining-engineers of the North 
 of England, and occupying the position of chief 
 mining agent to the Marquis of Bute. How 
 assiduously Nixon worked, allowing no detail 
 to escape his observation, how deep an impres- 
 sion he made upon his master, Mr. Gray, may 
 be seen from the actions of Mr. Nixon himself 
 in after life, and from the readiness with which 
 Mr. Gray, when the opportunity came, exerted 
 himself to serve the interests of his sometime 
 apprentice. Nixon was to have many con- 
 nections with the Bute Estate in after years, 
 but during his apprenticeship he was of but little 
 apparent importance to the Bute Estate or to 
 the world at large, and at the expiration of the 
 term of that apprenticeship he was nothing more 
 than a young man with all his troubles before 
 him, who knew his work passing well, but had
 
 42 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 no opportunity of showing his knowledge or of 
 turning it to profit. 
 
 His apprenticeship over, he was compelled to 
 choose between idleness and inactivity, or work 
 in a position far below that to which his ability, 
 and his technical training too, by this time 
 entitled him. Idleness, however, was probably 
 not possible for him from the financial point of 
 view. Besides that, it was entirely foreign to 
 his disposition, and he had the sense to see, to 
 use a commonplace expression, that by accepting 
 a temporary and inferior position he would gain 
 a practical experience in colliery work, which 
 might be of great service to him in later life. 
 For to a man who is to be engaged in great 
 business transactions, as in truth to every man 
 whose life is to be one of serious work of any 
 kind, no experience ever comes amiss, and each 
 fresh step in knowledge is a distinct and practical 
 gain. So John Nixon, finding no opportunity of 
 an engagement as a colliery manager, did not 
 disdain to accept the position of overman at 
 Garesfield Colliery, at the magnificent remunera- 
 tion of 3s. 6d. per day, a rate of pay at which 
 the commonest working collier of 1899, in spite 
 of shortened hours, would laugh with scorn. 
 And John Nixon's hours of work were such that,
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 43 
 
 in order to be in time at the colliery, he had to 
 rise at four o'clock every morning and walk two 
 miles to his work, which ended at four o'clock in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 Fortunately for him he was working within reach 
 of the eye of Mr. Gray, who not only saw that 
 the young man was industrious and attentive in 
 his work, but knew that he possessed by this time 
 scientific training in addition to his great intelli- 
 gence. Mr. Gray awaited his opportunity of 
 promoting the clever and hard-working young 
 man to better things, or of using his influence to 
 procure for him a position more worthy of his 
 intelligence ; but to the young man, particularly 
 as he strode to his work on the cold winter 
 mornings, or trudged home after a day of 
 laborious toil, the time of advancement must 
 have seemed very long in coming. For two 
 long years did he perform the arduous but by 
 no means fascinating duties of an overman ; for 
 two long years did he thus receive that practical 
 training which was to serve him so well in later 
 life. And if during these years he came to 
 know all the intricacies of coal-mining and its 
 methods, if upon his exact observation and 
 retentive memory every little detail made an 
 abiding impression, if he gained that knowledge
 
 44 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 of the habits and the thoughts of working men 
 without which he could never have exercised 
 such sway as he did over large bodies of men 
 later, he must have reflected sorrowfully many 
 and many a time that his chance would never 
 come. Other men were rising fast. George 
 Stephenson had become a leading man, and the 
 occasional sight of him may have served to 
 encourage the young man when he remembered 
 how lowly had been the engineer's original 
 position and how hard his struggles. 
 
 But it must have been a trying time for a 
 young man who could not fail to be conscious 
 of his abilities, who was filled with a proper 
 ambition. No matter how resolute and patient 
 he might be, no matter how full of life and 
 strength, he was face to face with the plain fact 
 that time was slipping away day by day, and his 
 position was not mending in the least. Conceive 
 a barrister who, after reading with a tutor in 
 chambers and passing his examinations, had to 
 betake himself to being another barrister's clerk ; 
 imagine a surgeon who, after walking the hos- 
 pitals and qualifying himself to practise, was 
 driven to washing: bottles for a more fortunate 
 practitioner : of that character was the position 
 of John Nixon during those weary years ; and
 
 EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP 45 
 
 though he was never heard to complain, it is 
 beyond question that he must have felt it very 
 deeply. The time when a capable man is eating 
 his heart out, beating in vain at the gates of 
 Fortune, in the hopes of finding a scope for his 
 energies, so that he may either sink or swim, 
 but at any rate take his chance, in the rough 
 stream of life — that surely is the most wearing 
 part of any man's life ; and, in proportion to the 
 man's powers and his consciousness of them, is 
 the difficulty of patience and of courage.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 
 
 AT last Mr. Gray's opportunity of helping the 
 ^ young man to go out into life with fair 
 prospects came, or seemed to have come ; and 
 it was seized with a promptitude which showed 
 how high was the elder man's opinion of the merits 
 of his sometime pupil. An appointment in con- 
 nection with the great iron- works of Mr. Craw- 
 shay Bailey, at Nantyglo in South Wales, became 
 vacant in 1839, and was advertised in the New- 
 castle papers. In passing, it is worth while to 
 notice that the connection between Newcastle 
 and its vicinity, and South Wales and Mon- 
 mouthshire, rivals in trade as the two districts 
 are, has at all times been close. You may hear 
 Welsh spoken in the great works at Consett to 
 this day ; and Welshmen are to be found occupy- 
 ing the highest positions in the industrial com- 
 munity concentrated at Consett, and directing 
 the destinies of the huge enterprise connected 
 with the name of Bolckow, Vaughan, & Com- 
 pany. So, adventurous men from the banks of 
 
 46
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 47 
 
 the Tyne, Sir George Elliot for example, have 
 found their way to South Wales, and have 
 reached the highest places in the commercial 
 community there. The young man of twenty- 
 four, who came from the farm-house at Barlow, 
 was destined to be one of these. 
 
 The advertisement appears to have been some- 
 what vague in its phraseology, but it sufficed to 
 tempt Mr. Nixon to become an applicant, and, in 
 his application, he had the cordial support of 
 Mr. Gray, who, as the trusted adviser of Lord 
 Bute, was widely known and respected in South 
 Wales. He also secured the recommendation of 
 Mr. Plummer, a partner of the Taylor family 
 of Ryhope, who had extensive connections, and 
 a large business in the coal -working and coal- 
 shipping trades. Eventually negotiations arrived 
 at such a stage that, although no formal and 
 binding engagement had been offered or ac- 
 cepted, and although, as a fact, Mr. Nixon was 
 far from understanding the precise nature of the 
 position which was vacant, it seemed to him 
 worth while to proceed to South Wales in per- 
 son ; and, before the year was out, he accom- 
 plished the journey by the slow and roundabout 
 method of the day. Two days in a stage- 
 coach carried him no farther on his way than
 
 48 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 to London. Then came a long drive from 
 London to Bristol ; then a sea passage from 
 Bristol to Newport, Monmouthshire ; then travel 
 by tramway from Newport to Nantyglo. Five 
 days to go from Newcastle to Nantyglo — such 
 was the rate of travelling in 1839. If the con- 
 ditions had been those of to-day, Mr. Nixon 
 might have breakfasted at Newcastle, taken lun- 
 cheon in London, and dined at Nantyglo. 
 
 It was on a Saturday evening that Mr. Nixon 
 reached his destination and became the guest of 
 Mr. Crawshay Bailey, who appears to have spent 
 the first evening of their acquaintance in "taking 
 stock," as schoolboys say, of the young North 
 Countryman. The great iron-master plied him 
 with questions of every kind concerning the 
 details of coal and iron work, with the object, 
 no doubt, of making sure that he had got hold 
 of a man capable of doing the work which was 
 to be entrusted to him ; and we may be sure that 
 he obtained the fullest satisfaction, for, above all 
 things, the young man knew his business. Still 
 the evening passed away, and the Sunday also — 
 men were not so prone then as now to transact 
 business on Sunday — before any definite offer 
 was made to Mr. Nixon. When it came it was 
 a staggering disappointment. Mr. Nixon had
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 49 
 
 come all the way from Newcastle under the im- 
 pression that the position vacant was that of chief 
 manager of the whole great enterprise of iron- 
 works and colliery, of which the former was far the 
 more important, the output of the colliery being 
 but 250 tons a day. To his great surprise he 
 found that Mr. Bailey offered to him the manage- 
 ment of the colliery only, and he did not hesitate 
 to express courteously but plainly his astonish- 
 ment that he should have been encouraged to 
 come from the far North of England to discuss 
 so insignificant an offer. 
 
 Far from being annoyed by Mr. Nixon's plain 
 speaking, Mr. Bailey proceeded to unfold his 
 intentions more plainly. He had, he explained, 
 a manager in charge of the ironworks already, 
 but he was not satisfied with the manner in 
 which that gentleman performed his duties. He 
 had never desired that Mr. Nixon should occupy 
 permanently so inferior a position as that of 
 manager of the small colliery connected with the 
 works. That was merely temporary ; it was no 
 more than an excuse for having him on the spot 
 until the opportunity came for dismissing the 
 manager then in office. 
 
 At this point the independence and courage of 
 Mr. Nixon's spirit showed themselves. He was 
 
 D
 
 so MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 quite a young man, be it remembered ; he was 
 absolutely unknown in the district ; he was with- 
 out any substantial means ; he had burned his 
 boats when he gave up his position, humble as 
 it was, at Garesfield Colliery. To a man of 
 ordinary character Mr. Crawshay Bailey's offer 
 would have presented great temptations. The 
 great iron-master, for Crawshay Bailey was cer- 
 tainly entitled so to be styled, had said to him 
 in effect, " Accept this minor situation as a stop- 
 gap, and, as soon as I can see a decent excuse for 
 sending the chief manager about his business, you 
 shall have his place." This meant that, if he was 
 prepared to enter into this rather false position, 
 he would have every chance of becoming chief 
 manager of ironworks of the highest position and 
 prosperity. But poor as Nixon then was, the 
 whole idea was repugnant to his sense of frank- 
 ness and his feeling of honour. It was suggested 
 that he should serve under the man whom he 
 was destined to supersede. This, of course, was 
 not intended to be known ; but it was almost in- 
 evitable that, if Nixon accepted the position, the 
 real intention of Mr. Crawshay Bailey should leak 
 out ; and, when it did leak out, friction, ill-feeling, 
 and awkwardness of relations must necessarily 
 ensue. On the other hand, if by any chance the
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 51 
 
 intention should be kept secret to the end, Nixon 
 could not have failed to feel that he was occupy- 
 ing an unsatisfactory and even treacherous posi- 
 tion. On the one side, he was pressed by the 
 knowledge that he was poor in purse, almost 
 friendless, in a strange land, and that the offer 
 made to him seemed likely to lead to prosperity 
 in life ; on the other side, he was influenced by 
 his sense of that which was fair between man and 
 man. 
 
 It can hardly be said that decision in this 
 crisis was the result of prolonged mental con- 
 flict. The young North Countryman, who, 
 throughout his life, was marked by directness 
 and independence of manner, informed the great 
 iron-master that his acceptance of the position, 
 offered under these very unpleasant conditions, 
 would certainly involve undesirable consequences, 
 and a very uncomfortable series of relations 
 between him and the man he was to supersede ; 
 and he insisted that, at any rate, he must not 
 be pressed for an answer until he had made 
 inquiries with regard to a vacancy at Dowlais 
 which might or might not be open ; and Mr. 
 Crawshay Bailey, to his honour be it written, 
 assented to the suggestion at once. The shrewd- 
 ness and the insight into colliery affairs shown
 
 52 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 by the young man had clearly made a deep 
 impression on his mind, and he said frankly 
 that Nixon was far too able a man to be settled 
 in the only position which could, for the moment, 
 be offered to him at Nantyglo ; and Nixon said 
 that, if he failed to find suitable employment 
 elsewhere, he would return to Nantyglo, take 
 that which was offered, and do the best he could 
 for his employer. But the admirers of John 
 Nixon's character will be rejoiced that circum- 
 stances did not, in fact, compel Nixon to return 
 to Nantyglo ; and this particular admirer of a very 
 sterling character is thoroughly convinced that, 
 if it had come to the pinch, John Nixon would 
 have gone back to Garesfield, and three and 
 sixpence for a day of hard labour, rather than take 
 formal service under a man whom it was desired 
 that he should oust. For in John Nixon there 
 was, from the beginning, a quality of magna- 
 nimity which, in spite of his keen eye for his own 
 interests, rendered him physically and morally in- 
 capable of stooping to an ignoble action, or play- 
 ing an insincere and mean part in the battle of life. 
 So, on the following morning, Mr. Nixon walked 
 from Nantyglo to Tredegar with the intention of 
 catching the coach for Llandaff; but when he 
 reached Tredegar the coach was gone, and such
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 53 
 
 was the simplicity and freedom from luxury of 
 the times and of the man that he started imme- 
 diately to walk to his destination. Thirty-seven 
 miles was the distance to be traversed by a man 
 unfamiliar with the contours of the country, carry- 
 ing a heavy coat over his arm ; but when Mr. 
 Nixon referred to the experience in later days, 
 it was to dilate upon the extreme beauty of the 
 extensive view which presented itself to his eyes 
 at various points of the route. His powers of 
 walking were, indeed, always remarkable, and 
 his appreciation of natural beauty was always 
 strong. His route led him by way of the 
 Rhymney valley to Caerphilly, in which neigh- 
 bourhood the characteristics of ancient Britain 
 and modern Britain are present in startling con- 
 trast : for Castell Coch, the red ruins of which 
 stand sentinel over the valley of the Taff, was 
 a British stronghold before it fell into Norman 
 hands ; and the great ridge of hills, running from 
 Glamorganshire into Breconshire, on which Caer- 
 philly stands, is rich not only in natural and 
 architectural beauty, but also in coal and iron, 
 the workinof of which is not conducive to the 
 preservation of the charm of scenery viewed near 
 at hand. 
 
 But, as the solitary wayfarer crossed Cefn On,
 
 54 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 his eyes rested on that magnificent panorama 
 which is to be a possession of mankind for ever, 
 since it is presented upon a scale so huge that 
 no work of man's hand can destroy its Hnes of 
 beauty. He looked down upon the rich surface 
 of the Vale of Glamorgan ; his eye rested on 
 the waters of the Bristol Channel, on the Steep 
 and Flat Holmes, and on the distant coastline 
 of Somerset and North Devon. Little did he 
 think then, as the infant town of Cardiff lay 
 below him some seven miles distant, or when 
 he turned his eyes to the northward over those 
 rugged hills and valleys amongst which Aberdare 
 and Merthyr, with their large industrial popula- 
 tions, nestle to-day, how great was to be his 
 influence in a movement which should change 
 the appearance of all the country-side, and find 
 honest and profitable employment for tens of 
 thousands of men. 
 
 The memory of that scene never perished in 
 Mr. Nixon's mind, but at the moment he had 
 his work to do. Six miles of hard walking still 
 lay before him, if he was to reach Llandaff and 
 to see Lord Bute's agent, Mr. Beaumont, that 
 evening. Mr. Beaumont was the man to apply 
 to, for the appointment of which Mr. Nixon had 
 heard (but which might, for all he knew to the
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 55 
 
 contrary, have been filled up) lay within Mr. 
 Beaumont's province. The question to be con- 
 sidered by Mr. Beaumont was that of granting 
 a renewed lease of the Dowlais Works to Sir 
 John Guest. Before that step could be taken, 
 it was imperatively necessary that a thorough 
 survey of the workings should be made ; and 
 the question of principal interest to Mr. Nixon 
 was whether he should be the man to make the 
 survey. 
 
 Travel-worn as he was, weary after his long 
 walk — for a cross-country tramp of nearly forty 
 miles must be a serious exertion to any man — 
 the steadfast young North Countryman had no 
 sooner reached the cathedral town of Llandaff 
 than he directed his steps towards Mr. Beau- 
 mont's house, and here came a humorous little 
 incident which lingered in his memory. Mr. 
 Beaumont had not yet come in, and the tired 
 man, being shown into the drawing-room to 
 await his coming, fell asleep, Mr. Beaumont's 
 daughter coming into the drawing-room later, 
 found a travel-stained stranger sound asleep and 
 in possession of the room. Her surprise, and 
 even her alarm, may be imagined. 
 
 When Mr. Beaumont returned matters were 
 soon arranged. The appointment was still vacant :
 
 56 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 that was one point gained ; and although Mr. 
 Beaumont and Mr. Nixon then met one another 
 face to face for the first time, Mr. Nixon's 
 abilities and his peculiar fitness for work such 
 as that which required to be accomplished had 
 already been described to Mr. Beaumont by Mr. 
 Gray of Garesfield. A few minutes of conver- 
 sation sufficed to indicate the nature of the 
 survey which must be made : it was to include 
 a thorough examination of the coal and iron- 
 stone workings, to be followed by a comprehen- 
 sive report upon their condition, and upon the 
 prospects of their providing food in the future 
 for the ironworks and the furnaces. Such an 
 examination must necessarily consume a con- 
 siderable period of time, and the remuneration 
 offered was at the rate of ^150 per annum. 
 That remuneration was far from being princely 
 from the modern point of view, though it was 
 handsome then ; and it was at least three times 
 as much as Mr. Nixon had been making during 
 the two preceding years at Garesfield. More- 
 over, we may be sure that Mr. Nixon was alive 
 to the advantages of entering upon a career in 
 a new country in connection with an undertaking 
 of great importance and responsibility upon an 
 estate of the highest standing. To be employed
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 57 
 
 on behalf of the Bute Estate was then, as it is 
 in these days, a much-prized privilege. 
 
 Before accepting the offer which Mr. Beaumont 
 made there and then, Mr. Nixon recounted to 
 his new acquaintance the story of his negotiations 
 with Mr. Crawshay Bailey at Nantyglo ; and he 
 was soon convinced that his reluctance to accept 
 the position offered to him there had been as 
 prudent as it was certainly honourable. Know- 
 ing full well the character of the then manager 
 at Nantyglo, Mr. Beaumont was able to assure 
 his young acquaintance that, if he had accepted 
 Mr. Bailey's offer and the reasons of his presence 
 at the colliery had become known, as surely must 
 have happened, prejudice against him would 
 certainly have been excited amongst the men, 
 and his work would have been carried on under 
 circumstances of the most unpleasant character 
 and with constant disagreements. 
 
 Mr. Nixon, there and then, accepted Mr. 
 Beaumont's offer, and, after a day spent in going 
 to Nantyglo to inform Mr. Bailey of the fact 
 that he was no longer at his disposal, he returned 
 to Llandaff, intent upon going to work at once, 
 and upon piercing to the very heart and core of 
 the important problem which had been confided 
 to him. A day later, having been placed in pos-
 
 58 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 session of the plans of the Dowlais workings, 
 he was at Dowlais, where his keen eye speedily 
 detected faults which must be remedied, and 
 which eventually were remedied, with the result 
 that a beneficial revolution was effected in the 
 whole system of underground colliery operations 
 in South Wales. 
 
 But this revolution was not effected in a day, 
 and we must proceed by steps. When Mr. 
 Nixon went to Dowlais he found Mr. Thomas 
 Evans established there in the position of General 
 Manager, with his brother, Mr. John Evans, as 
 Assistant-Manager. In sole charge of the entire 
 underground workings was Mr. George Heppell, 
 whose lot it became later to have charge of the 
 whole of the Plymouth Collieries ; while Mr. 
 George Martin looked after the ironstone work- 
 ings. These were the men upon the conduct of 
 operations by whom, at Dowlais, the young man 
 from the North had to hold inquiry and to pass 
 judgment. 
 
 The task was of such a character as to require 
 careful and prolonged attention : all working 
 operations had to be inspected ; sections of the 
 various seams of coal and ironstone had to be 
 taken ; notes of quantities had to be taken. 
 Moreover, the matter was of such importance
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 59 
 
 that, after Mr. Nixon had been at work for 
 some weeks, it became necessary for Mr. Gray 
 of Garesfield to come to South Wales to hear 
 reports from Mr. Nixon as to the progress of 
 his investigation, and, with him, to inspect the 
 underground workings, especially the seam of 
 " Big coal," then known locally as " Foes y 
 fran," now known all the world over as the 
 "six-feet seam." Here two wholly distinct 
 pieces of mismanagement revealed themselves. 
 Of these the first, since it was in harmony with 
 the traditional methods of coal-mining in the 
 district, was one for which the Dowlais Com- 
 pany could hardly be blamed ; the second was 
 of a different character, and was such that it 
 at last almost led to legal proceedings against 
 the company by Lord Bute. But the first was 
 really the more important of the two. To Mr. 
 Nixon, and to Mr. Gray when the subject was 
 brought under his notice, the "pillar and stall" 
 system of working, which was then in use 
 throughout South Wales, appeared to be, as 
 in fact it was, wasteful and extravagant beyond 
 all belief It was not until many years later 
 that a determined stand against this system 
 was made by Mr. Nixon, then a large colliery 
 owner, who carried his point, according to his
 
 6o MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 custom, but not without a severe struggle. 
 Meanwhile, from the standpoint of to-day, it is 
 distinctly interesting to look back upon the 
 nature of the antiquated system, not in any 
 contemptuous mood, for fifty years hence men 
 may ridicule our methods of to-day. 
 
 The steam coal of South Wales, as all who 
 use it know, is peculiar in composition. As a 
 counterpoise to its superlative merits, which will 
 be explained more conveniently at a later point 
 in this narrative, it is remarkably delicate in 
 constitution and very liable to be crushed, so 
 much so that a coal-owner of singular intelli- 
 gence, but slightly prone to use hyperbolical 
 language, has been heard to say that each large 
 fragment ought to be packed in cotton wool, and 
 that the black diamond ought to be treated 
 with all the care that is given to the precious 
 stone of Kimberley. This exceeding fragility 
 is due to the peculiar crystallisation of the 
 Welsh coal, which is fractured and triturated far 
 more readily than North Country coal, and, when 
 fractured, assumes distinct and characteristic 
 forms. This delicacy also entails the necessity 
 of using special care in the stowing of this 
 coal in the holds of vessels, and has caused 
 Sir William Thomas Lewis, the well-known
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 6i 
 
 colliery owner and chief agent to the Lord Bute 
 of to-day, to invent ingenious apparatus to the 
 end that the precious fuel may be taken up and 
 laid down in the holds of ships in huge quan- 
 tities indeed, but with the utmost tenderness. 
 Important, however, as it is in these days that 
 waste by fracture and crushing should be mini- 
 mised, it was a matter far more serious in the 
 year when Mr, Nixon inspected the Dowlais 
 workings ; for now uses are found for the small 
 coal, which is converted into patent fuel, but in 
 those days it was of no account, and the multi- 
 plication of it was useless waste. 
 
 What, then, was the system which prevailed 
 when Mr. Nixon first went to South Wales? 
 It was similar in principle — though the dimen- 
 sions of headings, and stalls, and pillars no doubt 
 varied in different collieries — to that against which 
 he contended when he bought Deep Duffryn 
 Colliery in after years. There the headings were 
 driven three yards wide, the stalls were six yards 
 wide, and a pillar six yards wide was left. True 
 the pillar was worked off later, but in the mean- 
 while, denuded of support and crushed by the 
 weight of the superincumbent strata, the coal 
 composing the pillar had been so much crushed 
 as to be almost entirely deprived of value.
 
 62 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Such, in principle, was the system which Mr. 
 Nixon found to prevail underground at Dowlais, 
 save that there the pillars were left behind al- 
 together, being not considered worth working at 
 all. With his practical and economical mind, 
 however, he was not satisfied to draw a merely 
 vague conclusion, and to report in general terms 
 that there was much waste, but proceeded to 
 make an exact calculation of the waste. The 
 result of that calculation was that not more than 
 forty per cent, of the great wealth of available 
 coal was actually worked and turned to profitable 
 account. In this respect it was hardly possible 
 to blame the Dowlais Company, for no better 
 method of working was known in South Wales 
 at the time, and years were to pass before the 
 "long wall" system, imported from Lancashire 
 and the Midlands, was established in South 
 Wales. On the other hand, Mr. Nixon dis- 
 covered, by inquiries made of various persons 
 in the course of his survey, that the underground 
 operations at Dowlais were habitually carried on 
 in an unbusinesslike and unworkmanlike fashion, 
 which could not fail to be detrimental to the inte- 
 rest of Lord Bute. The colliery was not treated 
 as a whole, so to speak, but piecemeal. When- 
 ever here or there, in this part of the workings
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 63 
 
 or in that, there was an increase of as much as 
 twopence per ton in the cost of production, an 
 outcry arose, and the part in which the increase 
 occurred was promptly abandoned. Whole dis- 
 tricts were thus deserted, with the result that 
 the entire area was not, as it should have been, 
 completely and comprehensively worked. The 
 practice followed seems, in short, to have been 
 that of picking out plums and plums only : all 
 difficulties which presented anything like serious 
 obstacles were resolutely avoided. 
 
 This point was made clear and emphasised in 
 Mr. Nixon's exhaustive reports, and the result 
 was that Lord Bute entertained seriously the 
 idea of taking legal proceedings against the com- 
 pany ; but he abandoned the project upon repre- 
 sentations made as to the detailed and lengthy 
 survey which would require to be made before 
 a distinct judgment could be reached upon the 
 question whether the increase in the cost of pro- 
 duction had, in each case, been the true reason 
 of the stoppage of the working. Moreover, look- 
 ing back from the disadvantageous standpoint of 
 1897, it appears that evidence would necessarily 
 have been difficult to obtain. Much of Mr. Nixon's 
 reports was made upon surveys made ; much also 
 was based upon answers to inquiries made by
 
 64 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 him. The evidence was quite sufficient as the 
 foundation of a report upon a matter of business. 
 It could be relied upon by Lord Bute and his 
 advisers, who knew that Mr. Nixon was not at 
 all the kind of man who was likely to be de- 
 ceived. But a court of law very properly requires 
 the application of tests more strict than those 
 which are applied in everyday life, and the pro- 
 jected litigation was abandoned. 
 
 Such was the opening incident of the business 
 life of Mr. Nixon in his first sojourn in South 
 Wales, during which he lived in hotels at Dowlais 
 and Merthyr, and finally in lodgings at Dowlais. 
 The noteworthy points during that period are the 
 independence and courage shown by him on the 
 occasion of his interview with Mr. Crawshay 
 Bailey, and the quickness of insight which led 
 him to perceive at a glance, almost, the disas- 
 trous wastefulness of the methods then in use 
 for winning Welsh steam coal. He was soon 
 to leave South Wales without, so far as appear- 
 ances went, any prospect of returning there ; 
 but before we follow him in his wanderings, 
 it is pleasant to pause over one little incident, 
 having no connection with the thread of his life 
 at the time, in which his habit of intelligent 
 observation was strikingly illustrated, and from
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 65 
 
 which, combined with a later incident on board a 
 Thames steamer, his great fortune may be said 
 to have originated. 
 
 He was standing one day during his nine 
 months of work at Dowlais near the engine at 
 Pen-y-darren pit, in company with Mr. Gray of 
 Garesfield. The cast-iron boiler of the engine 
 was working at high pressure, a matter which 
 in itself struck him as remarkable. Just then 
 the stoker had occasion to open the furnace door 
 and to throw coal upon the fire, and Mr. Nixon 
 watched him. Never had Mr, Nixon seen coal 
 used that produced so intense a heat, and he 
 immiediately called Mr. Gray's attention to the 
 circumstances. 
 
 "Look there," he cried, "what great heat, 
 and no smoke from it either ! It is much better 
 coal than we have in the North of England." 
 
 Mr. Gray asked him why he held that 
 view. 
 
 "Why, it gives out no smoke, and we have 
 no coal in England that produces so intense a 
 heat." 
 
 Nor was Mr. Nixon content to rest upon his 
 knowledge of the plain fact. He at once ad- 
 dressed himself to the stoker, asking whether 
 he found difficulty in maintaining steam, and
 
 66 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 whether, as appeared to be natural from the 
 intensity of the heat, the fuel burned away very 
 rapidly ; and the answer came at once — 
 
 " No ; it lasts much longer than any other 
 steam coal." 
 
 " Does it eive off much scoria or clinker ? " 
 
 " No ; very little clinker, except when I throw 
 on small coal." 
 
 " How long can you go on without clearing 
 the fire out ? " 
 
 " All day, except when I am short of large 
 coal, and have to use small. Then I have to 
 clear out the fire oftener." 
 
 Again, Mr. Nixon expressed to Mr. Gray his 
 strong opinion of the valuable qualities of this, to 
 him, novel fuel. But a few months had passed 
 since he had left Newcastle ; yet, at a glance, he 
 perceived the truth that in evaporative power, in 
 which the value of steam coal consists, the South 
 Wales product was infinitely superior to that of 
 his native county, and that glance was to be the 
 foundation of a great fortune. Year after year in 
 later days, in France and in England, when he 
 was middle-aged and when he was very old, his 
 mind recurred to the scene at Pen-y-darren pit, and 
 the memory of the dazzling glare from the glow- 
 ing furnace, when the door was thrown open,
 
 IN SOUTH WALES 67 
 
 recurred to him. Of a surety he was not one of 
 those of whom it is written, " Eyes have they, 
 and see not." His eyes were ever watching, his 
 brain was always working over that which he 
 had seen.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 
 
 IT is probable that, when Mr. Nixon had 
 finished his work at Dowlais, he considered 
 that he had done with South Wales, and that 
 there were no immediate prospects of employ- 
 ment for him there. Certainly he can have had 
 no idea of the effect which had been produced on 
 the mind not only of Mr. Gray, but also of Lord 
 Bute himself, by the perusal of the complete and 
 masterly report in which he had described and 
 criticised the underground workings at Dowlais. 
 This may be assumed, since Mr. Nixon was 
 always as shrewd in matters of business as he was 
 keen in the faculty of observation. He had 
 made a very good start in South Wales ; he had 
 satisfied himself, as we have seen, of the great 
 value of the produce of the South Wales coal-field. 
 If he had thought that there was any hope of a 
 position in the service of Lord Bute, it is morally 
 certain that he would not have shown any alacrity 
 in seeking work elsewhere, or in giving favour- 
 able consideration to offers of employment from
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 69 
 
 other quarters. As things happened, the effect of 
 the report upon Lord Bute's mind was to convince 
 him that Mr. Nixon was a man of such capacity 
 as to be worthy of a position of higher trust than 
 he had hitherto occupied, and Mr. Gray was in- 
 structed to direct Mr. Beaumont to offer to him 
 the position of Lord Bute's mining-engineer in 
 Wales. But Mr. Nixon and his friends had 
 been active in the meanwhile, and, when the 
 offer came, it was not in his power to accept it. 
 Hence came it that Lord Bute lost the oppor- 
 tunity of securing the services of a very remark- 
 able man, and that Mr. Nixon, who felt no doubt 
 that the mere offer of so responsible a position to 
 a man of his years was the highest compliment, 
 left South Wales to fulfil his destiny far away 
 and amongst a strange people. 
 
 His departure came about on this wise. Very 
 shortly after the work at Dowlais was accom- 
 plished, and when he had nothing definite to do, 
 he received a letter from Mr, Tom John Taylor, 
 who was then recognised as one of the highest 
 mining authorities in the north of England, in 
 which mention was made of the possibility of his 
 obtaining the post of mining- engineer to an 
 English company interested in a colliery and 
 ironworks in France. A meeting between him
 
 70 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 and Mr. Taylor was arranged in London. Mr. 
 Taylor introduced him to the directors, who, 
 after putting many questions to him, and being 
 satisfied that he was amply competent to per- 
 form the duties which would be required of him, 
 concluded the interview by offering to him the 
 management of their works in France at a 
 salary of ^500 a year. That, it will be observed, 
 was more than three times as much as he had 
 been receiving ; and, although it was clear that 
 the whole of his time must be devoted to the 
 service of the company, and that he must take 
 up his residence permanently in France, it might 
 have been thought that he would seize the oppor- 
 tunity with alacrity. But he took time to consider 
 matters. He had burned his boats behind him 
 when he migrated from the banks of the Tyne 
 to those of the Taff. He may have felt natural 
 hesitation before beginning life again in an en- 
 tirely new environment in a strange country, of 
 which the very language was unknown to him ; 
 or he may have had a suspicion that it would be 
 prudent to inquire into the stability of the com- 
 pany and its prospects before pledging himself 
 irrevocably. If he felt this suspicion it was, as 
 subsequent events proved in a very plain fashion, 
 entirely justifiable. Careful consultation with
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 71 
 
 Mr. Taylor, however, ended in a decision that it 
 would be wise to accept the appointment ; and he 
 called upon the chairman of the company next 
 day, formally pledged himself to the service of 
 the directors, and promised to sail for France 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 Before leaving England he went down to Llan- 
 daff to see Mr. Beaumont, and to acquaint him 
 with the change which had taken place in his posi- 
 tion. A short time before he had been without 
 a place and without a salary. When he called 
 upon Beaumont he had an appointment and an 
 income which for a man of his position, in those 
 times, might certainly be reckoned handsome ; 
 and now he was to learn from Mr. Beaumont 
 that, if he had bided his time, he might have 
 occupied at once high position in the employ- 
 ment of Lord Bute. That employment, indeed, 
 was offered to him there and then ; but it was out 
 of his power, even if it had not been contrary to 
 his disposition, to recede from his pledge. John 
 Nixon might drive a keen bargain ; indeed, he 
 drove many such in after life, as every man of 
 business must ; but he was far from being the 
 man to break an engagement. 
 
 So, after one more interview with the directors 
 in London, Mr. Nixon went by steamer to Bou-
 
 72 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 logne, and then entered upon the long pilgrimage 
 — for travelling was no affair of express trains in 
 those days — to his destination in the west of 
 France. First he travelled by diligence from 
 Boulogne to Paris, and there spent two days, 
 which must have been full of strangeness to his 
 untravelled mind. From the Dowlais of early 
 Victorian days to the Paris of Louis Philippe was 
 as great a change as may be conceived. But Mr. 
 Nixon's heart was set upon his work, and Paris 
 could not keep him away for more than forty- 
 eight hours from his long journey of two days 
 and a half by diligence to Nantes. 
 
 So far he had been on the beaten track of 
 tourists, and the sight of an English face attracted 
 no notice on the part of the country folk who, 
 since the end of the Napoleonic wars, had be- 
 come familiar with travellers from across the 
 Channel. But in the course of the weary and 
 monotonous journey across the central plain of 
 France matters wore a new appearance. The 
 route by road lay then, as the route by rail runs 
 now, through league after league of level country, 
 fertile and well-tilled indeed, but unbroken in out- 
 line. To one travelling by train now, the mono- 
 tony of the scenery, save when here and there the 
 line runs within eyeshot of the magnificent Loire,
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 73 
 
 is wearisome and tedious ; and, rich as the land 
 is, the signs of man or of human habitation are 
 few and far between. The country folk are 
 massed here and there in villages ; they were 
 massed in much the same way then. This was 
 no country frequented by curious tourists ; it was 
 well outside the limits of the Grand Tour, and 
 the villagers, to whom any kind of excitement 
 was novel, were encouraged by the conductor of 
 the diligence to treat Mr. Nixon as a raree-show. 
 At each halt the conductor would walk proudly 
 up to Mr. Nixon, with all the airs of a man 
 having some strange novelty to exhibit, and 
 would point to his mouth, crying out loud 
 " Anglais, Anglais." The interest excited was 
 analogous to that which Livingstone roused in 
 wild Africa. Of this process it is related that 
 Mr. Nixon regarded it as an innocent diversion 
 which caused him much amusement ; upon which 
 it can only be said that Mr. Nixon must have 
 been then, as to the end, a man of good-humoured 
 disposition, for in the case of most of us the jest, 
 often repeated, would have palled, and some of 
 us might have failed to see the fun of it at any 
 time. If wit there was, it consisted in the indica- 
 tion of the mouth as the true point of distinction 
 between men of different race and tongue.
 
 74 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Arrived at Nantes, the great port which was to 
 be the scene of interesting episodes in his later 
 career, Mr. Nixon found that his journey was by 
 no means over, and that he must transfer himself 
 and his baggage to a steamer, which would take 
 him to Nort, from which Languin, his ultimate 
 destination, was but three miles distant. The 
 steamer proceeded by the river Erdre, which, 
 being part of the Napoleonic Canal from Nantes 
 to Brest, was rendered navigable between Nantes 
 and Nort by virtue of a twelve-feet dam at 
 Nantes. The scene of Mr. Nixon's operations 
 lay, in short, as nearly as might be in the centre 
 of what is now the department of Loire-Inferieure, 
 and in a remote part of France, which is, even in 
 these days, little known to Englishmen. 
 
 The circumstances in which Mr. Nixon found 
 himself were the reverse of encouraging, and 
 the more he looked into matters the greater 
 was the call upon his reserve stock of courage. 
 At first, indeed, he had no means of forming an 
 opinion save through his eyes, which showed 
 him that the only road by which products could 
 be transported to the canalised river, three miles 
 off, at Nort, was infamously bad. Of French 
 he knew no more than the few words and 
 phrases which he had been able to acquire
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 75 
 
 during his journey, and these few words, spoken 
 probably with a Durham accent, were not Hkely 
 to be of much help to him in discussing the 
 technicalities of mining. Of English no person 
 in the place had any knowledge, for the resi- 
 dent mining-engineer happened to be away. 
 Nor, when the mining-engineer came back in a 
 couple of days, were matters much improved. 
 He could speak English, but he was not likely 
 to be particularly well disposed towards the man 
 who was coming in to a place which he had 
 occupied for some time. From him Mr. Nixon 
 was not able to obtain any substantial amount 
 of useful information ; but he obtained enough 
 to enable him to start upon his duties, and that 
 stage once reached, John Nixon's sharp wits 
 and trained skill would do the rest. 
 
 The concern was largfe. The concession 
 granted to the company covered an area of 
 seven miles by three-quarters of a mile, with 
 an extension including the outcrop seams. The 
 veins of coal lay almost vertically. What Mr. 
 Nixon had to decide was not whether coal and 
 iron lay within the boundaries of the concession, 
 for that was plain, but whether the enterprise 
 could be worked profitably, and if so, how ? 
 On that vital point he was himself, so far, in
 
 76 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the dark ; and the company in England, who 
 had found the money, were apparently in much 
 the same stage of knowledge or of ignorance. 
 He accordingly began at the beginning, and 
 spent the first three weeks of his stay in Languin 
 in what might be called preliminary work, which 
 was imperative upon him, since it had not been 
 done before. First he had a plan made of all 
 the pits that had been sunk in the property, 
 ascertaining as far as possible the extent of the 
 workings from each opening. An account was 
 also made up of the quantity of coal which had 
 been raised during the preceding seven or eight 
 years. It then appeared that, whereas but three 
 pits — two with steam-pumps and winding-engines, 
 and one with a horse-whim — were in existence, 
 only three-quarters of a mile of the great area 
 of the concession had been prov'ed. Under- 
 ground the aspect of affairs was no better. In 
 the company of the engineer and the overman, 
 Mr. Nixon inspected all the accessible workings, 
 taking sections at every ten yards of the seams, 
 of which three, the north, south, and centre, were 
 said to exist. In addition, he asked questions 
 of all who were likely to be able to give him 
 any information of value. 
 
 The results of the survey were not merely
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 77 
 
 disappointing, they were absolutely dishearten- 
 ing, and compelled Mr. Nixon to the conclusion 
 that the enterprise, so far as it had been pro- 
 secuted up to that time, was utterly hopeless. 
 The sections were "the most horrible he had 
 ever seen." In some places the coal was forty 
 feet thick, only to be followed by a "leader" 
 for hundreds of yards. The cost of working 
 was enormous ; the coal produced was enough 
 to keep the colliery engines going and no more. 
 And this was the enterprise for the sake of which 
 Mr. Nixon had relinquished the certainty of an 
 important appointment under Lord Bute, in a 
 district of which he had clearly recognised the 
 potential, nay, the certain wealth in the immediate 
 future ! It needs no great faculty of imagination 
 to picture the bitterness of the young man's dis- 
 appointment upon finding that the enterprise in 
 which, for the moment, his career was bound up, 
 could be described by no other terms than hope- 
 less and desperate. 
 
 In these circumstances it is not too much 
 to say that many men would have hesitated to 
 follow the straightforward and honest course. 
 It would have been a simple matter to postpone 
 the task of writing a report to the directors, to 
 try other parts of the property within the con-
 
 78 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 cession, to make light of apparent difficulties, 
 to hold out roseate hopes for the future, and to 
 continue as long as possible in the enjoyment 
 of a handsome salary. But the subject of this 
 memoir was not, to use an American expression, 
 " that kind of man." His plain duty was to warn 
 the directors that in his judgment they were 
 expending the money of the shareholders to no 
 purpose in prosecuting a hopeless enterprise ; that 
 to go to further cost would simply amount to 
 throwing good money after bad. But clear as 
 his duty was, the probable consequences of ful- 
 filling it were not less manifest. The young man 
 who, three weeks after entering upon the exa- 
 mination of a mining venture in which large 
 sums of money had been sunk, should condemn 
 the whole thing and declare the cherished scheme 
 to be such that it could not succeed, could not 
 fail to perceive that, though honesty might be 
 the best policy in the long run, his frankness 
 would certainly place his situation in jeopardy. 
 But John Nixon did not shrink from the ordeal. 
 While, no doubt, he expected nothing less than 
 abrupt dismissal as the result, he made his re- 
 port in plain terms to the directors. He stated 
 that he had never seen or heard of a coal-field 
 of so desperate a character as that of Languin ;
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 79 
 
 he forwarded plans of the different seams, and 
 the sections he had taken at every ten yards. 
 To this gloomy report he added a strong ex- 
 pression of opinion that he had felt it to be his 
 unpleasant duty to lay the account of the aspect 
 of affairs plainly before the directors, in order 
 that, before expending more money upon the 
 venture, they might consider the position in a 
 business-like spirit. But it is clear that he felt 
 it to be likely that the directors, knowing his 
 youth and the short duration of his experience, 
 might distrust his report, and might decline to 
 recognise the authority and the weight of his 
 observations. He therefore added a recommenda- 
 tion that the directors should send over another 
 engineer to investigate the workings in the light 
 of his report, and to advise the company as to 
 the course to be pursued in a situation which 
 was certainly critical. 
 
 Having thus taken the straightforward course 
 which honour indicated in preference to that 
 which the considerations of selfish expediency 
 seemed to dictate, Mr. Nixon waited, with what 
 anxiety may easily be imagined, for the answer 
 of the directors. The directors, in their turn, 
 were so much astonished and so much chagrined 
 by the tone of the report, that they despatched a
 
 8o MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 letter to him bidding him proceed to London at 
 once, and he, as he shook the scanty coal-dust 
 of Languin from his feet, cannot have failed to 
 think that he was in all probability doing so for 
 the last time : for he had condemned without 
 reserve the enterprise in which his employers had 
 pledged themselves to the hilt ; and, although 
 he had written in all sincerity, he knew enough 
 of human nature to be aware that the harbinger 
 of evil tidings is, more often than not, compelled 
 to play the part of the scapegoat. He expected, 
 no doubt, a stormy interview with the directors ; 
 and his expectations were fulfilled. The direc- 
 tors confronted him with a highly favourable 
 report of French authorship, upon which, in all 
 human probability, they had relied when they 
 embarked upon their unhappy enterprise. They 
 observed, with perfect truth, that the roseate de- 
 scriptions and anticipations of the French engineer 
 were in diametrical opposition to the report which 
 Mr. Nixon had deemed it necessary to write. 
 They said, in so many words, that they were 
 astonished that Mr. Nixon should have adopted 
 in his report so uncompromising and so disap- 
 pointing a tone. 
 
 Having regard to the bitterness of their chagrin, 
 their anger was to be excused. But they were
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 8i 
 
 face to face with a man whom it was impossible 
 to intimidate or to drive from the right course. 
 In his cool North Country tone he observed that 
 he had seen the French report, that he had 
 studied it, that the terms and the spirit of it were 
 familiar to him. There was nothing the matter 
 with the French report save that the writer of 
 it had omitted the root of the whole matter, and 
 had neglected to observe the risky and eccentric 
 nature of the seams. Again he recommended 
 them to send over an independent engineer, 
 accompanied by the Chairman of the Board of 
 Directors, so that the precise truth of his report 
 might be established, for on that report he had 
 staked his reputation as a mining - engineer. 
 Then, for the first time, the directors showed 
 that spirit of the company promoter, the shark of 
 commerce, which was far less strongly developed 
 then than it is now. So strong, indeed, is it now, 
 so numerous are the bottomless pits contrived in 
 the City by men who care not how much is lost 
 of the money sunk without a chance of any re- 
 turn, so long as they are able to filch some as it 
 falls, as to have given rise recently to a cynical 
 observation. A frequenter of the Stock Exchange 
 remarked, not many months ago, to a student 
 of human nature and of social phenomena, that
 
 82 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 things were in a desperate state in the City. 
 The answer came sharply, " Then there is a 
 chance for honest men outside." A corrupt 
 institution is the Stock Exchange, though its 
 members be honest enough. It produces abso- 
 lutely nothing ; it consumes and takes away a 
 great deal. Bubble schemes are inflated there 
 day after day : they absorb the savings of the 
 ignorant ; their promoters give ceremonial ban- 
 quets to celebrate the triumph of this or that 
 gaseous fraud ; palaces are built in the West End, 
 and poverty walks into many a quiet country 
 home. From the promotion of such schemes, 
 or from the necessities which come in the pro- 
 motion of them, arise reports from mining- 
 engineers and others which delude the innocent, 
 while the man of the world knows them to be 
 the customary tricks of the trade, and from re- 
 liance upon these false statements come wide- 
 spread ruin, impoverished families, and all the 
 squalid paraphernalia of misery. 
 
 Something, surely, of the conscienceless spirit 
 of the schemers of the City was in the minds of 
 those directors, who had the hardihood to com- 
 plain that the man whom they had sent out to 
 report to them upon the position and prospects of 
 their enterprise had, without preliminary consulta
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 83 
 
 tion with them, furnished them with a true and 
 faithful account of their property, in which no 
 defects were extenuated, in which no damning 
 facts were omitted "through affection, fear, or 
 the hope of reward." They reproached him on 
 the ground that the report was so injurious that 
 ** it would prevent their shares from getting into 
 the market." In truth the report was essentially 
 private ; it was addressed to them and not to the 
 public ; they might, had they been so disposed, 
 have destroyed it as soon as it was received ; but 
 they felt that if, with such a report in the back- 
 ground, they attempted successfully to cajole the 
 public out of more money, they might be placed 
 in a very uncomfortable position when the in- 
 evitable crash came. The law affecting joint- 
 stock companies was a large-meshed net in those 
 days. Even now, when the mesh is narrower, the 
 big fishes commonly succeed in breaking through 
 it altogether ; but there was then, as there is now, 
 a law which makes the obtaining of money on 
 false pretences a serious crime ; and to have 
 issued more shares, to have obtained more money, 
 without disclosing Mr. Nixon's report, would 
 have been a perilous business, and dangerous to 
 personal liberty. 
 
 Mr. Nixon's prompt and significant answer
 
 84 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 contains the essential distinction between the 
 men of action in industry, who are a benefit 
 to society, and the men of financial artifice, 
 who are the birds of prey of business. "He 
 had imagined," he said, "that the question was 
 one of working to a profit, and not one of 
 selling shares in the market." If the City gene- 
 rally could be persuaded to approach new en- 
 terprises in Mr. Nixon's spirit, the world at 
 large would be at least as prosperous as it is, 
 and infinitely happier than it seems to be. The 
 bitter recriminations which followed upon this 
 dry and pregnant observation must be left to the 
 imagination ; the record of them has perished 
 and gone out of mind. It is enough to be 
 able to state that in the end the directors were 
 so clearly convinced against their will by the 
 logic of the report, that they actually invited 
 its author to suggest the name of a person 
 to make the investigation which he had de- 
 clared to be imperative. He very properly de- 
 clined to do anything of the kind. The man 
 required was an independent man — a person 
 in whom the directors had confidence — not a 
 man chosen by Nixon. He would say no more 
 than that, no matter who might be sent, one 
 of the board ought to accompany him. Then
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 85 
 
 the directors suggested Mr. Tom John Taylor, 
 the very man who had introduced Mr. Nixon 
 to them originally. Mr. Nixon said that, as they 
 expressed their confidence in Mr. Taylor's ability 
 and judgment — and the serious elements in the 
 situation called for cool judgment above all 
 things — no better man could be chosen, and it 
 was decided that, accompanied by Mr. Taylor 
 and the chairman of the company, he should 
 return to France. 
 
 Mr. Taylor was already familiar with the 
 situation. He had been Mr. Nixon's patron 
 and friend, and, when the latter sent his report 
 to the directors, he had deemed it an act of 
 necessary courtesy to forward a copy simul- 
 taneously to the man who had been mainly 
 instrumental in obtaining his appointment for 
 him. And Mr. Taylor, although he was aware 
 that the directors were disposed to make as 
 light as might be of the report, and to explain 
 it away on the ground that Nixon had de- 
 spaired too soon and was weary of service in 
 their employment, had frankly expressed his 
 opinion that the right course had been pursued. 
 
 The official examination of the property pro- 
 ceeded, and Mr. Nixon, anxious to exhibit the 
 virtues of the property as well as its weakness,
 
 86 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 conducted the chairman and Mr. Taylor first 
 to the ironstone deposits. They were excel- 
 lent. They lay in little hillocks, which, upon 
 being driven into, proved to be of capital 
 quality, yielding forty per cent, of iron (a large 
 percentage in those days when the riches of 
 Bilbao were undiscovered) at the moderate cost 
 of fifteenpence per ton. At this point all went 
 merry as a marriage bell, and the chairman, 
 with reviving spirits, rallied Mr. Nixon, asking 
 whether there was anything in Wales to equal 
 what had been seen. There was not, said Mr. 
 Nixon in effect, any ironstone deposit in Wales, 
 or, for that matter, in England, to equal it ; 
 but, in the conditions of trade in those days, 
 raw ironstone was not a marketable article, and 
 the vital question, whether the work of smelt- 
 ing could be carried on to a profit on the spot, 
 remained unsolved. To this the chairman very 
 pertinently replied that the concession of the 
 extensive coal property had been obtained 
 mainly with a view to obtain coal for smelting 
 purposes. But Mr. Nixon, who spoke with 
 more knowledge than the chairman, in that he 
 had examined personally the accessible portions 
 of the coal-field, whereas the chairman had not, 
 appears to have pointed out that an intention
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 87 
 
 of obtaining coal for smelting purposes was not 
 quite the same thing as that intention realised. 
 No doubt, as he had already proved, coke of 
 the best quality could be made out of the coal 
 that was produced at Languin ; but that was 
 not the beginning and the end of the whole 
 matter. There were grave doubts as to the 
 amount of coal available. The property was 
 in large measure untried ; but such coal as had 
 been produced had been so costly in the win- 
 ning, owing to the chaotic distribution of the 
 seams, that it was chimerical to hope to carry 
 on at a profit the joint enterprise of raising 
 the coal and smelting the iron. The iron might 
 be cheap, but the cost of producing the coal 
 ate up all the profit which might come from 
 the cheapness of the iron, and a little more 
 besides. It had become a grave question where 
 any warrant could be found for going to the 
 great expense which would be necessary to the 
 development of the enterprise. 
 
 At this point it became plain that the iron 
 of Mr. Nixon's report had bitten into the chair- 
 man's soul, and that, for the moment at any rate, 
 he was convinced that the coal-field, which had 
 been acquired for smelting purposes, could not be 
 applied in that way with a prospect of obtaining
 
 88 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 that profit which is the Hfe-blood of trade. He 
 made the suggestion that, failing a supply from 
 the Languin concession, coal might be brought 
 to Languin from elsewhere. That suggestion, 
 itself an implied confession that half the value 
 of the concession was imaginary, must have pro- 
 duced a strange impression on the minds of his 
 companions. It must, indeed, have seemed wild 
 and desperate, having regard to the conditions 
 of the iron trade of those days. In thtse times, 
 when rich iron ore is brought by sea from Spain 
 to meet the smelting coal at Cardiff (which we 
 may safely assume to be the most effectual plan, 
 since it is followed by the keenest men of busi- 
 ness in the world), there would be nothing start- 
 ling in the proposal that the process should be 
 reversed, the coal being taken out to meet the 
 ore. But then, when coal and iron were being 
 worked together in South Wales, at Dowlais for 
 example, the suggestion that the coal should be 
 brought to the iron from a distance was novel, 
 and almost absurd ; for, good as was the quality 
 of the Languin ironstone, it was not so exception- 
 ally superior to anything known in England as to 
 promise a profit after the greatly increased cost 
 of production had been defrayed. At any rate, 
 the suggestion did not strike Mr. Nixon as an
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 89 
 
 inspiration ; in fact, it merely evoked from him 
 the remark that, so far as he knew, coal could 
 be obtained from England only, and that to 
 obtain it thence would tend to intensify rather 
 than to solve the problem of high cost. It must 
 be remembered, of course, that the state of de- 
 velopment of the English and Welsh coal-fields 
 was not at that time comparable to its present 
 state, and that, as Mr. Nixon found in later 
 days, it was in those days difficult to secure the 
 fulfilment of large orders for Welsh coal. 
 
 The chairman therefore found himself face to 
 face with one of those crises which are among 
 the most trying, even when the person confronted 
 with them has his own interests alone to consider. 
 Men are always reluctant to recognise unpleasant 
 facts, to confess that an enterprise on which many 
 hopes had been founded is really hopeless, to de- 
 cide that the time has come for reckoning money 
 spent as money lost and for cutting their losses. 
 But the chairman's position was worse than that 
 of a mere individual. He had to reflect that the 
 concession had been paid for, that the company 
 had been formed, that a large sum of money had 
 been subscribed from many quarters. If the 
 enterprise was to be given up, there were uncom- 
 fortable facts to be faced. He could not fail to
 
 90 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 picture to himself meetings of infuriated and dis- 
 appointed shareholders, violent reproaches, fierce 
 accusations, and all the familiar surroundings of 
 the burial of a venture which had failed in spite of 
 fair promises. It was a gloomy prospect. Few 
 men in this world, even in the City, are as callous 
 as they seem to be ; and it may well be that in 
 the sunshine which has the semblance of gilding 
 every hour in the successful company promoter's 
 life, he himself can always feel the chilling shadow 
 of that little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, 
 which rises unmarked by others. To postpone 
 the evil day is sometimes possible. True it is 
 that such postponement means the accumulation 
 of trouble and the exacerbation of reproaches in 
 the end ; but it commonly happens that the temp- 
 tation to escape, up to the last moment, from the 
 inevitable necessity of confessing to failure, is too 
 strong for human nature. 
 
 It was too strong in this case. That the 
 chairman fully realised the desperate character 
 of the situation had been plain from his sugges- 
 tion that coal should be brought over sea to the 
 ironstone which had been bought in the belief 
 that it rested upon coal strata amply sufficient 
 for smelting purposes. But the company had 
 gone far with the scheme ; the directors were not
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 91 
 
 prepared to face the bitterness of retreat ; they 
 were determined, the chairman told Mr. Nixon, 
 to go on with the business. It is no mean proof 
 of the impression which Mr. Nixon's strong char- 
 acter and marked abihty had made upon his 
 employers, that he, the man who had frankly 
 informed them that in his judgment the farther 
 they went the worse they would fare, was still 
 permitted and encouraged to advise with regard 
 to the system which must be followed if the for- 
 lorn enterpise was to have the smallest chance of 
 success. He had already outlined this system in 
 his report. Trifling operations would, he averred, 
 be quite useless and futile. To secure the coal 
 necessary for smelting purposes alone many pits 
 would have to be sunk ; to provide engines for 
 these pits would involve great expense ; and, unless 
 the whole thing were done on a large scale, and 
 large quantities of coal were worked, the cost of 
 production would be enormous. 
 
 With these weighty words ringing in their ears, 
 the chairman and Mr. Taylor, accompanied by Mr. 
 Nixon, continued their examination of the property 
 and visited all the openings which existed. They 
 considered the whole matter with anxious care, 
 and again the chairman, who said that he was 
 confident that his colleagues on the Board of
 
 92 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Directors would follow his lead, said that he was 
 determined to go on with the concern. Again 
 Mr. Nixon, allowing no regard for his private 
 interests to divert him from the line of honour, 
 threw cold water upon the scheme, and urged 
 that, at any rate, the projected iron-works should 
 not be constructed until they had ascertained by 
 making new openings that an adequate supply of 
 coal to feed them would be forthcoming. 
 
 Then, between Mr. Nixon and Mr. Taylor, the 
 conversation turned upon the prospects of the 
 coal supply, and in discussing that question the 
 two men occupied very different positions. Mr. 
 Taylor had been sent out by the company to 
 inspect the property in the first instance, but had 
 relied upon the report supplied to him by the 
 company, and had not gone underground to test 
 for himself the statements in the report or the 
 accuracy of the manager's estimates. Mr. Tay- 
 lor's report, which presumably had followed upon 
 his alleged inspection, was really nothing more 
 than a repetition of hearsay evidence. He was 
 a mining-engineer of great reputation ; his name 
 may have given weight to the report ; but the 
 report really deserved no more weight than the 
 original French report upon which it was founded. 
 Mr. Nixon, on the other hand, thorough in all
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 93 
 
 things, and never sparing himself in the matter of 
 personal exertion, had been underground person- 
 ally, and had examined the whole of the workings 
 elaborately, devoting to the process all his skill 
 as a mining-engineer. And Mr. Taylor knew Mr. 
 Nixon's straightforward character. When, there- 
 fore, Mr. Nixon stated that, after making out his 
 sections, he estimated the average of the three 
 seams taken together as two feet six inches only, 
 Mr. Taylor, albeit much surprised, indeed almost 
 shocked — for his reflections cannot have been 
 comfortable — accepted the statement as authori- 
 tative. What, then, in his judgment was the 
 course to be pursued ? What would the company 
 be well advised to do ? He at first hesitated to 
 express an opinion, but upon being pressed to 
 speak out, he said that there was no room for 
 two views upon the matter. So the warning 
 knell of the cherished enterprise at Languin 
 tolled once more. 
 
 Still it was plain that the chairman, unmoved 
 by the change even in Mr. Taylor's attitude, 
 was determined to proceed ; yet Mr. Nixon 
 displayed no strong desire to keep his situation. 
 On the contrary, while he expressed himself 
 willing to devote his best energies to the work 
 of exploitation, if the directors determined that it
 
 94 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 was best that he should do so, he accompanied 
 his consent to continue in their employment by 
 strict conditions. He insisted that he should be 
 supported by distinct and express authority ; he 
 stipulated that the whole of his responsibility for 
 the large sum of money, ^30,000, which was 
 at stake, should lie upon the shoulders of the 
 directors ; he declared that he would not proceed 
 except upon the clear understanding that the 
 directors should state their approval of the course 
 which he had pursued. In short, he adopted a 
 courageous and independent attitude, which be- 
 came him well, although its unflinching boldness 
 may have surprised the chairman not a little. 
 
 Mr. Nixon had his reward. Before starting 
 upon his return journey to England the chair- 
 man candidly admitted that, although he had 
 come to France reluctant to be convinced, he 
 was constrained to confess that Mr. Nixon's 
 conduct had been upright and straightforward 
 from beginning to end of the business. Upon 
 this assurance of confidence, Mr. Nixon was 
 satisfied to carry on the work, and it was 
 arranged at once that a powerful pumping- 
 engine, which was obtained eventually in Corn- 
 wall, should be sent out from England. Even 
 with this, he pointed out, there would be special
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 95 
 
 difficulties, owing to the peculiarities of the 
 unhappy plot of land with which he had to 
 deal. To place the engine upon the coal for- 
 mation was out of the question ; for the coal 
 formation was in a perpetual state of ** creep," 
 and " squeezing " began as soon as pits were 
 opened — in other words, the superincumbent 
 strata, deprived of a part of their original sup- 
 port, pressed with additional weight upon such 
 support as was left, and squeezed upwards the 
 softer strata below. An excellent description 
 of this process will be found in Sir Charles 
 Lyell's " Elements of Geology." Hence it would 
 be necessary to erect the engine on the meta- 
 morphic rocks of crystalline texture which formed 
 the boundary of the coal strata. 
 
 In due time the engine, with seventy-inch 
 cylinder and ten-feet stroke, came from Cornwall, 
 and a foundation having been sunk, was placed 
 on the metamorphic rock. Mr. Nixon was then 
 in a position to try the property for coal in 
 every conceivable way ; nor did he delay so to 
 do. At first things looked better than he had 
 dared to anticipate, for, after sinking to the depth 
 of 150 feet, the depth of the previous workings, 
 he drove across the veins, and at one point came 
 across what appeared to be a continuous six-foot
 
 96 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 seam, which, if it had but been regular, would 
 have gone far to establish the prosperity of the 
 colliery ; but, after thirty yards had been worked 
 in one direction and ten yards in the other, the 
 six-foot seam disappeared, and the dreams of 
 prosperity vanished, not indeed into thin air, but 
 into worthless rock. Still Mr. Nixon persevered, 
 driving on to the other seams, but no valuable 
 discovery was made. Then he went 150 feet 
 deeper, and repeated the operations which he had 
 carried out in the upper cross cut, but the results 
 were as disappointing as before. At that point 
 manifestly coal could not be worked profitably. 
 Three hundred yards away from the pumping-pit 
 a fresh trial was made ; and again, at another 
 spot 300 yards to the eastward, he sunk to 
 the depth of 300 feet. Here some kind of 
 tradition promised forty feet of coal, but trial 
 proved not only that the forty feet did not exist, 
 but also that the earth concealed no workable 
 treasures in that part. This tract of the conces- 
 sion was obviously barren, and further sinking 
 in it could mean nothing but futile expenditure. 
 Still far away to the westward was an old pit, 
 with pumping- and winding-engine, which had 
 been exploited before the company had acquired 
 the property. There, with additional sinking,.
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 97 
 
 there might be hope ; but, after diving another 
 150 feet into the bowels of the earth, the dream 
 was dispelled ; and yet another boring, 300 yards 
 away to the westward of that last mentioned, 
 was equally dispiriting. The coal was a mere 
 mockery ; that which was won sufficed to keep 
 the engines going and no more. Before he had 
 finished, in a word, Mr. Nixon had tried every 
 part of that luckless property without obtaining 
 any other satisfaction than that of proving that 
 his original predictions and his first estimate of 
 the prospects of the Languin Coal and Iron Works 
 had been absolutely and deplorably correct. 
 
 It needs hardly to be said that, as each costly 
 investigation ended in failure, the directors in 
 London were kept fully and regularly informed 
 of the progress, or no progress, that was being 
 made. But their principle was then embodied 
 in the familiar saying, "It's dogged as does it ; " 
 and that principle, when men are risking their 
 own money only, compels admiration ; but when 
 the matter is one of spending the money of 
 ignorant shareholders also, the feeling of admira- 
 tion is naturally modified ; and the time came 
 when Mr. Nixon could endure his position no 
 longer. As the knowledge that all their labour 
 is in vain adds to the weary despair with which 
 
 G
 
 98 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 imprisoned convicts turn the useless crank or 
 tread the mill which grinds nothing, so it was 
 intolerable to a man of vigorous energy and 
 keen insight in mining affairs to be compelled 
 to prosecute, year after year, experiments of the 
 futility of which he was thoroughly convinced. 
 So, while the directors were to all appearances 
 prepared to go on for ever, Mr, Nixon resolved 
 to retire from a position which had become un- 
 bearable to him, and he accordingly wrote to his 
 employers stating that, inasmuch as his term of 
 engagement had almost expired, he would be 
 glad to be relieved of his duties, and that he 
 would be glad to see another man in his place. 
 At the same time he observed that further 
 prosecution of the enterprise would involve the 
 expenditure of a large sum of money, not only 
 without any prospect of success, but with an 
 absolute certainty of failure. 
 
 The answer of the directors was that, since they 
 had almost come to the end of their resources, they 
 would send out no new mining-engineer ; but, 
 even at this point they could not bring themselves 
 to confess that Languin was a failure, a bottomless 
 pit into which money might be poured for ever, 
 never to reappear in any form. That would 
 have undoubtedly been the business-like course to
 
 FIRST FRENCH EXPERIENCE 99 
 
 pursue ; but instead of following it they harked 
 back to the chairman's desperate idea (which had 
 been discussed at Languin between him and Mr. 
 Taylor and Mr. Nixon) of importing coal to their 
 precious colliery to smelt the ironstone which 
 had been purchased in the erroneous belief that 
 the necessary fuel was accessible and on the spot. 
 So, as the last chapter of the history of his con- 
 nection with this hapless company, Mr. Nixon 
 journeyed to South Wales again. There, both 
 at Ynysgedwin and at Ystalyfera, he found iron, 
 and that of capital quality, being produced by 
 the use of anthracite ; but that fact was far from 
 solving the problem of Languin. The anthracite 
 could be shipped to Nantes of course, and from 
 Nantes up the Erdre and Napoleonic Canal to a 
 point within three miles of the works. It would 
 certainly have served to transmute the rich iron- 
 stone into serviceable iron. But the iron thus 
 produced would clearly have cost more than it 
 could be hoped to fetch in the market, and there 
 was no more use in smelting iron on those terms 
 then than there is now in manufacturing dia- 
 monds, chemically and mineralogically genuine, at 
 a cost greater than that of the natural article. 
 
 It is interesting, it is indeed almost touching, 
 to know that the company, although Mr. Nixon
 
 loo MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 severed his connection with it, did not even then 
 desist from its operations, but continued to erect 
 iron furnaces, and did not finally close its works 
 until the Revolution. But young as Mr, Nixon 
 still was, it was high time for him to dissociate 
 himself from a concern of which the gloomy pros- 
 pects were illumined by no ray of hope. The 
 mental and moral discipline resulting from long 
 and weary efforts to achieve success where it was 
 impossible had no doubt its value ; but he had 
 suffered that discipline long enough ; the hour 
 had come for him to venture out into that greater 
 world of commerce in which, for good or for evil, 
 he must rely upon his own judgment and stake 
 his own money upon it. Henceforward he was 
 to be no man's servant ; he was to obey no man's 
 directions ; he was to work out his own destiny 
 and to follow out his own ideas. How great was 
 the success with which he thought and formed 
 ideas and followed them out it is our pleasant 
 duty to record.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 
 
 WE have seen that business of a merely 
 episodic character, the necessity in fact 
 of discovering whether coal could be transported 
 from South Wales to Languin and used profit- 
 ably there, had caused Mr. Nixon to go straight 
 to South Wales from Brittany ; and in South 
 Wales he remained for a time, possibly because 
 he had nothing better to do, and was as likely to 
 obtain an outlet for his energies in Glamorganshire 
 as anywhere else ; but more probably, in the 
 writer's opinion, because his shrewd foresight told 
 him that in the great industrial development of 
 Great Britain South Wales was destined to take a 
 foremost place. Looking backward, it is easy to 
 think that the far-seeing and ambitious man who 
 had perceived, as Mr. Nixon had, the superlative 
 qualities of Welsh steam coal — who had been 
 nurtured, as Mr. Nixon had been, in the district 
 in which the native genius of locomotion by 
 steam had its origin — must have foreseen the 
 future of South Wales, and the immense de-
 
 I02 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 velopment of which it was capable. The true 
 view probably lies midway, that is to say, in 
 the theory that Mr. Nixon saw the possibilities 
 of considerable development in South Wales, that 
 he had connections there with men who had 
 shown their confidence in him, that there was 
 no particular call for him in the North Country 
 — land of "the oak and the ash and the bonny 
 ivy tree " — and that he thought there was sure 
 to be an opening in South Wales for him. As 
 a matter of fact the opening came through South 
 Wales, but not, at the outset, in South Wales ; 
 and the foundation of his fortunes was to be 
 laid in the same part of France which he had 
 formerly found sterile of results, and fruitful in 
 multitudinous disappointments. 
 
 But it was in London, when he was navi- 
 gating the foul waters of the Thames — it is 
 the almost incredible fact that they were worse 
 then than they are now — that Mr. Nixon's in- 
 spiration seized him. He was there upon some 
 casual purpose of business which may have 
 seemed important then, but which in itself had 
 no material relevance to his life's story, and he 
 happened to go on board a Thames steamer. 
 A little time before these steamers had used 
 coke for fuel; but, so early as 1829, George
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 103 
 
 Stephenson had introduced the multitubular boiler 
 into his famous locomotive the " Rocket " — still 
 preserved at Newcastle — together with the steam 
 blast-pipe. The invention was not entirely suc- 
 cessful at the outset, for it was hardly possible 
 to obtain machinery of sufficiently good constuc- 
 tion to fulfil Stephenson's ideas until the Liver- 
 pool and Manchester Railway was in progress ; 
 but in due time the machine manufacturers 
 advanced, and when Mr. Nixon paid this par- 
 ticular visit to London, tubular boilers had not 
 long been introduced into steamboats. 
 
 With tubular boilers, coke as a locomotive 
 fuel went out of use by reason of the tremendous 
 blast that was required for its effectual use, and 
 of the small amount of steam, and consequent 
 power, which it produced. Moreover, the out- 
 cry against smoke was then, as indeed it is now, 
 loud, and attention was largely concentrated upon 
 the necessity of discovering smoke-consuming 
 apparatus. It was on this fateful steamer that 
 Mr. Nixon — well aware, no doubt, of the fore- 
 going facts, knowing, doubtless, that an eminent 
 engineer (Mr. C. Rye Williams) was at that 
 time engaged in special experiments with a view 
 to discover smoke-consuming apparatus, and that 
 a fortune awaited the fortunate discoverer or
 
 I04 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 inventor — was the opportune witness of a phe- 
 nomenon which must have appeared under 
 the eyes of countless men before. It was appa- 
 rently no great matter. The stoker threw coal 
 on to the fire ; no volume of black smoke was 
 vomited forth by the funnel. Now, Mr. Nixon, 
 as a North Countryman who well knew the 
 regularity with which the miners of his native 
 county traded in coal with London, naturally 
 supposed that the coal in use on a Thames 
 steamer would surely have come from Newcastle. 
 He also knew enough of Newcastle coal to be 
 convinced that, unless it were coaxed with in- 
 finite tenderness and subjected to special arrange- 
 ments for complete combustion, that fuel would 
 certainly not conduct itself in this amiable and 
 pleasing manner. Under ordinary conditions it 
 would belch forth a cloud of murky smoke. 
 Thereupon Mr. Nixon, always keenly observant 
 — ^just like the favourite terrier of his old age, who 
 seemed always to be saying, " What is that ? " — 
 congratulated the captain, in an interrogatory 
 tone, on the excellence of his smoke-consuming 
 apparatus. The captain, who was probably no 
 better than the captains of Thames steamers are 
 at this day, answered bluntly that " there was 
 no smoke in the coal."
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 105 
 
 Now a fire without smoke was in those days 
 quite as remarkable a thing as smoke without 
 a fire, and the captain's reply served but to set 
 Mr. Nixon's intelligent curiosity more awake than 
 ever. At once he said that he would dearly like 
 to be an eye-witness to the process of stoking, 
 and the captain assented, on the terms that the 
 usual half-crown should be paid for "footing." 
 Mr. Nixon was willing to pay on the terms that 
 he should be permitted to throw on some of the 
 coal with his own hands, and, the captain not 
 caring two straws who threw on the coal so long 
 as he was not asked to do it himself, an agree- 
 ment was reached, and Mr. Nixon went below. 
 
 Once in the stoke-hole, once face to face with 
 the great lumps of coal with their queer crystal- 
 lisation, which he had seen at Pen-y-darren, Mr. 
 Nixon recognised at once that the coal which 
 produced these excellent effects had never come 
 from the bowels of the earth in the north of Eng- 
 land, but was the same fuel as that which he had 
 noticed, in the company of Mr. Gray of Gares- 
 field many years before, in use to heat the engine 
 at Pen-y-darren. 
 
 At once he began to cross-examine the stoker. 
 Did he throw the coal on to the fire and after- 
 wards push it back ? No. Would he object to
 
 io6 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Mr. Nixon's handling the shovel for a while ? Not 
 in the least. So Mr. Nixon took the shovel into 
 his own hands, and thus subjecting the coal to 
 the most crucial test, threw a quantity of the coal 
 right back among the tubes. Still no smoke fol- 
 lowed. Then Mr. Nixon, never satisfied until he 
 had got to the bottom of things, continued his 
 cross-examination. 
 
 " Do you get any coal that makes smoke ? " 
 
 " Yes, we do. Newcastle coal is very bad for 
 that, and chokes the tubes, and coke does not 
 give enough heat without a heavy blast." 
 
 " Where does this coal come from ? " 
 
 " We get it from Mr. Wood, and they call it 
 ' Murther' (Merthyr) coal." 
 
 " How long have you been using it ? " 
 
 " Nearly a year." 
 
 " Any complaints ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Much clinker?" 
 
 " No. I do not clean the fires once a turn." 
 
 " Have you any sort of objection to it ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. It does not require any poking, 
 and is very different to the Newcastle coal." 
 
 From this apparently casual conversation great 
 consequences were to follow. Familiar with the 
 conditions under which shipping and manufactur-
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 107 
 
 ing industry were being carried on at that time at 
 Nantes, the great up-river port of western France, 
 and well aware of the difficulties which were en- 
 countered in obtaining coal of decent quality there, 
 Mr. Nixon perceived at once that the man who 
 should succeed in introducing Welsh coal to the 
 French market would have made a oreat com- 
 mercial coup. Nor was he the man to neglect an 
 opening of this kind when it presented itself to 
 him. He went promptly to Mr. Wood to ask for 
 a letter of introduction to the colliery owners or 
 merchants from whom this wonderful coal was to 
 be obtained. The answer given by Mr. Wood is 
 interesting, in these days of development, as an 
 illustration of the infancy of the coal trade. Mr. 
 Wood showed no desire to extend his business, 
 or to try fresh fields and pastures new. Coal, it 
 appeared, was none too easy to obtain. Two 
 boat-loads a day, which could easily be disposed 
 of in London, was the most that he could get 
 from South Wales, and even that was not always 
 forthcoming. If Merthyr ran short of coal for its 
 own use, then the vendors there gave the pre- 
 ference to their fellow-townsmen, and London had 
 to do without it. From Mr. Wood, therefore, 
 Mr. Nixon got no information, no aid, and no coal. 
 But it was ridiculous to attempt to conceal from
 
 io8 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 a keen-eyed man, such as Mr. Nixon was, the par- 
 ticular district or pit within a known district from 
 which coal of a special character was sent to Lon- 
 don. Not many days had passed before he was at 
 Cardiff inquiring into the matter; and in a very 
 short time he learned that a certain Mr. Marychurch 
 had coal for sale, and him he visited. Mr. Mary- 
 church in his turn stated that he had little coal to 
 spare, since all he could get was sold in London ; 
 but he seems to have informed Mr. Nixon readily 
 enough that his supplies, such as they were, came 
 from the Graig pit, Waun-y-wyllt, at Merthyr, 
 the property of Mrs. Thomas ; and to the Graig 
 Colliery Mr. Nixon betook himself accordingly, 
 feeling no doubt, that a trade in which the demand 
 far exceeded the supply, although the supply might 
 easily be increased, was precisely the kind of trade 
 which was to be sought out by an ambitious man. 
 Nowadays the difficulty is to find the market. 
 In those times the market had frequently to go 
 hungry. 
 
 On arriving at the Graig Colliery, Mr. Nixon 
 found himself in the midst of the idyllic period of 
 the coal trade. Mrs. Thomas — she may be called 
 the mother of the coal trade — was held to be 
 carrying on a very good business. She sat in 
 her office, a wooden hut near the pit's mouth, and
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 109 
 
 traded for cash, placing in a basket over her head 
 the moneys which she received for her coal. Her 
 cleverness, her witty tongue, her pleasant manner 
 were known to all the countryside. At her pit's 
 mouth it may be said that the poetry of the 
 Arcadian world joined hands with the prose of 
 a busier time to come. " Laughing girls," like 
 those who trod the wine-press of old (save that 
 they were grimy with coal-dust), handled the coal, 
 sorting it by hand and picking out the lumps, 
 which were afterwards placed on boats, "as care- 
 fully as if each lump was an tgg ; " and Mrs. 
 Thomas was then raising the amount, considerable 
 in those days, of 1 50 tons by the day. 
 
 Mr. Nixon, however, got no encouragement 
 from Mrs. Thomas. Asked if she would be 
 prepared to produce more coal and to supply 
 some to him, the old lady, perfectly contented 
 with her business as it stood, made mention of 
 the "appalling" quantity of coal she was even 
 then extracting from the bowels of the earth. 
 She added that, after supplying the wants of the 
 town of Merthyr and its neighbourhood, she found 
 a ready market with Mr. Marychurch for the 
 entire surplus. Finally, she informed Mr. Nixon 
 that she would not undertake to produce more 
 coal, or to spare to him any coal at all. Nor was
 
 no MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the attitude which she adopted in the least degree 
 narrow minded. We must not judge her by the 
 standard of to-day. We must remember that, 
 long after her days, gloomy speculations as to 
 the future of the coal trade were commonly 
 indulged in, and that many a man deemed to be 
 wise in his generation prophesied that, within a 
 very few years, the supply of coal would run out. 
 The practically inexhaustible character of the 
 South Wales coal-field was as yet unascertained. 
 
 For the moment, at any rate, the placid immov- 
 ability of old Mrs, Thomas sufficed to check even 
 the restless ambition of Mr. Nixon ; and Mr. 
 Nixon for a while turned his back upon South 
 Wales, and went away to his native North 
 Country. In his mind there was the germ of an 
 idea which, albeit not developed by him then, 
 was not wanting in practical power. He had 
 condemned, after consideration, the suggestion 
 of taking coal to Languin for the purpose of 
 smelting the ironstone which undoubtedly existed 
 there. He had condemned this suggestion 
 mainly because it could not be carried out with- 
 out incurring the expense incident to considerable 
 inland carriage of the coal to the point at which 
 the available ironstone lay. But as the coal from 
 the hills of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN iii 
 
 is now carried to meet the iron ore from Bilbao 
 at Cardiff, and the process of smelting is carried 
 on within the limits of the Bute Docks, so Mr. 
 Nixon conceived it to be possible that the fuel 
 and the ore might be brought together and meet 
 at Nantes, so that all inland carriage might be 
 avoided. Moreover he was, as it seemed at the 
 time, fortunate incoming into contact with a wealthy- 
 Frenchman who seemed to be likely to co-operate 
 with him in his scheme ; for this gentleman was 
 the owner of a foundry at Nantes, to whom it 
 appeared to be expedient to establish iron-works 
 in connection with his foundry. He and Mr. 
 Nixon came together. Learning from Mr. Nixon 
 that anthracite was already in use in South Wales 
 for foundry purposes, he asked for full and detailed 
 information as to the cost of transporting the 
 anthracite and of manufacturing the pig iron. 
 Mr. Nixon, after consideration and after paying 
 due regard to the fact that the production of pig 
 iron in France was then encouraged by a heavy 
 duty levied upon imported pig iron, expressed 
 his opinion that the material could be produced at 
 Nantes, under the favourable conditions which then 
 existed, at the handsome profit of ;^i per ton. 
 
 This estimate, given by a man who certainly 
 had not been over-sanguine as to the prospects
 
 112 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 of the designs with which he had been con- 
 nected previously, evidently made a deep im- 
 pression upon the foundry owner. Mr. Nixon was 
 therefore asked whether he was willing to take 
 a share in the enterprise which had thus been 
 outlined, but he was compelled to reply that he 
 could not do so, since he was not in possession 
 of the necessary funds. But the Frenchman had 
 seen the value of his adviser's judgment and 
 energy, and he was prompt in pointing out that, 
 money or no money, Mr. Nixon must be secured 
 to take a principal part in the development of 
 the scheme. Mr. Nixon, he said, knew more 
 of the business than any other man. Mr. Nixon 
 must be their engineer, and the money needed 
 to start and carry out the works on a large scale 
 must be found in England. 
 
 But John Nixon was never hasty. He never 
 failed to see the disadvantages of every design, 
 to recognise the dangers which must be encoun- 
 tered by the vessel of adventure before the har- 
 bour of prosperity could be reached. He insisted 
 that the capital required would be very large. 
 He pointed out how serious a matter it would 
 be to build great iron-works, and then to run 
 short of money before attaining the position in 
 which they could work profitably. He suggested
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 113 
 
 that, in order to obtain a market, it would be 
 
 necessary" to cut down prices and to undersell 
 
 competitors at the outset. But his French friend 
 
 was persistent. Present in his mind was the fact, 
 
 of which he was reminded afresh every time that 
 
 he required a new supply of the raw material of 
 
 his business, that the duty upon imported pig 
 
 iron was prohibitive. Animated also by a species 
 
 of municipal loyalty, he declared that if extensive 
 
 iron-works could be established at the beautiful 
 
 old town of Nantes, it would become the most 
 
 important business centre of the west of France. 
 
 This French gentleman failed perhaps, like 
 
 many others, to foresee the developments of 
 
 modern commerce. Those who know Nantes 
 
 now, who are familiar with the rushing stream 
 
 of the Loire, too powerful to be cribbed, cabined, 
 
 and confined, as the Clyde is, and too shallow 
 
 to be navigated by the huge vessels of modern 
 
 times, will probably agree that, ironworks or no 
 
 ironworks, Nantes was destined to lose pride of 
 
 place as a port, and to see distant St. Nazaire, 
 
 at the mouth of the river, accommodate all the 
 
 great shipping. But it may, none the less, be 
 
 the case that the Frenchman's ambition was, 
 
 having regard to the condition of commerce at 
 
 that time, reasonable and well calculated. Be 
 
 H
 
 114 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 that as it may, the French foundry owner was 
 full of his scheme, and insisted that Mr. Nixon 
 should make an estimate of the money which 
 would be required to place the undertaking upon 
 a sound basis. Mr. Nixon demurred, pointing 
 out that, while he might claim to be an autho- 
 rity with regard to the iron-making part of the 
 scheme, he really knew nothing about the foundry 
 business. But the French orentleman had met 
 and conversed with Mr. Nixon, had doubtless 
 formed his own opinion of his powers, and he 
 appears to have declared that he would have 
 Mr. Nixon's estimate or none. 
 
 This French man of business seems hardly 
 to have comprehended the breadth of the ideas 
 and length of the ambition of the man with 
 whom he had to deal. Mr. Nixon's estimate 
 that ;^50,ooo at the least would be required, 
 and his declaration that, unless such a sum could 
 be provided, he would have neither hand nor 
 part in the scheme, are described as having 
 " staggered him." Yet on that question, as on 
 every other question of business, Mr. Nixon not 
 only was wise in his calculations, but also was 
 able to prove himself so to be. Certainly he 
 was right in arguing that there was no use in 
 starting the enterprise at all unless it could be
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 115 
 
 done on a large scale. No man who knows 
 the iron industry will deny that the appliances 
 required were costly then, though they are prob- 
 ably more costly now. Beyond question he was 
 well advised in stating that it would be hopeless 
 and futile to establish a new industry in a new 
 place unless the appliances to be employed were 
 to be of the most perfect quality and workman- 
 ship, so that competition might be defied. 
 
 In any case, also, as it seems to the writer, 
 the enterprise would have been venturesome. 
 Industries establish themselves in particular loca- 
 lities for reasons which may be merely accidental 
 at the outset ; but, once established, an industry 
 is not easily to be outstripped by would-be com- 
 petitors elsewhere, for reasons which are plainly 
 obvious. The product becomes identified with 
 the locality in the minds of the cosmopolitan 
 public, and a population grows up, so to speak, 
 in the industry. Cardiff, for example, would 
 have a hard task if it attempted to rival Belfast 
 as a ship-building centre, although Belfast, having 
 to import all its coal, is from the point of view 
 of physical geography at a disadvantage. If the 
 attempt to establish the industry had been started 
 simultaneously at both centres, Cardiff would, no 
 doubt, have rushed to the front ; but Queen's
 
 11 6 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 Island has now a great reputation for ship-building, 
 and a huge population, consisting largely of the 
 many trades concerned in the building of ships, 
 has grown up around Belfast. This kind of 
 train of thought was doubtless running in the 
 acute mind of Mr. Nixon when he informed 
 his French friend that a man of "enterprising 
 spirit " would be required for such a speculation 
 as was proposed. Nerve, courage, prudence, 
 and indomitable determination are required for 
 success in a hazardous business ; and Mr. Nixon 
 not only failed to see them in his friend, but 
 was straightforward enough to tell him so. More- 
 over, it would be necessary to find and appoint, 
 for all purposes of supervision at any rate, men 
 familiar with the working of iron furnaces, and 
 such men could be found in England only. Just 
 the same way, if the attempt were made to 
 start ship-building at Cardiff to-day, men would 
 have to be imported from the Clyde, or the 
 Lagan, or the Tyne, or the Mersey, or the 
 Thames. When we reflect how difficult a task 
 that would be, how the best men would stay 
 where they were, and how the inferior men would 
 demand high prices, we may realise how prudent 
 was Mr. Nixon in not encouraging his impetuous 
 French friend to embark upon a scheme which
 
 SOUTH WALES AGAIN 117 
 
 must, at the outset, have been surrounded by- 
 similar drawbacks. 
 
 The Frenchman did not yield without a 
 struggle. The negotiations were carried on for 
 some time ; but they ceased at last, and the 
 collapse of the design was, as events proved, a 
 piece of unmixed good fortune for Mr. Nixon 
 and for the district of South Wales, with which 
 he was afterwards, and for the greater part of 
 his life, to be closely associated.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 SEEKING WELSH COAL 
 
 REGARDED from the standpoint of one 
 anxious to trace the important steps in 
 Mr. Nixon's career, the circumstances of his 
 next visit to South Wales were merely incidental, 
 and of quite minor importance ; but accidentally 
 they contributed largely to shape the course of 
 his after life. He was called from the North 
 of England to advise Mr. Beaumont, the same 
 Mr. Beaumont whose name has already figured 
 in these pages, in the course of his ordinary 
 business as a mining-engineer. The unfortunate 
 Mr. Beaumont, unfortunate because he was em- 
 barrassed by pecuniary difficulties from this time 
 forward, was working the Tophill Colliery, and 
 had unwittingly committed an underground tres- 
 pass on the adjoining property, and he asked 
 Mr. Nixon to come down to South Wales to 
 look into the matter from his point of view. 
 Mr. Nixon made his survey, formed his estimate 
 of the amount of coal which had been improperly 
 worked, and then inquired into the position 
 
 iiS
 
 SEEKING WELSH COAL 119 
 
 which had been adopted towards the aggrieved 
 person. That position was, to put it bluntly, 
 no position at all. The injured colliery owner 
 had made claims ; no attempt had been made 
 to meet those claims ; he was threatening pro- 
 ceedings at law, and there could not be a 
 particle of doubt that, if he carried out his 
 threat, he would recover heavy damages from 
 Mr. Beaumont. 
 
 Acting upon the time-honoured saying, "Agree 
 with thine adversary quickly," Nixon persuaded 
 Mr. Beaumont that the matter should be entrusted 
 to some trustworthy friend or agent with a view 
 to the arrangement of the best terms possible 
 with the owner of the invaded colliery. The 
 advice was certainly sound, and, from the moment 
 when he gave it, Mr. Nixon was freed from 
 all responsibility in the matter. He had nothing 
 to do with Mr. Beaumont's choice of a " trust- 
 worthy friend"; he took no part in the subsequent 
 negotiations ; he did not know what course the 
 " trustworthy friend " pursued, or what were the 
 terms of the arrangement which was eventually 
 made. The result, eminently unsatisfactory as 
 it was to Mr. Beaumont, who was forced even- 
 tually to see the Tophill Colliery in the pos- 
 session of the "trustworthy friend," was in no
 
 I20 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 wise traceable to Mr. Nixon. He had advised 
 wisely, since to fight a hopeless case is at all 
 times the worst economy in the world ; but the 
 best advice of the wisest men must be followed 
 with intelligence, otherwise the desired results 
 may not follow. 
 
 So much for the causes which brought Mr. 
 Nixon back again to South Wales. With a 
 word of sympathy we may dismiss them. But 
 the accidents of the visit were of the highest 
 importance in deciding his subsequent career. 
 It happened casually, in the course probably of 
 some evening conversation of men of business 
 whose work was over for the day, that he heard 
 that a Mr. Powell had sunk down to the steam 
 coal in the Aberdare Valley, and had found the 
 coal to be of admirable quality. Mr. Powell, 
 unlike worthy Mrs. Thomas of the Graig Colliery, 
 was anxious to find a market for his wares. Mr. 
 Nixon, on the other hand, was in the happy 
 position of the man who, having long been con- 
 vinced that he could find the market, since he 
 knew where it was, had at last, he hoped, found 
 the wares to place upon that market. All 
 his old desire to open the French market to 
 Welsh steam coal, and of course to make money 
 for himself, was revived : he saw the opportunity
 
 SEEKING WELSH COAL 121 
 
 and made use of it with promptitude. But, 
 prompt as he was and ready to see every pro- 
 mising opening, he was not rash or precipitate. 
 He did not fling himself into Mr. Powell's arms, 
 so to speak, or expatiate without restraint upon 
 the golden future that he saw before him in his 
 visions. On the contrary, he took steps to visit 
 Mr. Powell's No. i pit at Abernant-y-groes, and to 
 satisfy himself of the quality of the coal before 
 he made any movement towards approaching the 
 owner with an offer. 
 
 As to the quality of the coal, he soon perceived 
 that there could be no particle of doubt. The 
 question was how he should contrive to obtain a 
 sufficient supply upon terms reasonably advan- 
 tag^eous to himself, and how he should scheme to 
 place enough of it on the French market in the face 
 of the prejudice which was sure to have to be en- 
 countered in a district which was a stranger to 
 its virtues. It was, be it remembered, no inferior 
 stuff, such as is produced in the Pas de Calais, 
 that was to be displaced. Newcastle coal was 
 already in large use on the lower reaches of the 
 Loire, and in the foundries and sugar-refineries of 
 Nantes. The very words " Newcastle coal " im- 
 plied in those days a guarantee of high quality. 
 The very expression "Cardiff coal," which now
 
 122 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 gives an extra price to the coal which is shipped 
 at Cardiff, was unknown. " Murther (Merthyr) 
 coal " was seldom heard of, except among those 
 employed on the small passenger steamers of the 
 Thames. On the whole, the enterprise which 
 Mr. Nixon was determined to carry out to a 
 successful issue was one which required that nerve 
 and resolution, that combination of courage and 
 prudence in which he had found his French 
 friend wanting. Those were the qualities essen- 
 tial to the satisfactory working of a great venture ; 
 those are the qualities which are equally essential 
 for the same purpose now ; and Mr. Nixon no 
 doubt felt that he possessed them. 
 
 It was in some such mood as this, and clearly 
 with a mind fully resolved to risk his all in the 
 great venture, if he could secure a satisfactory 
 agreement and make arrangements for an ade- 
 quate supply, that Mr. Nixon went off to the Gaer, 
 Newport, to see Mr. Powell. That journey, and 
 the interviews which followed, were the turning- 
 point of his career. To Mr. Powell, in judging 
 the character of whom he was, as the sequel will 
 show, slightly mistaken, he talked at length. He 
 referred to his experience of former years in the 
 west of France ; he spoke of the great opening 
 which he believed that there was for Welsh coal
 
 SEEKING WELSH COAL 123 
 
 in France and so forth. Mr. Powell, who had 
 already an output of 150 tons a day, and was on 
 the point of opening a new pit, seemed exactly the 
 man for his purpose. They discussed the matter 
 from every point of view ; they bargained, they 
 chaffered, perhaps they even haggled, for Mr. 
 Nixon was always a keen man in making a bar- 
 gain ; but in the end, as always happens when 
 one man has a commodity which he desires to 
 sell and another man wishes to acquire that com- 
 modity and cannot obtain it elsewhere, an agree- 
 ment was reached. It was to the effect that Mr. 
 Powell was to supply the coal when the market 
 was opened at such prices as he might be able to 
 obtain from the French consumers, and that for a 
 term of three years he should pay to Mr. Nixon 
 ninepence for every ton exported to the west of 
 France, and sixpence for every ton exported to 
 Havre, or to any port to the eastward of Havre. 
 
 There need be no hesitation in saying that the 
 bargain was highly advantageous to Mr. Powell. 
 He took no risks, and Mr. Nixon, on the face 
 of the agreement, took a great many. If no coal 
 at all had been ordered, Mr. Powell would have 
 been not a pin the poorer than he was before, save 
 perhaps for a few hours expended to no purpose 
 in conversation with Mr. Nixon. The latter, on
 
 124 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the other hand, practically undertook to act as 
 commercial traveller, and to plant a new article 
 of commerce in a district where it was unknown, 
 and in which a very tolerable substitute for it 
 was in constant use. He was to go out as a 
 missionary, so to speak, to preach the virtues of 
 Welsh steam coal, and Mr. Powell was to reap 
 the lion's share of the profit. He was to go out 
 at his own expense ; he was to receive no salary, 
 but merely a very modest commission ; and when 
 the term was over the commission would end, 
 and the customers secured by him would be 
 Mr. Powell's customers, and no commission at 
 all would be payable to him. 
 
 As matters turned out, it proved that Mr. Nixon 
 had to run far greater risks than appeared in the 
 agreement — that he was called upon to show 
 courageous enterprise, to risk his own money to 
 the advantage of Mr. Powell, to show untiring 
 industry and energy in pushing the trade in 
 Welsh coal, and that in the end he was what is 
 commonly called "done" by Mr. Powell. The 
 sequel will show us that when the time for pay- 
 ment came Mr. Powell contrived to escape from 
 his liabilities, and, to put matters plainly, had his 
 market opened to him gratuitously. But that 
 comes later. In the meanwhile, the story of Mr.
 
 SEEKING WELSH COAL 125 
 
 Nixon's adventures and struggles in France — a 
 story which is truly romantic, or as romantic as any- 
 thing in civilised commerce can be, must be told ; 
 and that story is too full of interesting incidents, too 
 vividly illustrative of the indomitable and deter- 
 mined character of the man, too instructive and 
 suggestive to the young man starting in business 
 who desires to learn when prudence and boldness 
 may row in the same boat, to be attached at the tail 
 end of a chapter. Let it suffice for the moment 
 to leave Mr. Nixon in possession of a bargain 
 which would enable him to try, by such methods 
 as his genius for business might suggest, the 
 great experiment which had over and over again, 
 and for several years, been carefully and eagerly 
 pondered upon by his busy brain. Let us leave 
 him with his starting-point secure, sure of a 
 supply of the black diamonds which he had never 
 been able to secure before, and which he was 
 certain of being able to introduce to a great and 
 ever-widening market.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 
 
 JOHN NIXON was not the man to let the 
 grass grow under his feet ; nor, albeit never 
 prone to lavish extravagance even when his wealth 
 had grown great, was he the man to shirk bold 
 expenditure when he was convinced that it would 
 return to him abundantly in due course of trade. 
 He was certainly not rich at this time, indeed he 
 was very far from it. But he had put his hand 
 to the plough, and he was not the man to take it 
 away, but rather the man to drive it through all 
 obstacles, through stony ground as well as soft, 
 until the end of the furrow should be reached. 
 
 What, then, was he to do ? The Frenchmen 
 certainly would not buy the coal on hearsay. 
 They must see it, and test it, and must be taught 
 how to use it. How was this to be accom- 
 plished? It was hopeless in those days to ask 
 anybody else to run the risk of shipping a cargo 
 to France, and his agreement with Mr. Powell 
 was one which carefully precluded so much as 
 the suggestion that the latter should run any risk
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 127 
 
 or be placed at any expense. The venture was 
 to be Mr. Nixon's own. Accordingly, slender as 
 his means were, he chartered a vessel of one hun- 
 dred tons to convey a cargo of coal to Nantes. He 
 paid for the cargo, he paid the freight, he made 
 all the arrangements, and it was ever the honour- 
 able and familiar boast of his later and un- 
 chequered years that he was the first man who 
 ever ventured to export a ton of Welsh coal to 
 France. He himself proceeded by a more direct 
 route to Nantes, to make preparations for the 
 reception of the coal ; and when it came, and was 
 placed alongside one of the wharves, one may 
 well fancy that the shrewd young North Country- 
 man's mind was full of hopes and fears. He was 
 at the beginning of a great enterprise, fully re- 
 solved to do all that in him lay to compel Fortune 
 to smile upon him, but fully alive, no doubt, to 
 the very serious obstacles which the prejudices 
 and the innate conservatism of man would in- 
 evitably place in his way. 
 
 In this critical situation Mr. Nixon's previous 
 acquaintance with Nantes stood him in good 
 stead. Long before, when he was trying to 
 make bricks without straw at Languin, perhaps 
 some evening at dinner in the well-known hotel 
 which still stands in the central square of Nantes,
 
 128 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 he had made the acquaintance of a gentleman 
 who held office in the Government factory and 
 engine-building works at Andrette. This gentle- 
 man was also an intimate friend of the then 
 Minister of Marine. Their talk had been of coal 
 generally and of Welsh coal, with the merits of 
 which Mr. Nixon had always been deeply im- 
 pressed, in particular. We take leave to fancy Mr. 
 Nixon standing on the wharf, with the Loire in 
 front of him, flowing in majesty towards the sea, 
 beyond it and to the left the tall chimneys of the 
 factories and sugar-refineries, belching forth the foul 
 black smoke which it was his mission to banish, 
 with the noble town rising behind him from the long 
 row of stately houses, which now as then fringe 
 the river bank. Now and again he directs his 
 eyes upon the little cargo of coal, only a hundred 
 tons, but meaning a great speculation in a man of 
 his means, in which his hopes are centred. He 
 knows, none better, the sterling merits of his fuel ; 
 but how shall he make them known to the world } 
 If his venture should fail, if the manufacturers 
 and the shipowners persist, after their fashion, in 
 running in the old groove, it will be for him a 
 very serious matter indeed, a terrible loss, for the 
 quantity of a loss is relative to the means of the 
 loser, and five pounds lost may mean ruin to a
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 129 
 
 small man, when ^50,000 make no difference to 
 one of the great ones. He reflects that the time 
 has come for convincing his old friend of Andrette 
 that he was not talking wildly in the well-re- 
 membered discussions of long ago. Clearly his 
 Andrette acquaintance, a man in the public 
 service, a man familiar with the society of Nantes, 
 and possessing influence in the highest quarters, 
 and in those most suitable for the purpose in 
 hand, is the man to apply to. To have con- 
 vinced him, to compel him to admit the superior 
 qualities of the Welsh coal, to induce him to talk 
 about those merits among his friends will be to 
 have won the first battle of the campaign. 
 
 To Andrette accordingly Mr. Nixon went, and 
 there he met the friend of earlier days. To 
 him he said that he had a cargo of Wesh steam 
 coal at the river-side, and that there was nothing- 
 that he desired more than to see a searching trial 
 of it and of North of England coal, with the view 
 of testing their comparative merits. He made no 
 secret of his desire to substitute the Welsh for 
 the Durham and Northumberland coal, which 
 was then in use at the Government factories in 
 and about Nantes. The French friend demurred 
 for a while. He was not, he said, capable of 
 making the experiment, nor did he possess the
 
 I30 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 necessary apparatus. But Mr. Nixon was not 
 to be deterred from prosecuting his ambition. 
 He observed that his friend was, by virtue of 
 his position and of his long acquaintance with 
 Nantes, the possessor of many acquaintances who 
 used coal for one industrial purpose or another. 
 He begged him to bestir himself in the matter, 
 and to inform all or any of these gentlemen that 
 a sufficient supply of the precious cargo was at 
 their disposal gratis for the purposes of experi- 
 ment. One condition, and one only, had to be 
 made. Mr. Nixon insisted that he must be pre- 
 sent, in order to show the stokers, whosoever 
 they might be, how to deal with the coal. In 
 truth, to the man familiar with coal from the 
 North of England, painfully acquainted with the 
 constantly recurring necessity for stirring up the 
 fire and for cleaning out the entire furnace, Welsh 
 steam coal is puzzling at the outset. The action 
 is too simple : it burns away steadily, and without 
 effort on the part of the stoker. If it is poked 
 and raked and meddled with, it burns away too 
 fiercely, and, to use vulgar but expressive lan- 
 guage, plays the mischief with the furnace and 
 burns away the bars. A stoker once acquainted 
 with its qualities is naturally well contented to 
 enjoy his leisure and to leave the good coal to
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 131 
 
 do its work unassisted ; but a new stoker, finding 
 the coal somewhat slow in the first kindling, is 
 prone to stir it, and so stirring to cause destruc- 
 tion. So, having made his offer, Mr. Nixon went 
 away to await the result as patiently as might be. 
 He was not long kept in suspense. Not more 
 than three days passed — very likely they seemed 
 to pass slowly — before he learned by letter from 
 his friend at Andrette that one of the large sugar 
 refiners of Nantes was willing to give the new 
 coal a trial ; and on the following day three 
 tons of the coal were sent to the factory, and 
 Mr. Nixon attended in person to superintend 
 the firing of the coal, and to instruct the men 
 in the management of the fire when it had been 
 kindled. The unqualified success of the experi- 
 ment is best described by a bald statement of 
 the result as compared with the work done with 
 the Newcastle coal, to which the firemen were 
 accustomed. That factory was usually at work 
 from six in the morning until six at night. On 
 the day of the crucial experiment the allotted 
 task of work for a day of twelve hours was 
 finished by four o'clock. Nor was the reason of 
 this huge economy far to seek. With the New- 
 castle coal it had always been necessary to cease 
 work, thus permitting steam to go down and in-
 
 132 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 terrupting the boiling of the sugar in the middle 
 of the day, for the purpose of cleaning out scoria. 
 With the sharply crystallised and keen -burning 
 Welsh coal there was no scoria at all, there was 
 no call to clear out the furnaces ; the work went 
 on without hindrance or interruption ; the atten- 
 dants of the furnace had not nearly so much work 
 to do as previously. Ten hours of fire from the 
 Aberdare Valley were unquestionably proved to 
 be worth twelve hours of fire imported from Tyne- 
 side. For a first experiment it was a tremendous 
 and welcome triumph. 
 
 But there was more to come. Mr. Nixon was 
 determined to show that the economy was not 
 merely one of time, which among capable men 
 is money, but also of coal itself. It was on the 
 following day that he met the owner of the sugar- 
 refinery, who was naturally full of praise and 
 thanks. The conversation between them always 
 lingered in Mr. Nixon's memory, as is always the 
 case with conversations that are connected with 
 vital episodes in the life of a man. The owner 
 greeted him with a cordial smile, and with the 
 observation, " You have made all our workmen 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " I am very much pleased," said Mr. Nixon, 
 "to have been of service to them, but I have
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 133 
 
 also been of service to you. The consumption 
 of coal at your factory yesterday was much less 
 than it has previously been with you." 
 
 " Well, I have not had time to measure that." 
 
 " I have not the slightest doubt but that you 
 will find, on inquiring of your workmen, that I am 
 right, and that the saving is thirty-three per cent. 
 The economy of time is owing to the absence 
 of the necessity of clearing out the fires when 
 this coal is used, as you are obliged to clear them 
 in the case of Newcastle coal." 
 
 Then came the long-desired order, and in a 
 few minutes Mr. Nixon's bold and costly experi- 
 ment had borne fruit, and the first order for steam 
 coal to be exported from South Wales had been 
 given by a French consumer. 
 
 " I should like," said the French sugar-refiner, 
 " to have a cargo of it. Can you guarantee that 
 future shipments shall be of the same quality as 
 this?" 
 
 " You cannot think me such a fool that I would 
 come over with a good cargo, and then, upon get- 
 ting an order, would send you inferior coal. I have 
 incurred a great deal of expense in coming over 
 and presenting you with the coal, and I certainly 
 should not have done so if I had not had con- 
 fidence that it would be an advantage to con-
 
 134 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 sumers to use it instead of that which they have 
 been using." 
 
 However, the French sugar-refiner insisted 
 upon his guarantee, and obtained it, and gave 
 his order. With that order a trade in Welsh 
 coal, destined to be very great, and to continue 
 to the present day, began. That great achieve- 
 ment may fairly be placed to Mr. Nixon's credit. 
 He created the trade between South Wales and 
 France. Others, no doubt, would have been the 
 pioneers if Mr. Nixon had not come to the fore ; 
 in the same way somebody would have discovered 
 the principle of gravitation if Newton had not. 
 But the honour belongs to him who is first in 
 the field, and not to the hypothetical persons 
 who are anticipated ; and certainly few great 
 developments of commerce have owed their 
 origin to men of humbler circumstances than 
 those of Mr. Nixon in early days. 
 
 The sugar- refiner, no doubt, talked amongst 
 his business friends of the wonderful fuel which 
 was introduced by the young Englishman, but 
 he did more, and that which he did led to 
 great results. He wrote a report of the experi- 
 ments, and of this report a copy was sent to 
 Mr. Nixon's friend at Andrette. This gentleman 
 had possibly felt in the beginning that, holding
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 135 
 
 an official position, he was precluded from en- 
 couraging Mr. Nixon as he wished. Officialism, 
 in France as in England, is bound up in tape, 
 and, whether the tape be red or of some other 
 colour, it has the same stiffening and paralysing 
 effect. Moreover, officialism, made cautious by 
 long experience of futile inventions and profitless 
 discoveries, is instinctively averse to encourage- 
 ment of the inventor or the discoverer. But, with 
 the sugar-refiner's report before him, the Andrette 
 official, already well disposed towards Mr. Nixon, 
 felt that the time had come when he could lend 
 a helping hand without being snubbed at head- 
 quarters. So he wrote a pleasant and welcome 
 letter to Mr. Nixon, and the effect of that letter 
 was that, as Mr. Nixon had clearly proved that 
 his coal was superior to that which they had 
 been using, he thought it only fair to give him 
 an introduction and a recommendation to the 
 Minister of Marine. That the letter deligfhted 
 the recipient needs hardly to be said, since it 
 showed that, in an almost incredibly short space 
 of time, the virtues of the coal on which he had 
 staked so much had obtained substantial recog- 
 nition. But, assured from the beginning of the 
 good disposition of his friend, he thought he saw 
 a better way of securing his ends, and, in a word,
 
 136 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 like Oliver Twist, asked for more. He was 
 apprehensive of the effect which might be pro- 
 duced upon the Minister of Marine if a stranger 
 and a foreigner presented to him a mere letter 
 of introduction. And he was wise ; there are few 
 men in high place who do not know too well the 
 "gentleman with a letter of introduction;" and 
 there are many men in high place who have a 
 very pretty facility in getting rid of that gentle- 
 man. Mr. Nixon therefore suggested that his 
 purpose would be served infinitely better if his 
 friend would be kind enough to certify directly 
 to the Minister with regard to the good quality 
 of the coal which he had at his disposal. 
 
 Mr. Nixon, after his habit, carried his point. 
 Lack of persistency or of perseverance were never 
 to be reckoned amongst his faults. The certifi- 
 cate was despatched, and he shortly learned that 
 his friend had received a reply stating that, if the 
 superiority of Welsh coal for steam purposes was 
 believed to be more or less established, the Minis- 
 ter considered that the matter was one which the 
 Government ought to investigate and to verify for 
 themselves. In these circumstances the Minister 
 ha d written to the manager of the works at Andrette 
 inquiring how the trial might best be made, and 
 upon receiving a reply he would write further.
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 137 
 
 This promptitude in a Government official was, 
 from the English point of view, quite marvellous ; 
 and the letter, full of good tidings as it was, not 
 only rejoiced Nixon's heart, but set him thinking 
 on the best way of using his opportunity. He 
 alone in France, and as well perhaps as any man 
 in England, knew the peculiar qualities of the coal 
 and the treatment which it required while it was 
 in process of combustion. It was essential to 
 complete success that he should be present at the 
 trial, that he should play the part of showman, so 
 that the virtues of his coal should be made mani- 
 fest to the full in the first place ; and, in the second 
 place, to obviate the failure which must result 
 from the operations of an ignorant stoker. Full 
 of such thoughts as these, he called upon the 
 manager of the Andrette foundry, and from him 
 he learned for the first time that a letter had been 
 received from the Minister of Marine in which a 
 trial of the Welsh steam-coal was actually re- 
 quired and commanded. Here was news indeed. 
 Hitherto Mr. Nixon had heard of nothing 
 more than a request for information as to the 
 methods of trial. Now he knew that the 
 much -desired trial was actually to be made. 
 Moreover, the manager, like the sensible man 
 that he was, asked the introducer of the coal, as
 
 138 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the man who knew more about it than anybody 
 else, what methods of trial he would suggest. 
 There are, it may be written without hesitation, 
 many Government officials in the France of to- 
 day, and in England too, for that matter, who in 
 like circumstances would themselves prescribe the 
 tests to be applied to a material of which they did 
 not in the least understand the qualities. Mr. 
 Nixon was indeed fortunate in happening upon 
 a man of common sense in the person of this 
 manager, for common sense is quite one of the 
 most uncommon attributes of man. 
 
 To Mr. Nixon a question of this character pre- 
 sented no difficulties. All his life through he was 
 in the habit of inventing mechanism whenever he 
 stood in need of it, as will be shown convincingly 
 later, and his inventions were not only, to all 
 appearance, made on the spur of the moment, but 
 also absolutely productive of the end desired. 
 Invariably they had the characteristic merit of 
 seeming to be obvious, but it is in discovering 
 that which, although obvious, has not been dis- 
 covered before, that genius consists. The way, 
 he replied at once, of ascertaining the evaporative 
 power of the coal would be to have a simple 
 boiler fitted upon a weighing machine, and a sepa- 
 rate weighing machine for the furnace. They
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 139 
 
 would thus obtain simultaneously the quantity of 
 water evaporated from the boiler and the quantity 
 of coal consumed in evaporating that quantity. 
 The manager demurred for a while, pointing out 
 that the apparatus required would be costly. So 
 it would have been if it had been necessary to 
 purchase and erect it de novo. But Mr. Nixon was 
 not to be denied. The weighing machines were 
 there in the yard already ; his keen eye had ob- 
 served them as he entered the foundry. As for 
 the boiler, a small one would serve their purpose 
 every whit as well as a boiler of large dimensions. 
 So the engineer was sent for, and when Mr. 
 Nixon had explained his wants to him, he in his 
 turn explained that they were already in posses- 
 sion of just such a boiler as was required. In the 
 face of these facts the manager no longer de- 
 murred, and it was arranged that the apparatus 
 should be ready and the trial made in a fortnight. 
 At that all-important trial Mr. Nixon was, 
 of course, present, for the issue, which mani- 
 festly was no less than the question whether 
 Welsh coal should be adopted in the French 
 navy and Government works, was of the utmost 
 consequence to him. He watched the whole 
 trial with anxious care, and personally super- 
 intended the operations. No man was per-
 
 I40 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 mitted to poke the fire under any circumstances. 
 If additional heat was required, a hook must 
 be used under the bars, and, to preserve these 
 from being burned, the furnace had to be covered 
 with six or seven inches of level coal, with a 
 sliofht increase of thickness towards the furnace- 
 mouth. 
 
 Trial having been made of the Welsh coal, 
 an equal quantity of Newcastle coal was sub- 
 mitted to an identical test. Between the com- 
 bustion of the two coals there was a world of 
 difference. The Welsh coal was practically 
 smokeless, and, when once fairly kindled, re- 
 quired no labour on the part of the stoker. 
 The Newcastle coal, of course, was very far 
 from being smokeless, and the stokers were 
 called upon to exert themselves considerably 
 while it was in process of combustion. But 
 the true ordeal was that which took place by 
 means of the weighing machines. Here the 
 result was startling to all the watchers except 
 Mr. Nixon. Smoke and constant labour on 
 the part of the stokers might be disagreeable, 
 but nothing more. If the Welsh and New- 
 castle coals, employed in identical quantities, 
 had produced pretty nearly the same results in 
 the way of evaporation (which is but another
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 141 
 
 way of writing "power"), Mr. Nixon's triumph 
 would not have been signal. But the weigh- 
 ing machines, accurate and incapable of bias, 
 established as an impregnable truth the state- 
 ment made by Mr. Nixon to the sugar-refiner 
 after the first serious experiment. The Welsh 
 coal was found to produce a result 1,7, per cent, 
 and a trifle more greater than the Newcastle coal. 
 In a word, its substantial superiority was estab- 
 lished beyond the possibility of doubt. 
 
 It was a great day for Mr. Nixon, and it is 
 easy to realise the feeling of exultation which 
 must have possessed him when he witnessed 
 the virtual triumph of his darling project. After 
 this conclusive demonstration there could be 
 no room for doubt of ultimate success. Nor 
 were the French officials slow to act upon the 
 information which this trial provided for their 
 use. The Andrette manager reported the result 
 of the trial promptly to the Minister of Marine. 
 Without delay that official ordered a cargo to 
 be sent from South Wales to Brest for actual 
 and practical trial on board one of the frigates 
 of the French navy. Nothing could have been 
 better. On the other hand, since success in 
 this second trial could mean nothing less than 
 the certainty of a prominent position in the
 
 142 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 French market, it was of supreme importance 
 that the coal used in it should be handled with 
 skill and knowledge of its requirements. Mr. 
 Nixon accordingly went in person to Brest, and 
 impressed upon the naval stokers and firemen 
 those instructions, puzzling to the uninitiated 
 by dint of their absolute simplicity, which must 
 be obeyed if the best results were to be ob- 
 tained. At last an exhaustive trial was made 
 It extended over two days, the frigate being 
 six hours under steam during each of those 
 days. The result was a most favourable report, 
 and an official statement that, although no 
 scientific tests were applied — after the trial at 
 Andrette, indeed, such tests were no longer 
 necessary — the quantity used per hour was ob- 
 viously much less than when Newcastle coal 
 was employed. Subsequent trials were made, 
 by order of the French Government, at Havre, 
 Cherbourg, Toulon, and Bordeaux, a man ac- 
 quainted with the use of the coal being sent 
 by Mr. Nixon in each case, and always the 
 result was eminently satisfactory. Then came the 
 climax, which may be stated in a very few words. 
 The French Government definitely adopted 
 Welsh coal, boldly introduced to France by 
 a young and comparatively unknown North-
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 143 
 
 Countryman at his own risk, as the coal to be 
 used exclusively, from that time forward, in the 
 French navy ; and this, it must be remembered, 
 was long before the British Government had 
 so much as mven a thouofht to the unlimited 
 store of unsurpassable fuel which lay in the 
 bowels of the earth within the confines of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 One quality of the Welsh coal which particu- 
 larly commended itself to the French nava 
 authorities was its freedom from smoke : and 
 this for practical and not merely aesthetic reasons. 
 The value of this smokelessness in a naval fuel 
 may easily be illustrated from contemporary 
 experience. Let any man go to some place, 
 to the summit of Hoglees Ridge at Bisley, for 
 example, when musketry firing is going on close 
 by. Looking down from Hoglees on to the 
 plain at Pirbright, he will often see many com- 
 panies of the Guards and hear a volley fired, 
 now here, now there ; but the explosive is 
 practically smokeless, and the spectator cannot 
 distinguish the company which has fired the 
 volley. Now, in former times, when black powder 
 was in use, the volume of smoke which rose 
 from a volley often enabled the spectator to 
 see where the firing company lay, even when
 
 144 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the distance was so great that the men them- 
 selves were almost invisible. Similarly, at the 
 moment of writing the individual who writes 
 can gaze over the sea to the horizon, A thin 
 wreath of dark smoke appears in the remote 
 distance. No funnel, no masts, no outline of a 
 hull are visible. Yet he knows that under that 
 black smoke is a vessel which is not burning 
 Cardiff coal. Had she been burning that coal, 
 she might have stolen up, and until she was 
 in full view her smoke would never have be- 
 trayed her. Small wonder, then, that the naval 
 authorities of France should have seen at a 
 glance, so to speak, the fighting value of smoke- 
 less coal. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. Nixon, 
 armed with the official reports of the trials to 
 which his coal had been subjected — reports which 
 he caused to be printed and circulated — soon 
 found a ready market for his coal in Nantes 
 and its neighbourhood. In particular, the sugar- 
 refiners, who at that time made Nantes the 
 centre of their industry, were attracted by the 
 saving of as nearly as might be one-third in 
 fuel consumed, and of an immense amount of 
 labour, which the Welsh coal offered. The 
 steamboat proprietors were at first] less ready
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 145 
 
 to take the Welsh coal into favour. What 
 was sufficiently satisfactory to persuade the 
 Government to oust Newcastle coal was not 
 enough for them ; and they raised the really 
 fatuous objection that, since the coal did not 
 require poking in the furnace, it was of no 
 use to them. The simple fact of the matter 
 was that they felt difficulty in getting out of 
 the old groove. But they had to deal with a 
 determined and persistent man in Mr. Nixon. 
 He pointed out to them the senseless character 
 of their objections. He assured them quite 
 frankly that he certainly would not provide 
 them with coal for purposes of trial if they on 
 their part were going to ruin it by poking it. 
 The coal, he said, was none the worse, but rather 
 much the better for the fact that its use called 
 for less labour than was required when New- 
 castle coal was employed. Its single disadvan- 
 tage was that it was slow in kindling. Finally, 
 as before, he offered to supply the coal free of 
 charge for purposes of trial, and to go down 
 to each vessel in person a quarter of an hour 
 earlier than was usual with the stokers to super- 
 intend the lighting of the fires. 
 
 The opposition which Mr. Nixon had to 
 encounter in this connection was of the most 
 
 K
 
 146 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 obstinate description, but the persistence of Mr. 
 Nixon was at least equal to the obstinacy of 
 the Frenchmen. In every case save one he 
 secured immediate and unquestioning recogni- 
 tion of the merits of the Welsh coal, and in 
 the exceptional case, which is rather amusing 
 to look back upon now, he won in the end. 
 Calling one morning upon the owners of a line 
 of steamers plying between Nantes and Pem- 
 boeuf, to whom he had supplied coal for experi- 
 mental purposes on the usual conditions, he 
 learned to his horror that a vessel had been 
 sent out with his coal for fuel, but without any 
 competent person to instruct the stokers in the 
 manner of using it. Well knowing what would 
 happen, he reproached the owners with their 
 neglect of the stipulations he had made, and 
 went anxiously down to the quay-side, at the 
 time when the vessel was due back from Pem- 
 boeuf, to await her arrival. An hour passed 
 and no vessel was seen : a serious matter this, 
 for Pemboeuf, now a place of decayed import- 
 ance, lies at no great distance from Nantes. 
 Another hour passed, and still no vessel 
 appeared. It was not until three hours after 
 her time that the steamer came crawling and 
 labouring up to the wharf, while a perfect storm
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 147 
 
 of " sacre's " hissed and rolled from the crew. 
 As she drew alongside, the captain pointed out 
 Mr. Nixon as the Englishman who had supplied 
 the coal, and the said Englishman had a narrow 
 escape from being mobbed and from having his 
 career cut short on the spot. But he was made 
 of more sturdy stuff than to be affected by 
 intimidation, and instead of going away, he went 
 on board and had matters out with the engineer, 
 beginning thus : 
 
 ** I see you have been using Welsh coal." 
 
 "Yes. Do you call this stuff coal ? Our name 
 for Wales is 'Pays de Galles,' but it ought to be 
 called * Pays de Gale ' ('the country of the itch '), 
 for the coal we have here is every bit as bad as 
 the itch. Just look at these bars ; the fronts are 
 all down, and I think you ought to pay for them." 
 
 " Perhaps you do not know the circumstances, 
 but I must tell you that I gave this coal free of 
 charge on the explicit condition that I should be 
 on board when it was first used, to show the 
 manner of employing it." 
 
 " I did not know that, and I am surprised that 
 the coal was put on board under the circumstances, 
 without my being told anything about it. It is a 
 pity you gave the coal, for it has done a lot of 
 damage, and I could not get up steam."
 
 148 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 " You could have got up steam if you had 
 started the fires a quarter of an hour earlier. 
 And I am sure you will agree with me that it is 
 a lot better to have no stoking or poking to do, 
 as is customary with the coal you have been using 
 in your steamer until now," 
 
 " Well, it seems to me we shall never get steam 
 with that coal, as we have tried it in every way, 
 and there will be a pretty state of things when our 
 people learn that we have burnt out all the bars, 
 which will alone cost ^15 to renew." 
 
 Finding nothing very encouraging on board 
 the ship, Mr. Nixon then called upon the manager 
 of the line of steamers, whom he found in the 
 most unpleasant mood. As for the coal, it was, 
 in his opinion, quite worthless, and he wanted to 
 know whether Mr. Nixon was aware of the cost 
 of renewing the bars. One knows the demeanour 
 of a Frenchman, his vociferous volubility, and his 
 passionate desire to say the fault lies anywhere 
 except where it does lie, in the face of a mis- 
 fortune of this sort. " Nous sommes trahis," was 
 the Frenchman's feeling ; and he was convinced 
 that Mr. Nixon was the betrayer. But the French 
 manager had to deal with a cool and unimpas- 
 sioned Englishman, who, while he was quite 
 ready to be at the expense of replacing the bars.
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 149 
 
 which had been destroyed through lack of skill 
 and knowledge, was none the less determined 
 that the Frenchman should be compelled to see, 
 whether he desired or not, where the fault lay. 
 First, he was reminded that in sending the coal 
 out on the vessel without Mr. Nixon or his repre- 
 sentative, he had been guilty of a distinct breach 
 of the understanding upon which the coal had 
 been supplied to him. Then he was informed 
 that the whole of the mischief was due to the 
 poking of the fire, which had caused the coal to 
 drop under the bars and consume them. At last, 
 on the terms that Mr. Nixon would supply new 
 bars, and that the manager would make no trial 
 without the presence of Mr. Nixon, a new trial 
 was agreed upon. At that trial Mr. Nixon was 
 present, and the desired success was achieved. 
 
 But the achievement was far from easy. The 
 men in the stoke-hole were nervous and fidgety ; 
 they were perseveringly anxious to poke the fire ; 
 they declared to Mr. Nixon that if more steam 
 were required they were bound to poke the coal ; 
 and it was only by giving bakshish, as well as 
 by addressing to them every kind of command 
 and entreaty, that Mr. Nixon was able to induce 
 them to desist from a habit of stirring- the fire 
 which had almost become instinctive. It might
 
 I50 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 be imagined that it was easier to leave a fire 
 unpoked than to go to the labour of poking it ; 
 but habit is powerful, and the writer well remem- 
 bers that a magnificent fire of coal from the four- 
 foot seam at DyfTryn, Lord Aberdare's seat, once 
 presented to him just the same temptation as that 
 which the simple stokers on the Loire found it 
 almost impossible to resist. 
 
 Returning to the manager, Mr. Nixon did not 
 at once vaunt his wares, but simply told him to 
 ask his men what they thought of the Welsh coal 
 after proper trial. In a few days, however, Mr. 
 Nixon had the gratification of receiving from the 
 manager of the steamships a letter stating that 
 inquiries among the men had convinced him of 
 the superiority of the coal, of its smokelessness, 
 of the saving of labour to stokers which it in- 
 volved, and of its economical character. He 
 talked of ordering a cargo, but thought that the 
 price ought not to be heavy. Mr. Nixon called 
 on him and informed him that the price would 
 be two shillings higher than Newcastle, but that, 
 at this price, seeing that 67 parts of Welsh coal 
 produced as much steam as 100 parts of New- 
 castle, there would be a considerable economy ; 
 and after a while a cargo of between one and two 
 hundred tons was ordered.
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 151 
 
 Thus, by the enterprise of one young man, at 
 his sole risk, and in the face of numerous obstacles, 
 the foreign trade in Welsh steam-coal had its 
 origin in Nantes. The manner in which that 
 trade spread is written large in the chronicles 
 of Cardiff, and Newport, and Swansea ; it has its 
 magnificent memorial in the fact that Cardiff is 
 the premier exporting port in the United King- 
 dom. That this state of things would not have 
 come to pass if John Nixon had never been born 
 must not be written ; it was bound to come. But 
 the fact remains that John Nixon was the man 
 through whom this great trade arose, and that he 
 forced it into existence by his energy, his courage, 
 his persistency, his indomitable enterprise, and 
 his wise and far-seeing judgment. That, it may 
 fairly be claimed, is no slight or inconsiderable 
 exploit to be placed to the credit of the man. 
 
 And what was his reward ? In the immedic^te 
 future it was very small, it was indeed even less 
 than he had honestly earned as commission upon 
 the coal ordered from Mr. Powell by French 
 customers. For when the term of three years 
 ended, Mr. Nixon called upon Mr. Powell by 
 way of obtaining some ;^300 due to him as com- 
 mission under the agreement already mentioned. 
 Thereupon Mr. Powell threw his hands up in
 
 152 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the air and refused payment, on the ground that 
 Mr. Nixon was getting more out of the coal than 
 he was. 
 
 "But," said Mr. Nixon, "there is an agree- 
 ment, signed by you, that you would pay me 
 this. You know I have paid you regularly for 
 the coal, and it is only fair that you should pay 
 me the commission agreed upon, especially as it 
 cost me far more than the amount of the com- 
 mission due to get the coal introduced into the 
 foreign market." 
 
 More wrangling and attempts on the part of 
 Mr. Powell to get out of his liability followed, 
 but in the long run, and after much delay, the 
 money was squeezed out of him. In the sub- 
 sequent days Mr. Nixon, believing the agree- 
 ment to be still in force, sold more coal for Mr. 
 Powell and claimed his commission ; but never 
 a penny more did he get out of Mr. Powell, who, 
 when reminded of the existence of an agreement 
 and under threat of legal proceedings, observed — 
 
 "Now, Mr. Nixon, I was never afraid of the 
 law. I have had a lawsuit with Lord Bute and 
 I beat him, and I will beat you too. To hear 
 you talk about agreements ! I have never in 
 my life made an agreement that I could not get 
 out of, and all that are against me I get out of"
 
 HIS FIRST GREAT VENTURE 153 
 
 With a man of that temper it was wasteful, 
 as indeed it almost always is, to go to law, and 
 Mr. Nixon no doubt was well advised to let the 
 matter drop. It is a matter of no great interest 
 now ; it is over and done with ; it is enough 
 for us to say that "the gratitude of Mr. Powell" 
 would be a theme that would tax the capacities 
 of the readiest writer.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 SINKING AT WERFA 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have seen the first 
 great step in Mr. Nixon's career taken, and 
 his foot firmly planted on the ladder. He had 
 opened the French market for Welsh coal — he 
 had established the trade on a sound basis. To 
 go on working mainly for the benefit of Mr. 
 Powell, who was averse to paying and had not 
 a thought of gratitude, was clearly out of the 
 question. Moreover, Mr. Nixon, with his ex- 
 perience and ability as a mining engineer, was 
 clearly too clever a man to waste himself in sell- 
 inof another man's coal on commission, whether 
 he got his money or not. He was ambitious 
 also. The fitness of things demanded, and that 
 in the most imperative tone, that he should him- 
 self reap the profits which were sure to come by 
 supplying on a large scale the splendid market 
 which he had shown such tact and courage in 
 opening. 
 
 Providence or destiny, call it which you will, 
 was favourable to him. Just about the time
 
 SINKING AT WERFA 155 
 
 when he returned to South Wales from France, 
 Lord Bute had taken a lease of the Werfa pro- 
 perty from Mr. Thomas of the Court. The 
 objects of this transaction were two. First, it 
 was desired to prevent the Aberdare Iron Com- 
 pany from working the Werfa coal to the ex- 
 clusion of the Bute coal ; secondly, it was desired 
 to ensure the shipping of the Werfa coal at the 
 Bute Docks. Those objects are in themselves 
 of no great moment in relation to our present 
 purpose, but the transaction is relevant because, 
 Lord Bute having taken the property, it passed 
 under the hands of Mr. Clark, his principal agent. 
 Now Mr. Clark had enjoyed, as has been men- 
 tioned at an earlier point in this volume, the op- 
 portunity of recognising Mr. Nixon's ability as a 
 mining engineer at an early period, and the return 
 of Mr. Nixon gave him the chance of consulting 
 him about the Werfa property. The chance 
 was not missed, and in a short time Mr. Clark 
 and Mr. Nixon inspected in company the Werfa 
 estate. Into the interior of the earth of the 
 estate they could not penetrate as yet, but it 
 was possible for them to inspect the workings 
 on either side of the Werfa boundaries. On the 
 one side the Aberdare Company were working 
 what is known as the Abernant level (No. 9),
 
 156 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 and upon going through this and the workings 
 immediately adjacent to Werfa, Mr. Nixon found 
 the coal to be of excellent quality. Also the 
 workings were free from gas, that terrible foe 
 of the underground worker in South Wales, and 
 there appeared to be no great reason for appre- 
 hending trouble from water. On the right and 
 left of the Werfa boundary the coal was five feet 
 six inches in thickness. In a word, this was 
 precisely the kind of property which Mr. Nixon 
 himself was desirous of leasing, and he resolved 
 to acquire it if possible. 
 
 Having reached this conclusion Mr. Nixon 
 promptly called upon Lord Bute's agent with a 
 view to arriving at an agreement, offering the 
 same price as Lord Bute was paying, that is to 
 say, tenpence per ton for the four-foot seam. No 
 hitch occurred in the negotiations ; but in the 
 midst of them, quite uninvited, the Mr. Beaumont 
 whom we have met earlier in the course of this 
 narrative, asked to be permitted to take a share 
 in the colliery. Mr. Nixon assented, subject to 
 the express condition that, as the work of sinking 
 progressed, Mr. Beaumont should bear his share 
 in the expense. To this condition Mr. Beaumont 
 would not agree, although he must have known 
 perfectly well, indeed he was distinctly told, that
 
 SINKING AT WERFA 157 
 
 Mr. Nixon was not in that financial position which 
 would enable him to carry out the undertaking 
 alone. In spite, however, of the unsatisfactory 
 nature of Mr. Beaumont's attitude Mr. Nixon 
 carried out the negotiations alone, and the terms 
 of an agreement were eventually fixed upon be- 
 tween him and Mr. Clark. Then, and apparently 
 not before, Mr. Clark was informed of Mr. Beau- 
 mont's desire to participate, and of Mr. Nixon's 
 willingness to accept him as a partner, provided 
 only that he paid his share as the work pro- 
 ceeded. But Mr. Clark had been in South Wales 
 while Mr. Nixon was away in France. He knew 
 how some men had thriven whilst others had gone 
 back in the world ; and at the mention of Mr. 
 Beaumont's name he said little, but he shook his 
 head, and there was a world of meaning in the 
 gesture. Still, at the suggestion of Mr. Nixon a 
 copy of the agreement was sent to Mr. Beaumont, 
 and Mr. Beaumont replied that he must consider 
 the matter before signing. When pressed upon 
 the point repeatedly, he contrived to postpone it ; 
 and it appears that in the long run he never did 
 sign the agreement. 
 
 Such was the relation between Mr. Nixon and 
 Mr. Beaumont — a relation indefinite and unsatis- 
 factory to the last degree — when the sinking of
 
 158 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the first pit on the Werfa property began, and as 
 things went on the prospect grew not brighter 
 but more gloomy. True it is that in due course 
 of time Mr. Nixon struck the yard seam ; equally 
 true that all the neighbours thought that the four- 
 feet coal had been reached. But, although no 
 less an authority than David Williams of Ynys- 
 Cynon, who was working coal at an adjacent spot, 
 was convinced that this was the four-feet seam, 
 Mr. Nixon had his doubts, and when he pro- 
 ceeded to test them they became certainties. To 
 the northward and to the eastward the seam 
 diminished in thickness, and the top was very 
 poor ; moreover, it was found to be from ten to 
 twelve yards higher in point of elevation than the 
 known level of the four-feet coal. It was about 
 this time, when the so-called four-feet seam had 
 virtually been proved to be simply the yard seam, 
 that Mr. Beaumont came up to Aberdare to make 
 inquiries into the affair ; and the result of those 
 inquiries was that Mr. Beaumont was remarkably 
 well satisfied with himself for having postponed 
 his signature to the agreement. 
 
 But the time arrived when a change came over 
 the spirit of Mr. Beaumont's dream. The man 
 who was his partner or not his partner in connec- 
 tion with the Werfa estate — it is really rather
 
 SINKING AT WERFA 159 
 
 difficult to say definitely what their relations were 
 at the time — was one of the class of men who, 
 refusing to acknowledge the possibility of defeat, 
 always persevere until success is assured. Mr. 
 Nixon went on sinking and, the ten or twelve 
 yards of rock and loose shale having been pierced, 
 struck the four-feet at the same level as in Aber- 
 nant. Still, at the outset, the prospect was not 
 encouraging, for to the northward of the pit the 
 rock between the two seams grew gradually 
 thinner, until, at a distance of 150 yards from the 
 pit, they were merged. Farther on, however, the 
 two seams parted, fell into their proper sections, 
 and placed a very different complexion upon 
 the enterprise after a while. But the work of 
 sinking for coal must always be a trial to the 
 nerve and courage of a man. Of its presence he 
 may be all but certain scientifically ; but that his 
 money will last he can never be assured ; and if 
 the money does not last, it perishes as completely 
 as last year's snow. We may therefore envy Mr. 
 Beaumont who, without paying anything at all, 
 waited up till the last moment to consider whether 
 he would join in the enterprise at all. Success 
 was in fact assured when Mr. Nixon pressed him 
 for payment of the money which, if he considered 
 himself in any sense a partner, was unquestion-
 
 i6o MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 ably due from him. It was not until the four-foot 
 seam had been proved that Mr. Nixon, who was 
 by this time well entitled to repudiate any sort of 
 agreement with Mr. Beaumont, peremptorily de- 
 manded payment. It was not until the profits, 
 which had been problematical, appeared to be 
 certain, or until after Mr. Nixon had borne the 
 burden and heat of the day, that Mr. Beaumont 
 made any kind of attempt to meet his liability. 
 From our modern point of view it would seem 
 that Mr. Nixon erred on the side of generosity in 
 giving him a chance even at the eleventh hour. 
 
 The attempt to pay, when it came, was not 
 calculated to assuage Mr. Nixon's feelings. He 
 had spent his own hard money in paying the 
 workmen as the pit was sunk. His so-called 
 partner, whom he had trusted, gave him three 
 months bills, upon which the Aberdare Bank posi- 
 tively refused to advance so much as sixpence. 
 Mr. Nixon then asked for money, the moiety of 
 what had been expended in the enterprise, and 
 declared that, unless money were produced, Mr. 
 Beaumont should have no share in the colliery. 
 Mr. Beaumont replied that the bills would be met 
 at maturity. But, in the face of the action of the 
 bank, the statement carried no weight ; for these 
 local banks know, far better than is possible
 
 SINKING AT WERFA i6i 
 
 in the case of London banks, the circumstances 
 of the neighbouring men of business ; and when 
 they refuse to advance money on a man's bills 
 it is vain to expect money when the bills mature. 
 In this stress of circumstances Mr. Nixon took 
 legal advice, which was given in the only form 
 possible. Beaumont was not liable to pay any- 
 thing, since he had not signed the agreement as 
 required. Beaumont was not entitled to any- 
 thing, for he had neither signed the agreement 
 nor parted with any money. No point of law 
 could be plainer ; and as for merits, it was quite 
 clear that Beaumont could not show so much 
 as a shadow of them. 
 
 But Beaumont was not done with yet. On 
 hearing of Mr. Nixon's determination to be rid 
 of him, he went to see his friend Cartwright, the 
 same gentleman whom we have seen obtain pos- 
 session of the Tophill Colliery, and again wrote 
 that the bills would be met when mature, and 
 that money had been deposited at the bank at 
 Bristol to meet them. Also he claimed half the 
 colliery. Desperate as his affairs were, he saw 
 that he had missed a great chance, and that a 
 share in Werfa might set him right with the 
 world again. But Mr. Nixon, who had certainly 
 shown very great forbearance, had made up his
 
 1 62 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 mind as to the course to be pursued. He wrote 
 finally to Beaumont, pointing out that he had 
 kept studiously aloof until all the risk was past 
 and the coal had been proved and found ; that 
 he had not paid a penny of the cost, and that 
 he certainly should not have any share in the 
 colliery. Beaumont, in effect, had tried to 
 assume the position of a speculator on the Turf 
 who should endeavour to get a share in the 
 proceeds of a wager after that wager has been 
 proved successful, without previously paying any 
 part of the stakes or acknowledging that he was 
 liable to pay. 
 
 But Beaumont had yet another tune to play. 
 He went to see Lord Bute, and endeavoured to 
 induce him to use his influence upon Mr. Nixon ; 
 but the latter heard of this proceeding and took 
 prompt measures. Calling upon Lord Bute's 
 secretary (Mr. Collingdon), he requested that he 
 might be confronted with Beaumont ; and when 
 both sides had stated their case, Mr. Collingdon 
 administered to Beaumont a severe and well- 
 merited reproof. He had not, said Mr. Colling- 
 don, a leg to stand upon ; he had been treated 
 with the utmost generosity ; even after the risk 
 was past he would have received half the col- 
 liery if he had paid his moiety of the expense ;
 
 SINKING AT WERFA 163 
 
 but instead of that he had given two worthless 
 bills. If Lord Bute mentioned the matter, Mr. 
 Collingdon would not fail to give him the true 
 history of the affair. Nobody of plain mind will 
 question that this was a just decision. No man 
 familiar with the ways of the impecunious will 
 be surprised to learn that Beaumont and Mr. 
 Nixon parted with loud threats of legal proceed- 
 ings (which came to nothing) on the one side, 
 and with contemptuous repudiation on the other. 
 Beaumont had rendered all amity impossible for 
 the future by trying to prejudice Lord Bute 
 asfainst Nixon behind his back. 
 
 During all these negotiations Mr. Nixon kept 
 a brave countenance, and his action in the matter 
 of Mr. Beaumont was as strong as if he had 
 possessed the resources of the Bank of England 
 at his back. But as a matter of fact his slender 
 stock of capital was exhausted, and, now that he 
 had discovered the rich seam of profitable coal, 
 he was at his wits' end for money with which to 
 continue his operations, and to reap the harvest 
 which his labours had earned abundantly. But 
 fortes Fortuna juvat — Fortune helps the brave 
 and strong; and Fortune helped Mr. Nixon at 
 precisely the moment when he stood in need of 
 assistance. He was staying, in these days, at
 
 1 64 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the Angel Hotel at Merthyr. To the same hotel, 
 very frequently, came a Mr. Evens. Now Mr. 
 Evens, who was a man of means, was on the 
 look-out for a colliery investment, and mentioned 
 the matter to the landlord of the hotel, whose 
 name was David Williams. David Williams, in 
 his turn, had enjoyed many conversations with 
 the lessee of Werfa. Hence came it that even- 
 tually the man who wanted capital to work an 
 enterprise which was more than promising, and 
 the man who was willing to lay out capital if he 
 saw the opportunity of doing so to advantage, 
 were brought together in the dining-room of the 
 " Angel " at Merthyr. The preliminaries did not 
 take long-. Mr. Evens wanted a share in Werfa, 
 and said so frankly, asking the terms. Mr. Nixon 
 would not come to terms until Mr. Evens had 
 employed an independent engineer to inspect and 
 value the property. Mr. Evens commissioned 
 Mr. Heppell to inspect and value ; Mr. Heppell 
 valued at ^^20,000 ; and after a little haggling, 
 but not more than is usual in such cases, Mr. 
 Evens became owner of the fourth part of the 
 colliery. From that moment onwards the colliery 
 throve and prospered, for the ^5000 from Mr. 
 Evens were employed by Mr. Nixon to such ex- 
 cellent purpose that the annual yield of the colliery
 
 SINKING AT WERFA 165 
 
 soon became ^6000. Mr. Evens thus obtained 
 an admirable return, ^1500 per annum, upon his 
 ;^5000, and Mr. Nixon was rewarded for his enter- 
 prise and perseverance. Pleasant also is it to be 
 able to record that, in the flush of prosperity, David 
 Williams of the " Angel " was not forgotten. 
 His constant kindness to Mr. Nixon, and his 
 readiness in bringing the two men together, were 
 rewarded by a present of a twentieth share in 
 the colliery, or ^300 a year. At a later date 
 Mr. Heath, an accountant at Bristol who audited 
 Mr. Evens's business accounts, was admitted into 
 partnership, and, with the aid of his two partners, 
 Mr. Nixon was able to construct those very neces- 
 sary means of coal transport, a long incline from 
 Werfa to the railway, and a communication with 
 the canal. 
 
 Such is the brief history of the early days 
 of the Werfa Colliery, of the struggles which 
 Mr. Nixon had to make, and of the difficulties 
 which he had to meet, before he succeeded in 
 establishing himself in a firm position in South 
 Wales.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 
 
 WERFA was a triumph at the time, and, 
 no doubt, gave great encouragement to 
 Mr. Nixon ; but, as compared with the operations 
 which were to be undertaken and carried out 
 later by its creator as a colliery, Werfa was but 
 a small thing. It was the starting-point, and it 
 may well be that, had the workings at Werfa 
 turned out less favourably than they did, there 
 would have been no occasion to write this narra- 
 tive. In that part of it which remains, an endea- 
 vour will be made to trace step by step, but 
 without undue particularity of detail, the manner 
 in which Mr. Nixon, sometimes alone and some- 
 times in association with others, acquired this 
 and that colliery or coal-bearing estate until 
 his position in the world of coal-owners became 
 pre-eminent. No more will be written than will 
 suffice to indicate generally the position which 
 he acquired, and the qualities of courage, fore- 
 sight, and perseverance which helped him on his 
 upward course. This book is not intended to
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 167 
 
 be a mere record of the piling together of money, 
 but a faithful delineation of the kind of character 
 which leads surely to success ; and in this con- 
 nection some of the incidents of the subject's 
 career as a coal-owner, incidents illustrative of 
 his methods in dealing with men, are of greater 
 interest than are the accretions to his income. 
 We shall find him fighting great combina- 
 tions of rebellious workmen, inventing ingenious 
 machines, arguing with the Great Western Rail- 
 way, forcing them to be reasonable, influencing 
 the policy of the Bute Docks. He was able 
 to do this because he was a huge coal-owner, 
 and because he was Mr. Nixon. A very few 
 pages will suffice to trace his rise to the position 
 of a great coal-owner, who could and did in- 
 fluence the trade of the entire district, and per- 
 formed great deeds in its development. 
 
 Fully as Mr. Nixon realised the extension of 
 which the South Wales coal trade was capable, 
 the great success of the workings at Werfa served 
 but to stimulate him to further exertion, and it 
 was not long before he became associated with 
 Mr. William Cory in a scheme of far greater 
 magnitude than that of Werfa. Their design 
 was to open a large colliery "to the deep," in 
 the Aberdare Valley, and to sink deeper than
 
 i68 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 any other colliery owners had yet sunk. To this 
 end they leased, from Mr. Bruce Pryce, Mr. 
 Allen, and others, a large tract of minerals, 
 christened it by the name of the Navigation 
 Colliery, which is now known all over the world, 
 and began the long and arduous business of 
 sinking. That was still in progress — it was in 
 fact destined to go on for years, before any 
 result was obtained — when the colliery to the 
 northward of Navigation came into the market. 
 Its owner, Mr. David Williams, had met with 
 difficulties in the way of ventilation which seemed 
 to him insuperable. He had been warned by 
 the Home Secretary, on the advice of Mr. Mack- 
 worth, Inspector of Mines, that the colliery was 
 unsafe by reason of the defective ventilation, 
 and that the responsibility for any accident that 
 might occur would lie upon his shoulders. Hence 
 came it that Mr. Williams offered the property 
 known as Deep Duffryn to Mr. Nixon and 
 Mr. Cory. Now Mr. Nixon had ideas, which 
 took shape in his patent ventilating apparatus, 
 concerning ventilation. The associates bought 
 the colliery, Deep Duffryn, for ^42,000. It had 
 then an output of 150 tons a day, a great output 
 in those days, which the vendor thought to be 
 the most that could ever be obtained from it.
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 169 
 
 But he did not know John Nixon. Within two 
 years Deep DufFryn, equipped with winding- 
 engines of great power, with Nixon's patent 
 ventilating apparatus, and with all the latest 
 appliances, was producing not 150 but 1000 tons 
 a day, and that rate of output has been more 
 than maintained up to the present day. 
 
 The story of Nixon's Navigation was not, 
 and had not been expected to be, one of rapid 
 and immediate success. From the very be- 
 ginning the ambition of Mr. Nixon and Mr. 
 Cory had been to sink to an unprecedented 
 depth, and that of itself was an operation which 
 must take much time. But as the work pro- 
 gressed it became clear that the difficulties of 
 sinking were to be of abnormal and unexpected 
 character, for the Pennant rock, overlying the 
 coal, turned out to be of exceptional hardness, 
 and the work was laborious and costly in the 
 extreme. The weight of steel tools used by 
 the workmen in boring was, it was computed, 
 five times the weiofht of rock removed in a 
 shift. Altogether, the enterprise was one upon 
 a stupendous scale, and many times over, in 
 the fight between man and the vis inertice of 
 nature, nature had the better of the encounter. 
 Contractor after contractor considered the various
 
 170 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 obstacles that were to be overcome, and laid his 
 tender before the indomitable owners ; and one 
 contractor after another found, when his tender 
 had been accepted and he had worked to the 
 best of his ability, that there was no money, 
 but rather heavy loss, to be made out of the 
 operation of sinking in Nixon's Navigation. 
 Year after year the weary business of boring 
 continued. Contractor after contractor tried his 
 hand at it, and emerged in a state of crippled 
 finance. The hard rock swallowed gold as 
 greedily and as rapidly as if it had been a 
 quicksand. At last things reached such a pitch 
 that Mr. Nixon himself had to undertake the 
 colossal task of sinking, and it was long before 
 he achieved success. In fact, the rich coal 
 which lay under the surface cost Mr. Nixon, 
 through contractors and in his own person, pre- 
 cisely as many years of patient work without 
 reward as the daughter of Laban cost the 
 patriarch Jacob, for it was not until the seventh 
 year of boring and of paying out money without 
 obtaining any in return that the upper four-foot 
 seam was proved, and subsequently the seams 
 below in due course, in excellent section and of 
 good quality. This was a great reward for 
 untiring labour and dauntless perseverance ; it
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 171 
 
 was indeed by far the greatest work of its kind 
 which had, up to that time, been accomplished 
 in South Wales. 
 
 It needs hardly to be said that, having reached 
 the hidden treasure at last, Mr. Nixon and Mr. 
 Cory set themselves to work to avail themselves 
 of it at once. Nor did they commit the short- 
 sighted error of spoiling the ship for a halfpenny 
 worth of tar. On the contrary, they fitted the 
 new colliery with the largest and best machinery 
 for winding and ventilation, and began trading 
 successfully in its products at once. 
 
 But Navigation Colliery did not satisfy Mr. 
 Nixon's soaring ambition, if indeed that ambition 
 can be described accurately as soaring which has 
 its object far beneath the surface of the earth. 
 Sometimes, indeed, the limits of his high ambi- 
 tion seemed invisible, and the apparent daring 
 of his schemes frightened his associates. But 
 Mr. Nixon, though bold, was never reckless or 
 audacious. His designs might be, indeed always 
 were, conceived on the grand scale ; but they 
 were invariably the result of the careful calcula- 
 tions of a man possessed of genius as a mining 
 engineer, and intimately familiar with the dis- 
 position of the coal-measures. He proposed no 
 adventure without the full conviction that, if
 
 172 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 carried out in a thorough spirit, it would succeed; 
 but, having proposed an adventure, he declined 
 to be compelled to relinquish it by any natural 
 hesitancy or timidity on the part of his colleagues. 
 This word " natural " is used, because, when all 
 had been said and done, it was reasonable enough 
 that the men who had secured great fortunes in 
 Werfa and Deep Duffryn and Navigation, should 
 pause before committing themselves to new under- 
 takings which might or might not turn out well. 
 By such considerations Mr. Nixon was never 
 deterred. If his comrades shrank from a risk 
 which he proposed, he was always ready to carry 
 out the enterprise at his own cost ; and not less 
 ready, when results had proved the absolute 
 justice of his calculations, to allow his associates 
 to share in the fruits of his enterprise. 
 
 The story of the Merthyr Vale Colliery is a 
 strong case in point, illustrative alike of the keen 
 judgment of the man, of his courageous con- 
 fidence in that judgment, and of the large-minded 
 generosity with which he was wont to treat 
 comrades who had been of little faith. This 
 enterprise commended itself to Mr. Nixon after 
 the Navigation Colliery had been in fruitful 
 working for some little time ; and his colleagues 
 being unwilling to extend their operations at the
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 173 
 
 time, he undertook the whole scheme, and carried 
 it out at his own risk and cost. Far beneath 
 the surface of the Merthyr Valley, some miles 
 to the southward of any coal that had been 
 proved in the district, and "to the deep" of the 
 coal hitherto worked, a large tract of coal was 
 believed to lie. It had attracted the notice of 
 others before Mr. Nixon turned his attention to 
 it. For example, Mr. Tom Powell, one of the 
 largest coal-owners in the district, had desired to 
 sink down to it, but his brothers and partners 
 had positively declined to face the enormous 
 outlay, which was an unavoidable preliminary to 
 winning the coal. Mr. Nixon's partners were of 
 like mind with those of Mr. Powell ; but here 
 came out the indomitable spirit of Mr. Nixon, 
 and his motto of "Firmness and Fairness" was 
 followed to the letter. Yield he would not on 
 any consideration ; to prove and win that coal 
 he was absolutely resolved ; but if his comrades 
 did not care to risk their money, he was well 
 content to prosecute the venture alone. 
 
 And so, after negotiating successfully for the 
 extensive tract, Mr. Nixon did prosecute it, in the 
 face of obstacles entirely unsuspected, which called 
 forth all his inherent mechanical ingenuity before 
 they were overcome ; for in the course of the
 
 174 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 tedious operation of sinking the men struck into 
 mass of running silt, which may be taken to be 
 as troublesome an obstacle as the sinkers of pits 
 can encounter. First they tried, under the advice 
 of Nixon & Co.'s agent Mr. Brown, a North 
 of England device by way of overcoming the 
 running silt ; that is to say, they followed the 
 sinking with four suspended side walls of timber 
 to prevent the silt from running in. Twenty 
 yards were accomplished in this way, but after 
 that relentless nature vanquished man, and the 
 whole apparatus collapsed. Others were for 
 yielding on the spot, and for commencing opera- 
 tions elsewhere. But that was not Mr. Nixon's 
 spirit. Opposition, whether of the forces of 
 nature or of men, served but to brace his nerves 
 and to strengthen his determination. He cast 
 about him to discover what device might succeed 
 where the suspended walls of timber had failed ; 
 and, as was his habit, he availed himself of the 
 material which lay under his eye, and was to be 
 obtained at small expense. He had observed, 
 lying by the railway hard by, a quantity of worn- 
 out Barlow rails belonging to the Great Western 
 Railway Company. These he bought at ^3 a 
 ton. Of these he drove into position a sufficient 
 number to form a complete casing to the pit.
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 175 
 
 fixing timber on the top of them by means of 
 a strip of iron on either side of the rails as they 
 went down. At every six feet driven the ground 
 was cleared away inside, and a curb was intro- 
 duced to keep the rails straight. So, steadily 
 persevering, fighting the semi-fluid silt foot by 
 foot, the sinkers won their way at last through 
 the viscous and treacherous stratum to the solid 
 rock, and had their pit completely timbered up to 
 that point. The work that remained to be effected 
 was laborious and costly, although in the light 
 of Mr. Nixon's experience in penetrating similar 
 rock at Navigation it was plain sailing. But it 
 was a long voyage. He who goes sinking for coal 
 must wait more than many days before he can 
 hope to see the return of the bread which he 
 has cast upon the waters. Five weary years of 
 labour, of struggling against the forces of nature, 
 of expenditure which must long remain unre- 
 munerative, passed away before the valuable coal 
 was struck and the pit became a rich colliery, 
 fitted with the most expensive and effectual 
 machines, and equipped with that patent venti- 
 lating apparatus which was among the most 
 useful of Mr. Nixon's many inventions. 
 
 At this point Mr. Nixon's generosity, a quality 
 more often shown in great things than in small,
 
 176 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 was strongly illustrated. When he began opera- 
 tions, as we have seen, his partners deemed the 
 enterprise hazardous, and he alone backed his own 
 judgment with his own money. Almost simultane- 
 ously with the proving of the coal in the Merthyr 
 Vale came an improvement in the coal trade, and 
 his partners saw at once that the venture was 
 certain to turn out well. Thereupon, proceeding, 
 it may be imagined, in a very diplomatic way 
 (for they had no foundation for their claim in 
 law or in ethics), they pressed him to allow them 
 to take a share in the undertaking, as they had 
 done previously. Mr. Nixon assented, on the 
 terms originally that he should have an extra 
 royalty of threepence per ton. But in subse- 
 quent times, lest he should be in a position of 
 having interests in conflict with those of his 
 partners, he voluntarily released them from this 
 obligation ; and this act amounted to presenting 
 them with from ;^6ooo to ^7000 a year out of 
 his own pocket. 
 
 The object of this chapter has now been ac- 
 complished. Nothing more was desired than to 
 set forth the steps by which Mr. Nixon, having 
 originally made the market for Welsh steam coal, 
 became the possessor of collieries upon a great 
 scale. How he acquitted himself as the owner
 
 DEEP DUFFRYN AND NAVIGATION 177 
 
 of collieries ; how he fought many battles with 
 workmen and others, with unvarying success, 
 which resulted in great benefits to the district, 
 must be reserved for later chapters. But for 
 the outside world, for the instruction of those 
 readers who know no more of the Welsh steam 
 coal trade than that the coal is the best in the 
 world, and that the name of Nixon is to be seen 
 on multitudinous railway trucks, it may be as 
 well to place on record a very small number of 
 highly significant figures. In a very few years 
 after the opening of Werfa and Navigation, the 
 output of Nixon & Company was 60,000 to 
 70,000 tons by the year. In has now reached 
 the colossal figure of 1,250,000 tons annually, 
 and, on favourable days, as much as 5800 tons 
 has been raised from the combined pits. More- 
 over, deep as the pits are, there have been no 
 serious accidents from explosions. Surely, then, 
 if there were nothing else worthy to be recorded 
 in this story of a life's work, the career of the 
 North Countryman who rose from the humblest 
 circumstances to high eminence in trade may be 
 regarded as remarkable and instructive in the 
 highest degree. But, in fact, the most interest- 
 ing incidents of his life still remain to be briefly 
 
 narrated. 
 
 M
 
 CHAPTER X 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 
 
 IT was inevitable that Mr. Nixon, an employer 
 of labour on an increasingly large scale year 
 after year, should be brought into close contact 
 with the British working-man, as an individual 
 and in masses ; and it may be said without hesi- 
 tation, that no crisis in life tests the qualities of 
 a man more severely, or shows more decisively 
 the stuff of which he is made, than that in which 
 he finds himself running directly counter to the 
 wishes of the men in his employment, and yet 
 feels that he is in duty bound to persist in the 
 course which he has chosen. The working-man 
 is, in very truth, the most loyal creature on the 
 face of the earth, and is imbued with a love of 
 ancient customs, even though they should enure 
 to his own hindrance, which is little short of 
 supernatural. His very loyalty and conservatism 
 of mind make him difficult to deal with. To old 
 methods, to the system which his father and 
 grandfather followed before him, he clings with 
 
 a persistent affection, which develops by way 
 
 178
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 179 
 
 of excess into prejudice. He cannot be weaned 
 from the old ways. He becomes the sworn 
 enemy of every change or reform in the arrange- 
 ment of his work. He regards it with suspicion, 
 not so much because it is beyond his intelligence, 
 as because it is new, and because it is not in 
 accordance with his habit to use any effort to 
 understand it. It is, in the view of those who 
 lead him by the nose, a move in the great struggle 
 of Capital and Labour ; it represents an appa- 
 rently innocent but really insidious device of the 
 man of brains to divert into his own pockets an 
 additional share of the profits properly belonging 
 to the men of thews and sinews. 
 
 Against this kind of prejudice and suspicion 
 the employer, who is resolved never to be content 
 with things as they are when he sees clearly that 
 they might be much better, is frequently called 
 upon to contend. And Mr. Nixon was emphati- 
 cally such an employer. He spared no expense 
 in sinking his pits ; no scheme was so gigantic as 
 to frighten him ; no machinery was so costly but 
 that, assuming it to be effective in proportion to 
 its cost, his collieries were equipped with it. The 
 man who treated his collieries thus and in this 
 spirit, began his great work in South Wales at a 
 period when, regarding things from the stand-
 
 i8o MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 point of modern knowledge, the science of coal- 
 mining was almost in its infancy in that district. 
 He saw from time to time various changes, cer- 
 tain to result in improvement, which might be 
 made. His attempts to introduce them were 
 fought to the very last ditch by the men. These 
 attempts were always successful, for by fairness, 
 no less than by firmness, he always carried the 
 day, and his efforts resulted in every case to 
 the benefit of workman and employer alike. All 
 his battles he fought practically single-handed, for 
 in his early days there were no serious federations 
 of employers. The story of his conflicts with 
 labour, and of the issues which were involved in 
 them, is, therefore, interesting. 
 
 The first dispute arose in Deep Duffryn, the 
 history of the acquisition of which is given in 
 the preceding chapter. David Williams, Nixon's 
 predecessor in title at Deep Duffryn, had worked 
 the coal on the pillar and stall system ; that is 
 to say, he had driven the headings three yards 
 wide, the stalls six yards, and had left six yards of 
 pillar. Necessarily, when the pillars came to be 
 worked off, the great weight which they had been 
 called upon to support had rendered them exceed- 
 ingly friable. As for the stump that was always 
 left next to the heading, it had naturally become
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN i8i 
 
 so greatly crushed that the coal of which it was 
 composed was unmarketable by itself, and every 
 attempt to work it off with other coal elicited 
 serious complaint from buyers. In a word, fully 
 twenty -five per cent, of the available coal of the 
 first quality was wasted, or depreciated in value, 
 before it came to the pit's mouth. It did not 
 take a man of Mr. Nixon's business instinct long 
 to make up his mind, that if a better plan existed 
 this extravagant state of things could not be per- 
 mitted to continue ; and he proceeded at once to 
 study the " long wall " system, which was then in 
 vogue in Lancashire and the Midlands, although 
 it had never been adopted, or even tried, in South 
 Wales. With this object in view he visited Mr. 
 Dickinson, the Government Inspector of Mines 
 for Lancashire. Mr. Dickinson, it may be added, 
 was the man of all others whom it was wise to con- 
 sult, since he was not only intimately acquainted 
 with the Lancashire system, but also conversant 
 with the practice of South Wales, seeing that 
 previous to going to Lancashire he had been 
 engaged in colliery work in South Wales. With 
 him Mr. Nixon discussed the whole subject from 
 every conceivable point of view. He found that 
 the Lancashire and South Wales coalfields had 
 one important characteristic in common, and that
 
 1 82 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 a characteristic which no other coalfields pos- 
 sessed ; that is to say, the roofs in the collieries 
 of the two districts were of very similar character. 
 As for the pillar and stall system, it was held in 
 Lancashire to be of no sort of account, to be 
 obsolete, old-fashioned, and extravagant. Upon 
 careful consideration he saw no reason why the 
 long wall system should not be introduced into 
 South Wales, and a great many reasons why it 
 should be introduced ; and he returned to South 
 Wales resolved that it should be introduced in 
 Deep Duffryn as soon as possible. 
 
 His next move was marked by acute diplomacy. 
 The men were in the act of driving two headings 
 into a splendid section of the Four Feet ; the roof 
 was comparatively good, and Mr. Nixon, without 
 arousing the men's feelings by expatiating on the 
 great change which he was going to make, quietly 
 instructed his manager to leave a pillar of three 
 yards only, instead of six as formerly. For three 
 months on end the men worked on, seemingly 
 blind to the fact that an entirely new system had 
 been inaugurated, and, as a matter of fact, Mr. 
 Nixon found that before long the two stalls 
 worked into one another. The men, in fact, 
 found it far more convenient to clear away all 
 the coal as they went along. But at the end of
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 183 
 
 the three months it seems to have occurred to 
 some of the men that they had been living in 
 what they would have regarded as a fool's para- 
 dise, and signs of rebellion began to appear. 
 One of the men who used to go next the head- 
 ing and win a stall declared that he, for one, 
 would not enter a heading unless a six-yard pillar 
 were left. Confronted with Mr. Nixon, the man 
 said that the system was new, and the men would 
 not work at it. It was pointed out to him that, 
 in fact, they had been working at it for three 
 months, and that by working off the three-yard 
 pillars which they had been told to leave, they 
 had actually done more than the management 
 had asked of them. But argument was of no 
 use — it seldom is — and the man, remaining ob- 
 durate, was eventually discharged. And here 
 followed a strange result. The mere fact that 
 the man had, or thought that he had, a claim for 
 a month's wages, made room for a County Court 
 suit ; and the judgment in that suit decided the 
 question as between "pillar and stall" or "long 
 wall " in South Wales. 
 
 Judge Faulkner was the County Court judge 
 before whom this apparently trivial question, 
 whether a discharged collier was, or was not, to 
 receive a month's wages in lieu of notice, came
 
 1 84 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 for trial. But the real issue was of the deepest 
 importance; for the true question was, whether the 
 "long wall" system was so far reasonably safe 
 that an order given by master to man to work 
 on that system was a lawful and reasonable order. 
 The plaintiffs case admittedly was that he had 
 disobeyed such an order, but that he was justified 
 in his refusal to obey because the system was 
 new to South Wales and dangerous in the last 
 degree, since no pillars were left and the roof 
 was only sustained by "little bits of props." To 
 those who sat and listened, in full consciousness 
 of the gravity of the question, it seemed that 
 the learned County Court judge was deeply im- 
 pressed by the evidence of the plaintiff He well 
 might have been so impressed. Before him was 
 a practical collier, a man who seemed to have had 
 no other inducement to leave his work in a first- 
 rate colliery, and there appeared to be no con- 
 ceivable explanation of his conduct, save that 
 he honestly believed — in truth, he probably did 
 believe, and felt thoroughly convinced — that the 
 "long wall" system was dangerous. But the 
 searching process of cross-examination put a 
 different complexion on the business. The 
 plaintiff was forced to admit that he had worked 
 three months on the system without raising any
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 185 
 
 objection, that he had not said a word concern- 
 ing any danger, and that during the whole three 
 months nothing worse had occurred than some 
 slight falls from the roof Plaintiff, however, pro- 
 tested that as the heading advanced the danger 
 would become greater, and unless pillars were left, 
 the entire roof would collapse bodily. "In that 
 case," said counsel in effect, "how did you ven- 
 ture to work away the three-yard pillars which 
 you were directed to leave ? " To this, of course, 
 there was not any convincing answer. The 
 supporters of the "pillar and stall" system had 
 rendered their case hopeless by their own action ; 
 they had gone ahead of their master's orders, if 
 not of his intentions ; and a rough and ready 
 explanation that a three-yard pillar was no better 
 than no pillar at all, and therefore might just as 
 well be worked away as not, served no useful 
 purpose. It was, indeed, too manifestly absurd. 
 If pillars had been of any value, or necessary to 
 safety, then a pillar nine feet in diameter would 
 would have been of very substantial service. 
 The address of Mr. Nixon's counsel clinched the 
 business. He was not able then to point out 
 how much easier ventilation was under the " long 
 wall" than under "pillar and stall," but he was 
 able to emphasise the fact that the system which
 
 1 86 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the plaintiff condemned as dangerous was in 
 universal use in the Midlands and in Lancashire, 
 and that the idea of protesting against it had 
 come to him as an afterthought only when he 
 had worked under it for three months. So in the 
 long run — for the judge wisely took time to 
 consider his judgment, and delivered it in writing 
 — the decision went in favour of the "long wall" 
 system ; and that system was adopted, without 
 opposition from the men, in the general body of 
 the steam-coal collieries of South Wales. It 
 saved trouble, and increased remuneration for the 
 men ; it gave landowner and colliery lessee at 
 least twenty-five per cent, more coal to receive 
 royalties upon and to sell in the market ; it 
 raised the proportion of large coal, which is 
 valuable, to small coal, which is not. In short, it 
 was a beneficent change, and the credit of it is 
 principally due to John Nixon's fixity of purpose 
 and to his quiet and tactful diplomacy. 
 
 That Mr. Nixon was a man not easily to be 
 deterred from his designs, the readers of this 
 volume will have realised already. But to one 
 important policy of his the opposition of the 
 South Wales miners proved an insurmountable 
 obstacle. For many years the introduction of 
 the system of the double shift was dear to his
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 187 
 
 heart, and he succeeded in enlisting the co- 
 operation of several leading colliery owners in 
 South Wales. It is admitted on all hands that, 
 from the point of view of safety, the double 
 shift is much preferable to the single. But 
 politics apart, there is no conservatism in the 
 world to be compared with that of the working- 
 man, and in this case this conservatism, which 
 might even be described as obstinacy, was too 
 much for Mr. Nixon. 
 
 There is, however, nothing more amusing, 
 now that the trouble is all over, in the many 
 experiences of Mr. Nixon's life, and nothing 
 more conspicuously illustrative of the difficulties 
 with which employers of labour are called upon 
 to deal from time to time, than the story of what 
 may be called "the great Cropper question." 
 Hand-picking by "laughing girls" was the old 
 rule in the days when an output of one hundred 
 and fifty tons per diem was held to be appalling ; 
 but as output increased with increasing markets, 
 screens came into use. In those days, be it 
 remembered, small coal was of absolutely no 
 value, and "large" alone was paid for. In 
 these days the "small" can be, and is, utilised 
 to a great extent in the form of compressed 
 fuel. The manner of estimating the proportion
 
 1 88 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 of large coal to small was primitive in the 
 extreme, and left room not merely for the dis- 
 play of favouritism and its opposite of spite, but 
 also for the suspicion of the one or the other ; and 
 the suspicion, as may readily be imagined, was 
 almost as troublesome as the reality. By each 
 screen stood an official termed a "cropper," 
 whose occupation consisted in making a guess 
 at the amount of small coal, stones, or rubbish 
 which had been brought up. "Croppers" were 
 naturally in a most invidious position. They 
 were accused of treating their friends with 
 special favour, sometimes justly, sometimes on 
 mere suspicion. Not only were the "croppers" 
 hated by the majority of the men, but the 
 system also involved constantly recurring an- 
 noyance and loss to the master. It was no 
 uncommon event for men to refuse to eo to 
 work, thus leaving capital and plant idle, and 
 the colliery exposed to danger, by reason of 
 alleged excessive cropping of their trams. One 
 cannot imagine a more irritating or a more 
 objectionable system, or one more certain to 
 lead to friction. Any reasoning being, unfamiliar 
 with the ways of the working-man, might imagine 
 that a scheme for the abolition of the "cropper," 
 and for the substitution of certain justice and
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 189 
 
 fairness in his place, would have been wel- 
 comed on all hands. But Mr. Nixon's experience 
 shows plainly that any such conclusion would 
 be utterly erroneous, and that the working- 
 man prefers to suffer the ills he knows when the 
 alternative is something new of which he can- 
 not, or will not, understand the principle and the 
 exactitude. 
 
 At Deep Duffryn these disputes about the 
 " cropping " were of constant occurrence. Hardly 
 a pay-day passed without angry remonstrance, 
 and many temporary strikes occurred. At last 
 things came to a climax. On the Monday morn- 
 ing following a Saturday pay-day Mr. Nixon 
 went up to the colliery. Instead of industry he 
 found idleness. The winding-engines were not 
 at work ; the men, instead of being engaged in 
 winning the coal from the depths of the earth, 
 were "playing" upon the surface. A conversa- 
 tion with his manager soon placed him in posses- 
 sion of the facts. Pay-day had been too much for 
 the feelings of the men ; their indignation against 
 the " cropper " had passed from words to open 
 violence, and they had pitched him neck and 
 crop into the canal. What was more, when the 
 unfortunate wretch was well in the water, his 
 persecutors showed no disposition to let him
 
 I90 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 return to dry land. Monday morning had come, 
 and no man could be found to take the " cropper's " 
 bishopric. It was all very well to hold a position 
 of authority, but if the price was to be that of 
 being half-drowned, the lot of a " cropper " was 
 not happy enough to be choiceworthy. The 
 moment was critical ; it called for that rapid 
 thought followed by prompt action which char- 
 acterises the able general on the battlefield, and 
 is no less valuable in other walks of life. In 
 ten minutes' time Mr. Nixon's mind was made 
 up, and he had determined irrevocably upon a 
 plan which was to introduce a valuable improve- 
 ment into every steam colliery in the country. It 
 is true that the plan involved the invention of an 
 unknown machine ; but it can hardly be doubted 
 that thought upon the innumerable disadvan- 
 tages of the "cropper" system, upon its possible 
 unfairness to the master no less than to one 
 man as contrasted with another, and upon the 
 continual quarrels that had arisen from it, had 
 caused Mr. Nixon to think of an alternative plan. 
 Be that as it may, he spent but ten minutes in 
 reflection, and then called his men before him to 
 hear from his own lips his unalterable determina- 
 tion. He spoke in severe terms of the savage 
 treatment which they had measured out to the
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 191 
 
 unhappy "cropper." He informed them, in a 
 tone which can have left Httle room for doubt 
 of his resolution in their minds, that his mind 
 was absolutely made up that no man amongst 
 them should go to work in the pit again under 
 the "cropper" system. A condition precedent 
 to working in Deep Duffryn Pit for the future 
 must be the signature by each collier of an 
 agreement assenting to the employment of a 
 machine of exact precision which would render 
 the "cropper" system obsolete and unnecessary, 
 by determining to a pound's weight the amount 
 of large coal on each man's train. Such, in 
 outline, was to be the effect of the scientific appa- 
 ratus which he had resolved to substitute for the 
 fallible and possibly corruptible human agency of 
 the "cropper." 
 
 The men, however, were far from jumping at 
 the offer. They pointed out, perhaps with some 
 appearance of justice, that no such apparatus was 
 in existence or in operation in any colliery. They 
 declared themselves willing to work upon the 
 same terms as men in other collieries, but they 
 were clearly averse to a leap into what was, 
 to them, the dark and unknown abyss of the 
 mysteries of mechanical science. All that they 
 desired was a new " cropper " in place of him
 
 192 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 whom they had accused of corrupt favouritism, 
 and sentenced according to the principles of 
 lynch law. But Mr. Nixon showed no dis- 
 position to change his mind. He gave them 
 clearly to understand that they had seen the last 
 of the "cropper" system, to which they had them- 
 selves dealt the final blow by half-drowning its 
 living representative amongst them. Further, 
 he assured them that he would guarantee that, 
 when they had once seen his projected apparatus 
 in operation, they would be compelled to admit 
 its unvarying and invariable fairness. 
 
 The men, however, were not to be persuaded. 
 The demand made upon their faith was perhaps 
 too severe. At any rate they positively refused 
 to sign the proposed agreement, and Mr. Nixon, 
 in a manner equally positive, informed them that, 
 if this was their mind, they might go away, and 
 that it would be useless for them to return to 
 him until their views had undergone alteration. 
 They went away, but after a fortnight had passed 
 they returned to complain of the hardships which 
 they and their families were suffering. They 
 re-asserted their willingness to work under a 
 "cropper" as before. But this was mere futility. 
 Mr. Nixon had made up his mind then, as many 
 employers have to make up their minds now,.
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 193 
 
 that he would manage his own business in his 
 own way, and his answer was shortly to the effect 
 that there appeared to be nothing to discuss, 
 and no reason why he or they should waste 
 time in idle talk. Then came the first sign of 
 wavering, the first indication of a desire on the 
 part of the men to apply their intelligence and 
 to try to understand something of the principle 
 of the machine which they had condemned reck- 
 lessly and without thought. They began to ask 
 questions, sending two or three of their number 
 to inquire how the projected machine would act, 
 and so forth; and Mr. Nixon in his turn, wil- 
 lingly enough, explained his intention of affixing 
 to each screen a dial which would indicate pre- 
 cisely the amount of coal passing through the 
 bars from each tram. For the moment, at any 
 rate, the delegates appeared to fail to understand, 
 and they went away. But the explanation had 
 evidently produced some impression upon them, 
 and discussion upon the subject with their com- 
 rades had convinced them that there might be 
 something in the suggestion of their employer. 
 Hence came it that, even before he left the col- 
 liery that day, Mr. Nixon found himself again 
 face to face with the delegates. They informed 
 him that they had decided — a pretty word that 
 
 N
 
 194 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 "decided" — to return to work on the morrow, 
 and to wait until the machine was complete and 
 in position under their eyes before signing the 
 agreement upon which Mr. Nixon insisted. But 
 they had reckoned without their host. If the 
 right to decide whether they would work lay with 
 them, the right to decide whether they should 
 be allowed to work lay with their ex-employer ; 
 and he told them plainly that they should not 
 go to work upon those terms, that he would 
 guarantee the accuracy of the machine, and that 
 he would not entertain any temporary arrange- 
 ment which raised doubts concerning the pre- 
 cision of his projected apparatus. 
 
 To men who look back over a vista of years, 
 well as they may know the proved precision of 
 the apparatus which then existed in Mr. Nixon's 
 brain only, it must none the less appear that 
 there was something to be urged on both sides. 
 If the men had not put themselves in the wrong 
 at the outset of the contention by half-killing the 
 "cropper," it would not have been unreasonable 
 on their part to refuse to buy a pig in a poke, to 
 decline to trust themselves to the tender mercies 
 of a machine that had not been proved in any 
 way. Taking the matter in another way, it 
 would certainly have been far better, if it had
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 195 
 
 been possible, for Mr. Nixon to have produced 
 his machine and to have demonstrated its accu- 
 racy before the men's eyes. He might then have 
 said, " You have seen the machine ; you must 
 perceive that it is infalHble ; you must acknow- 
 ledge that a machine is not moved by the causes 
 of human favouritism ; from this day forth that 
 machine shall take the place of the fallible man, 
 the * cropper,' of whom you continually make 
 complaint." Such, in all human probability, was 
 the straightforward course which would have 
 been adopted in due time if circumstances had 
 permitted. But circumstances, for which the men 
 were undeniably responsible, did not permit. By 
 their brutal and cowardly treatment of the "crop- 
 per" the workmen forced their employer's hand, 
 and they could not expect to be heard when 
 they demanded the temporary reinstatement of 
 an institution which they had rendered impos- 
 sible. Nor, most likely, would it have been 
 feasible to obtain a new " cropper " for Deep 
 Duffryn after what had occurred. 
 
 In any case, Mr. Nixon's judgment was soon 
 proved to have been right, for, on the very next 
 morning, a message came from the manager that 
 the men desired to meet him again, and he met 
 them at once. At first there were the same old
 
 196 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 arguments, but the immovability of Mr. Nixon 
 was plain. Of the fairness of the machine he was 
 absolutely convinced ; of the firmness of the man 
 recognition had been forced upon the workmen. 
 On dispersing, they gathered not in one great 
 assembly, but in groups and clusters, and of these 
 first one and then another came forward and sub- 
 mitted to sign the agreement. Thereupon the 
 book of agreement was made out and signed by 
 all the men, and an important lock-out — always 
 a distressing affair, whatever the rights or wrongs 
 may be — was over and done with. 
 
 Of the machine, which shortly came into almost 
 universal use in South Wales, not only in steam 
 collieries but also in iron-works, in connection 
 with the coal used at the furnaces, and later in 
 other districts, it is only necessary to say that it 
 was no sooner erected than it secured universal 
 admiration. The "small" from each tram passed 
 through the screen, was weighed, and its weight 
 was immediately recorded on the dial. The 
 quantity of "large" and "small," thus ascertained 
 without doubt, was recorded by the weigher in 
 the weighing-machine book. Certainty took the 
 place of the irritating uncertainty of the past, sure 
 confidence was substituted for angry suspicion, 
 and the "cropper," the most fruitful cause of
 
 CONFLICTS WITH WORKMEN 197 
 
 disputes between master and man, became as 
 extinct as the dodo. Mr. Nixon's invention was, 
 in short, of great service to the whole body of 
 coal owners. 
 
 One little incident, however, remains to be 
 noted. Mr. Nixon, who was a stern fighter when 
 convinced of the justice of his cause — and, after 
 all, if you fight at all, there is no use in doing 
 it in kid gloves — had accompanied the lock-out of 
 his men with a circular to the colliery proprietors 
 in the Aberdare Valley. In this circular the cir- 
 cumstances of the dispute were explained, and the 
 colliery owners were asked to abstain from em- 
 ploying any men from Deep Duffryn during 
 the progress of the dispute. New Unionists of 
 to-day, who claim the right of combination for 
 themselves exclusively, never fail to complain of 
 the use of this weapon by employers ; but it is a 
 weapon which is ready to their hands, of which 
 they practically cannot be deprived, and which 
 they do use, in my humble judgment, quite rightly. 
 In any case Mr. Nixon did use it, and amongst 
 the replies which he received was one from a 
 gentleman whom, for reasons which will be appa- 
 rent in a very few lines, it would not be kind to 
 stigmatise by name. This gentleman answered 
 that Mr. Nixon's insistence that the men should
 
 198 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 agree to abide by a machine which was not in 
 existence, so far as he knew, and certainly not 
 in Wales, was unfair and tyrannical in the last 
 degree. He, at any rate, was not inclined to 
 support Mr. Nixon in his arbitrary proceedings, 
 and he would make a point of employing every 
 man from Deep Duffryn who applied to him for 
 work. But this g-entleman was also curious con- 
 cerning the construction of the machine, which 
 Mr. Nixon had not patented. Therefore, before 
 forwarding his abusive letter to Mr. Nixon, he 
 ordered his engineer to go over to Deep Duffryn 
 to inspect Mr. Nixon's machine, which, with the 
 exception of the trough under the screen to catch 
 the small, was practically complete. The engineer 
 was received courteously. He sketched the 
 machine, he examined it minutely, and all the 
 information he desired was afforded to him. The 
 result was that a faithful copy, upon a smaller 
 scale, of Mr. Nixon's machine was actually erected 
 and in operation a few days before Mr. Nixon's 
 machine was quite ready. The colliery at which 
 this small machine was erected was the colliery 
 whose owner had been so ready to criticise Mr. 
 Nixon's action, and it was at that colliery that the 
 machine obtained the name of " Billy Fairplay," by 
 which it is now known all over England and Wales.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 THE foregoing chapter contains an inci- 
 dental illustration of Mr. Nixon's promp- 
 titude in the application of his mechanical 
 knowledge to the needs of the moment. In 
 the few pages to which this chapter will be 
 confined an indication will be given of some of 
 the principal illustrations of that mechanical 
 ability which he was able to give in the course 
 of his long life. Of these, some were on a 
 small scale and some on a large scale. Some- 
 times he would see the one little improvement 
 that was necessary to make perfect a design 
 already in existence ; sometimes he would create 
 in his mind the machine capable of meeting 
 an open and notorious difficulty ; and some- 
 times, having weighed his opinion well, he would 
 withstand the opposition of the most distinguished 
 engineers of his day ; and, in one supremely 
 important case of that kind, it has to be re- 
 corded to his credit that his ideas were adopted 
 
 to the lasting benefit of the community, and the 
 
 199
 
 200 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 results proved him to be entirely correct in his 
 judgment. 
 
 In the invention of "Billy Fairplay " Mr. 
 Nixon appears to have shown that rare gift of 
 the inventor, which may be described as the 
 capacity to perceive and to fulfil the obvious 
 needs of the situation. There was, it may be 
 taken, nothing mysterious in the mechanism of 
 a machine which merely applied well-known prin- 
 ciples in the simplest possible fashion. A rival 
 coal owner, as we have seen, was able, after 
 inspection by his engineer of the as yet incom- 
 plete machine, to make its double on a smaller 
 scale ; and we can well imagine that when the 
 other coal owners saw " Billy Fairplay" at work, 
 measuring out unswerving justice to men and 
 masters, their first thought must have been one 
 of irritated wonder that the idea had not occurred 
 to them individually before. The vital differ- 
 ence between them and Mr. Nixon was, that 
 he saw without external help that which they 
 did not see until he had shown the way ; and 
 it must be said that this kind of inventive 
 faculty is rare among men, and liable to pro- 
 duce great fortunes. It is, of course, the very 
 opposite process of invention to that followed 
 by Josiah Wedgwood. He was a maker of
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 201 
 
 experiments which might turn out well or ill ; 
 his successes, which were great, followed upon 
 many failures. Mr. Nixon, practising in a field 
 of different character, could make all the neces- 
 sary calculations beforehand, could see what 
 Plato would have called the " idea " of the 
 machine in his mind before a single part of it 
 was made ; but, when the whole was put to- 
 gether, work it must, because it was the result 
 of precise calculation of the operation of well- 
 known principles and well-understood forces. 
 
 Let us give another illustration. The fol- 
 lowing extract from the minute-book of the 
 Glamorganshire Canal Navigation, of the 5th 
 June 1850, explains itself, and points to a crying 
 mechanical need of the time : — 
 
 Extract from Minute- Book of the Glamorganshire 
 Canal Navigation 
 
 A committee of the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation 
 hereby give notice that they are desirous of adopting 
 a plan or device for loading coal into vessels lying 
 afloat in the canal from barges alongside, and that they 
 will give a premium of one hundred guineas for the 
 best model or exposition of such plan or device, 
 provided that it meets with the approbation of the 
 committee. And notice is hereby also given that the 
 committee will meet on the 31st day of July next, at
 
 202 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the hour of eleven in the forenoon, in the Cardiff 
 Arms Inn, Cardiff, to receive and examine such models 
 and expositions as ma}' then and there be presented 
 to their notice ; and the principal freighters of coal 
 upon the said Canal Navigation are hereby invited to 
 attend the said meeting and inspect the said models 
 and expositions. It will be necessary that all models, 
 plans, and expositions be delivered at the Cardiff Arms 
 Inn by nine o'clock on the morning of the 31st July; 
 and application for furtlier information will be attended 
 to by John Forrest, clerk to the said Navigation, at 
 the Navigation House, Cardiff. — June $th, 1850. 
 
 The advertisement offering this prize was 
 published generally as well as locally — that is 
 to say, in the Cardiff and Merthyr Guai'dian, 
 Herapatli s Railway Magazine, the Btiilder, the 
 Mechanics Magazine, Artisan, Newcastle Adver- 
 tiser, and Mining Jou7'nal. The committee were 
 clearly determined, not only that their invita- 
 tion should reach the South Wales mechani- 
 cians and the engineering public generally, but 
 also that a special invitation should be addressed 
 to the Newcastle-on-Tyne district, the classic 
 home of inventors. Their foresight was justi- 
 fied. The committee met on the 31st of July, 
 as arranged ; and, inasmuch as Mr. Nixon had 
 been largely instrumental in pressing upon the 
 Canal Company the necessity of the kind of
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 203 
 
 appliance described in the advertisement, he was 
 invited to be present. A very large number 
 of models had been sent in for competition, and 
 the exhibitors of them were present. In com- 
 pany with Mr. Crawshay, the chairman of the 
 Canal Company, Mr. Nixon made a tour of 
 inspection, and his attention was finally fixed 
 upon a model exhibited by Mr. William Arm- 
 strong, now Lord Armstrong, and entitled to 
 boast a reputation not merely European but 
 world-wide in every sense of the word. " That 
 model," said Mr. Nixon at once, "is the best 
 of them all, but it is capable of improvement ; " 
 and he then proceeded to point out that, in- 
 asmuch as the movement of the arm of the 
 machine was horizontal, it must come in con- 
 tact with the rigging of the vessel, and so be 
 prevented from reaching a point immediately 
 over the hatchway into which the coal had to 
 be shipped. Mr. Armstrong was thereupon 
 summoned, and, after half -an -hour spent in 
 thought, said that he saw his way to making 
 the desired improvement ; and Mr. Nixon, with- 
 out entering into detail, pointed out the vast 
 improvement which would certainly be effected 
 by substituting a vertical for a horizontal move- 
 ment. So, subject to the fulfilment of a promise
 
 204 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 to introduce the vertical movement, the prize 
 was allotted to Mr. Armstrong, and in a speech 
 at the banquet which followed in due course, 
 Mr. Armstrong acknowledged his indebtedness 
 to Mr. Nixon. Thus one man from Tyneside 
 had improved upon the invention of another, 
 and John Nixon might have boasted, if he had 
 been so disposed, that he had shown William 
 Armstrong the way to perfect an invention, and 
 that is a boast which few men of this century 
 have been in a position to make. 
 
 It remains only to add in this connection that 
 Mr. Armstrong fulfilled his promise to the letter, 
 and that two of the improved cranes were erected 
 on the Glamorgan Canal Company's Sea Lock 
 Pond. The tipping arrangements of to-day are 
 greatly improved, mainly by virtue of an apparatus 
 designed by Sir William Lewis ; but these cranes 
 did their work for a long time, until Messrs. Nixon 
 and Powell established special apparatus of their 
 own for transferring coal from barge to vessel. 
 
 The next example of Mr. Nixon's mechanical 
 ingenuity to be mentioned consisted principally, 
 like the last-named, in the improvement of an 
 existing idea. The winding-engines introduced 
 by him for the equipment of the Navigation 
 Colliery were very much larger and more power-
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 205 
 
 ful than any which had been previously in use 
 in South Wales, and the problem to be solved 
 was how to place in the hands of the engine- 
 men such power as would enable them to con- 
 trol the heavy valves, indispensable in the case 
 of these large engines, as easily as in the case 
 of small engines. The germ of the idea seems to 
 have occurred to Mr. Nixon when he inspected 
 two large engines belonging to Mr. Maudslay, 
 which had been made and used for the purpose 
 of exhausting air in connection with Brunei's 
 atmospheric railway in South Devon. That the 
 engine should be controlled by hand for winding 
 purposes was, it was manifest at first sight, out 
 of the question. But reflection suggested to 
 him that it might be possible to make one small 
 engine, easily controllable by an engineman^ 
 control another and a larger engine. The idea 
 took definite shape in his mind, and in a very 
 short time we find Mr. Nixon writing to Mr. 
 Nasmyth (whose name, like that of Brunei, 
 conveys a whole biography to the mind), de- 
 scribing the form which his idea had taken, and 
 asking whether anything of the kind was in use 
 elsewhere. The scheme of his invention was 
 that the starting and stopping of the great 
 engines should be effected through a small steam
 
 2o6 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 cylinder which the engineman could easily handle. 
 The reply of the great engineer was eminently 
 encouraging. That the arrangement was novel 
 there was, he said, no doubt ; it was certainly not 
 in use anywhere ; but there was practical merit 
 in the idea, and it ought to be worked out. 
 
 So Mr. Nixon bought the two engines from 
 Mr. Maudslay, put them in place at Navigation, 
 and fitted them with his new apparatus, and 
 found that they worked in so satisfactory a 
 fashion that he was induced to apply the same 
 principle to the engines at Merthyr Vale Col- 
 lieries, where there were two 85-inch cylinders. 
 But there had to be some little trouble and dis- 
 cussion with the professors of red tape before, 
 even at Navigation, the apparatus was allowed 
 to work. The men seemed to have made no 
 complaint, and to have been entirely free from the 
 apprehension of danger. By this time, indeed, 
 they must have seen enough of Mr. Nixon to be 
 assured that any suggestion of his was, because 
 it was his, safe, sound, and trustworthy. But 
 the Inspector of Mines — and after all is said 
 one cannot question his motives — took a different 
 view. He called and warned Mr. Nixon that, 
 inasmuch as the arrangement was entirely new 
 and untested, he must as a matter of duty pro-
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 207 
 
 test against its being used to lower men into the 
 pit or to raise them from it. Indeed, he went 
 so far as to insist that the men must make the 
 ascent and descent by means of the Deep Duff- 
 ryn engines, a proceeding which would have 
 involved them in an extra walk of a mile under- 
 ground every day. Mr. Nixon expostulated, 
 with some vigour we may imagine. He explained 
 the apparatus over and over again ; he argued, 
 and his argument, we may be well assured, was 
 doggedly persistent. Still the Inspector would 
 not consent that the apparatus should have a 
 human load. Stung by this obstinacy, Mr. Nixon 
 challenged the Inspector to accompany him, and 
 to be let down into the pit with him and by 
 the new machine. The Inspector declined the 
 invitation, without thanks, and renewed his pro- 
 test. Perhaps it would hardly be just to the 
 Inspector to censure him on this ground. Ever 
 since the first experimentalist in aerial flight by 
 man fell from a dizzy height into the sea, because 
 his waxen wings were melted in the sun, in- 
 ventors have been confident in the safety of their 
 apparatus, and the confidence of some of them 
 has been rudely shaken. Mr. Nixon was con- 
 fident ; the Inspector did not share his confidence, 
 and did not relish the prospect of descending
 
 2o8 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 into the pit with all the accumulated force of 
 gravitation in case Mr. Nixon's best-laid plans 
 should gang agley. As for the consent, it does 
 not seem ever to have been gained before the 
 first experiment was made ; for Mr. Nixon simply 
 gave formal notice to the Inspector that, as soon 
 as the arrangements were complete, he would 
 himself descend into the pit with the first batch 
 of men. Descend he did, with the result that 
 his own confidence, and the ready confidence of 
 the men in him, was completely justified, and it 
 may be mentioned that, from that day to this, 
 there has never been an accident through the 
 breaking down of the winding-engine. 
 
 Another improvement in colliery working, 
 thanks for which are due to Mr. Nixon, is the 
 spiral cylindrical winding-drum, with which nearly 
 all the deep collieries of South Wales are now 
 equipped. The object sought after, and secured 
 in designing this apparatus, was to neutralise the 
 great weight of the ropes when starting the loads 
 from the bottom of the pit. It is perhaps worthy 
 of mention that Mr. Nixon encountered many 
 difficulties in trying to have this apparatus con- 
 structed in precise obedience to his designs, and 
 that it was eventually made at his own works out 
 of wrought iron, specially rolled for the purpose at
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 209 
 
 the Plymouth Works, thanks to the assistance of 
 
 Mr. T. W. Lewis, the engineer of those works. 
 
 Important as the machines and inventions 
 
 which have been mentioned must be admitted 
 
 to be, they are certainly rivalled in value by 
 
 Nixon's patent ventilator, which was fitted to 
 
 Deep Duffryn at about the same time as the 
 
 spiral drum, and at Navigation Colliery. The 
 
 essential part of this invention of Mr. Nixon's is 
 
 that it consists of two pistons, 30 feet by 20 
 
 feet, which are worked in horizontal cylinders by 
 
 two 30-inch cylinder six feet stroke horizontal 
 
 engines ; and the best testimonial which can be 
 
 given to the apparatus is a bare statement of its 
 
 history. From that day to this, that is to say 
 
 for more than thirty years, the original apparatus 
 
 has been continuously at work. So slight has 
 
 been the wear and tear that the expenditure upon 
 
 repairs has been of the most trifling description, 
 
 and no stoppage of work has ever been caused by 
 
 derangement of the ventilator. Moreover, though 
 
 many millions of tons of coal have been raised 
 
 from these pits since the apparatus was erected, 
 
 it is the proud record of the pits that, during the 
 
 whole period of working, there has not been one 
 
 of those terrific explosions which are too often 
 
 the cause of widespread suffering among work- 
 
 o
 
 2 10 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 men and their relations, and of ruinous loss to 
 employers. Nixon's ventilator is also in use at 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 The tale of particular inventions is now ended, 
 and it must be admitted on all hands that for a 
 list of valuable improvements made by one man 
 it is remarkable. But there is yet one great im- 
 portant action of Mr. Nixon's life which, although 
 it is illustrative of some of his other useful quali- 
 ties, is none the less significant as an illustra- 
 tion of his mechanical and engineering ability. In 
 the course which he pursued with regard to the 
 construction of what was afterwards known as the 
 Bute East Dock at Cardiff, we cannot fail to re- 
 cognise the accuracy of his forecast of the develop- 
 ment of the South Wales coal trade, and the 
 justice of the attention which he paid to the evo- 
 lution of steamers and sailing-vessels alike in the 
 direction of larger tonnage. Also we shall have 
 occasion to notice, not once or twice only, the dis- 
 play by him of that indomitable persistence which 
 contributed so much to his success in life. So 
 marked, indeed, was that persistence that, if it 
 had not been amply justified by results, it might 
 be described now, as no doubt it often was de- 
 scribed at the time, as sheer obstinacy. But what 
 strikes the man of to-day as the most remarkable
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 211 
 
 feature of the whole affair is the confidence with 
 which Mr. Nixon, who was supposed to know 
 everything about coHieries and their stratification, 
 and the machinery requisite for working them, 
 but who was not supposed to have made any 
 special study of dock and harbour construction, 
 fought Sir John Rennie, than whom there was no 
 man whose opinion carried more weight in matters 
 connected with dock construction, and carried his 
 point, and proved himself to be right. For that 
 reason the story of the East Bute Dock finds a 
 place in this chapter. 
 
 It was in the year 1853 ^^at Mr. Nixon, still 
 less than forty years of age, induced sundry lead- 
 ing persons in the South Wales coal trade to 
 join with him in petitioning the trustees of the 
 Marquis of Bute to provide suitable dock accom- 
 modation in addition to that which already existed. 
 The principal ground for the petition was not only 
 the growth of Cardiff as a coal-exporting port. 
 That growth had in itself been amazing. From 
 1843 t*^ 1S53 ^t had risen from 274,000 tons odd to 
 903,000 tons and more. But the tendency which 
 made increased dock accommodation indispen- 
 sable was the tendency to increased size in ships. 
 Mr. Nixon and his friends clearly saw that this 
 tendency to an increase of tonnage was destined
 
 212 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 to continue for many years ; and as a matter of 
 fact it has continued to the present day, and 
 shows no signs of having reached its h'niits ; from 
 which it follows that many docks, which were 
 amply sufficient to accommodate the ships of old 
 times, are liable to be left behind in the race 
 now. The petition was eventually successful ; 
 that is to say, the Bute Trustees, whose office 
 forbade them to consider the matter solely from 
 the point of view of the coal trade, decided, after 
 mature consideration, that it would be consistent 
 with their duty and to the ultimate benefit of 
 the estate to construct a new dock. It would 
 be pleasant to pause for a few moments here, to 
 point out how generous a view has been taken 
 of questions of this kind by successive Marquises 
 of Bute and successive bodies of trustees, and 
 how, if the estate has profited in the long run 
 and indirectly in consequence of the colossal ex- 
 penditure upon the docks, others have been able 
 to reap where the Bute Estate has sown. That 
 the construction of the Bute Docks has increased 
 the value of the Hinterland of Cardiff is beyond 
 question ; but that Hinterland is not all, or nearly 
 all of it, the property of Lord Bute, and much of 
 it is the property of men who have not risked 
 money on the huge scale of the Bute Estate, or
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 213 
 
 indeed risked any money at all. It were well, 
 sometimes, if some persons in Cardiff and the 
 district remembered the indebtedness of that com- 
 munity to Lord Bute. 
 
 Be that as it may, the trustees resolved to 
 construct the new dock, and appointed the well- 
 known Sir John Rennie as engineer, and Mr. 
 Plews as resident engineer. It fell one day that 
 Mr. Nixon went down to look at the sinking 
 operations, and, ever given to indulge in intel- 
 ligent curiosity, asked the foreman on the spot 
 how much farther it would be necessary for them 
 to sink for the sill of the dock. He learned that 
 the work of excavation was over, and that it was 
 not intended to lay the sill of the new dock any 
 deeper than the sill of the existing West Dock. 
 Astonished, almost horrified, he hurried off to the 
 contractor to hear that the foreman's statement had 
 been only too correct. If that was the plan, he 
 saw clearly that half his exertions in securing the 
 new dock would have been entirely thrown away. 
 Already the small depth of water over the sill of 
 the West Dock was driving numbers of vessels 
 away from the port. Better accommodation and 
 a greater depth of water over the sill were the 
 things of paramount necessity, and Mr. Nixon 
 determined on the spot that he would strain
 
 214 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 every nerve to prevent this great error from 
 being committed. He did not let the grass grow 
 under his feet. Straightway he wrote to Mr. 
 Clark, the Bute agent, informing him of the 
 facts, and asking him to come to Cardiff to con- 
 sult upon the matter. Hot foot upon the receipt 
 of Mr. Nixon's letter Mr. Clark came to Cardiff, 
 and, at the suggestion of Mr. Nixon, wrote to 
 the trustees to point out the fatal effects upon 
 the port which must follow from laying the sill 
 of the new dock at this totally inadequate depth. 
 The trustees, in their turn, wrote to Sir John 
 Rennie, and he came to Cardiff to go over the 
 works with Mr. Plews. 
 
 No great gift of imagination is needed to 
 picture the state of mind of the great engineer. 
 What he was asked to do was, in effect, to go 
 over work performed in exact obedience to his 
 own plans, the said plans relating to a department 
 of engineering in which reputation assigned to 
 him special skill and knowledge. He had to 
 decide, in effect, whether his matured design was 
 of any value, having regard to the special needs 
 of the shipping. That cannot have been a plea- 
 sant position for an engineer of high standing in 
 his profession, and Sir John Rennie's feelings 
 were not likely to become less bitter when he
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 215 
 
 remembered that this request to pass judgment 
 upon his own work was made to him at the in- 
 stigation of a man comparatively young, and, in 
 matters connected with the construction of docks, 
 a mere amateur. Most painful of all must have 
 been the ever-present consciousness that in the 
 main contention, namely, that a dock with a sill 
 of even depth with the West Dock would be of 
 little or no advantage, Mr. Nixon was unquestion- 
 ably right. 
 
 The position adopted by Sir John Rennie was 
 no doubt taken up in good faith, and the opinion 
 which he expressed was unquestionably honcoi.. 
 He reported that it would be impracticable to lay 
 the new dock's sill at a greater depth than the sill 
 of the West Dock ; that he would not undertake 
 the responsibility of making the attempt to take 
 the new sill to a greater depth ; and that if any such 
 attempt was made the walls of the West Dock 
 would be imperilled. But it is necessary to point 
 out that Sir John Rennie was between the horns 
 of a dilemma ; he was compelled either to admit 
 that his plans were inadequate to the needs of the 
 shipping, which were well known, or to pronounce 
 an opinion that Mr. Nixon's desire for greater 
 depth was impossible of attainment. He chose 
 the second alternative. But he had reckoned
 
 21 6 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 without the persistency of John Nixon, and he 
 little knew of that North Countryman's quiet confi- 
 dence in his own judgment. No sooner did Mr. 
 Nixon hear of Sir John Rennie's report than he 
 was with Mr. Clark again, urgent in season and 
 out of season upon the paramount necessity of 
 greater depth. Mr. Clark, very naturally and 
 properly, was at first disinclined to run counter 
 to the advice of so eminent an authority as Sir 
 John Rennie ; but Mr. Nixon, to use a familiar 
 expression, kept on hammering at him, declar- 
 ing that he could see no substantial reason for 
 the apprehensions of Sir John Rennie. Finally, 
 he persuaded Mr. Clark, and through him the 
 trustees, that at any rate it would be worth while 
 to postpone further operations until they had 
 taken the opinion of another of the pupils of 
 Bruce's Academy in Newcastle, of no less a per- 
 son, in fact, than Robert Stevenson himself. 
 
 That prince of engineers, at home and abroad, 
 in connection with railways and bridges alike, 
 creator of the High-Level Bridge at Newcastle, 
 the Victoria Bridge at Berwick, the Conway Rail- 
 way Bridge, the bridge across the Nile, the Britan- 
 nia Tubular Bridge which spans the Menai Straits, 
 and the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence, 
 was at that time in Canada, engaged in the super-
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 217 
 
 intendence of the last-named work. Six weeks 
 passed before he could come to Cardiff ; but when 
 he came, and after going thoroughly into the sub- 
 ject, he reported that the work could be done 
 according to Mr. Nixon's requirements, that three 
 feet more depth could be given without endan- 
 gering the safety of the adjoining dock, and that 
 it certainly ought to be done. It was a bitter 
 moment for Sir John Rennie and for Mr. Plews, 
 who protested again and again against the deci- 
 sion of the trustees to follow Stevenson's advice ; 
 and it was a proud moment for Mr. Nixon, who 
 had declared from the very beginning that the 
 design, which he considered imperative, was also 
 perfectly practicable. The result proved him to 
 have been right, for all was done as Stephenson 
 had directed, and none of the terrible things 
 prophesied by Sir John Rennie happened at all. 
 The West Dock walls indeed stand to this day. 
 
 Yet one more triumph, yet another successful 
 conflict with the engineers, remained for Mr. 
 Nixon in connection with the construction of the 
 East Dock. Having carried his point about the 
 sill, he discovered that the engineers were con- 
 structing the dock itself upon a scale which was, 
 in his judgment, not likely to be adequate to the 
 needs of the future. They were making it 200 feet
 
 2i8 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 wide only, and that did not satisfy Mr. Nixon. 
 After long correspondence he succeeded in per- 
 suading the Bute authorities to construct the first 
 looo feet of the dock at a width of 300 feet, and 
 that in spite of the strenuous and repeated objec- 
 tions of the engineers, who must by this time have 
 grown weary of the very mention of Mr. Nixon's 
 name. Was his judgment right or wrong ? Was 
 he over-estimating the demand for accommodation 
 which would be made by the shipping of the future.^ 
 Let the future, now that it has become the past, 
 record its own opinion in acts done. That East 
 Dock was 1000 feet long at the outset. For that 
 1000 feet Mr. Nixon insisted on a width of 300 
 feet. The dock has been extended since then to 
 meet the needs of the trade. It is now 4300 feet 
 long, and, beyond the first 1000 feet, is not 300 
 but 500 feet wide. It is difficult to speak in terms 
 of too high praise of the services which Mr. Nixon 
 did to Cardiff when he stood forth boldly, and by 
 his insistence defeated Sir John Rennie.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 
 
 IN the chapters which have gone before we 
 have recounted the great impetus which the 
 subject of this volume gave to the coal trade of 
 South Wales in his early days, and have given 
 some account of the improvements which he was 
 instrumental in bringing about in his working of 
 collieries. Mention has been made of machines 
 and apparatus which he invented in the whole or 
 in part to facilitate the winning or the shipping 
 of coal, of his relations with workmen, and of his 
 methods of dealing with them. But there is no 
 desire to place his claims to honour on too high a 
 basis, or to pretend that his conduct, in this 
 matter or in that, was dictated by purely altruistic 
 motives. On the contrary, enlightened self- 
 interest was a guiding principle of his life. No 
 man of his time was more closely bound up in the 
 steam coal trade. He pursued the fine coal, of 
 which he thoroughly appreciated the capabilities, 
 from the surface of the earth into the far interior. 
 His object was to extract it in the most work-
 
 220 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 manlike and economical fashion. When it was 
 raised he traced it from the pit's mouth to the 
 port of shipment or to the main line of railway, 
 and he would no doubt be the first man to pro- 
 test that the primary object of his inventions and 
 of the suofSfestions he made to others who had 
 control over the means of transport or of ship- 
 ment was the advance of his own increasing 
 business. But it is none the less true that his 
 enlightened self-interest operated to the benefit 
 of others than himself, and tended towards the 
 benefit of a growing community. He invented 
 " Billy Fairplay," to meet a labour crisis in his own 
 colliery; but "Billy Fairplay" plays fairly in a 
 hundred and more collieries now. He suggested 
 the improvement which had been described in 
 Mr. Armstrong's crane, and the advantage came 
 to him ; but it came to others also. He saw that 
 Sir John Rennie's scheme for the East Dock 
 would not suit his business, and he persisted until 
 it was amended. Others no less than he reaped 
 the benefit. Sometimes I am inclined to think 
 that enlightened self-interest does more good in 
 this world than philanthropy, which, being purely 
 free from all taint of selfishness, gives without 
 due thought, and encourages men to pursue those 
 occupations which, being unprofitable, must in
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 221 
 
 the long run collapse and leave misery behind 
 them. 
 
 Very conspicuous was the public benefit result- 
 ino- from Mr. Nixon's successful efforts to 
 persuade and even to coerce the railway com- 
 panies feeding and feeding upon South Wales 
 and Monmouthshire to fall in with his wishes, and 
 to enable him to develop his trade to its fullest 
 capacity. It is an old-world story now, in some 
 of its details almost inconceivable, and to the man 
 interested in business full of quaint and almost 
 antediluvian interest. Firstly, and as a matter of 
 course, he had to persuade the railway authorities 
 of South Wales, as a preliminary to persuading 
 the authorities controlling French railways, that 
 steam coal could be substituted for coke as a fuel 
 for locomotive engines, and with good results. 
 This was comparatively early in his career, so early 
 indeed that at that time no coal came down from 
 the hills to Cardiff by the Taff Vale Railway, 
 since celebrated as one of the most successful 
 of mineral railways. With great difficulty, by 
 using his influence with one of the directors of 
 the company, and in the face of all manner of 
 objections raised by the officials, he obtained 
 permission to make a trial of his coal on a Taff 
 engine. The engine came to the Canal Dock at
 
 222 MEMOIR OK JOHN NIXON 
 
 Cardiff to take in the coal for the experiment, and 
 present at the trial were Mr. Fisher, the manager 
 of the line, and the person who then held the 
 contract to supply coke for the line. This person 
 protested that the Aberdare coal would not serve, 
 that it burned the bars of the furnace and injured 
 the tubes of the boilers. Nor was he appeased 
 by Mr. Nixon's assertion that the main object 
 of the trial was to secure the French railway 
 market for coal in place of coke ; for he cannot 
 have failed to see that if Welsh coal was better 
 than coke for a locomotive in France, it would 
 also be more suitable than coke to a locomotive 
 running in Wales. Nevertheless the trial was 
 made, and ended satisfactorily, although a desire 
 on the part of Mr. Fisher to have the fire poked 
 when the steam generated was already amply 
 sufficient, reminded Mr. Nixon of his old ex- 
 perience in France. Mr. Fisher, however, did 
 not recommend the adoption of the coal, stating 
 as a reason that, although no harm had been 
 done at the trial, he was convinced that pro- 
 longed use of it would be injurious to bars and 
 tubes, particularly to the tubes. So the Taff 
 Company, although by no means flourishing in 
 those early days, continued to burn coke, at 
 double the expense of Aberdare coal, until the
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 223 
 
 time when a Mr. Tomlinson became locomotive 
 superintendent. Then a sudden scarcity in the 
 supply of coke caused Mr. Nixon to suggest a 
 new trial, with the addition of some broken bricks 
 in the centre of the furnace, so as to obviate 
 all suspicion of danger to the bars. This trial 
 again was successful. The Taff Vale Company 
 adopted steam coal, with an enormous saving 
 of expense, and their example was soon followed 
 by the remaining railway companies of South 
 Wales. 
 
 It was soon to spread elsewhere ; indeed, it 
 must have spread ; but it was accident, com- 
 bined with a readiness to seize opportunity, that 
 brought to Mr. Nixon as customers the first 
 great English railway company. Through mere 
 chance he travelled down from London to South 
 Wales in the company of some directors and 
 the manager of the West Midland, then recently 
 constructed. Their conversation soon revealed 
 that they were going down to South Wales on 
 a journey of discovery, with the object of seeing 
 whether Welsh coke could be obtained in suffi- 
 cient quantities for it to be worth their while 
 to attempt to develop the traffic in it. In that 
 conversation Mr. Nixon, as a man who knew 
 all that was worth knowing about the coal
 
 2 24 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 trade in South Wales, joined. He informed 
 the strangers that little coke was produced in 
 Wales, and that, as a coke-making coal, Welsh 
 coal was inferior to that of the North of England, 
 since more Welsh coal went to the manufacture 
 of less coke. But, he observed, Aberdare coal 
 could be used with advantage in locomotive 
 engines, and the strangers were astonished. It 
 w^as extraordinary, they said, if this were in- 
 deed so, that Welsh coal had not been turned 
 to this use before. In a word, they doubted 
 him, and challenged him to prove his assertion. 
 But he, nothing daunted, offered to supply them 
 with a truck of coal, and a man to explain its 
 use, with the final result that Welsh coal came 
 into regular use, not only on the West Mid- 
 land, but on the Midland system also. 
 
 As the inland trade developed, the necessity 
 for rousing the railway companies to action as 
 carriers of coal naturally increased, and Mr. 
 Nixon took a leading part in the process of 
 arousing them. Let us follow his proceedings 
 in relation to the Great Western Railway. 
 " He made it his business" — when he did so, he 
 had a way of carrying his point — to call upon 
 Mr. Saunders, then the general manager of the 
 company. He pointed out to Mr. Saunders
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 225 
 
 that Welsh coal had been proved to demon- 
 stration to be the best coal for steam purposes 
 that was produced in Great Britain. The de- 
 mand for it was increasing daily, and a great 
 quantity was sent to London by sea. Coal 
 from the North of England was transported to 
 London not only by sea, but also by rail, at 
 a rate of one halfpenny per ton per mile or 
 thereabouts. There was, he argued, no reason 
 why the Great Western should not treat the 
 coal owners and merchants of South Wales as 
 generously as the coal owners and merchants of 
 the North were treated by the railways which 
 served them. Assuming proper facilities, the 
 traffic in coal upon the Great Western line 
 would be very great. Mr. Saunders, however, 
 was not dazzled by the golden prospect, and 
 his answer was, from our modern point of view, 
 astonishing. "Our line," he said in effect, "is 
 a passenger line of the first quality. We run 
 at great speed, and we keep our line in the 
 best of order, so that we may be able to main- 
 tain these fast passenger trains. The Great 
 Western Railway Company is in no need of 
 coal traffic ; it would rather be without it ; we 
 will certainly not reduce our rates to encourage 
 the traffic which you foretell."
 
 226 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 To-day that answer seems to have been childish 
 and almost aboriginal ; even then it was behind 
 the age, for Mr. Nixon was prompt to remind 
 the general manager that the northern lines, 
 passenger lines no less than the Great Western, 
 carried coal at the halfpenny rate, and to say 
 that what could be done in the North could be 
 done in the West also. But Mr. Saunders 
 was immovable. The smooth track of the Great 
 Western should not be degraded into a mineral 
 line, and he would certainly not advise his direc- 
 tors to reduce the rates. Whereupon Mr. Nixon 
 threatened that his company would build a large 
 steamer for their London traffic, and he was 
 as good as his word, for Messrs. Cory, Nixon, 
 and Taylor did build a vessel, the William Cory, 
 of 1500 tons burthen, which plied between Cardiff 
 and London in the coal trade for many years. 
 
 But the Great Western Railway had by no 
 means seen or heard the last of Mr. Nixon. In 
 1863 we find him as a leader among the colliery 
 proprietors complaining that upon receiving a 
 train of laden trucks, all destined for one port of 
 shipment — say Birkenhead — the railway company 
 would split up the train and divide it between 
 many luggage trains. From this senseless pro- 
 ceeding as a matter of course followed endless
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 227 
 
 delay and inconvenience, and it was owing to 
 Mr. Nixon's tireless persistency that it was done 
 away with. With the improved system of de- 
 spatching the trains directly from the colliery to 
 the port of shipment there was great gain in 
 the way of expedition, and a more ready market 
 was consequently obtained. 
 
 Yet again the Great Western encountered Mr. 
 Nixon as an opponent and a teacher. The Vale 
 of Neath Railway, built on Brunei's broad-gauge 
 system, found itself in difficulties, owing to the 
 increasing competition of the Taff, and the Great 
 Western Railway Company desired to acquire the 
 line. To secure this end Parliamentary sanction 
 was necessary; but Mr. Nixon opposed the Great 
 W^estern Bill strenuously, and it was thrown out. 
 In the following session it was brought forward 
 again, and there was no opposition from Mr. 
 Nixon. But his silence had been bought at a 
 price which must have wrung the very hearts of 
 the stiff-necked authorities of the line in those 
 days. By negotiations with Mr. Potter, the 
 then chairman, and by bringing about meetings 
 between leading men in the South Wales coal 
 trade and the Great Western directors, Mr. 
 Nixon had succeeded in carrying completely the 
 point on which he originally insisted in conver-
 
 228 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 satlon with Mr. Saunders. The great railway 
 company, which scornfully declined to lower its 
 rates for coal traffic, which asserted that it would 
 prefer not to sully its track and derange its rails 
 by carrying coals, actually undertook to reduce 
 its rates between London and Cardifif to the level 
 which prevailed on the railways of the North and 
 the Midlands. It was a great victory, and no less 
 beneficial to the vanquished than to the victors, 
 for, in after years, Mr. Potter personally informed 
 Mr. Nixon that the coal traffic between South 
 Wales and Birkenhead and London had saved 
 the Great Western from something near akin to 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 It needs hardly to be added that this great 
 railway company is now, and has for years been, 
 in more enlightened hands — has indeed lately 
 shown itself a pioneer in reforms aiming for the 
 public benefit. Nothing would be easier in the 
 way of mistakes than to pass too harsh a judg- 
 ment upon the railway administration of the days 
 when railways were young ; and when we go over 
 in our minds the long list of the wealthy railway 
 corporations of to-day, we must never forget that 
 in the past many of them passed through periods 
 of critical anxiety. To the end, Mr. Nixon well 
 remembered the time when the chairman of the
 
 RAILWAYS, " RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 229 
 
 Taff Vale Company, which afterwards attained 
 great prosperity, seriously proposed that the 
 whole plant and property of the company should 
 be offered to its creditors in liquidation of their 
 claims, and when the interests of the shareholders 
 were saved only by the public spirit of the direc- 
 tors, who pledged their personal credit to secure 
 a large advance from the bankers. At about the 
 same time the Bute Docks were in such diffi- 
 culties that the then Lord Bute offered to sell 
 them for a guaranteed interest of 3 per cent, 
 upon the outlay. In a word, men's ideas had not 
 yet widened sufficiently to realise the certainty of 
 the future prosperity of South Wales, and the 
 Canal was the only flourishing property among 
 the carrying companies. Many forces, quite in- 
 dependent of Mr. Nixon, were at work to make 
 the great future which we now see, and the 
 greater future which is to come. Among these 
 the shrewd foresight of Mr. Nixon, and his well- 
 grounded confidence in the rich field of trade 
 which South Wales ofi'ered, his insistence on the 
 development of the best methods, and his cease- 
 less energy in pushing the coal trade and opening 
 new markets, may be reckoned as having been 
 distinctly influential for good. 
 
 When Mr. Nixon was well stricken in years, his
 
 230 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 great intellect was still remarkably acute, and 
 wise men of the younger generation were prone 
 to seek his advice upon matters relating to the 
 interests of the coal trade as a whole. Particu- 
 larly interesting was it to consider some of the 
 coal owners' schemes of to-day, schemes for making 
 a new heaven and a new earth — for coal owners 
 and colliers only — in the light of his experience. 
 We hear much in these days of the crying 
 necessity for regulation and restriction of out- 
 put, the result of which, we are told, would be 
 that the collier would receive good wages and 
 something more for moderate work and something 
 less, while the coal owners would receive fair 
 prices for their products. Many prophecies are 
 made of halcyon days to come, when the demon 
 of competition shall be exorcised, and employer 
 and workman shall lie down together with never 
 a quarrel from year's end to year's end. To the 
 outside observer it would seem that such schemes 
 are not feasible, inasmuch as they run counter 
 to sundry strong instincts of human nature, and 
 also to certain well-known laws of trade. These 
 are laws not made by man, but formulated as 
 the result of observation, which shows that when 
 certain errors or miscalculations are made, certain 
 commercial calamities follow. In other words,
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 231 
 
 the rules of political economy are natural and 
 irresistible, not human and alterable. There is 
 however, a modern school of men who profess 
 to have banished political economy to Saturn, 
 though, if the rumours of the high intellectual 
 attainments of the supposed inhabitants of Mars 
 have substance in them, the despised science is 
 far more likely to have taken refuge in the last- 
 named planet. Again, it is painfully clear that 
 the new heaven and earth for the producers of 
 coal, capitalists and workmen, would involve 
 something remarkably dissimilar to heaven for 
 the unhappy consumer. In these circumstances 
 it is consoling to learn that long experience 
 taught Mr. Nixon, almost worthy to be called the 
 father of the export of coal, the chimerical nature 
 of schemes of this kind ; and, since the public 
 has recently been subject to a serious menace 
 of the kind, Mr. Nixon's experience is well 
 worthy to be recorded for two reasons. For 
 that experience has a double value : it teaches 
 us what can be done and what cannot be done ; 
 it teaches us that what can be done is to the 
 benefit of the community, while that which is 
 impracticable would, if it were practicable, be 
 contrary to public policy. 
 
 Fluctuations in prices, rapid and great, are the
 
 232 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 primary evil, and the worst effect of that evil 
 influence is that it tends to produce numerous 
 disputes between masters and workmen. With 
 rising prices workmen, following the proper am- 
 bition of every man to do the best he can for 
 himself, demand advances of wages ; with falling 
 prices employers insist, sometimes prematurely, 
 sometimes opportunely, sometimes too late, upon 
 reductions of wages. In the industrial community 
 of normal organisation, neither the advances nor 
 the reductions come without a struggle, which 
 involves, in most cases, cessation of work, and 
 in all cases some bitterness of feeling. These 
 fluctuations were worse in the South Wales of 
 the fifties and sixties than they are now ; for 
 then the producers had to rely for transport, or 
 did rely, principally upon sailing-vessels, which 
 were, in the nature of things, uncertain in their 
 coming and going. For the difficulties and the 
 quarrels which ensued, Mr. Nixon, with other 
 coal owners, sought a remedy ; and the first 
 remedy suggested was that which is now boasted 
 as novel, but is really as old as trade itself, the 
 regulation or the restriction of the vend or output 
 of each colliery. The scheme had a superficial 
 fascination, but it depended on several fallacies, 
 which must have caused it to break down in 
 
 i
 
 RAILWAYS, " RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 233 
 
 the end, and it was founded also upon a disregard 
 of human instincts, which did break it down in 
 the beginning. 
 
 Undoubtedly there are circumstances under 
 which restriction of output or vend may be used 
 to keep up prices at an artificial level. To deny 
 that were absurd in the face of the fact, which 
 is notorious, that the authorities of the diamond 
 mines which are incomparably the greatest in 
 the world, do in fact keep back a very large 
 proportion of the diamonds produced from their 
 mines. But it must be remembered that they 
 have virtually no rivals, and it must be remem- 
 bered that the demand for diamonds, depending 
 for the most part on the desire of man to gratify 
 woman (which is a very ancient and imperious 
 and ineradicable desire), is permanent and abid- 
 ing. Sometimes the world is richer than at other 
 times, and can buy more diamonds ; but it would 
 not in the least affect the material welfare of 
 civilisation if no diamonds could be bought at 
 all. The case is far otherwise when many com- 
 peting traders attempt to rig the market and 
 to form a ring in relation to the price of a 
 product which is the vital force and the source 
 of power in almost every industry. The demand 
 is by no means permanent and abiding, and it
 
 234 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 must and does fall at the moment when prices 
 become artificial, as they may for a time. Dear 
 coal, when coal has no right to be dear, means 
 stoppage of other industries and reduced demand 
 for coal : this is an elementary fact which some 
 self-seeking visionaries would be well advised 
 to take into consideration. It cannot, however, 
 be said that Mr. Nixon and his friends did take 
 it into consideration until they had been taught 
 by experience. Still it is something to the credit 
 of Mr. Nixon that he submitted to the lesson of 
 experience, and that he became in due course a 
 strong opponent of the ring system. 
 
 He and other colliery proprietors of South 
 Wales fought, and fought hard, to establish 
 control of output or vend. They had many 
 meetings. Finally, an independent engineer was 
 appointed to inquire into the capacity of each 
 colliery, and into the circumstances affecting the 
 power of output of each colliery, with the object 
 of assigning to each colliery a maximum output, 
 and so adjusting the supply to the demand. 
 There is no doubt that the coal owners were 
 earnestly desirous of arriving at agreement 
 in the matter ; but the result was precisely 
 what might have been expected. "When the 
 engineer's Report was presented to the em-
 
 RAILWAYS, " RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 235 
 
 ployers, embodying his views of what should 
 be worked by each colliery or set of collieries, 
 such dissension was created among them that 
 the scheme was abandoned, and each one allowed 
 to ' gang his own gait ' and sell his coal as 
 best he mieht." Of course there was dissension, 
 and, to be plain, it is well that it came in the 
 beginning, for it must surely have come very 
 soon. Moreover, if the rule that a contract in 
 restraint of trade shall not be enforceable means 
 anything at all, it is difficult to see how the 
 first man breaking away from the agreement, 
 if it had ever been entered upon, could have 
 been proceeded against with success. He might 
 have snapped his fingers at his colleagues, and 
 have made his fortune with impunity. 
 
 The next scheme, which took the form of a 
 society or association of which Mr. Nixon was 
 president, had for its object the periodical fixing 
 by agreement among the coal owners of a mini- 
 mum price for coal. This expedient has been 
 tried in many trades with the same result in 
 every case. That is to say, the mean man 
 breaks away, makes his own bargain, and leaves 
 his comrades out in the cold. It happened, 
 as a matter of course, and in rather an amusing 
 form, in the case of Mr. Nixon's society. Com-
 
 236 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 plaints reached him that one of the members 
 had quoted a price below that which had been 
 fixed by the associated coal owners, and he was 
 asked to call a meeting to consider this gentle- 
 man's conduct. Prudent in this matter as in 
 all others, but resolved to be firm when he had 
 the opportunity of exposing the traitor, he de- 
 clined to call the meeting until he was placed 
 in the possession of incontrovertible evidence. 
 It was forthcoming eventually in the form of a 
 letter written by the accused man. Long after, 
 when the affair was many years old, it was interest- 
 ing to hear Mr. Nixon recount the story of the 
 exposure of the underhanded coal owner, before 
 his brethren, in full meeting assembled. Mr. 
 Nixon himself undertook the duty of cross- 
 examination, and very effectively he performed it, 
 until at last he forced a full admission from the 
 shame-faced culprit. This person's excuse was de- 
 licious. Having been engaged in another walk of 
 life before he "commenced coal owner," he cried 
 out at last, " It is always done in the flour trade." 
 It is done in every trade whenever agreement 
 on prices is attempted, from the humble coster- 
 monger's trade to that of the princes of commerce, 
 and the ex-flour-merchant's condemnation was the 
 end of that futile experiment.
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 237 
 
 These experiences were not lost upon Mr. 
 Nixon, and the best fruit of them is to be found 
 in the readiness with which he lent himself to 
 the support of the sliding-scale system in South 
 Wales and Monmouthshire. Of that system it 
 may be written without any hesitation at all, that, 
 taken with its surroundings, it has for more than 
 twenty years emphatically proved itself to be the 
 most effectual device for avoiding friction between 
 workmen and their employers that has ever existed 
 in this country, and that it has worked steadily, and 
 without serious interruption, to the mutual benefit 
 of employers and workmen. The real inventor 
 of that system, the man who, after six months 
 spent in thoughtful calculation, produced the 
 scheme which for so many years gave to South 
 Wales and Monmouthshire practical immunity 
 from labour troubles, was Sir William Thomas 
 Lewis, whose services to the South Wales have 
 been twice and justly recognised by the Sove- 
 reign. But he would, however, be the first to 
 protest that, if the idea was his (as it certainly 
 was), his success in launching and establish- 
 ing it was due in large measure to the support 
 which he received from Mr. Nixon ; for, by 
 the time the sliding-scale was introduced, Mr. 
 Nixon was the recognised leader of the coal
 
 238 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 owners, and chairman of the Coal Owners' 
 Association. 
 
 This sliding-scale system, as established in 
 South Wales, is so important a matter, and the 
 various circumstances which make for its strength 
 are so little understood by the public at large, that 
 a few words may wisely be devoted to an explana- 
 tion of its principles. In devising his scheme, 
 Sir William Lewis decided to adopt the wages or 
 rates paid in the various collieries in a particular 
 year as a standard. Observe those words, " in 
 the various collieries." Different rates, deter- 
 mined by various circumstances, such as the ease 
 or difficulty with which coal is won, prevailed in 
 1879, and still prevail in different collieries. But 
 in each colliery, under the old system, disputes 
 were liable to occur whenever prices rose and 
 men demanded increased rates, or prices fell and 
 employers declared a reduction of rates to be 
 necessary. Now attempts, as we have seen, had 
 been made to control the fluctuations of prices. 
 We have seen also that these attempts always 
 failed, and sometimes failed ludicrously. The first 
 great merit of Sir William Lewis's design was 
 that, perceiving the futility of all attempts to 
 regulate prices or to eliminate fluctuations, he 
 saw that it might be possible to formulate a
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 239 
 
 scheme which would meet fluctuations of prices 
 automatically, without interrupting the relations 
 between employer and workman. Allowing a 
 certain standard, he enunciated in a definite form 
 the principle that wages ought to rise and fall 
 in proportion to prices. After long deliberation 
 upon the proportion of wages to prices through- 
 out the South Wales coal field, he determined 
 upon the percentage by which wages ought 
 justly to rise and fall, whenever, over a given 
 period, the price of Welsh coal, free-on-board at 
 Cardiff, Swansea, or Newport, rose or fell by the 
 amount of one shilling or more. 
 
 The period first fixed upon was six months. 
 It has since been shortened, but the principle 
 (even after the recent and disastrous conflict) 
 remains the same. A joint-committee of men and 
 masters, each equally represented, and each sec- 
 tion elective and representative, was appointed to 
 administer the affairs of the sliding-scale arrange- 
 ment. The committee-men on either side are, 
 of course, elected periodically, and the agreement 
 which binds both parties is subject to six months' 
 notice. Such notice has frequently been given, 
 and there have often been disputes upon the 
 question of percentage and upon the periods be- 
 tween times of audit. But a provision for six
 
 240 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 months' notice leaves ample time for negotiation 
 and repentance, and, after many notices given, 
 the sliding-scale survives up to the moment of 
 writing. That it survives to the benefit of the 
 men there can be no question, for the records 
 plainly show that, apart from the great gain of 
 having constant employment when other miners 
 were wasting their time on strike, the miners of 
 South Wales and Monmouthshire have for many 
 years and consistently enjoyed more regular 
 work and have earned better wages than the 
 miners in any other part of the country. That 
 it survives to the benefit of Trade Unionists it 
 would be wrong to assert. It is indeed bitterly 
 opposed by the Trade Unionists, who, for a very 
 long time, obtained scarcely any footing in South 
 Wales. Nor was the reason far to seek. The 
 men found that, without the trouble of contribut- 
 ing to Trade Unions, they obtained all, and more 
 than all, that Trade Unions could promise them ; 
 that is to say, good wages, constant employment, 
 better "benefits" than a Trade Union could 
 promise them, and an absolute certainty of re- 
 ceiving those benefits. There are some persons, 
 no doubt, in whose judgment Trade Unionism is 
 itself an end, to whom an industrial community 
 indifferent to Trade Unionism seems to be living
 
 RAILWAYS, "RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 241 
 
 in outer darkness. The present writer, indeed, 
 yields to none in recognition of the valuable work 
 that Trade Unions have done in enabling work- 
 men to negotiate with employers on equal terms. 
 But it does not follow that he is prepared to lift 
 up his voice and weep because Trade Unionism 
 is weak in a district where, as a plain matter of 
 fact, it is not wanted, and does nothing but 
 mischief. 
 
 Standing alone, the sliding-scale system might 
 not perhaps have been permanent. Much must 
 in any event have depended upon the states- 
 manship and self-restraint of the leading men 
 on either side of the joint-committee. In this 
 respect acquaintance with both sides and with 
 the history of the committee justifies the writer 
 in saying that both masters and men have been 
 excellently well served for these many years. 
 But the wisest statesmanship on the part of 
 members of the joint-committee would hardly 
 have served to keep the peace for so many years 
 if other influences had not been at work. First 
 amongst these may be placed the Miners' Per- 
 manent Provident Fund, founded by Sir William 
 Thomas Lewis, to which Mr. Nixon was, in 
 the course of his great career as a coal owner, 
 necessarily a very large contributor. Of that 
 
 Q
 
 242 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 fund, which provides various benefits, the men 
 provide 75 per cent, of the funds roughly, and 
 the masters 25 per cent. This fund, which 
 pays in every case and never provokes Htiga- 
 tion, is almost entirely in the control of the 
 representatives of the men, and its existence 
 does away with the necessity for a Trade 
 Union regarded as wholly or partially a benefit 
 society. 
 
 But a very potent factor remains in the Mon- 
 mouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners' Asso- 
 ciation, of which Mr. Nixon was for many 
 years the chairman. Without undue revelation 
 it may be said that this association is, and is 
 known to be, very wealthy and powerful. It 
 works, so to speak, on parallel lines with the 
 sliding-scale which regulates the payments in 
 the various collieries. It renders the long con- 
 tinuance of a strike or lock-out in any associated 
 colliery practically impossible. If the men cease 
 from work, the employer reports the matter to 
 the committee of the association. They pro- 
 nounce an opinion favourable or unfavourable to 
 him. If it be favourable, he is indemnified 
 against loss of profits during the strike, and 
 becomes irresistible from the men's point of 
 view ; if it be unfavourable, he is not indem-
 
 RAILWAYS, " RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 243 
 
 nified, and his defeat becomes a matter of 
 certainty. 
 
 I regard the strong support which was constantly 
 given to the sliding-scale system by Mr. Nixon 
 as one of the wisest courses of poHcy pursued by 
 that sagacious man in the course of his long life ; 
 and with the account that has been given of that 
 system, sufficiently to enable its principles to be 
 visible, but without overloading of statistical 
 detail, this volume may well draw to a close. 
 Other matters might have been mentioned. 
 Something, for example, might have been written 
 of his success in inducing the British Admiralty 
 to adopt Welsh coal, a success achieved on the 
 strength of elaborate experiments made at Cardiff, 
 and in spite of great pressure brought to bear 
 upon the Government in the interests of North 
 Country coal owners. Mention might also have 
 been made of his activity in promoting new 
 railways and independent dock accommodation. 
 Thus he was one of the first directors of the 
 Rhymney Railway, which brings the Rhymney 
 Valley and the port of Cardiff into direct com- 
 munication, and the initiator of the Penarth 
 Dock and Harbour, of which he was an original 
 director, and is still the largest shareholder. 
 Again, as representative of South Wales on
 
 244 MEMOIR OF JOHN NIXON 
 
 the Mining Association of Great Britain, he 
 was an assiduous attendant of meetings, and 
 his strong influence has been felt in much of 
 the legislation for the improvement of the 
 working of collieries. All these things, how- 
 ever, are but additional examples of the success 
 which he achieved, and illustrations of a char- 
 acter which, be it hoped, stands out in clear 
 lines on these pages. Pleasant also would it 
 have been, from the human point of view, to 
 recount, side by side with the story of John 
 Nixon's rise to great place, but not by a wind- 
 ing-stair, the incidents of his happy married 
 life ; but with all regard to the kindly and 
 accomplished lady who has been the cause of 
 that happiness, to discourse on that matter 
 would hardly have been to the purpose. What 
 are the talents, what are the methods of busi- 
 ness, what are the principles of life which carry 
 a man of comparatively humble origin to a 
 high place in the world of industry and com- 
 merce? The answers to these questions are 
 illustrated in Mr. Nixon's life ; and if I have 
 not named every great achievement of his life, 
 every railway that he built, every pit that he 
 sunk, every struggle that he fought, I shall still 
 have succeeded beyond my hope if I have
 
 RAILWAYS, " RINGS," SLIDING SCALE 245 
 
 made it plain that the "firmness and fairness" 
 which Mr. Nixon declared to be the great rule 
 of success in life, were no less useful than his 
 brilliant ability and his shrewd foresight in 
 raising him to great fortune. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ballantvne, Hanson iSr' Co- 
 Edinburgh 67^ London
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
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 A7N6T Jolm Nixon 
 
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 UCLA-Young Research Library 
 
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