Newport, Wales and was the largest masonry dock in the world. Although coal exports from Newport were by now modest compared to the Port of Cardiff (which included Cardiff, Penarth and Barry), Newport was the place where the Miners' Federation of Great Britain was founded in 1889, and international trade was sufficiently large for 8 consuls and 14 vice-consuls to be based in the town. In 1898 Lysaght's Orb Works opened and by 1901 employed 3,000 staff. Urban expansion took in Pillgwenlly and Lliswerry to the south; this eventually necessitated a new crossing of the River Usk, which was provided by the
Coal industry in Wales Coalfield extends from near Caergwrle in the north, to Wrexham, Ruabon, Rhosllannerchrugog and Chirk in the south, a small part extending into Shropshire in the Oswestry area. Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel in the earth's crust and has a long history of being exploited. Archaeological evidence shows that it was burned in funeral pyres in Wales during the Bronze Age and cinders have been found in Roman settlements in Britain. Originally the coal would have come from outcropping coal seams, and from lumps of sea coal gathered from the foreshore. By the seventeenth century, coal was being dug