100 YEARS AGO: Death as furnace collapses

FATALITY AT EBBW VALE AFTER FURNACE COLLAPSE

WHILE repairing one of the furnaces of the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Company on Sunday morning, James Compton of Crickhowell was killed and two other men injured.

The men were working inside the furnace when the brickwork linine on the top collapsed and fell in, burying the men.

Compton, who was first brought out, was found to be dead, while another man named Bowen Lewis had a miraculous escape, and apart from severe shock - was not greatly injured.

Compton was a married man, and much sympathy is felt for his relatives.

TREDEGAR MEN ARE JAILED AFTER HUNDREDS OF POUNDS STOLEN

REMARKABLE thefts have been carried out by five New Tredegar men.

They were discovered at the Tredegar Police Court on Tuesday.

The prisoners were: Percival Theodore Wilcox (21), Arthur Stanley Wilcox (24), Trevor Alexander Wilcox (17), Isaac John Williams (24), and Arthur Richards (25).

They had to answer charges of theft, including: breaking and entering four stations on the Rhymney Railway, four stations on the Brecon and Merthyr Railway, and Blackwood and Markhaus stations, with similar offences at New Tredegar Empire, at a New Tredegar jewellers, where 60 metal watches were taken, breaking and entering a Borgeod outfitters shop, where goods of £223 were taken.

REVOLVERS MISSED

IN THE case of the New Tredegar Empire, the value of the goods was £60. The place was forcibly entered, and the baskets belonging to the artistes were opened.

The goods purloined included two revolvers and articles of clothing.

At Bargoed, where the loss from an outfitters was put at £223, a large number of suits were missed.

Mr J.T. Bishop, on behalf of the London and North Western Railway Company, said if the company had known that the robberies had been so extensive, they would have asked for them to be committed for trial.

Mr J.Evans, Bargoed who defended the brothers, asked for leniency, saying they had been in the Army.