The eighteenth and nineteenth century was a time of great excitement, the days of people like Stephenson, Telford, Brunel and Trevithick. A time of rapid change in transport from horse and cart to canals then to railways. The Industrial Revolution.
In 1801 Merthyr was the largest town in Wales with a population of nearly 8,000. Fifty years later that had grown to 46,000. It was the most important iron producing town in the UK and specialised in manufacturing rails for railway companies all over the world.