The banner of Tower Lodge NUM

After the 1831 Merthyr Rising, which ended with the hanging of the martyr Dick Penderyn, the iron workers and miners from Merthyr marched over Hirwaun Common on land now owned by the Tower workers and dipped a white flag in the blood of a calf, to become the red flag, and marched back to Marthyr in defiance of the Crawshey family. Their cry was “Cheese with our bread” and “Reform, reform, reform” in Welsh. In 1861 Crawshey built a tower on the mountain above the then Goitre colliery and filled it with soldiers and cannon. New owners subsequently changed the name of the pit to Tower after the Crawshey tower and so it has remained up to an including the famous workers’ buyout in 1995. The deep pit closed in 2008.

Tower Lodge was part of South Wales Area of the NUM.

Probably made by the Co-operative Art Service between 1953 and 1956. 230 cm wide and 218 high.

Thanks to Wayne Thomas, South Wales Area NUM, and Tyrone O’Sullivan, Tower Lodge NUM.

Any further information about this banner would be appreciated.

Banner image copyright South Wales Area N.U.M.

A minimum of 10p of the price of this card is donated to the South Wales Area Miners’ Benevolent Fund, Registered Charity number 500118.

Photography Martin Shakeshaft. www.strike84.co.uk