Editing Bargoed (section)

==History==
[[File:Bargoed Town Hall - geograph.org.uk - 5839226.jpg|thumb|left|[[Bargoed Town Hall]]]]
Originally a [[market town]], Bargoed grew into a substantial town following the opening of a [[colliery]] in 1903. [[Bargoed Town Hall]] was originally a courthouse, completed in 1911.<ref>{{cite news |title=Bargoed court house reopens as town hall |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-28067664 |access-date=3 December 2024 |work=BBC News |date=28 June 2014}}</ref> By 1921 Bargoed had a population of 17,901; this has been steadily declining since that time, as the general demand for Welsh coal continued to fall. The colliery, which was the subject of a painting by [[L. S. Lowry]], closed during the 1970s, and its former site is now a [[country park]].

[[File:Austin Toy Cars (Factory), Pengam, Bargoed (19363299009).jpg|thumb|220px|upright|Austin Motor Company [[Quadracycle|pedal cars]] being made at Bargoed.]]
The town was home to a factory built by the [[Austin Motor Company]] from 1949. This was a project by Austin chairman [[Leonard Lord]], with government funding, to employ miners suffering from [[pneumoconiosis]], a lung disease caused by prolonged inhalation of dust. In 1945 it was estimated that 5000 miners in the South Wales region were affected by the condition to the extent that they could not work in the coal industry. The Austin factory at Bargoed became the first factory in the world where every employee was registered as disabled.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} Ex-miners could work at Bargoed under full-time medical supervision and with medical facilities on-site at the factory. The factory work was understandably light, with the main product being the [[Austin J40]] children's [[Quadracycle|pedal car]]. The success and efficiency of the factory was such that 150 men were employed by 1953 and Austin began the manufacture of small metal pressings for its full-size cars, such as dashboard parts, car registration plates and [[rocker cover]]s at Bargoed. By 1965 over 500 men, all pneumoconiosis sufferers, were working at the factory. Production of the J40 pedal cars ended in 1971 but the factory's other work kept it open. Improving conditions in the mining industry and the slow reduction in the number of mines and workers in the region meant that the factory's purpose began to become redundant during the 1980s. The numbers employed slowly dropped and new workers did not have to be pneumoconiosis sufferers. The end of production of the [[BMC A-Series engine|Austin A-Series]] engine in 1999, the rocker cover of which was made solely in Bargoed, meant that the factory (then under the ownership of the [[Rover Group]]) employing 45 people, of which only 11 were registered as disabled, closed.<ref>{{cite book |title=Austin Pedal Cars |first=David |last=Whyley |year=1999 |publisher=Arthur Southern |isbn=9-780-946-2653-12 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.austinmemories.com/styled-25/index.html |title=J40 Toy Car |website=Austin Memories |access-date=7 November 2017 }}</ref>