William Lewis, 1st Baron Merthyr

He was educated at a local school run by Taliesin Williams until the age of thirteen when he was apprenticed to his father as an engineer.

In 1855 Lewis was appointed as an assistant to W. S. Clark, the chief mining engineer of John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute (1847–1890).

[3] Lewis's supporters also countered these claims by publishing old correspondence, including a letter by the late Thomas Price which refuted the accusations.

[5] Lewis defeated the Liberal candidate, a local Methodist minister, Richard Morgan, and was immediately made an alderman.

Lewis was created a Baronet, of Nantgwyne, in 1896,[6] and in 1911 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Merthyr, of Senghenydd in the County of Glamorgan.

Following a failure to implement a safety plan in early 1913, an explosion in the mine on 14 October of that year killed 439 miners and one rescuer.