Thomas Bowen was an industrialist who worked the Llanelli coalfield and later re-opened many pits that had originally been mined by another local man, John Allen, who married Mary Stepney around 1744.

Between 1748 and 1752 Bowen leased coal in the Bynea area, under land belonging to Sir Thomas Stepney, 7th Baronet, and other land that had belonged to the Vaughan family. Bowen started mining operations shortly after being granted coal leases and was shipping coal by 1752.

He worked coal seams in the Pencoed and Ffosfach areas of Bynea using a water engine, but was forced to abandon some sinkings because of flooding.

Coal that was mined at Bowen’s pit was carried by waggon to a ‘shipping place’ or quay that he had constructed near the main channel of the River Llwchwr at Ffosfach. The coal would be off-loaded at the shipping place and then loaded on to small sailing vessels, probably keels, which would then carry coal to larger ships which would be anchored off Penclawdd. These ships would have sailed in with the tide and anchored in deep water until the coal could be carried from the shipping place.

Bowen mined coal throughout the Llanelli area from around 1750 to 1782 and gained a wide experience and knowledge of the Llanelli coalfield.

After 1794, when Thomas Bowen and his widowed daughter Margaret Griffith formed a partnership with William Roderick, they re-opened and worked a number of John Allen’s old collieries. There is no doubt that when William Roderick approached Bowen and persuaded him to form a partnership, he was well aware of Bowen’s knowledge and expertise, which he utilised to the full. Roderick obviously used the 79-year-old Bowen’s experience when restarting mining operations in the Bres/Wern area.

Thomas Bowen died at Llanelli on 7 May 1809 aged 94, having been associated with Llanelli’s coal industry for over 60 years. His knowledge and experience of the Llanelli coalfield was second to none and he was an important link between the first industrialists, Henry Squire, David Evans, John Beynon, Chauncey Townsend and John Smith, from Swansea, who came to Llanelli around 1750 and the new wave of English industrialists, including Charles Nevill and Richard Janion Nevill, Alexander Raby, General Warde, and the Pembertons who arrived nearly half a century later.

Margaret Bowen (Thomas Bowen’s daughter, married twice: firstly on 8th June 1780 to Evan Griffith Esq; and secondly on 20th November 1805 to Henry Eaton of Llanelly, a widower. Margaret was also a widow. Margaret Eaton of Penyfan, Llanelly, died on 16th April 1830 at the age of 69.