Work, Pay and the Local Economy

Contracts and wages reflected skill and responsibility. Notes from the period point to around 80 kopecks a day for low‑grade work and roughly 5 roubles for skilled roles (100 kopecks equalled 1 rouble). Company housing rents typically ranged from 1 to 8 roubles per month. Prices in the bazaar varied over time and with population pressure. Rees Richard, a blast‑furnace worker, wrote that “the food is extraordinary cheap”, listing “lamb for 3d per pound, Mutton and Beef 2d per pound”. Two decades later, David James complained to his sister Margaret that turkey cost “very near a shilling a pound”. Whatever the exact conversions, the direction was clear: living was becoming dearer as Hughesovka grew.

Working time was long and the conditions demanding by modern standards. One wife described her husband’s cycle of “work to bed and back to work” with barely a pause, a rhythm repeated across blast furnaces, rolling mills and pits. Yet for many Welsh workers, the combination of higher wages, steadier demand and prospects of advancement outweighed the hardships compared with the insecurity they had left behind in South Wales. The wider local economy benefited too: shops, services and small manufactories sprang up to serve a population whose livelihoods depended—directly or indirectly—on the works’ pulsing heart.