WJEC History DWR Practice Test

The question is about the scale of coal mining in Wales before the Depression. Wales relied heavily on coal, with many pits in the South Wales Valleys supporting a large workforce and shaping entire communities. A figure around 250,000 miners being employed captures the substantial size of the industry in Wales prior to the economic downturn, which helps explain why the impact of falling demand and prices was so severe for Welsh communities.

If you see other numbers, they don’t fit the historical scale of Wales’ mining industry. Half a million would be unusually high for Wales alone, while 150,000 or 100,000 would underestimate how extensive coal mining was there.