Swansea and Port Talbot Docks History

Cargo handling at Swansea

The following photographs show some of ther varied cargoes that have passed over the wharves at Swansea.

Loading tinplate at D Shed Wharf using 5-ton hydraulic cranes - 1920s

Empire Waimana discharging wool & general cargo from Australia at D Shed Wharf, Kings Dock, Swansea in August 1945

Loading Stanier class 8f locomotives with the static 70 ton hydraulic crane (out of shot) in Kings Dock, Swansea – 1941

Loading steel railway sleepers for export, Kings Dock, Swansea c.1940

Empire Waimana discharging wool & general cargo from Australia at D Shed Wharf, Kings Dock, Swansea in August 1945

Swansea dockers shifting boxes of tinplate for export using a Taylor 'Jumbo' mobile crane

Loading Austin 12-4 Ascot Saloon for export to Japan - 1930s

1930s - Ford Anglia and Prefect cars

1935 - Morris 8 series 1 cars

Loading leather aboard ex Liberty ship Samdak in Kings Dock, Swansea – May 1945

Loading loco from barge

1948 - Austin A40 Devon and Dorset cars

Loading Austin A40 Devon for export - 1948

Overhead gantry in A Shed, Kings Dock, Swansea shifting steel tubes for export

Swansea dockers lowering a lorry chassis into a ship's hold c.1940

Loading coal at Swansea Docks – trial use of anti-breakage sheet

Mobile crane in D Shed, Kings Dock, Swansea handing Ferguson tractors for export – 1954

Military vehicles awaiting shipment abroad marshalled on D Shed Wharf east, Kings Dock, Swansea c.1940

Discharging zinc concentrate by grab at No.4 Quay, Kings Dock, Swansea for the Imperial Smelting Works at Llansamlet c.1930

Dock Foreman Albert Palmer with 45-ton Mack truck from USA discharged from m.v. Coventry City - 1967

13 Ton propeller for aircraft carrier H M S Hermes loaded aboard the mv Tara in 1987

Loading steel coils for export – D Shed Wharf

Loading tinplate for Bombay – m.v. Jalakendra, A Shed Wharf c.1975

Discharging cotton bales from India – m.v. Jalakendra, A Shed Wharf c.1975

Receiving coal by lorry at 4 Quay Wharf for shipping

Aluminium slabs on D Shed Wharf