Blackstone

The settlement of Blackstone owes its origins to the Bundamba Mine on the Aberdare seam which Lewis Thomas and John Malbon Thompson operated from 1866 to about 1870.

After switching to mining at Dinmore in 1870, Thomas returned to open his first Aberdare Min in 1876 and prospered thereafter.

In 1881 the government granted him permission to build a private railway which developed by 1903 into a loop line connecting the mines from Bundamba to Redbank.

The settlement comprised little more than a few bark humpies and a Congregational Church (est. 1881) until Thomas brought out family members and a contingent of Welsh miners in 1882, for whom he provided cottages, followed by other compatriots. Despite its Welsh constituency, the place was evidently named after Blackstone in Ireland by Mrs. James Brown Orr, who was in charge of the local post office; though the place-name must also have referred to the coal seam.