Port Talbot has a long history of iron and steel production. The area first became industrialised in the late eighteenth century with the establishment of a copperworks, followed by the opening of an ironworks in 1831 and a dock in 1839, named after local landowners, the Talbot family. In the late nineteenth century, they set about creating a port and railway system to attract business away from Cardiff and Swansea and by 1900 the dock was exporting over 500,000 tons of coal, reaching a peak of over three million tons in 1923. In 1952 the completion of the Abbey Works by the Steel Company of Wales made Port Talbot the home of one of Europe's largest integrated steelworks and the largest employer in Wales. This was followed by the establishment of a chemical plant at Baglan Bay by British Petroleum in the 1960s and in 1970 a new deep-water harbour was opened. Port Talbot At Work explores the life of this South Wales town and its people, from industrialisation through to the present day. In a fascinating series of contemporary photographs and illustrations it looks at the impact that the Industrial Revolution had on the population and the consequences of rapid urbanisation, the changes in the industrial landscape during the Victorian era, the impact of war, increased global competition in the late twentieth century and Port Talbot's ongoing fight to retain its position as a major steel town as well as the plans to build world's largest biomass power station.