partnership with Biddle) had arranged the shipment of 414 tons of steam coal from Waun Wyllt to London. Robert Thomas died in 1833. Lucy Thomas was granted letters of administration for the estate (having co-signed a surety bond with her son William and George Insole). From that time, Insole's payments for the coal dispatched were paid to her. Through Insole, a contract was written with Messrs Wood and Company to supply the London-based coal merchants with a quantity of 3,000 tons of coal per year. These early deals with the London markets helped establish the reputation of Welsh coal and were the basis on which Thomas became known as "the mother of the Welsh steam coal trade". Although Thomas was credited with these ventures, it is now believed that much of the success was due to Insole. The embellishment of Thomas's achievements are today attributed to Merthyr historian Charles Wilkins, who wrote an account of Thomas in 1888. Wilkins had a penchant for imaginative touches and his account gives the impression of Thomas as an enterprising woman who looked to set up new markets, whereas evidence now suggests that this work was conducted by her agents. Further research has also shown that coal had been shipped to London from Wales before either of the Thomases began extracting coal from their level, with shipments from Llanelli and Swansea being exported to the capital as early as 1824. The lease for the Waun Wyllt level was terminated in the mid-1830s and Thomas then leased the neighbouring Graig pit which also exploited the Four Foot Seam. Death and legacy In September 1847, Lucy Thomas contracted typhoid fever and died two weeks later on 27 September 1847 at her home in Abercanaid. She was buried in the family plot in the cemetery of the Unitarian chapel at Cefn-coed-y-cymmer near Merthyr. Despite the evidence available today, the myth of Lucy Thomas as "the mother of the Welsh steam coal trade" has endured, probably in part due to the image of a lone, illiterate but doughty widow engaging in a near-totally male dominated industry but also because the business did grow more than ten-fold under her hand in the fourteen years from her husband's death. A memorial fountain was erected in 1906 on the High Street of Merthyr Tydfil in commemoration of Robert and Lucy Thomas, in part funded by her granddaughter's husband, William Lewis, 1st