The Amalgamated Association of Miners (AAM) began recruiting members in the Rhondda Valley in 1870, William Brown chairing a recruitment meeting. Members in the valley were part of a largely successful strike in 1871, and early in 1872 they were placed in their own, Rhondda District. Rhondda District secretary, Williams Davies, disappeared partway through a lock out in 1875, and the AAM collapsed soon afterwards. The Rhondda District, like the other surviving Welsh districts, instead joined the Miners' National Union, and was represented by Henry Rowlands at a conference of its Monmouthshire and South Wales Council, in 1876.
