Dunvant started out as a small village based around the coal industry. The area between Dunvant and Gowerton was once quite heavily industrialised. with four nearby collieries Killan, Bishwell, Bryn Mawr and Dunvant. Bishwell and Bryn Mawr to the south of Gowerton were short-lived and closed in the 1870s. However, the collieries in Dunvant have a longer history. Dunvant closed again in 1914. Killan ceased operations in 1925 following the disaster of 1924 in which five men were killed. At its peak it employed 900 men. Other industry included the Penlan Brickworks and Quarry which although long since derelict is now an area of conservation and ecological diversity. Development of this part of the South Wales Coalfield was due to the proximity of the Central Wales Line, which first opened to passengers in 1867 taking people from SwanseaVictoria station via Blackpill through to Gowerton and beyond. At its peak, the railway carried up to 80 trains a day including express trains to Shrewsbury. Houses in the area sprung up in the form of ribbon development along the roads leading to the area in the early 1920s and 1930s. However, it was in the 1960s that larger housing estates appeared, creating the sub-urban area forming Dunvant today.
Governance
Dunvant had its own community council, until it was dissolved in 2006.
Education
Dunvant has two Primary Schools, Pen-y-Fro Primary situated on Priors Crescent and Dunvant School. Dunvant School opened to primary and secondary pupils in 1877 under the headship of Mr John Roach. The school replaced an earlier school in Killay. As the school expanded, the original buildings were insufficient and a number of temporary buildings were provided. The infants school originally operated from a corrugated iron building known as the Tin Shack until a new building was built in 1966 to the north of the junior school. The Tin Shack survived as part of the junior school until it was demolished in the mid 1980s. In 1969, the new Olchfa School opened and many of the staff and older pupils transferred to the new school, with buildings belonging to the Dunvant Secondary School being transferred to the junior school. Even with the new infants school and secondary school, accommodation at Dunvant became overcrowded due to the continued expansion of the large housing estates at Derlwyn and Broadmead. The overcrowding was alleviated in 1976 by the opening of the new Hendrefoilan Primary School in Killay. In 2006, Dunvant Infant and Dunvant Junior Schools merged to form Dunvant Primary School. Many of the temporary buildings on the junior school site have now been removed, and a programme of building works is under way to bring the remaining buildings up to a modern standard.
