John James Hughes, born in 1814 in Merthyr Tydfil, was the son of the chief engineer at the Cyfartha Iron Works. He began his career at the ironworks before moving on to the Uskside Foundry in Newport, Monmouthshire, during the 1840s. At Uskside, Hughes patented several inventions related to armor plating and armaments. By the age of 28, he had made his fortune and acquired a shipyard. By 36, he owned his own foundry in Newport. Hughes married Elizabeth Lewis, and together they had eight children—two daughters and six sons.

In the 1850s, Hughes relocated to London, where he became the manager of C.J. Mare’s rolling mills. This company was eventually absorbed by the Millwall Iron Works & Shipbuilding Company, part of the Millwall Iron Works, Shipbuilding, and Graving Docks Company. Hughes was promoted to director of the company, which produced iron cladding for wooden warships commissioned by the British Admiralty. He also designed cannon carriages for the Royal Navy. Hughes’s expertise led to a contract with the Russian government to supply materials to a naval base on the Baltic Sea.

In 1870, Hughes founded the New Russia Company and sailed to Russia with eight ships loaded with equipment and a team of 100 skilled miners and metalworkers from South Wales. At the request of the Russian government, he established an ironworks foundry, which spurred the growth of a settlement that became known as Hughesovka (later Yuzovka). Hughes contributed significantly to the town’s development by providing essential services such as a hospital, schools, bathhouses, tea rooms, a fire brigade, and an Anglican church. The town eventually grew to a population exceeding one million.

Throughout the 1870s, Hughes established collieries, iron ore mines, brickworks, and other facilities, making the industrial complex self-sufficient. He also constructed a factory for producing railway lines. All of Hughes’s enterprises were managed under the “Novorussian Society for Coal, Iron, and Rails Production.”

Hughesovka was established around metalworking – this is a photo from the 1890s obtained from the Glamorgan archives.

Hughes’ works became the largest industrial enterprise in the Russian Empire, accounting for 74% of all Russian iron production by 1913. The company prospered during World War I, and by 1914, the town of Hughesovka had expanded to include four metallurgical plants and ten coal mines. Many of the men who originally traveled to Russia with John Hughes decided to settle in Hughesovka, bringing their wives and families. The company trained its Russian workforce, while skilled workers from the United Kingdom, particularly from Wales, continued to be employed in technical, engineering, and managerial roles.

British, and especially Welsh, expatriates held many key positions in the company, and their families remained in Hughesovka for several years. However, the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 led to the downfall of the Hughes company, forcing many British employees to return to the UK. Despite this, some families chose to stay, and their descendants still live in what is now known as the Donetsk People’s Republic. The Hughes works endured, and the region along the Russia-Ukraine border continues to be a significant industrial hub, now boasting more than 40 coal mine pits.

Sadly, Hughes passed away in St. Petersburg in 1889.

His legacy endures in Donetsk, where a statue in his honor was unveiled in 2001 at the campus of Donetsk Technical University.