: Diwydiant a Trafnidiaeth

The first object this month is this wages book from Roath Power Station. Roath Power Station was owned by the Cardiff City Electricity Department until Nationalisation, when the Central Electricity Generating Board formed. It was situated on a site on the corner of Newport Road and Colchester Avenue, and began supplying electricity in 1902. It was essential in supplying electricity to the new fleet of electric trams that began running in Cardiff from 1902, and a Tram Depot was situated close by on Newport Road. This aerial view from the Tempest Collection shows the site in the 1950s after the construction of the two concrete cooling towers were completed in 1942.

Last year we were donated a copy of the design for the Lesbians & Gay Men Support the Miners Group badge that was produced in 1984. The events from 1984/85 were recently depicted in the film ‘Pride’. We have now been donated two of the original designs for the badge. This complements a number of objects in our collection including a 30^th anniversary badge manufactured in 2014.

Also relating to the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike we have been donated this month this ‘Cardiff Miners Support Committee’ mug. It was manufactured by the Welsh Beaker Company in about 1985. It was purchased by the donor at a benefit gig at Cardiff Students Union, whilst a student at Cardiff, to support the miners during the 1984/85 strike.

Finally we need your help to identify this lovely view of a Victorian boating lake. It was taken by the photographer J. Owen of Newtown who had won a prize for his photography at the National Eisteddfod on 1889. The lake is currently unidentified but it has been suggested it might be the lake at Llandrindod Wells, or possibly Lake Mochdre at Newtown. If anyone is able to help confirm the location we would love to hear from you.

Mark Etheridge
Curator: Industry & Transport
Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

The first object this month is this share certificate for the Ystal-Y-Fera Iron Company. This company was in operation from 1839 until 1885. The company owned the Ystalyfera iron works in the Upper Swansea Valley, as well as extensive coal and iron mining interests. The company was established in 1839 when three co-partners, Sir Thomas Branckner, Joseph James Hegan and Edward Budd acquired land in the Ystalyfera area and built a blast furnace. By 1847 the site had 11 blast furnaces, and was the largest iron works outside Merthyr Tydfil. By 1848 the works also had twelve tinplate mills, making it the largest tinplate works in the world at that time. The works later declined, and eventually closed in 1885. This certificate is made out to Joseph Hegan’s brother John, and is signed by Sir Thomas Branckner and J.P. Budd as Directors.

This badge was produced in 1991 to commemorate the closure of Penallta Colliery. The colliery was opened in 1906 by the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company. By 1931 it was one of the largest collieries in South Wales, and employed over 3,000 men. In 1935 it held the European record for coal winding. Penallta finally closed in 1991, and the last shift on the 1 November was led out by a brass band. It was the last deep mine working in the Rhymney Valley.

The black and white photograph shows Penallta Colliery on 9 April 1981, and was taken by John Cornwell.

See this page on our Images of Industry database for more objects related to Penallta Colliery.

This name plate is for a Class 37/4 locomotive No. 37429 ‘Eisteddfod Genedlaethol’. The original diesel/electric locomotive was built in 1965, and withdrawn from service in 2007. In 2015 it was designated by the Railway Heritage Designation Advisory Board and donated to Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

The final object this month is this small ceramic vase produced in the early 20^th century. On the front it has a view showing ‘Llwynpia Collieries’. It would have been produced as a souvenir ornament.

Mark Etheridge
Curator: Industry & Transport
Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

Included in this month's Blog post are a selection of objects added to the Industry and Transport collections in January.

This commemorative medal was issued to Bevin Boys for service underground during 1942-1948. Bevin Boys played a vital role during the Second World War working in the coal mines, and you can read more about their role in this article. The medal was produced by Bigbury Mint in 2015 in hallmarked silver, and is on a striped blue, green and black ribbon. It was purchased by the Museum this month, and has been added to a small but varied collection relating to the work on the Bevin Boys in the Second World War.

The two bricks illustrated were donated this month. The first brick is inscribed T. Williams & Co. on the front, and the second inscribed J. Williams & Co., both have the inscription Llanelly on the reverse.

T. Williams refers to Capt. Thomas Williams, grocer and ships chandler of New Dock Road, Llanelli. He owned Bigyn Brickworks from about 1871 to 1888. He also owned the adjoining Tregob Colliery from 1881 to c.1887, and owned Bryngwyn Brickworks from 1890 to at least 1897. He was born in Llanelli c.1840, and died at Barry in 1899 or 1900.

The other brick is inscribed J. Williams. John Williams was the brother of Capt. Thomas Williams. He was born in Llanelli c.1843. In 1891 he is listed on the Census as foreman of a brickworks, residing with his brother who was listed as a brick manufacturer. This suggests that he took over Bryngwyn Brickworks either when Capt. Thomas Williams moved to Barry sometime in the period 1897 to 1899, or after his brother’s death in 1899/1900. He briefly worked it until closure in 1899.

The two bricks are made from the same coarse red body, and have been pressed from dies that are identical save for the change of initial from ‘T’ to ‘J’. They were probably then, manufactured in the same brickworks and span a change of ownership from Capt. Thomas Williams to his younger brother John Williams.

These three hand coloured prints form part of a collection donated this month. The prints are by the artist David Hughes and were produced in 1989/1990. The first is a reconstruction showing how Aberystwyth might have looked in about 1835. The second shows how Haverfordwest might have looked in about 1845. Finally the third shows how Swansea might have looked in about 1852.

You can find further examples of David Hughes work on our Images of Industry online catalogue. This includes black and white versions of these three works, plus views of Butetown (Cardiff) in about 1850, Carmarthen in about 1842, and Newport in about 1840. The prints can be viewed here.

Mark Etheridge
Curator: Industry & Transport
Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

This month the museum purchased four handbills for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. They date from the 1960s and 1970s. This company is still going and is the oldest continuously operating passenger shipping company in the world. It was founded in 1830 and is celebrating its 185^th anniversary this year. Three are illustrated here.

The next three images are from a book of cartoons published by the Western Mail and Evening Express. The cartoons by J.M. Staniforth tell the story of the strike of 1898 and are “a Pictorial History of the longest and most disastrous dispute which ever afflicted the extensive coalfield of South Wales and Monmouthshire”. Joseph Morewood Staniforth was born in Gloucester in 1863. His family moved to Cardiff in 1870, and he started working for the Western Mail aged 15. His first cartoons were published by the Western Mail in 1889 and he went on to produce cartoons covering political and social unrest in Wales up until the First World War.

Amgueddfa Cymru holds a large and comprehensive collection of Welsh share certificates. This month we added one further share certificate to the collections. This was for Nobel Industries Ltd. This company, which operated from 1920 to 1926, owned two important explosives works in Wales. The Glynneath Gunpowder Works in the Vale of Neath (now open to the public by the Brecon Beacons National Park), and Pembrey Explosives Works, Carmarthenshire (also open to the public as a local authority owned country park). This certificate is unused and dates from the 1920s.

Finally this month we acquired three photographs showing the hot dip galvanizing of finished steel pressings at Cwmfelin works, Swansea in the early 1960s. The two images here show the galvanising of buckets and rubbish bins.

Mark Etheridge
Curator: Industry & Transport
Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

As mentioned in my last blog post staff at Amgueddfa Cymru are working on the Hansen shipping photographic collection to enable this collection to be made fully accessible to researchers and interested parties. I also gave a background to the collection and the work staff and volunteers are doing on it – you can read it here. In this post I’ll explain a bit about the cataloguing process.

We are working at putting each individual negative onto our collections management database (CMS), where details of all the museum’s collections are stored. Each entry will record full details of the name of the ship, the date and place the photograph was taken, and the name of the photographer. This will allow us to do comprehensive searches. It will also include the medium (in many cases gelatin dry plate negatives, with some film negatives). We will also being adding as much historic details of the ship as possible, and one of our volunteers has been working on brief histories of some of the vessels. This collection comprises over 4,500 negatives, so you can appreciate the scale of the work needed to fully catalogue, store and digitise this collection. We have made good progress so far, having added a further 334 negatives since the last blog post, and now have 1,834 records on the system.

As staff are working through the collection we are also re-packing from old glassine bags into modern conservation grade four-flap envelopes specifically designed for the long term housing of glass plate and film negatives. We no longer use glassine bags for storage of photographic collections as under certain conditions, especially if exposed to moisture, the bags can stick to the glass and film negatives causing permanent damage. Therefore, where possible we are re-packing into conservation grade packing. The whole collection is stored in an environmentally controlled photographic store at the National Collections Centre, Nantgarw.

Mark Etheridge
Curator: Industry & Transport
Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW