: Museums, Exhibitions and Events

The  National Waterfront Museum will be fifteen years old this autumn, so recently staff have been looking through our archive of the opening ceremony on 17th October 2005. 

Steph Mastoris Head of the Waterfront Museum, reading Gwyneth Lewis' poem at the opening of the Museum 

That day was a great moment of celebration, as the museum had taken around five years to plan, build and fill with fascinating displays on the story of Welsh industrialisation over the past four centuries. Also, because interactive displays were then still a very

Steph Mastoris Head of the Waterfront Museum, reading Gwyneth Lewis' poem at the opening of the Museum 

new thing for museums there was considerable public interest in what was soon to be described as Wales' first digital museum.​

Over 200 invited guests attended the opening ceremony that was conducted by the (then) First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, and rugby legend Sir Gareth Edwards. The first National Poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis, composed a bilingual poem in honour of the museum and this was read at the opening ceremony by the National Museum's Keeper of Industry, Dr David Jenkins, and myself. 

It was certainly a day to remember!

A Day in the Life of a Natural History Curator

My name is Jennifer Gallichan and I am one of the natural history curators at National Museum Cardiff. I care for the Mollusc (i.e. snails, slugs, mussels, and octopus) and Vertebrate (things with backbones) collections. Just like everybody else, museum curators are adapting to working from home. But what did we use to do on a 'normal' day, before the days of lockdown?

Caring for the National Collections

Most of our specimens are not on display. Amgueddfa Cymru holds 3.5 million natural history specimens and the majority are held behind the scenes in stores. Caring for the collections is an important part of our role as curators. We have to meticulously catalogue the specimens to ensure that all of the specimens are accounted for. As you can imagine, finding one object amongst 3.5 million could take a while.

Harriet Wood (Curator: Mollusca) in the collections

Natural history collections cover a whole range of materials including shells, dried plants, minerals, fossils, stuffed animals, bones, pinned insects and fluid preserved specimens (this includes things in jars).

Cephalopod specimens from the William Evans Hoyle collection

These collections are vital for research, education, exhibitions and display. Some have been in the museum for well over a century, and it is our role to ensure they last into the next century and beyond. We work with specially trained Conservators to monitor the collections and highlight anything that might be at risk, needs cleaning or repair.

Cleaning the skeleton of one of Cardiff famous residents, Billy the Seal

Answering your Questions

We spend a lot of time working with you, our fantastic visitors. Much of our time is spent answering the thousands of enquiries we receive every year from families, school children, amateur scientists, academics of all kinds, journalists and many more. We also host open days and national events throughout the year which are another great opportunity to share the collections. Many of us are STEM (Science, Technology Engineering & Mathematics) ambassadors, so an important part of our role inspiring and engaging the next generation of scientists.

Talking about the collections at the Eisteddfod

Working with Volunteers

Our museums are crammed full of fascinating objects and interesting projects to inspire and enjoy. We spend a lot of time with our excellent volunteers, helping them to catalogue and conserve the collections, guiding them through the often intricate and tricky jobs that it has taken us decades to perfect.

Our fantastic volunteers currently working on transcribing letters from the Tomlin archive of correspondence

Working with Other Museums

Museums across the world are connected by a huge network of curators. We oversee loans of specimens to all parts of the globe so that we can share and learn from each other’s collections. We have to be ready to deal with all manner of tricky scenarios such as organising safe transport of a scientifically valuable shell, or packing up and transporting a full sized Bison for exhibition.

A meeting of mollusc curators as part of a research project at the Natural History Museum, London

Working with Visitors

Despite the fact that a large part of the collections are behind the scenes, they are open to visitors. Researchers from across the globe come to access our fantastic collections to help with their studies. We also host tours of the collections on request.

Working with visitors in the collection, examining Sawfish rostra

Making Collections Bigger and Better

Despite having millions of specimens, museum collections are not static and continue to grow every year. Be it an old egg collection found in an attic, or a prize sawfish bill that has been in the family for generations, it’s an important part of a curator’s job to inspect and assess each and every object that we are offered. Is it a scientifically important collection or rare? Has it been collected legally? Do we know where and when it was collected? Is it in a good condition? Do we have the space?

Bryn, our Sumatran Tiger was donated to us in 2017 from Colwyn Bay Mountain Zoo

Creating New Exhibitions

A fun part of the job is working with our brilliant Exhibitions department to develop and install new exhibitions. We want museums to be exciting and inspiring places for everyone so we spend a lot of time making sure that the information and specimens we exhibit are fun, engaging, inspiring and thought provoking.

Adding specimens to a specially created exhibit called Museum in a House, for Made in Roath festival, 2015

Being Scientists

Last but definitely not least, when we aren’t doing all of the above, we are doing actual science. Museums are places of learning for visitors and staff alike. Many of us are experts in our field and undertake internationally-recognised research. This research might find us observing or collecting specimens out in the field, sorting and identifying back in the lab, describing new species or researching the millions of specimens already in the collections.

Kate Mortimer-Jones (Senior Curator: Marine Invertebrates) hard at work identifying marine worms

Museums from Home?

Despite lockdown, we are working hard to keep the collections accessible. We’re answering queries, engaging with people online, writing research papers and chipping away at collection jobs from home. And like all of you, we are very much looking forward to when the museum opens its doors once again.

If you want to find out more about the things we get up to in the museum, why not check us out on Twitter or follow our blog? You can also find out more about all of the members of the Natural Sciences department here.

Augusta Hall, Lady Llanover (21 March 1802 – 17 January 1896) was a strong advocate and supporter of the Welsh Woollen Industry and Welsh traditions. At the National Eisteddfod in 1834 she submitted an essay titled `The Advantages Resulting from the Preservation of the Welsh Language and the National Costume winning first prize. She took the bardic name "Gwenynen Gwent" 'the bee of Gwent'.

Harpist's Costume from the Llanover Estate

In 1865 she commissioned the building of Gwenffrwd Woollen Mill on the Llanover estate near Abergavenny. The mill carried out all operations for woollen production and produced heavy flannel cloth that was made into clothes for the house and estate workers to wear.

Harpist's Costume from the Llanover Estate

Material from the mill was also made into clothes for lady Llanover and her friends styled on her own ideas of Welsh traditional Costume. The mill continued in production until the 1950s using equipment installed by Lady Llanover.

Worker at Gwenffrwd Woollen Mill

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s highest award for gallantry is its Gold Medal, only 150 of which have been awarded since 1824. Richard Evans (1905-2001), Coxswain of the Moelfre Lifeboat, Anglesey, remarkably was presented with two RNLI Gold Medals for heroic rescues at sea.

Richard Evans won his first Gold Medal on 27 October 1959 when in hurricane force winds the M.V. Hindlea, a small cargo ship, was dragging its anchor in Moelfre Bay and being driven onto the rocky coast. The captain of the Hindlea gave the order to abandon ship when only 200 yards from the rocky shore and coxswain Evans took the Moelfre reserve lifeboat Edmund and Mary Robinson, with an incomplete crew, close to the ship ten times, enabling the eight man crew to one by one jump onto the lifeboat. During the rescue the lifeboat was once washed onto the deck of the ship and back off, and the coxswain had to manoeuvre perilously close to the ship’s propellers which were churning at full speed, at times out of the water and above the lifeboat. At one point the lifeboat heeled over until its mast was under water before righting itself. Thirty five minutes after the last of the crew were saved, the Hindlea struck the rocks and was lost.  

R.N.L.B. Watkin Williams, the Moelfre lifeboat from 1957 to 1977, on which Richard Evans won his second R.N.L.I. Gold Medal in 1966. The lifeboat was donated to Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales in 1983 and displayed until 1998; it is currently in store but can be viewed by appointment.

On 2 December 1966 coxswain Evans won his second Gold Medal. The Moelfre lifeboat Watkin William had been at sea since early morning having been called out to two vessels in trouble. They were then told that the Greek cargo vessel M.V. Nafsiporos was being driven out of control by 100 mile an hour winds towards Point Lynas, five miles north of Moelfre, and the Holyhead and Moelfre lifeboats went to her assistance. The Holyhead lifeboat rescued five of the crew and sustained damage. The Moelfre lifeboat rescued ten more crew but the captain and three crew of the Nafsiporos remained on board. After landing the rescued crew members at Moelfre, coxswain Evans took the lifeboat back to the Nafsiporos and stood by all night until a tug from Liverpool arrived and managed to take the cargo vessel in tow. The lifeboat returned to Moefre after 24 hours at sea; coxswain Evans, then aged 61, had been at the wheel the entire time.

Over his 50 years as a lifeboatman Richard Evans was involved in 179 launches which rescued 281 lives. In addition to his two RNLI Gold Medals, for other rescues he was awarded the Thanks of the RNLI on Vellum and the RNLI Bronze Medal, for the 1959 rescue was awarded the Queen’s Silver Medal for gallantry at sea, and in 1969 was awarded the British Empire Medal. In 1978 he was made an Honorary Bard at the National Eisteddfod.

VE Day Celebrations in London, 8 May 1945

8th May 2020 marks the 75th Anniversary of VE Day. Victory in Europe Day in 1945 celebrated the end of World War Two when fighting against Nazi Germany came to an end in Europe. Celebrations erupted throughout the western world, especially in the UK and North America, with more than one million people taking to the streets, village greens and town centres to celebrate across Britain.

The National Wool Museum had a VE Tea Party planned to mark this day, but as we’re all staying safe at home, our team would like to share some of their delicious VE Tea recipes with you in the hope that you can create your own celebration to mark this important occasion.

 

LEMON SPONGE

Lemmon Cake

8oz. margarine

8oz. castor sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

9oz. self - raising flour

1 dessert spoon lemon juice

 

TOPPING

2 Tablespoons caster sugar

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

 

​Preheat oven at 180°C  350° F  Gas mark 4

Grease and line 11" x 7" tin.  Cream butter and sugar until pale and creamy, then beat in the eggs.  Add a tablespoon of flour with the last amount of egg to prevent curdling.  Add the lemon juice.  Fold in the rest of the flour with a metal spoon.

Place in tin and bake for about 45 mins​.

Meanwhile make topping by mixing lemon juice and castor sugar.

Remove from oven, prick all over with a skewer and spoon topping over the hot cake.  Leave to cool in tin until topping is absorbed.

 

SCONES

Scones

1 lb. self- raising flour

1 teaspoon salt

4 oz. butter

2 oz. castor sugar

½ pint milk

beaten egg to glaze

For the filling:

strawberry or raspberry jam

quarter pint double cream, whipped

 

Preheat oven 230° C  450° F  Gas mark 8

Sift flour and salt into a bowl.  Rub in butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Add castor sugar and mix to a soft dough with the milk.

Turn onto a lightly floured table, knead quickly, then roll out to ¼ inch thickness. Cut into 20 rounds with a 2½  inch cutter. Place scones on greased baking trays and brush tops with beaten egg or milk. Bake in oven for 8 - 10 minutes.  Cool on a wire tray.

When cold, split and serve with jam and whipped cream.