: Industry - Workshop of the World

The Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron & Coal Company was based in south Wales. Founded in 1790, it was the largest tinplate producer in the country, until its closure in 2002.

Figure 1: Chinese porcelain teapot, c. 1700-20

Figure 2: Chinese tea bowl and saucer, c. 1760-70

Figure 3: Creamware teapot, Leeds Pottery, c. 1775

Figure 4: Slop bowl, Staffordshire, 1740s

Figure 5: Detail of William Hogarth, 'Industry and Idleness: The Industrious 'Prentice Married', 1747

Figure 6: Cream jug, Chinese porcelain, c. 1771. Part of a tea service made for Penry Williams (1714-1781) of Penpont, Brecon

Figure 7: Porcelain tea bowl and saucer, Worcester, 1755-8

Figure 8: Tea kettle, stand and spirit lamp by Robert Watts, 1711-12.

In the eighteenth century tea-drinking was a highly fashionable activity for the wealthy upper classes.

Tea was first imported into Britain from China in the mid-seventeenth century by the East India Company. At first it was considered as something of a novelty and was promoted for its health-giving properties.

Green tea

The most common tea was bohea, a type of black tea, but green tea was also popular. At first it was drunk weak and without milk, after the Chinese tradition. Later, milk or cream and sugar were added.

Teapots and (locked) teachests

Only the wealthy could afford tea. It was kept in locked teachests that were controlled by the lady of the house. Domestic servants received a tea allowance as part of their wages.

The eighteenth century saw an explosion in tea-related consumer goods, and there are many fine examples in the applied art collection at Amgueddfa Cymru. At first these were made from very expensive materials, particularly imported Chinese porcelain and silver (figs 1 & 2). Later, the production of cheaper ceramics and silver plate allowed the middle classes to follow the fashions of the very wealthy (fig. 3).

Drinking tea became more commonplace in the late eighteenth century. The abolition of import duties in 1784 meant it became recognized as an important part of the diet for the poor.

Taking afternoon tea

Entertaining friends by hosting afternoon tea was an important part of women's lives. The selection of objects for the tea table was crucial. Visiting England in 1784, the Duc de Rochefoucauld commented that tea drinking provided "the rich with an opportunity to display their magnificence in the matter of tea-pots, cups and so on" (cited in Clifford 1999: 161).

Guests were expected to conform to certain modes of behaviour and good manners, which included sticking to polite topics of conversation such as the arts, theatre and music.

Tea bowls

For most of the eighteenth century tea was drunk in the Chinese style, from a bowl without a handle. These were also known as "tea dishes" or "basons". A wonderful slop bowl, which was used at the table for rinsing dregs from used tea bowls, depicts three women enjoying tea together (fig. 4). The bowls are usually shown being held with the fingers at the rim and thumb under the base (fig. 5).

Chinese exports

Chinese porcelain teapots and bowls were exported along with the tea. They were prized for their translucency and white surface and were collected fanatically.

Chinese porcelain manufacturers began to make tea-related objects purely for the European market, such as teapot stands, milk jugs, sugar basins, spoon trays and slop bowls (figure 6). Once they had uncovered the secrets of producing porcelain, Chinese teawares were widely reproduced by Continental and English factories (fig. 7).

Kettles and urns

Teapots were filled by hot-water kettles on grand stands or smaller table-top versions, with burners to keep the water hot (fig. 8). The kettles were eventually replaced in about the 1760s by tea urns heated by charcoal burners and, from the 1770s, with heated iron bars that slotted into a "sleeve" inside the urn (fig. 9). These "tea kitchens" or "tea fountains" allowed people to help themselves at less formal gatherings such as breakfast. The most elaborate examples also had additional urns for coffee and hot water.

Moral and physical decline

Eighteenth-century attitudes towards tea-drinking were quite mixed and contradictory. The obsessive collection of teawares was criticised by social commentators, with women being the most frequent target. Furthermore, afternoon tea was often claimed to be no more than an opportunity for women to spread malicious gossip or boast about themselves. A satirical poem, The Tea-Table, by 'Moses Oldfashion' was published in Mist's Weekly Journal in 1722:

"...Chief Seat of Slander! Ever there we see
Thick scandal circulate with right Bohea.
There, source of black'ning Falshoods! Mint of Lies!
Each Dame th'Improvements of her Talent tries,
And at each Sip a Lady's Honour dies".

Although at first tea was thought to have many health benefits, some commentators began to fear its popularity could cause physical decline. In 1753 Mr Andree described the dangers of "intemperate", excessive tea drinking, describing it as "pernicious", worsening epilepsy and causing hysteric fits. He also tells of a young girl who had been eating tea for a number of weeks, causing her to suffer facial palsy and convulsions (fig. 10).

Thankfully, these objections did not diminish the British public's desire for tea and it has remained an important part of daily life. Although tea-drinking today is generally a far less formal affair than during the eighteenth century, it continues to be enjoyed and shared by millions of people everyday.

End of the line

Dinorwig Quarry. With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution slate was used to cover the roofs of factories and houses throughout Britain, mainland Europe as well as towns in North America and other parts of the world.

On 22nd August 1969 silence came to Dinorwig Quarry. After almost 200 years of hard toil, the quarry was closed and the men were sent home for the last time.

Not only did 350 men lose their jobs but a quarrying community and a way of life that had existed since the 1780's changed forever.

Everyone in the area had lived in the shadow of Dinorwig Quarry all their lives. Everyone had a father, grandfather, husband, uncle or brother who had worked there. A century earlier, closure would have been unimaginable. Dinorwig was one of the two largest slate quarries in the world ‐ and, along with its neighbour at Penrhyn, Bethesda, could produce more roofing slates in a year than all other combined slate mines and quarries world-wide.

Why did the quarry close?

Quarrymen at Dinorwig Quarry.

Dinorwig Quarry's demise didn't happen overnight. Things hadn't been going well for a number of years for various reasons:

• there was less demand for slate in the UK during the 20th century;
• Welsh slate was expensive compared to roofing tiles and slate from overseas;
• the quarry owners were competing against one another for a share of a fairly small market;
• Dinorwig Quarry hadn't been developed effectively. The slate that was easy to get at had been quarried by the 60s and investment was needed to develop further. The quarry owners didn't have the money for this investment. One of their mistakes was to invest heavily in Marchlyn Quarry, but this part of the mountain didn't make them any money. There was no slate worth working there at all;
• by the late 1960s, the quarry depended on orders from France to survive. In July 1969, these orders stopped. The final nail in the coffin.

By the 1960s, the slate industry in general was facing an uncertain future.

What next?

Dinorwig Quarry auction catalogue. December 1969

Many of the 350 who lost their work found other jobs, some locally, at Ferodo and Peblig Mills, others further afield at Dolgarrog, Trawsfynydd and Holyhead. Others went even further to find work — to Corby, the relatively new steel town in Northamptonshire.

October and December, 1969 saw the auctions — selling off anything and everything that was worth carrying from the workshops. Fortunately for us, here at the Museum, Hugh Richard Jones, Dinorwig Quarry's Chief Engineer, ensured that not everything was sold. With the help of like-minded visionaries, he was instrumental in ensuring that the water wheel wasn't broken up and taken away and in preserving the machinery in the workshops.

Three years following the closure of Dinorwig Quarry, in 1972, the National Slate Museum was opened at Gilfach Ddu, and Hugh Richard Jones became its first manager.