Collections & Research

Here at St Fagans, many of our curators have been travelling the length and breadth of Wales co- producing audio-visual content for the new galleries.

Last week, my colleague Dafydd Wiliam and I began work on a new and exciting task, this time a little closer to home, a stone throw away in Tremorfa.

Over the next few months, our focus will be the Vulcan pub. We’ll be conducting oral histories with former customers and landlords of the former Adamsdown pub, recording and filming their experiences and memories. The completed interviews will be edited into a short film which will be displayed in one of the redeveloped galleries. But also we hope these memories will give us as curators, a clearer picture of life at the Vulcan, its culture and its community.

Our first interviewees were Rhona and Mel Rees, landlords of the Vulcan pub between 1983 and 1985. From the very beginning, it was clear that they were extremely fond of the pub and its customers, and that they thoroughly enjoyed their time there. They described the pub as their living room, and the words cosy, friendly, and fun, were said regularly. They had plenty of amusing and comic tales from the pub to tell, but they also touched on deeper themes, such as raising a family in a pub and also the economic side of things and the decline of the trade. All in all it was an eye-opening interview, and we learnt so much about their daily lives as landlords of the Vulcan in the 80’s.

My personal highlight of the interview was a story about a prank played on Mel’s 50^th birthday involving a kissogram visiting the Vulcan, but I won’t give too much away now!

Mel and Rhona truly captured the atmosphere and character of the pub and its people, and I can’t wait to go out again to meet and interview the people who knew this very special pub.

If you or somebody you know have stories or objects related to the Vulcan, we’d love to hear from you – please leave a message in the comments box below.

#MakingHistory #CreuHanes

Next month Whitchurch Hospital in Cardiff will close after almost 108 years of providing mental health services in the capital.

To mark this end of an era, members of the Whitchurch Hospital Historical Society have turned a disused ward into a pop-up museum. For one week only, members of the public, former patients and staff are invited beyond the Hospital’s imposing – some would say forbidding – red brick façade to explore its history from 1908 to the present-day.

An autograph book in cloth

Here at St Fagans, we have a tablecloth in the collection which was made at the Hospital in 1917. It was donated to the Museum in 2014 by the costume designer, Ray Holman, who had bought it at a Cardiff antiques shop in the early 1980s. At first glance, this white cotton tablecloth with a crocheted border looks, quite frankly, a little dull. But this rather unassuming textile hides a multitude of secrets. Look closely and you’ll see faint signatures embroidered in white thread across the entire surface of the cloth – the names of British and American soldiers who were receiving treatment at Whitchurch in 1917.

Military hospital

During the First World War, the Cardiff City Mental Hospital (as Whitchurch was then called) was ceded to the military and became known as the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital (1915 - 1919). Civilian psychiatric patients were moved to other institutions, while injured soldiers requiring orthopaedic treatment occupied their beds. In 1917, 450 beds were allocated for soldiers with mental health conditions.   

The signatures embroidered on the tablecloth include two important figures in the history of psychiatric care in Wales – Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Goodall and Matron Florence Raynes. Goodall, an eminent psychiatrist who trained at Guy’s Hospital in London, was appointed the first Medical Superintendent of Whitchurch in 1906, two years before the Hospital opened. He was awarded a CBE in 1919 for his pioneering treatment of shell shock. Florence Raynes was also a trailblazer in her own right. She was the first sister to have overall responsibility for the entire, male and female, nursing staff.

If you get a chance to visit Whitchurch Hospital this week, please do go. It’s a fascinating exhibition in the most powerful of settings.

With thanks to Gwawr Faulconbridge, Whitchurch Hospital Historical Society, Dr Ian Beech, and to Ray Holman for his generous donation.

End of an Era, Whitchurch Hosptial, 7 - 11 March 2016

The tablecloth will be on display at the Hospital on 11 March, 10am - 1pm

John Roberts, 'Telynor Cymru, from Newtown, 1816-1894  

The Photographic Archive at St. Fagans: National History Museum has over 200,000 images in its collection and reflects Welsh Social and Cultural History. It documents people’s everyday life over the last few hundred years. The images capture the Welsh as they work, rest and play. The collection includes photographs from rural and industrial Wales of subjects such as: costume and dress; textiles; work and trades; domestic life; cultural life including music and sport; traditional craft; vernacular architecture; furniture and interiors. To celebrate St. David’s Day here are a few examples of the more steryotypical images from the collection! Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus I Bawb!

First Welsh Schoolboys team, 15 players and 12 officials, 1904.

28 Chwefror 1946 – Dwa yma y bore i nol benthyg bwyell a phlaen i drwsio braich y gadair freichiau. Tywydd gaeafol a hynod o oer. San yn dod adref efo Septic Ulcer ar ei choes.

Ar ddiwrnod olaf y mis bach, cofnododd Kate Rowlands bod ei mab, Dwa (Edward), wedi dod i fenthyg offer gwaith coed i drwsio braich y gadair freichiau.

Byddai troi llaw at drwsio, pwytho neu ailgylchu pethau wedi bod yn ailnatur i’r rheini a fu’n byw yn ystod y rhyfeloedd. Gan fod adnoddau mor brin doedd prynu o’r newydd ddim yn opsiwn i’r rhan fwyaf. Ychydig o ddodrefn newydd a gynhyrchwyd yn ystod yr Ail Ryfel Byd a dim ond rhai pobl fyddai’n gymwys i’w prynu gyda thalebau pwrpasol.

Ym 1941, dechreuodd Bwrdd Masnach y Llywodraeth fynd ati i ddylunio casgliad o ddodrefn utility fel rhan o’r cynllun dogni dodrefn. Y bwriad oedd creu darnau o safon, o ddyluniad syml a oedd yn rhad i’w cynhyrchu.

Cyhoeddwyd y catalog cyntaf o ddodrefn utility ym 1943 gyda chasgliad o tua thrideg darn. Dyluniwyd y dodrefn gan aelodau o'r pwyllgor ymgynghorol o dan arweiniad y dylunydd dodrefn, Gordon Russell. Roedd y dodrefn yn syml ac yn fodern, gydag ôl dylanwad y mudiad celfyddyd a chrefft (arts and crafts). Ni chynhyrchwyd dodrefn nad oedd yn cydymffurfio â safonau utility a rhoddwyd y bathodyn utility, ‘CC41’, ar bob darn fel arwydd o safon.

Gellid archebu’r dodrefn o’r catalog neu eu prynu o siopau lleol a thalwyd amdanynt gyda thalebau. Ond nid pawb oedd yn gymwys - rhaid oedd llenwi ffurflen i sicrhau trwydded cyn derbyn y talebau gwerth trideg uned. Rhoddwyd blaenoriaeth i’r rheini a oedd wedi colli eu cartrefi adeg y rhyfel o ganlyniad i'r bomiau ac i gyplau priod ifanc yn symud i gartrefi newydd, fel y prefabs.

Yn ychwanegol at ddodrefn utility byddai cyplau ifanc wedi etifeddu hen ddodrefn gan eu teuluoedd. Pwy a ŵyr, efallai mai hen gadair freichiau gan ei fam yr oedd Dwa’n mynd ati i’w thrwsio ym 1946.

Hello. Here is what has been happening play area wise in St Fagans!

Our artists have been talking to curators and visiting our stores. They now know all about the themes covered in the new galleries and are thinking of ways in which they can incorporate them into the play area design. Some of the themes are food, work, fun - which also covers toys and games (that one might work), customs and folklore, childhood, as well as the perhaps not so appropriate - sleep and death.

We have also been talking about language - having text in the play area, maybe incorporating lullabies and sound into it (or is that too horror film?), sound, music, pigsties, beds and enclosed spaces, gates! (we have a collection of photographs of lots of different gates in the collection, all with different names) roofs! washing.... so much we could do, so many things...

Fern Thomas (supporting artist) has been managing to do research into folk remedies for her own art work - she has been looking at remedies for physical ailments from all around Wales which all seem to say 'wrap a piece of bacon round it' whatever the problem is.

Imogen Higgins (supporting artist) has started documenting all the different play areas in Cardiff and has also started blogging about it. If you know of any interesting ones, perhaps you could let us know?

I went to talk to Woodlands Special Secondary School a couple of weeks ago and some of the students there are going to help us with the design. We have our first meeting this week, so I will let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, please share, comment, and let me know stuff you've come across. Will be updating again soon.