: Collections & Research

This is a short introduction to one of the Archive collections held at St Fagans: National History Museum. The Paper archive consists of 35,000 items relating to Welsh Social and Cultural History.

Whose story does it tell?

This archive gives us a picture of people's everyday lives in Wales during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and up to the present day.

What does it contain?

It contains among other items diaries; letters; trade account books; memoirs; linguistic studies; local history and folklore; traditional recipes; notes on traditional medicines; records of traditional buildings; agricultural records; educational and school records and a large collection of folk music.

A Recent Donation – Letters written by Ffransis Payne between 1935-1936

Ffransis Payne was Keeper of Collections at the Welsh Folk Museum (now known as St Fagans: National History Museum) and worked alongside Dr. Iorwerth Peate. Recently, his son Ceri Payne collated and then donated to the Archive extracts of letters, his father sent to his mother before they married in the period 1935 to 1936.

Ffransis was born in Kington in Herefordshire and previously worked as a farm hand in Cardiganshire, Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire. He also worked in the steelworks of Ebbw Vale, in the rail yards of Neath, as a clerk in Glasgow and as a book seller back in Cardiganshire.

He became an Archivist in Swansea in 1934 and was then appointed Assistant in the Department of Folk Culture and Industries at National Museum Cardiff in 1936.

In his letters to his future wife Helly Bilek, a 19 year old from Austria, he discusses international events (the rising tensions on the continent pre Second World War); Welsh political problems (a clash between unemployed workers and the Welsh National Party in May 1936 during the Pwllheli Annual Fair, regarding the Government's proposal to build a new air base and bombing school at Porth Neigwl) and a comment from his friend Saunders Lewis on the event.

The letters also contain comments about his work at the Museum and items collected and researched by him, and finally domestic observations about living and working in Cardiff during this period.

Wednesday, 15th of April, 1936 - I have just been listening to the news on the wireless. The situation in Austria is serious, it was said, and frontier troop movements etc. .......there is a month for us to see what will happen...

Western Mail, Monday May 25th,1936 - "Fight at Welsh Air Base Protest Meeting, Nationalist Party Leaders Clash with Unemployed"

Tuesday, 26th May, 1936 - I had a talk with Saunders Lewis today. He says the newspaper report exaggerated. He certainly seems unruffled.

Tuesday, 30th June, 1936 - My first real job has been assigned to me, it is making a catalogue and guide to the Museum's collection of samplers!!

Sunday, 5th July, 1936 - As for my work at the museum. I was and am quite serious. If you are interested in people and ways of life, you will find plenty to interest you in my work.

On Saturday 10^th October, scientists from the Museum’s Natural Sciences Department and Cardiff University came together to mark both National Biology Week and Earth Science Week, and to prove that biology (and geology) does indeed rock!  Engaging displays and fun activities filled the Main Hall and were also scattered through the lower natural history galleries and Clore Learning Space.  Visitors collected a stamping sheet at the door and could claim a stamp for every activity they completed.  Everyone who collected ten stamps had the chance to colour in and make their own natural history badge to take home.  Museum scientists wowed visitors with specimens from our collections behind the scenes, including the largest seeds in the world, glow-in-the-dark minerals and huge scarab beetles.  Visitors could also explore sea creatures and seaweeds in a rock pool, and have a go at matching fossils to their correct place on a timeline of the Earth’s history.  Fans of the game ‘Operation’ had the opportunity to try their hand with an actual size, adult dummy version, courtesy of biologists from Cardiff University, who also presented a range of other fascinating topics, including what we can learn from road kill, how healthy babies are made, how toadstools get their white spots and how to extract DNA from strawberries.  Appropriately enough, the University’s team of geologists set up shop at the entrance to the Evolution of Wales gallery, and invited visitors to experiment with what makes an explosive volcano, try to bend rocks and have a go at stepping in the footsteps of dinosaurs.  The day also featured several family-friendly events linked to the ‘Reading the Rocks: the remarkable maps of William Smith’ exhibition.  Theatr na nÓg gave three performances of a one-man play exploring Smith’s work from the point of view of his young Welsh apprentice, and scientific historian Dr Leucha Veneer gave a family talk looking at early ideas about rocks and fossils.

We were joined this Saturday by three of our I Spy…Nature drawing competition winners and their families. The winners were shown around the shell, marine invertebrate and vertebrate collections as part of their special behind the scenes tour by museum curator Katie Mortimer-Jones. The tour started in the fluid store, where we keep our fluid preserved specimens such as marine bristleworms, starfish, crabs, lobsters and fish specimens. The competition winners saw some of our oldest fluid preserved specimens in the collections – Octopus, squid and cuttlefish specimens worked on by the very first director of the museum, William Evans Hoyle. Next on to the shell collections, one of the largest collections at the museum. Our visitors looked through draws of molluscs, spying Giant Clams, abalone shells and Giant African Land snails. Lastly the tour finished up in the Vertebrate store where we keep some of the Museum’s taxidermy and skeleton specimens. On display were several fox specimens, a crocodile, sheep and fish specimens that will be on display in a house next weekend as part of the ‘Made in Roath Festival’. After the tour, the winners were given their prizes of natural history goodies from the Museum Shop.

Ar 21 o Dachwedd, rydym yn cynnal cynhadledd undydd yma yn Sain Ffagan er cof am y diweddar Trefor M. Owen. Cynhelir y gynhadledd ar y cyd â Chymdeithas Cyn-Fyfyrwyr Prifysgol Cymru: Adran Ethnoleg ac Astudiaethau Gwerin.

Bu Trefor Owen yn Guradur yr Amgueddfa Werin o 1971 tan ei ymddeoliad yn 1987. Roedd yn awdurdod cydnabyddedig ar arferion gwerin Cymru, ac fe ystyrir ei gyfrol Welsh Folk Customs yn un o astudiaethau pwysicaf y maes. Fel ei ragflaenydd, Iorwerth C. Peate, astudiodd gyfuniad o ddaeryddiaeth ac anthropoleg ym Mhrifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth. Un arall o raddedigion yr ysgol ddeallusol hon oedd Alwyn D. Rees. Mae eleni yn nodi 65 mlynedd ers cyhoeddi ei gyfrol arloesol Life in a Welsh Countryside – arolwg gymdeithasegol o bentref Llanfihangel yng Ngwynfa.

Dyma ragflas o raglen y gynhadledd:

10:30 – 11:30            

Yr Athro Rhys Jones: Astudio cymunedau Cymreig mewn oes ôl-dirogaethol

11:30 – 12:30             

Yr Athro M. Wynn Thomas: Cofio Alwyn D. Rees

2:15 – 3:00                

Tecwyn Vaughan Jones: 'Prin ddau lle’r oedd gynnau gant’: Hanes Trefor M. Owen

3:15 – 4:15                

Dr Eurwyn Wiliam: Trefor M. Owen: Curadur ac Ysgolhaig

Mae croeso cynnes i bawb fynychu’r gynhadledd yn rhad ac am ddim. Bydd cyfleusterau cyfieithu ar y pryd ar gael hefyd. I gofrestru neu am ragor o fanylion, cysylltwch â fi drwy ebost os gwelwch yn dda: elen.phillips@amgueddfacymru.ac.uk

I’m back at my desk in St Fagans having just had one of those ‘I love my job’ kind of weeks. On Wednesday, I spent the day with an amazing group of Year 10 students from Ysgol Clywedog in Wrexham, gauging their opinions on devolution and its impact on Wales since 1997. Heavy-going stuff for 14 year olds? Think again!

With my colleagues Owain and Richard, I met the students at Wrexham County Borough Museum bright and early on Wednesday morning for an action-packed day of researching, questioning and debating. The aim of the day was to produce a film of the students discussing devolution and what it means to them as teenagers living in Wrexham today – a town which voted ‘no’ in 1997. We took a banner from the collection with us as a springboard for debate. This banner – made for the ‘yes’ campaign by the artist Mary Lloyd Jones – will be displayed in one of the redeveloped galleries here at St Fagans in the near future, along with contemporary voices from Ysgol Clywedog.

To kick-start the discussion, we asked the students to do a little background research. Some trawled the web using i-pads, while others accessed local newspapers stored on microfilm in the museum’s archive. Headlines and articles from the Wrexham Leader gave a snapshot of the debate at a local level – 44.3% of voters in Wrexham were in favour of devolution, while 55.7% were against. The Year 10 researchers were not surprised by the ‘no’ vote in Wrexham. This prompted a lengthy discussion about their identities as young people in north-east Wales, living so close to the border with England. Interestingly, eight out of the nine participants would have voted ‘yes’ in 1997 had they been eligible to vote.

We then moved on to analysing the banner. Without any prompts or contextual information, we asked the students to jot down their initial reactions and emotions on viewing it for the first time. Comments varied from questions about its design to its usage and meaning. In the afternoon, we filmed two group discussions, with the students directing questions to each other. This took on the feel of an informal Question Time, without the cheering and heckling! We were so impressed with the energy and enthusiasm of the students, it’s going to be a real challenge to edit the finished product.

A huge thank you to Thomas, Jess, Edan, Pedro, Morgan, Elise, Matthew, Lucy and Harry from Ysgol Clywedog for taking part in the project. We can’t wait to see the film on display. Our thanks also to Wrexham Museum for hosting and supporting the workshop. Diolch yn fawr iawn i bawb.

#YesForWalesBanner #MakingHistory

#BanerIeDrosGymru #CreuHanes