Collections & Research

Linking Collections is a project that unites the natural science collections found in the museums across Wales. Put together these make up a distributed natural history collection for the whole of Wales, forming a part of our shared cultural and scientific heritage.

As part of this project a touring exhibition entitled ‘Stuffed, Pickled & Pinned: 50 Wonders of Nature in Welsh Museums’ has been developed. Formed from a selection of objects and specimens from across the regional museums the exhibition will visit 18 museums over the next three years!

In preparation for the tour the chosen specimens and objects were brought together at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Here the Natural Sciences conservation team prepared them for their three year journey by creating packaging to protect them in transit, minimise the need for handling and, where necessary, provide an easy form of display.

The exhibition contains a very diverse range of natural history specimens and objects with many different packaging and display requirements. For a number of the specimens specific support mounts were made from a conservation grade of inert foam called Plastazote.

For other specimens it was possible to create a display mount that also provides support when in transit. A good example is the puffer fish. This has been mounted on black Plastazote that slides out of a Correx box that opens from the side. For extra support when travelling a thin strip of Plastazote is placed diagonally across the puffer fish and secured to the base with entomology pins.

A pickled (fluid preserved) adder from Llandudno Museum required some creative packaging to protect it when travelling. Two plastic tubs were cut to shape and Plastazote padding placed at each end. The specimen jar is then placed inside and empty space filled with acid free tissue. The plastic tub is then placed tightly within a thick black Plastazote box. 

An option for some of the fossils was to package them so that they could be displayed in their box. Plastazote with cut outs support the specimen and they can be presented as they are or at an angle on a Perspex support.

Old entomology boxes have also been put to good use as a way of creating a display case for collections of small specimens such as eggs and shells.

The Linking Collections Exhibition “Stuffed, Pickled & Pinned; 50 Wonders of Nature in Welsh Museums” opened at Powysland Museum on October 20^th 2015. Further information can be found on the People’s Collection Wales website - http://www.peoplescollection.wales/collections/475828

Ruth Murgatroyd, Masters Student in Conservation at Cardiff University

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

The focus for UK Disability History Month this year is how disability and disabled people have been portrayed in the past and present.

With this in mind, I revisited some objects in the collection at St Fagans which made an appearance on the Welsh Millennium Centre stage last year. These objects had been selected by Mat Fraser to be used in his keynote address at the Museums Association Conference in Cardiff, October 2014. Mat’s ground-breaking performance, Cabinet of Curiosities: How Disability was kept in a Box looked at museum collections and how we should reassess the ways we portray - or as in most cases - don’t portray disability.

One of the objects selected by Mat for his show was an early wheelchair, or ‘invalid chair’ as they were once referred to. At first, I was surprised that the chair was among Mat’s choice of objects for the simple reason that there wasn’t much to say about it. I later realised of course, that it was exactly the point he wanted to make.

When we initially received the request to list potential candidates from the Museum’s collections for Mat’s performance, we knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task. The Museum’s classification didn’t include a section on disability so the only way of searching was to systematically trawl through all of the index cards. The few invalid chairs in the St Fagans collection were catalogued under the theme of transport, among various wheeled vehicles, from agricultural carts to bicycles.

The chair was collected by the Museum in 1985 from a house in Cardiff along with other various objects but there was no further information in the file about the donor or its previous owner. So I started to do a bit of research.

It seems that this type of folding invalid chair would have been manufactured from the early 1900s up until the Second World War. It has a cane seat and back, and a wooden frame which means it’s not too heavy to manoeuvre. It was designed with two small wheels at the back so that it could be wheeled up and down stairs by two people without having to lift the chair ‘saving effort and reducing the risk of accident’. [1]

There’s no maker’s name on the chair but it’s very similar to models manufactured by the more well-known specialist makers from London such as John Ward, Tottenham Court Road, and Carters of Great Portland Street. Their products were advertised in newspapers and could be purchased from catalogues. Their ranges included the more expensive bath chairs with leather upholstery to basic chairs such as this example, costing around £3 in the early 1900s.

However, this was still expensive for the majority of the population. In the industrial south Wales valleys during the first half of the twentieth century, many medical aid societies would help with the purchase or loan of wheelchairs and mobility aids.[2] After the First World War the British Red Cross also lent surplus equipment such as bed rests and invalid chairs which could be hired out on a weekly basis – a service which continues today.

Without knowing why or who used this chair, we are still missing a big part of its history. Sadly, this is also true of most disability-related collections in museums. As Mat Fraser noted in his keynote address last year:

‘...but we know nothing about it, and this illustrates so many artefacts to do with disability – they have no notes. Nobody knows anything. So I suppose the only thing I would take from that is to say that when we have artefacts, we need to label them, we need to get the right people to write the right notes to accompany some of these artefacts because conjecture would be very different for every single one of us as to where this came from. And yet, none of us will never know the real truth which exemplifies and illustrates many points.’

This month Amgueddfa Cymru acquired an example of a Prestcold ‘Packaway’ domestic fridge. This fridge was made in Swansea in the 1960s, and was bought new by the donor’s mother and used until only 18 months ago. It still works perfectly! The donation also included the original manual along with a recipe book.

These four lamp checks have been added to the collection this month. They are from Britannia, Deep Navigation, Oakdale and Cwm Collieries. Lamp checks (or 'tokens' or 'tallies') were used to let colliery management know who was in work, and were essential in informing rescue services who was underground during an incident such as a fire or explosion. If you would like to know more about colliery checks and token there is an interesting article here on our website. You can also see many more examples from our collection here on our 'Images of Industry' online catalogue. 

Also this month we received a brick to add to the large collection of Welsh manufactured bricks held at the National Collections Centre. It was found in tipped debris on the former Cyfarthfa Willows cinder tip, Merthyr Tydfil. The brick was manufactured at the Cyfarthfa iron & steel works between about 1890-1910.

Finally this month, we acquired a framed aerial photograph of Cefn Hirgoed opencast coal site was taken in the 1960s, and was at one time on display in the opencast office building. The close up view gives you a better idea of what the site once looked like.

Yn ei dyddiadur yr wythnos hon, mae Kate Rowlands yn nodi fod ‘Bob Lloyd wedi codi côr i fynd i’r Bala’. Mae Bob Lloyd yn fwy adnabyddus i ni fel Llwyd o’r Bryn (1888 - 1961) – eisteddfodwr o fri, aelod o Barti Tai'r Felin a sylfaenydd Cymdeithas y Llawr Dyrnu. Mewn cyfweliad hanes llafar â Minwel Tibbott yn 1970, soniodd Kate am ddiwylliant arbennig ei milltir sgwâr a bywyd cymdeithasol ardal y 'pethe'. Erbyn hyn, roedd Kate wedi ymadael â'r Sarnau ac yn byw yn Rhyduchaf, ger y Bala. Dyma grynodeb o’r sgwrs.

Sut gymdeithas oedd yn y Sarnau yn eich hamser chi?

Di-guro ynde, dyne’r gair fyswn i’n ddeud. Wedyn mi ddoth yn y blynyddoedd cymharol ddiweddar, mi ffurfiwyd y Llawr Dyrnu’n Sarne, a chal tair eglwys i uno efo’i gilydd. A mai’n dal’n llewyrchus ddychrynllyd eto 'fyd. Yndi, dyna’i cymdeithas nhw, Llawr Dyrnu ma nhw’n galw hi.

Pa adeg ffurfiwyd honno?

Tua nineteen… alla i’m deud. Rhoswch chi ddau funud wan i fi sidro. Yn y nineteen thirties siwr gen i. Ond cyn hynny, gneud ein cymdeithas odden ni. O’ ne bopeth yn y Sarne amser honno yn de. O’dd hi’n gymdeithas … cymdeithas y capel… Ddoth na lawer iawn o farddoni… yn y Sarne te a mai’n dal felly eto ma’n siwr. Ddoth yr WEA ’fyd yn Sarne’n flodeuog iawn, iawn yn de… O gynny nhw athrawon yn WEA. Dw i’n cofio I. B. Griffith yn athraw a gynno fo dros ddeugien yn’i ddosbarth yn Sarne…

Beth fydde yn cael ’i gynnal, hanes?

Ie, hanes. Probleme yr oes w’chi, probleme cyfoes a rwbeth debyg… Y tair blynedd ola ro’n i’n Ty Hen, ddaru mi gadw’r cwbwl heb golli dim cofiwch. Thirty six o ddosbarthiade.

Beth fydde pobol yn neud gyda’r nos yn eu cartrefi?

Wn i’m be fydda nhw’n neud, cofiwch. O’dd na ryw ysbryd iach ofnadwy… Fydde ryw swperi yn ffasiwn ofnadwy chi, mynd i gartrefi gilydd. Wn i’m be fydde nhw’n neud yno. Dw i’m yn meddwl bydde nhw’n deud ’im byd drwg am neb.

Oedd na gymdeithas glos yn Sarne?

Oedd ardderchog, bob amser. Dw i’n dal i ddeud eto mai’r Seiat a’r Cwarfod Plant, dene o’dd yn byd ni wch chi’n te. Pawb yn mynd yno chi, pawb mynd yno te. O’dd neb yn meddwl peidio… pawb yn mynd i bob peth. Dydi ’di newid dwch.