History

In 1992 Wales's smallest post office was delivered to Amgueddfa Cymru. Thanks to the generosity of Post Office Counters Ltd, who financed the project, the small brick building was dismantled, transported and then re-built at St Fagans National Museum of History by the Museum's specialist re-erected buildings team.

Village post offices have played an important role in community life throughout Wales for the past 90 years. By the 1950s, virtually every village had its own branch, from which mail was distributed, parcels were collected and people gathered to catch up on all the local news. The country postman/postwoman on their bicycle, and later, in the red-painted Morris Minor or Fordson van, helped to keep people in rural communities in touch with one another by maintaining links and regular contact.

Wales's smallest post office at Blaenwaun, Carmarthenshire

Blaenwaun Post Office at St Fagans National Museum of History

The Country Post Office

Of course, country post offices were very rarely housed in the impressive buildings of those found in towns. They usually occupied a corner of the village store or the front room of a house. Sometimes these post offices sold a range of items, but some relied on the sale of stamps, postal orders, licences and savings certificates as their only means of income.

Blaenwaun Post Office, located about eight miles north of Whitland in Dyfed, was one such business. It was built in 1936 by Evan Isaac, a stonemason and his cousin David Williams, a carpenter. The Post Office was run by Mrs Hannah Beatrice Griffiths (nee Isaac), Evan Isaac's daughter, who also ran the pub across the road, the Lamb Inn, with her husband.

Mail was brought daily from Whitland and was sorted at the Post Office on a low bench in the back room. It was delivered to the local community by Mrs Griffiths, who completed the eight-mile round journey on her bicycle before going across the road to work in the Inn. Any customers who arrived at the Post Office when the Griffithses were working in the public house could press a button which rang a bell behind the bar.

The Post Office, which measured just 5m long by 2.9m wide, comprised of two rooms: an outer serving room with a counter and an inner office or sorting room with a small fireplace and a bench under the window. A timber partition wall separated the two rooms. The internal walls were painted chocolate brown to a height of about a metre above the floor then cream to the ceiling, with a broad black band between the two.

A painted sign made of heavy tin sheet on a wooden board was fixed outside above the serving room window. It read BLAENWAUN POST OFFICE. A small post box was mounted against the wall between this window and the entrance door.

In the early days, there was a telephone on the counter for the use of the Post Office and, one assumes, the villagers. Later, a public kiosk was erected outside the small building. In the office was a War Department Receiver for receiving urgent messages in times of emergency.

Following Mr Griffiths' death in the early 1960s, the business was relocated to a new bungalow built by his daughter, Mrs Evanna James. The old Post Office stood empty from that time until it was offered to Amgueddfa Cymru in 1991.

It can be visited today at St Fagans National Museum of History in the 'village' section of the open-air museum, near the bakery and the tailor's shop. It has been refurbished to its war-time appearance, and represents a period of Welsh history not covered in any of the Museum's other buildings.

Abersychan Ironworks, 1866, run by the Ebbw Vale Co., 1852-83

Ebbw Vale blast furnaces, about 1900

Blast furnace Taphole, 1907

Steel works roughing mill, 1907

The Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron & Coal Company

In the mid-19th century the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron & Coal Company was one of the largest iron producers in South Wales and was of international importance, not only in terms of size, but also for technical innovation.

100 years later, the works were the first in Britain to introduce American-style steel and tinplate production techniques and before the closure of the site at the turn of the millennium it was the largest producer of tinplate in Britain.

1790, the first Blast Furnace

Industry at Ebbw Vale extends back to 1790 when the first blast furnace was established. From 1796 to 1844 it was owned by the Harford family who built it into a successful concern. It supplied rails for the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1829.

At the same time, the company began experimenting with the use of locomotives, one of the first of the South Wales ironworks to do so. In 1848 the Ebbw Vale Company was formed and the works went from strength to strength, absorbing four other ironworks at Abersychan, Sirhowy and Pontypool.

The first steel works in Britain

The company experimented in changing over from wrought iron to steel in 1854, installing one of the first steel plants in Britain in 1866.

The works declined in the 1870s and 1880s due to poor management, but the rapid expansion of the export coal trade kept the company afloat and saved the works from closure.

20^th Century revival

The iron and steel works was revived in the early 20th century which, combined with a booming market for Welsh steam coal, helped make the company the largest integrated iron and coal company in Wales.

Closure and hardship

By the early 1920s it was employing no fewer than 34,000 men. The company was increasing its debts to finance its expansion at a time when the steel and coal industries declined sharply. This ultimately led to the works' closure in 1929 and its collieries being sold off.

Revival and expansion with Tinplate

The great hardship and unemployment in the town caused the Government to site Britain's first steel stripmill at Ebbw Vale and the works were rebuilt in 1936-38 under the ownership of Richard Thomas & Company, Britain's largest tinplate manufacturer.

The new works received a further boost in 1947 when Europe's first electrolytic tinplating line was installed.

Largest tinplate producer on Britain

Re organization in the steel industry following nationalisation in 1967 led to a run-down of steel making at Ebbw Vale, and the steel plant closed in 1978. Subsequently the works concentrated on tinplating and galvanising, becoming the largest tinplate producer in Britain. These works closed in 2002, ending over 200 years of industrial innovation at Ebbw Vale.

A number of items in the collection of watches at Amgueddfa Cymru 'glow-in-the-dark'. The material that causes this glow (luminescence) is radium. As radium is radioactive, the watches in question now have to be treated with care, making their conservation, accessibility and display a big challenge.

Radium

1918 gent's wristwatch showing degraded and missing areas of radium paint

Marie Curie discovered Radium in 1898, and was the wonder of the new century - ironically thought to cure everything from arthritis to cancer. Mixing materials such as zinc sulphide and radium produces the glowing effect. In 1902, this luminescent material was first used to paint on the dials and hands of watches and clocks, allowing them to be seen in the dark.

Marie Curie eventually died from exposure to radium in 1934. Her notebooks, in which she was recording all her experiments are still too radioactive to handle today.

The Radium Girls

Glow-in-the-dark watches soon became popular with the mass market, and in the 1920s, production factories were set up where women would mix together glue, water, and radium powder into a glowing greenish-white paint that was then put onto the watches.

In order to paint neat and sharp numbers on the dials, the brushes needed a very fine tip. After a few strokes, the brushes would lose their shape, so the women "sharpened" the fine brushes by rolling the brush tips on their tongues to straighten the bristles, sometimes up to 6 times for every watch dial. Some even painted their teeth or applied glowing "makeup" as a novelty to show their friends. Many of these women would later die from cancer.

Testing for radioactivity at the museum

A radioactive contamination monitor (Geiger counter) was used to measure the radiation given off by the clocks and watches held in the collections housed at the museum. The highest readings showed dials to have a reading of 3000 counts per second against a naturally occurring level of 8 - 10 counts per second.

The measurable dose of Radium in a watch is apparently about 5 times the dosage from a standard chest X-ray.

The readings confirmed that the dials could be hazardous if exposure was not limited in some way. To combat this, the radioactive items were:

• Enclosed in a sufficiently dense material;
• Confined to a little used area of the stores;
• Warning signs displayed as to the nature of the hazard.

All objects containing radium that were on public display were identified and withdrawn and put into safe storage.

Radioactive Dust

Although the storage of these items can be controlled and managed properly, the conservation of these objects is of concern. Since the dials are anything up to 100 years old, the paint breaks down into dust resulting in an increased risk of contamination from exposure to the radioactive dust.

There is the possibility of breathing in this dust by carrying out work on the dials, such as working on the mechanism, cleaning the dial, hands or covers. As a result, all items in the Museum that pose a radioactive risk are handled with suitable precautions taken to prevent any harm done to the conservator.

Radioactive decay

Interestingly, tests show that the brightness of the dials is not related to the level of radioactivity. Even if the dial paint is dim or invisible in the dark, it could still give a high reading of radioactivity, since although the reactive luminous chemical might have broken down, the radioactive element, radium will continue to be hazardous for many generations to come.

The ‘Kalighat’-style paintings at Amgueddfa Cymru were brought over from India at around 1880. They represent a popular Indian art form that had died out by 1940. They are the work of professional artists called ‘patuas’ in Bengali and were sold for the equivalent of a penny each at markets and fairs in and around Calcutta, mostly at the gates of the famous temple at Kalighat, from where the style gets its name.

Storytelling

For centuries in Bengal, travelling professional artists known as &;lsquo;patuas’ or ‘chitrakars’ painted pictures or ‘pattas’ on cloth or handmade paper. These pictures were sewn together to make long scrolls of images. These artists toured rural villages, unrolling the images as they recited or sang the story. Patua families living in rural areas near Calcutta continue the tradition to this day.

Patuas move to the city

By 1806, some patuas had moved to the Calcutta – the biggest bazaar in Bengal. This new urban market had huge potential. In addition to residents, seasonal visitors to Calcutta wanted affordable souvenirs. With cheap machine-made paper and manufactured paints, the essential characteristics of the style emerged. Designs were kept simple, to be repeated as often as required according to the popularity of the picture. As demand increased, the detail in the scrolls was abandoned.

Traditions and religion

Certain Hindu traditions guided the painter. Each Divinity had a particular meditational formula – dhyan mantra – which the painters attempted to produce in line and colour. The traditional stories relate the appearance and actions of the gods and goddesses with their complexions, poses, mounts and weapons, which all had to be drawn correctly.

Hindu images and Muslim festivals

As Calcutta was extremely cosmopolitan, in addition to the Hindu images, the important Muslim festival of Muharram is also represented. It is possible that many Kalighat artists accepted beliefs from both the Hindu and Muslim faiths, as many of the scroll painters still do, having two personal names, one from each tradition.

The origin of the Kalighat Collection

The origin of the collection at the Museum is unknown before 1954. Assuming they form a single group, it is likely that they were acquired in Calcutta some time around 1873. The original owner was possibly French.

A collection now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was purchased between 1860 and 1870, and contains similar images. The collection is also similar to the seventy-three items in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acquired in India between 1865 and 1893.

The fall of the Kalighat style

1870 seems to have been the time when the popularity of these paintings reached its peak. To speed production, some families tried using a lithographic outline during the 1840s, but did not survive many years. It was the chromolithograph, capable of even brighter colours and a huge print run, which ultimately undercut the hand-painting families and took over the market and by the 1930s this popular art form had died out completely.

Sadly, very few of the thousands of Kalighat pats produced during the nineteenth century survive in India today, either in museums or private collections. They were never bought by the rich, who considered them unworthy of the name of art. In the poorer homes, the lack of protection from both the humid climate and physical damage soon destroyed the inherently weak cheap paper on which the patuas had worked their art.

Further reading

W. G. Archer, Kalighat Paintings, London 1971
Balraj Khanna, Kalighat – Indian Popular Paintings, London, 1993
Hana Knizkova, The Drawings of the Kalighat Style, Prague, 1975

The medal collections of Amgueddfa Cymru

Silver 'Forlorn Hope' badge 1643 — this would have been sewn onto a sash or tunic.

South Africa Medal 1877-79: '1428 Pte E. Jones 2.24th Foot'.

Sergeant Evan Jones, c.1917. He was born in Ebbw Vale in 1859 and enlisted in the Monmouth Militia in 1874, joining the 24th Foot in 1877. He served in South Africa, where on 23 January 1879 he was one of the tiny garrison that held Rorke's Drift against a massive Zulu attack. He later served in the Mediterranean, India and Burma, and remained in uniform with various units until 1920. He died in Welshpool in 1931.

The British medal collections of Amgueddfa Cymru were formed back in the 1920s thanks to gifts from two men.

In 1922, Colonel Sir William Watts donated his collection of 105 British naval and military medals, and in 1923 W. Lisle Bowles made generous gifts of similar medals.

From these, the Museum gained a representative collection of British military campaign medals, from the battle of Waterloo (1815), the first engagement for which all who took part received a medal, to the Great War of 1914–18 and beyond. However, only a small number of these military and gallantry medals had any Welsh associations.

In more recent years, therefore, occasional purchases and donations have concentrated on these two categories, our stated policy being to collect medals 'relating to the deeds of Welsh people'.

'Forlorn hope'

The earliest military award in the collection is a badge for the 'Forlorn Hope', dating from the English Civil War and awarded to selected troops who acted as vanguards. This was a Royalist award introduced in 1643 by Thomas Bushell, a mining engineer and master of the mint at Aberystwyth.

Civilian Heroes

The Albert Medal was introduced in 1866, at first awarded for gallantry at sea, but extended to the saving of life on land in 1877 to reward the heroes of Tynewydd Colliery, Rhondda, for the successful rescue of five colleagues trapped by flooding for nine days deep underground. Several Albert Medals relating to this incident are in the Museum's collection. When the Edward Medal was created in 1907 for gallantry in mines and quarries, one of the first two awards went to a Welshman, Henry Everson, of Penallta Colliery; the medal was donated to the Museum by his son in 1978.

From Albert to Edward to George

In December 1971, the Albert and Edward Medals were withdrawn, to be replaced by the George Cross. Of those who elected to exchange awards, seven chose that their previous medals be donated to the Museum. Two of these, Gordon Bastian and Eynon Hawkins, held the Albert Medal for gallantry at sea, having rescued fellow crewmen in torpedoed ships in 1943. Three 'land' Albert Medals are those of Walter Cleall; Cardiff policeman Kenneth Farrow, who attempted to save a small boy from drowning; and Margaret Vaughan, who as a schoolgirl saved a boy caught by the rising tide at Sully Island, near Barry, from drowning. Edward Medals were given to Bert Craig (Mountain Ash, 1922) and Thomas Thomas (Brynamman, 1933).

Heroism and Great Gallantry

In 1990, the Museum acquired three George Medals with Welsh connections.

The George Cross and George Medal were created in 1940, primarily as a response to the increased exposure of civilians to great danger during the Blitz. On 19 August 1940, the Royal Naval fuel depot at Llanreath, Pembrokeshire, was bombed and burned for seventeen days, destroying over thirty million gallons of oil. This was the biggest fire ever known in Britain. Norman Groom was one of 650 firemen who fought the blaze and one of three Cardiff men to receive the George Medal. Thomas Keenan, a nightwatchman, removed an incendiary bomb from the top of a tank containing 300,000 gallons of petrol at a depot in Ferry Road, Cardiff, on 2 January 1941.

The awards highlighted here form just the tip of a historical iceberg. Unlike those of any other country, Britain's campaign medals and most of its gallantry awards have, since the early 19th century, been impressed with the name (and for military awards the number, rank and unit) of their recipients. Even the millions of campaign stars and medals of the Great War of 1914–18 were individually named, though those of the Second World War were issued unnamed, presumably to save costs. Most medals are, therefore, starting points for historical research into the lives of individuals.