Even though we refresh parts of the museum periodically there are many objects which never make it to the display stage. Why do you collect them then? I hear you ask. There are many reasons why something might not be on display. Curators collect things that are important to our heritage and very often these things are in poor condition, so an artefact might need a lot of expensive conservation work before it can be presented to the public. When we collect objects our first priority is to preserve them and stop any deterioration to their condition. Restoration for exhibitions or display takes a back seat until finance can be found for projects – especially large objects like cars and buses. In the Industry Collection of the National Museum of Wales there are many different forms of transport and each one has to have a strong connection to Wales – by manufacture, inventor or usage. The ones not on display are kept at Nantgarw, near Cardiff, until their turn comes.

From helicopters to horse-drawn hearses and electric cars to steam rollers, the National Collection Centre in Nantgarw sometimes resembles a child’s toy box – but on a grand scale!

Delicate objects are stored in acid-free boxes or specially made crates, but how do you store a bus or helicopter? Of course they can’t be kept in boxes, but are lined up like a supermarket car park and are arranged quite randomly as size and shape dictate. There is access to the stores for group visits by appointment, where you will see that some of the vehicles look quite dilapidated whilst they await the magic touch of our conservation team.

Meanwhile, back at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea one can still see quite a variety of transportation and in our Networks Gallery is the story of transport links in Wales. This gallery has a host of models of vehicles of all kinds and large digital displays of how the transport networks have grown – from sheep drovers’ pathways to the M4.

Just outside ‘Networks’ can be found a ‘sociable tricycle’ from the 1880s and a Benz ‘Duc’ motorcar first registered in Monmouthshire in 1904.

The sociable was exactly that with a side-by-side arrangement of seats and was a special favourite of courting couples! The Benz was owned by a Dr Cropper of Chepstow who kept it until 1910 when he donated it to the Science Museum. It was taken into the care of the National Museum of Wales in 1911 and once fully restored took part in a number of London-to-Brighton rallies.

Hanging overhead is one of the star attractions of the museum. The ‘Robin Goch’ or ‘Red Robin’ has a strong claim to be the first aeroplane to fly in Wales. It was built by Charles Horace Watkins, an amateur airman, around 1908. I has a wooden structure braced with piano wire. The cockpit looks distinctly home-made, including a kitchen chair for the pilot’s seat and simple household objects for instruments. Indeed, Charles navigated by using an egg timer – he would turn the timer over, fly straight ahead until the sand ran out then turn 90 degrees and fly ahead again and repeat the turn twice more so that he ended up back where he started! To help him judge his height when landing two pieces of weighted string one 20’ and one 10’ long were hung on the underside so when the first weight touched ground he knew he was at 20’ and when the second at 10’.

Not everything in this section is over one hundred years old. You’ll find two examples of the Sinclair C5, one for display and one for use by the public to sit in and get the feel for it. On high days and holidays (and weather permitting) this model is used in our garden and any visitor can try it out. The C5 is pedal-powered with battery backup for hills or if the driver became tired. With a top speed of around 15 mph the C5 was produced secretly in 1985 at the Merthyr Hoover factory. It was so secret that a tunnel was built under the road between the factories to keep prying eyes from discovering the design. Different component manufacturers only saw their plans, not the whole car. It was launched with wide public expectation but proved a flop as it was deemed too small to be safely driven in heavy traffic. A brilliant concept and years ahead of its time, it might yet make a comeback one day when cycle paths are more widespread

We have many vehicles brought in for temporary exhibitions and displays. In recent years these have included a caravan and a number of boats and quite a few concept electric vehicles, but one of my favourite vehicles is actually a child’s toy car.

In our ‘Made in Wales’ Gallery is the Austin J40, a blue pedal car made in Bargoed in 1959. In 1947 Parliament passed an act that recognised that many miners who were suffering from pneumoconiosis (coal dust in the lungs) could no longer work underground. So it was proposed that new factories be set up to provide lighter cleaner work to employ these men. The Austin factory at Bargoed was just one of these.

The factory, which opened in 1949, stopped making the little cars in 1971 but between those dates about 36,700 were produced!

All the museums in the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales family have free entry. Visiting to the National Collections Centre in Nantgarw is by appointment only; contact them on (029) 2057 3560 for availability.

With the development of coal mining and the iron industry in south Wales during the nineteenth century, many people left rural Wales to seek employment. Emlyn Davies was one such young man; born in Newcastle Emlyn, he moved to Dowlais and worked as a shop assistant for J. S. Davies, Drapers. In 1898 he opened his own draper’s shop. Emlyn Davies was primarily a flannel merchant and purchased most of his stock from Cambrian Mills in Dre-fach. David Lewis, the owner of Cambrian Mills, would travel through the south Wales valleys collecting orders for flannel; the woollen cloth would then be sent to Dowlais by train from Henllan Station. The flannel would be made into shirts and underwear for the local colliers and workers at the iron works.

Emlyn Davies annual staff outing to Abergavenny, 1912

Colliers and iron workers wore Welsh flannel because it was extremely hard-wearing and excellent at absorbing the sweat of heavy labour. Working conditions were hard and the workers were in constant danger from fires. Wool is a natural fire retardant and Welsh flannel was the clothing of choice until the 1920s.

Emlyn Davies staff and family, 1914

Emlyn Davies was a credit draper, meaning that his customers would buy their goods on credit terms, paying small amounts off their bill each week. He would travel to the nearby towns collecting orders and delivering the goods the following week. He also had a market stall at the weekly market in Brecon.

Emlyn Davies silver jubilee 6th May, 1935

The flannel drapers enjoyed prosperity until the 1920s. The introduction of knitted underwear produced by the hosiery manufactures of the East Midlands, combined with the influx of cheaper printed cotton and mass-produced ready-made clothing, marked the beginning of the decline. This, combined with strikes, political unrest and the Great Depression in the industrial valleys, saw many drapers close down. Emlyn Davies’s business peaked in 1920, but from there it was in a steady decline until his death in 1937. Thereafter his daughter Miriam ran the business, selling cottons and mass-produced clothing, and the business finally closed when Miriam retired in 1962.

Miriam Davies in front of her father’s draper’s shop in East Street Dowlais c. 1917

Emlyn Davies outside his shop with friends and family Coronation Day 12th May, 1937

War

Germany invaded Belgium on 4 August 1914, leading Britain to declare war. In that first weekend, one hundred men an hour signed up to join the armed forces. By the end of the First World War over five million men had joined up.

The rush to do one’s duty and fight at the front left a shortage of skilled workers in factories across Britain. Women who mainly did menial or domestic jobs at this time, were now recruited to work in industry.

Even though there was a shortage of men to work in the factories, women were accused of taking jobs away from the ones who couldn’t fight. Women were also a cheaper workforce as they were paid less for doing the same job.

After the war 12 million yards of surplus flannel was sold on the open market by the government at ridiculously low prices, forcing woollen manufactures to also cut their prices. Flannel shirts, for example, sold at 52s 6d a dozen in 1916; by 1923 the price had dropped to 38 shillings. The woollen manufactures of west Wales failed to meet the changing conditions after the war, with some still producing inferior Angola as they had done in war time. Most of the manufacturers still concentrated on the production of flannel for shirts, vests and drovers, but demand for underwear flannel fell rapidly with the introduction of knitted underwear produced by the hosiery manufactures of the East Midlands, Scotland and the north of England.

On 11 July 1919 Cambrian Mills caught fire and the three-storey mill south building was destroyed.

At the time of the fire the Mill manager, John Davies, was on holiday in Llanwrtyd Wells with his family. His daughter Nesta Morgan remembers her father receiving a telegram at the hotel, but he was unable to read it as it was in English. A passing gentleman read the telegram telling him that part of the mill had been destroyed by fire. Her father was very upset and contacted David Lewis immediately to ask if he should come home; David Lewis responded that he should not but rather return the next day as planned.

David Lewis on the left of the photograph with the moustache and hat in the remains of Cambrian Mills

David Lewis used the insurance money to rebuild the mill only two storeys high, but considerably longer in length.

Rebuilt Cambrian Mills

Rebuilt Cambrian Mills

Cracked glass in Mill North from the heat of the fire in Mill South that is still visible at the National Wool Museum

The fire in Cambrian Mills was the first of 7 suspicious fires in mills in Dre-fach and the surrounding area, including mills at Frondeg and Meiros owned by David Lewis’s brothers Daniel and John Lewis respectively. Not all mills were rebuilt after the fire, however insurance companies were becoming suspicious that the fires were not accidents and insisted that the mills were rebuilt. Meiros was rebuilt in red bricks with the insurance monies paid in instalments as work was carried out.

Rebuilt Meiros Mill

Another 21 factories closed in Dre-fach Felindre and the surrounding area in the post-war period.

‘[Mill owners who made vast profits from war contracts] made no attempt to set their mills on a sound financial basis, content to bank the money or buy seaside cottages’

Geraint Jenkins 1967, the Welsh Woollen Industry, p. 278

Dyffryn Mill 29/6/1923

Frondeg Mill 7/2/1924

Aberbanc Mill 1926

Ogof Mill 1927