Amongst this month’s new additions to the collections we have received 16 very interesting share certificates. The Museum holds by far the largest and wide-ranging Welsh-interest share certificate collection held by any public museum, library or archive. The collection ranges across railway and maritime transport, coal mining, the mining and smelting of metals, general industry, and service industries (finance, leisure, consumer products, etc). We seek to consolidate and expand whenever appropriate material is offered.

The Royal Copper Mines of Cobre company was founded in 1835 by predominantly Swansea and Llanelli copper smelting interests who, recognising the rapidly growing importance of Cuban ore to Welsh smelting works, sought to see the mines both worked much more efficiently and on a larger scale as well as under their control rather than under inefficient Spanish colonial direction. These certificates are a rare example of tangible objects reflecting the international reach of globally pre-eminent Welsh copper smelting industry. The two strongest international connections of the industry were with Cuba and Chile, with Cuban connections being especially intimate at Swansea. 

This Mynyddbach-y-Glo Colliery Company Limited share certificate dates from 1924. The company was registered 1924. It operated the colliery from 1924 to May 1926 when it when into voluntary liquidation, seemingly an early casualty of the miners’ strike which continued after the end of the General Strike. Winding up was completed in 1927. The colliery comprised a small slant located at Waunarlwydd on the western outskirts of Swansea.

This Pontypridd Gas Light and Coke Company share certificate dates from 1852. The company was registered in 1850, and was later purchased by Pontypridd Local Board of Health under the terms of the Pontypridd Local Board (Gas) Act 1893. The Local Board became an Urban District Council in 1907 and the latter authority transferred the gas undertaking to the Wales Gas Board following the passing of the Gas Nationalisation Act 1948. Pontypridd was only the fifth Welsh town to be lit with gas, its Act creating its gas company being early by Welsh standards. At the centre is an interesting vignette of the gas works in front of the Pontypridd’s famous bridge. The bridge was built by William Edwards in 1756. 

One donation this month included two commemorative ties that can be seen here. Trelewis drift mine was opened in 1954 and was adjacent to Taff Merthyr colliery. One of the ties show here commemorates 25 Years of its opening. Production ceased soon after this tie was made in 1991.  The other tie commemorates 73 years of Markham Colliery which was opened in 1912. The tie was produced in 1985 during the miners’ strike. Markham colliery was to close the following year. 

As well as the ties we were also donated two tobacco or twist boxes. These were used by miners to store their ‘twist’ (chewing tobacco). They were generally made of brass and usually oval in shape, although we have many examples of different materials and shaped tins in our collection. They are usually stamped with the miners name, address or colliery, and also often a date.

Of the two boxes illustrated here one is oval (with the date 1985 stamped underneath) and the other rectangular and in the shape of a book, with a simple combination locking mechanism underneath.

One final new accession this month is very poignant as last year we commemorated the 100^th anniversary of the Sengehydd disaster in which 440 miners lost their lives in the worst mining disaster in Britain. This horse’s hoof mounted in silverplate was given to Reginald Mortimer of Standard Colliery, Ynyshir for his work with colliery horses during the disaster. It is inscribed "KILDARE" / 1ST HORSE FROM THE / SENGHENYDD / EXPLOSION. OCT. 14. 1913.

For more objects relating to the Senghenydd disaster check out our Images of Industry database.

Mark Etheridge

Curatorial Assistant (Industry)

 Follow us on Twitter - @IndustryACNMW

The Peregrines are back on the City Hall Clock Tower. One bird seems to be spending most of the day hidden in the recesses of the nest (on the right hand side of the ledge underneath the clock face), suggesting that she may have started incubating eggs. This would imply a laying date a little earlier than we have seen in previous years. However, we are aware of another local pair of peregrines that are incubating eggs, so perhaps it is an early season this year. Museum Curator Adrian Plant has taken over the duties of the Peregrine Web-cam, and will be keeping an eye on them for us.

 We will keep you posted on what happens.

Adrian Plant (Principal Curator of Entomology) is about to set off on a trip exploring biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. This will be the second of three planned trips hosted by the premier Amazon research institute - Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) based in Manaus and funded by Brazil’s Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico. Adrian has been collaborating with fellow Diptera (fly) specialist Dr José Albertino Rafael and PhD student Josenir Camara in understanding more about Amazonian species of an aquatic fly genus called Hemerodromia. The project intends to describe all of the many new species of this group of flies found in the Amazon Basin and will look at their evolutionary relationships with other related forms around the world. It is anticipated that the researchers will be able to learn much about the reasons why certain insects occur where they do by relating the findings to ecological, biogeographical and climatic data. The team will be in the field for one month, surveying areas in the central Amazon around Manaus and also some of the upper tributaries of the river in Ecuador. Following completion of this phase of the Project, Josenir will spend six months based in Cardiff using the Museum’s extensive collections to help advance her work.

Dr Adrian Plant

Yesterday, Natural Sciences Staff took part in the 'Meet the Pollinators' Event run by First Campus, a partnership between higher education institutions, further education colleges and schools in South East Wales. The event was part of National Science and Engineering Week and was attended by approximately 100 Year 9 pupils from six schools. The pupils had the opportunity to speak to the curators and find out about 'a day in the life of museum scientists'. 

I begin my day by checking our general library inbox for any inquiries that we might have received over the weekend. This morning [as usual] there were quite a few but they were mercifully straight forward so didn’t take too long to answer. Next, I spent a very enjoyable hour squirreling away through our old photograph drawers for some interesting images to share with everyone during this Museum Week UK  on Twitter and what treasures I have found [but more of that to come via Tweets from @amgueddfa_lib during the week]! 

I also took some photographs of the pages of a giant old scrap book full of museum ephemera; it contains tickets, pamphlets, public announcement posters, order of services, lists of lectures and just about anything else you can stick down with heavy duty glue and sellotape…

However, my day begins in earnest with the post – as Assistant Librarian one of my main priorities is to manage the journal subscriptions. We maintain around 700 titles, a combination of paid subscriptions, exchanges and gifts. Therefore, after our Administration Assistant has opened and checked it, I weed out all the journals and record them onto our database. By doing this I am alerted to previous issues not received and will then chase them up with relevant suppliers. This time, there are no missing issues to chase but we have received a few duplicates, and [as always] these are from suppliers who categorically promised that no further duplicates would be sent out! Next, I count and measure the post so that at the end of the year I am able to supply our Principle Librarian with the total number of actual issues received and the meterage of space they will have covered. For instance, our statistics for 2013 were 1972 issues received that covered just over 11 metres of shelf space.

Next, I date stamp and separate them into departments. Our subscriptions naturally correspond with the curatorial departments, so we receive journals on the following disciplines: Art, Archaeology, Zoology, Botany, Geology and Industry and we also subscribe to more general subjects kept here in the Main Library. Once all this is done, it’s time to go and shelve them in the departmental libraries. These are dotted all around the museum so I wait until I have a little pile, normally a few days’ worth, before I go on my shelving travels.