One of the greatest treasures in Amgueddfa Cymru's rich industrial photography archive is the Hansen Collection. The collection comprises 4,569 negatives (some two-thirds of which are glass) of ships at Cardiff, taken by members of the Hansen family between 1920 and 1975. They provide a marvellous photographic record of shipping activity at the port during those years.

The Collection was purchased in 1979 and since then numerous images from the collection have appeared in books published by Amgueddfa Cymru and the World Ship Society.

In 1993 an album of selected photographs was published jointly by Amgueddfa Cymru and the University of Wales Press, with financial support from the Baltic Exchange. Shipping at Cardiff: Photographs from the Hansen Collection, 1920-75 (ISBN 0-7083-1231-4) proved popular, renewing interest in and provoking many enquiries regarding the scope and contents of the entire collection.

A Danish seaman with an interest in photography, Lars Peter Hansen settled in Cardiff in 1891 and established a photographic business whose mainstay was recording shipping in the booming docks. He was succeeded in the business in 1936 by his third son Leslie, who continued to photograph ships until his retirement in 1975.

It is most unfortunate that no negatives appear to have survived from the pre-1920 period, although there are a few prints of vessels lost in the First World War in the Museum's collection that bear the Hansen imprint.

In 1979, Leslie Hansen's son, also named Leslie, decided to sell the remaining negatives and the entire collection was purchased by the Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum.

The Museum's now-retired Conservation Officer, Mr Don Taylor, then undertook the formidable tasks of renumbering all the negatives, placing them in new negative bags and subsequently compiling a catalogue. Mr Taylor's wide knowledge of shipping and his characteristic thoroughness resulted in the publication in 1996 of The Hansen Shipping Photographic Collection (ISBN 0-7200-0437-3).

Readers wishing to order prints from this collection should contact:
Image Licensing Officer
NMGW Enterprises Limited
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NP
Tel. (029) 2057 3280 or email kay.kays@museumwales.ac.uk.

Please quote the ship's name and the catalogue number. Prices for various types of photographic reproductions are available on application to the above address.

Click on the link below to open the catalogue to the Hansen Shipping Photographic Collection:

Fossils are the remains of ancient life. Most animal fossils are made of the hard parts of the body, such as bones, teeth, scales and shells. On rare occasions however, soft tissues, or even bacteria, can became fossilised.

A well preserved fossil fish from Somerset

The fossil fish illustrated here was found on Kilve Beach in north Somerset and although it is missing its head, the rest of it is well preserved. The fossil is about 11cm long and its scales outline the shape of the body. Faint traces of the front fins are also visible.

The fish is named Pholidophorus; it is an extinct animal that looked similar to a modern-day herring. Almost 200 million years ago, this fish died while swimming in the Jurassic sea that covered Somerset. As scavengers did not disturb the carcass after death, it became buried in fine sediment. This sediment eventually hardened to form the rock in which the fish became fossilised.

Microscopic detail reveals further fossilised remains

Although it is a fine example, this fossil fish preserves something even more remarkable. Scientists at Amgueddfa Cymru removed tiny fragments from the central area of the fossil to study them using an electron microscope. Zooming in on these fragments 20,000 times, some fine details started to emerge - a layer of tiny, rounded, elongate structures. These are the fossilised remains of bacteria.

Fossilised bacteria have been found in many localities around the world, most famously from fossils in South America and Germany. The bacteria are often preserved in calcium phosphate, because calcium is a common element in sediment, and phosphorus is found in the decaying tissues of animals.

How do we know these are fossil bacteria?

First, they are clustered together in colonies, and are a similar size and shape to modern-day bacteria.

Secondly, other very fragile cellular tissues, such as the cells of embryos, as found in the Cambrian rocks of China, have been documented .Fossilised muscle tissues can even preserve the internal details of cells, for example in Jurassic rocks in Brazil and Miocene rocks from Spain. The fossilisation of cells, including bacteria, is being observed more frequently as scientists look ever closer at the fossils in their collections.

Finally, on rare occasions, a thin dark layer of fossil bacteria occasionally traces the body outline of a fossil, revealing the shape of the fleshy tissues surrounding the skeleton, as in Eocene rocks from Germany. This tells us that fossilisation of the bacteria took occurred rapidly after the time of death.

It is becoming increasingly clear that bacteria play an important part in the processes of fossilisation, with the bacteria themselves sometimes being preserved.

Looking at a fossil, it is natural to wonder what kind of animal or plant it is, but some interesting discoveries can be made by asking what the fossil is actually made of. The answer, on close inspection, is often surprising and is the key to finding out how an organism became fossilised in the first place.