Powering the World

Quick update....

2012-01-22T21:44:00.000Z

A quick progress update ahead of what's going to be a really busy week for the project.

The Powering the World exhibition has been signed off and the panels will be printed this week. It will be launched at Friday's workshop. It's hard to judge until I see them full size, but on paper they look great and I hope they promote the collections well.

The pilot employability project has finished, with both students engaging with the business archives material and producing really interesting web-guides. Both gave positive feedback on their experience, and particularly their change of opinion on business archives as 'dry' and 'daunting' to a source they would both happily use again. A full report to come in the next few weeks!

Finally, Friday is the day of the workshop ‘The Bottom Line: The Value of Business Archives for Research’ at Swansea University. The delegates will be made up of students, academics and heritage professionals. I'm really pleased to see that we have undergraduate and postgraduate students from a variety of disciplines, including Arts and Humanities, Business and Economics, Engineering and Bio-sciences.

We have some excellent speakers on the day, showing the quality, and variety, of research that can come from business records.

· Dr Quentin Outram, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Leeds University Business School:

‘A Real Victory: The First of its kind since 1926': Employer archives on the Emlyn Strike of 1934'

He is the co-author (with Roy Church) of Strikes and Solidarity: Coalfield Conflict in Britain 1889-1966 (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and ‘Class Warriors: The Coalowners’ in Industrial Politics and the 1926 Lockout: The Struggle for Dignity (University of Wales Press, 2004) edited by John McIlroy, Alan Campbell and Keith Gildart.

· Dr Tehmina Goskar: Research officer on the ESRC-funded Global and Local Worlds of Welsh Copper Project (until Sep 2011)

‘Putting Humpty together again: Reconstructing supply chain information from copper business archives'

See here for more information on this project which brought together academics, the heritage sector and local and global communities to tell the story of Welsh copper

· Richard Haines, PHD student at Swansea University:

‘An Embarrassment of Riches: Approaches to the Quantitative Analysis of British Shipping’

Received an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award to work in conjunction with Swansea University and the National Waterfront Museum. His research has examined Swansea’s shipowning community during the nineteenth century, focusing on issues such as investment in shipping, the crewing of vessels, and shipowners’ role in the social and urban development of the town.

For more information, or to register, please see here

Thoughts on putting together an exhibition

2011-12-20T09:39:00.001Z

Part of the 'Profiting from Powering the World' involves digitising images and putting them together for a travelling exhibition to promote the catalogued collections. It will be made up of 8 pull up banners and will be launched at the workshop on 27th January.

I'm now at the crucial stage of finalising my choices of images and text to send to Waters Creative to produce the final panels. This is my first dabble into producing an exhibition, and I have found it mostly interesting, but sometimes frustrating. I think the nature of this project means I've had to take some unique things into consideration:

Collaborative working: The project is an Archives and Records Wales project involving 11 different collections from 7 different archive services across Wales. I catalogued 6 of the collections so had a reasonable idea of the highlights. I had no idea what the other collections consisted of, and very little time to find out. Robert Evans, who catalogued the North Wales collections, helpfully provided some assistance with this. It meant communicating with archive services with different resources and priorities, arranging visits, becoming a rather demanding reader, requesting lots of scanning, and spending a silly amount of time on trains. Despite the odd lost email, all the services involved were really helpful. It also meant I got to see some lovely places in North Wales.

Design: I found the design work tricky at first. There are so many collections, from a number of different industries (coal, copper, engineering, slate, lager etc),that no particular colours or themes immediately stood out. It took an age to settle on colours and layout. The intention is that it all ties together as a full exhibition, but that each banner can also stand alone. Additionally, being a Welsh project, translation is a large consideration.

Archives: As for the records themselves, I was initially a little concerned about how suitable for an exhibition these collections were. I knew they had great research potential, but these are records produced by heavy industries. Some of them are literally still covered in coal dust. They don't contain a lot of attractive marketing material, the type that you might find in other retail or banking archives, and which lend themselves to exhibitions. However, having now looked through all the collections I've been pleasantly surprised at the range of material available. My aim was to find a good mixture, combining the aesthetically pleasing with the more informative records.

Now it's coming up to the Christmas break I have a little breather to reflect on the new skills I've gained during this process and the lessons I've learnt (so many!). Hopefully the final product will do the collections, the businesses, and the communities they affected, proud.

The Bottom Line: The Value of Business Archives for Research

2011-12-15T15:00:00.001Z

Archives and Records Council Wales and Swansea University present ‘The Bottom Line: The Value of Business Archives for Research’, a free one day workshop kindly supported by the Economic History Society.

If you think business archives are too bulky, complicated or specialist then it’s time to think again! This one day workshop will bring together expert speakers to explore the value of business archives for a surprising variety of research.

Over lunch there will be a chance for delegates to meet archivists showcasing the wealth of business collections held by local and university archives across Wales.

The day’s events are free, but registration is required. Lunch and refreshments will be provided

Date: Friday 27 Jan 2012

Venue: James Callaghan Lecture Theatre, Swansea University

For a programme, registration form or more information see: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/lis/historicalcollections/archives/businessarchivesevent/ or contact archives@swansea.ac.uk

Expect the unexpected...

2011-11-25T11:30:00.002Z

Following on from my post earlier this week on patents, I came across a collection dating between 1825-1890s in the records of Old Castle Tinplate Company.

They don’t contain much informational value, other than the name of the patentee, occupation, brief description of invention, money involved, time period and date. They are, however, visually very striking, written on large parchment, with decorative borders and attached royal seals.

Surprisingly one of the letters patent was for a Gustav Scheurmann, music publisher of Newgatestreet, London for the invention of ‘improvements in printing music when type is employed’ in 1856. It was unexpected to find that the company would possess, and retain, this patent as it appears to have nothing to do with the business of tinplate. Our first thoughts were that Scheurmann could be one of the company directors, but there was no evidence of this.

After doing a little digging, we found reference to Guatav Scheurmann, in 1856, inventing a system of double printing of music, printing the staves and notes separately from moveable type.[1] So, we can presume that this system might have included tin in either the type or the equipment used for the printing.

Unfortunately, it seems the process never took off, and a few years later Gustav Scheurmann was facing bankruptcy: http://www.londongazette.co.uk/issues/22195/pages/4636/page.pdf

With some more research, I’m sure we could find out more about Scheurmann and his failed invention, but it does show how business collections have unexpected stories to tell.

[1] Pg 68 Music engraving and printing: historical and technical treatise William Gamble. Ayer Publishing, 1972

Archives and employability

2011-11-22T16:28:00.000Z

As part of the ‘Profiting from Powering the World’ project, we are exploring the use of business archives in learning and research and scoping the opportunities that might be available for building the use of business archives into courses. In light of the increased focus on student employability at universities, we are running a pilot project which uses business collections as its subject material.

Two students are working in the archives for 6 half days over a 6 week period producing web-guides (aimed at other students) for a business collection of their choice. It was advertised to a wide range of students, not just those who wish to become archivists, as a way to develop (and demonstrate) transferable skills such as time management, reflective analysis, critical thinking, computer literacy etc. The experiences can be used towards a new scheme recently launched at Swansea University called the Swansea Employability Award. We were amazed at the amount of interest we had, with 22 students attending an introductory session, 17 of whom applied, and eventually we interviewed 6 students for the 2 positions.

So far, it is proving a very positive, and mutually beneficial, experience. It strengthens the archive service relationship with university departments and adds value to our services to students and their research at their university. It should lead to a useful web-guide on a business collection, which would hopefully explore its research potential and could increase its use. On a personal level, I had my first experience of interviewing, designing application forms etc. It was a little daunting but I learnt a lot (for example how hard it is to get the right tone for something that lies somewhere between an informal chat and a formal interview)

The student will create a piece of work which may be chosen to feature on the University’s web pages. A large part of the opportunity involves producing a reflective portfolio (on Pebblepad) in which the student reflects on their experience, and the skills developed and gained. They can use it to work towards the Swansea Employability Award, which appears on their university transcript. All of this should have a positive impact on their CV and for future interviews.

Rachael Thomas, one of the students, was ‘pleasantly surprised’ by how interesting the business records were, and found them ‘less daunting’ than she thought she would. Both students have engaged with the documents really well, and have started drawing out themes such as women and finance, industrial disputes and the effect of the demise of a company on the local environment/community. They are working on the records of Old Castle Tin-Plate Company and records of Pascoe Grenfell and Sons (Copper). As they both have different academic backgrounds and research interests, I am really looking forward to reading the web-guides they come up with.

Patents

2011-11-21T10:34:00.003Z

At the beginning of this project, I didn't know very much about patents having never had any flash of innovative brilliance myself. I'd also never read Charles Dickens' A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent. I have read it now; it's a damning insight into the patenting procedure and costs in the Victorian era. I'm still waiting for my flash of brilliance though....

Very basically, a patent gives sole right to a process or invention for a stated period of time (14 years until 1920, 16 years after 1920). It protects the patentee from others using or selling the invention without permission.

I didn’t think they would have much research potential as I presumed that they would only contain minimal details, to protect from imitations. However, as I started to do more reading, and had a look at some patents, I realise they could be very interesting. The history of patent law is, in itself, fascinating (see http://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-history.htm for a general overview).

Their value, obviously, lies in scientific or technical research, for example tracing the development of a particular technology. They could also be used for family or local history, to find out about particular inventors (patents can generally be searched by number or name).The Intellectual Patent Office adds patent specifications to the Esp@cenet database, so far this dates from 1890 (but not full coverage). The British Library has produced a guide to searching Esp@cenet here. See also the National Archives' pages on 'Inventions: patents and specifications' for where, and how, to search.

DD YIM/3/1/3: No 3695. Date: 15 Sep 1879

Letters Patent: Charles Madge for 14 years

'Improvements in the manufacture of retorts, muffles and pots for reducing zinc and other ores and in the means of protecting the same from the destructive action of heat and slag or ore'

The patents of most interest to me are the ones which have survived in business collections. These are the ones which the business had a particular interest in keeping, most likely because they worked the invention. Alongside financial papers, licenses, minute books etc, they can be a real insight into the technological processes which a company chose to use, areas of special concern at particular times, and the effect the patent had on the company (e.g. monopoly over certain processes, increased productivity or profit).

The records of Vivian and Sons Limited, held at West Glamorgan Archives (the first collection catalogued for Powering the World), contains a few letters patent kept by the company (ref no D/D YIM/3/1) one of which is the image above. The Richard Burton Archives also holds a number of letters patent, patent specifications and related correspondence in the records of Old Castle Tinplate Company (ref no LAC/87/G) and Yorkshire Imperial Metals (ref no LAC/126/F).

I found the chapter on patents in 'Business Documents: Their origins, sources and uses in historical research' (John Armstrong and Stephanie Jones, 1987) really useful. It details the background behind patents, their uses, limitations, examples of works using them, and how they can be cross referenced with other documents.

Wrexham Lager Company

2011-10-27T13:04:00.003+01:00

Interesting story today on the BBC website about the sale, on Ebay, of a Victorian brewery chimney once belonging to a Wrexham brewery company.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-15474230

Wrexham was known as a 'lager town' dues to it's good supply of mineral rich water, in the 1860s it was home to 19 collieries. The most famous was the Wrexham Lager Company, registered in 1881, which exported lager around the world. Allegedly, a stock of Wrexham Lager Bottles were found as far away as Khartoum in the Sudan, discovered in General Gordon's palace.

The company was also recently in the news as the lager is set to make a comeback in a new micro-brewery

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/wrexham/2011/07/15/wrexham-lager-set-to-be-brewed-again-91466-29056513/

The records of Wrexham Lager Company were catalogued as part of the Powering the World project and are available to the public at Wrexham Archives. Highlights include brewing books and promotional material. For more detailed information on the contents of the collection see an earlier post here by Robert Evans who worked on the collection.

Waddle Fans

2011-10-20T14:44:00.002+01:00

The Waddle Turbon Fan, location unknown, c. 1930. Carmarthenshire Archive Service

Waddle Patent Fan, location unknown c.1930. Carmarthenshire Archive Service

These photos show the immense size of Waddle centrifugal fans, some of the larger ones were 40' in diameter. These fans were designed and manufactured by the Waddle Engineering and Fan Company Limited, in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. They revolutionised colliery ventilation and were supplied to coalmines throughout the British coalfield, as well as overseas.

Carmarthenshire Archive Service holds records of the company, including photographs and other illustrative material, correspondence, technical plans, wages accounts and papers detailing production methods and costs (ref no WAD). The Richard Burton Archives at Swansea University also holds a collection of technical drawings (ref no LAC/119)

South Wales Miners' Museum

2011-08-11T13:00:00.004+01:00

Work has started on cataloguing the records of the South Wales Miners' Museum held by West Glamorgan Archive Service.

Located in Afan Argoed Country Park, the museum conveys the history of the South Wales coal mining industry and its workforce. The demise of heavy industry in Wales left many areas affected and the identity of these communities are often still shaped by their industrial legacy. The South Wales Miners' Museum developed from concern over the rehabilitation of the Afan Valley after mining had ceased in 1970, and a wish to commemorate this industrial past. The museum opened in 1976, and was recently refurbished. It relies heavily on a dedicated team of volunteers and public donations.

In 2001, recognising that storage conditions in the Museum were not suitable, the archive and photographic collections were deposited with West Glamorgan Archive Service. Along with the administrative records of the museum, the collection includes documents from the area’s collieries and other papers donated by the local community.

Cataloguing these records will open up another collection highlighting Wales’s proud industrial past. The records will compliment, in particular, the other coal mining industry collections (Emlyn Colliery and Brickworks and Powell Duffryn Limited) from the Powering the World project. It will also enable West Glamorgan Archive Service (working with Neath Port Talbot Cultural Services) to create a profile showcasing some of the highlights on the People’s Collection Wales (http://www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/).

For more information on the museum see http://www.southwalesminersmuseum.co.uk/

Unlocking the potential: using business archives as primary sources

2011-06-10T11:32:00.003+01:00

Business archives are the ugly duckling of the archive world. Those business collections that have made their way into local records offices or university archives are frequently left uncatalogued by archivists and unused by researchers. They are seen as bulky, complicated and too specialist; precious spare cataloguing time is spent on other classes of records. Externally funded projects are often the only way to get large business collections accessible (a good example from 2010 is the Chance Brothers of Smethwick, http://www.chancearchive.blogspot.com/)

The aim of the Powering the World project was to ensure that

Wales

’ most important business collections were catalogued. The project is now in the final month and all 10 collections will be accessible from July. ARCW (Archives and Records Council Wales) has now been awarded funding by CyMAL for a follow on project. It will extend the work already completed by promoting the collections which have been catalogued, highlighting the importance of business archives and encouraging their use for research. Planned activities include a travelling exhibition, leaflet and web pages on ACAW (http://www.archiveswales.org.uk/).

One of the aims of this new project is to encourage the use of business archives in teaching and research, using Swansea University as a pilot. The collections chosen for the project all have significant research value, and it is hugely positive that we can now explore their potential uses.

Here are my top 5 reasons to look past the ‘ugliness’ of business

collections (double entry book-keeping is my personal adversary) and see their ‘inner beauty’ (their value as a primary source):

1. They’re not just for economic or business historians. It’s true that financial records can be an excellent resource for quantitative research, but business collections can also consist of minute books, letter books and other papers suitable for qualitative research for all sorts of disciplines.

2. They can complement other sources. Business collections held at local record offices are often overlooked in favour of school or church records, family/estate papers etc, but they can actually be used alongside them. Individuals, communities and the local landscape were shaped just as much, if not more, by local industry.

Plan from the South Wales Tranport Company collection, as
submitted with parliamentary bill for session of 1891

3. Although survival of business archives before 1800 is uncommon, they can still pre-date statutory records (e.g. births and deaths registration from 1837 or company registration from 1844)

4. They can help you find an original piece of research. Because these business collections have been left uncatalogued, they have rarely been used. So, if you find something of interest for a dissertation, PHD etc, you’re almost guaranteed no-one else has used it as a source before.

5. Expect the unexpected! The entrepreneurs who founded some of Wales’ most important companies were very active business men, with their fingers in a lot of pies. Consequently their papers often contain some surprising documents.

For specific and detailed examples keep an eye on this blog over the next few months where I’ll be focussing on the research potential of the Powering the World collections.

Ancillary activities at Bargoed

2011-03-29T12:21:00.003+01:00

Powell Duffryn’s coke ovens and by-product recovery plant at Bargoed were a fine example of colliery enterprise. The company used some innovative methods to fully utilise the by-products of the raised coal. This included washing small coal, coking in re-generative by-products ovens, the manufacture of sulphuric acid and sulphate of ammonia and tar distillation. There was also a benzol plant and an ammonia plant. Some of the coal by-products produced were presotim (a wood preservative), presomet (a black bituminous paint for metals) and syntharar and synthacold (tar products for road services).

In 1934 the company set up a research laboratory to devise new processes for increasing the efficiency of carbonising, distillation and coal cleaning. In 1939 a new tar distillation plant at Caerphilly was opened to distil all the tar produced by the company, and also tar produced by all of the steel companies in South Wales which had coke ovens.

There are many files of correspondence (1917-1951) of Joseph West who was manager of Bargoed Laboratory, then later kept on by the National Coal Board as Carbonisation Officer for No 5 (South Wales) Area. The files include analysis of coal and its by-products, details of coke production and shipments, correspondence specific to certain chemical processes, the ammonia plant, and gasholders and purification. The collection also includes goods outwards books (1925-1951) and would make an excellent resource for historians interested in the ancillary activities of the coal mining industry.

Powell Duffryn Limited

2011-01-28T09:25:00.005Z

I have started cataloguing the final collection of the project, the records of Powell Duffryn Limited. At the moment I am doing as much preliminary reading as possible to get my head around the various amalgamations, takeovers and names changes, both pre and post nationalisation.

It looks set to be a very interesting collection, with lots of research potential; the company was once the largest colliery company in Great Britain and were pioneers of research in coal mining and utilisation.

Snapshots of commercial and industrial Cardiff

2011-01-20T20:51:00.001Z

Cataloguing of the records of Cardiff Chamber of Commerce is now complete. Access to the catalogue will soon be made available in the search room of Glamorgan Archives (http://www.glamro.gov.uk/), and on the National Register of Archives (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/default.asp)

One of the highlights of the collection is its extensive set of photographs. Business archives often include photographs, sometimes full series commissioned by the company of their founders or premises, sometimes just individual photographs which accompany documents such as product prototypes.

The Cardiff Chamber of Commerce collection contains over 180 photographs, dating from 1882-1940. They include views of industrial processes, Cardiff docks, troops boarding a vessel (Taloa) during World War I, paddle steamers, portraits of the prominent members of the Chamber and other key businessmen of Cardiff. It also includes a few impressive aerial views of the Barry coastline taken by Aerofilms Ltd, believed to be the UK's first commercial aerial photography company.


View of East Dock at Cardiff, taken Apr 14 1883 by Alfred Freke DCOMC/30/2/6 Glamorgan Archives

Chamber of Secrets……

2010-10-14T10:18:00.001+01:00

I am currently cataloguing the records of the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce, set up to support its members and to promote issues connected with trade for the port of Cardiff, and its surrounding areas. The collection includes material from a number of member organisations which played important roles in the development of the shipping and coal trade in South Wales.

The collection is less ‘Chamber of Secrets’, and more ‘Chamber of Interesting Subject Files’ (although you don’t need to be a Harry Potter fan to see that wouldn’t be as catchy a title). It contains secretary’s files on matters concerning Cardiff docks and related trades (coal, shipping, railways etc). It also contains papers which cover other contemporary matters, such as education, post war reconstruction, development of civil aviation municipal aerodromes and commercial broadcasting and television. The long term secretaries of the Chamber provided secretarial services for many of its member associations, including Cardiff and Bristol Channel Ship-owners Association and the South Wales Coal Exporters Association.

The quality of a secretary’s record keeping often makes a big difference to the process of cataloguing a business collection. If a secretary had filing systems and kept well labelled folders, rather than random files of miscellaneous papers, it makes the archivist’s job of arrangement a lot easier. Although there were no obvious filing systems used by the Chamber secretaries, the subject files are mostly clearly labelled (and the labels mostly reflect the contents of the file), and their context is usually evident (i.e. from which association they were created).

The secretaryship of the Chamber was very much a family affair, with three generations serving the Chamber for almost a century. Newspaper cuttings, reporting the resignation of ‘Cardiff’s busiest docksman’ Willoughby R Hawkins, give biographical details of two of the secretaries;

Willoughby R Hawkins was born in Cardiff in 1860. He worked as a telegraphic clerk with the Dowlais Iron Company before joining his father as assistant secretary to the Chamber in 1883. When his father died in 1893 Willoughby became secretary. He was also an honorary joint secretary of the South Wales Coal Shipment Advisory Committee and a member of the committee of the Hamadryad Seaman’s hospital. In his younger days he was a prominent athlete. He retired from the secretaryship of the Chamber and the Cardiff and Bristol Channel Shipowners Association at the end of 1931, although he remained available in a consultative and advisory capacity. He was also secretary for the Cardiff Shipping Federation, the Coal Exporters Association and the Pitwood Importers Association.

Vernon Willoughby Hawkins succeeded his father Willoughby on his resignation. He was educated at Cardiff High School with intentions to study medicine, but gave up his studies to work with his father at the docks. In 1923 he was commissioned in the 53^rd Welsh Divisional Signals (TA) in 1923 and later commanded a unit in that regiment. During the 1940s his assistant secretary took over his duties, whist the War took him away from his day job. He remained secretary of the Chamber and the Shipowner’s Association until 1970.

Coppack Bros. & Co., Connah’s Quay, Flintshire

2010-07-06T12:59:00.004+01:00

I have to admit that I had never come across the name Coppack before, …and neither had the spellchecker. As it turns out it was a ship owning, and chandlery business founded in 1860 by a Captain John Coppack, of Connah's Quay, Flintshire.

The papers I had been asked to catalogue dated from the mid twentieth century, but complimented a much larger group that had already been catalogued by the Flintshire Records Office. The documents comprised printed reference books; log books, cargo books, files of accounts comprising manifests bills of lading etc., and daily records of movements. Most of the accounts, 1962-1972, relate to the export of steel from Deeside to Europe and Scandinavia. The series of books recording the ships movements and cargo's, 1940-1967 is particularly interesting as they give us details of cargo, ports of destination, weather conditions, and in some cases the loss, or decommissioning of ships.

By the 1950s, the business was mainly ship brokering and chandlery. The company was reliant on the British steel industry, which supplied most of its trade. As a private company in the 1960s, the business found it hard to compete, and with the decline of Connah’s Quay as a port, and the silting-up of the channels, its days were numbered. Coppack Bros. shipping and chandlery business eventually ceased trading in 1977.

Re-visiting Mumbles Pier

2010-06-25T10:56:00.038+01:00

Last weekend an exhibition was held by Amecco, owners of the Mumbles pier, detailing plans of a re-development, including a new hotel, apartments, leisure and family entertainment centre, and a new modern lifeboat house. From this proposed £39 million development the owners hope to raise the £3 million needed to restore the Victorian Pier, which is in its 112th year and needs a considerable amount of repair (see

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west_wales/10332703.stm and http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/swansea/Exhibition-viewers-praise-pier-plans/article-2359480-detail/article.html).

Mumbles Pier and Pavilion, 2010

Amecco (or Amusement Equipment Company Limited) have been involved with the running of the pier for over 60 years, from 1938 as sub-lessees from the South Wales Transport Company, then as owners from 1971. The records of the South Wales Transport Company Limited include documents concerning the history of the pier, from the original plans approved by the Board of Trade, to its sale to Amecco.

In 1889, an Act of Parliament was obtained incorporating the Mumbles Railway and Pier Company, who built an extension of Mumbles Railway to Mumbles Head, and a new deep water pier. The new line and pier opened on 10 May 1898. In 1899 both Mumbles Railway and the Pier were leased to Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company. This lease was later transferred to the South Wales Transport Company, who sub-leased the pier to Amecco. In 1959 the South Wales Transport Company purchased the pier, hotel and railway from the original owners Swansea and Mumbles Railways Limited and Mumbles Railway and Pier Company. While the railway was soon after abandoned, South Wales Transport allowed Amecco to continue their lease of the pier, before they eventually purchased it.

The collection shows that today is not the only time that the Pier has been in need of repair. In 1952 it was closed and declared unsafe. Files kept by the company’s secretary include reports on the negotiations between the lessees and sub-lessees for the repair and plans of the proposed new jetty. There is also a folder of plans and correspondence with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution concerning a new lifeboat station and an extension to the slipway in the 1920s, and the establishment of an inshore lifeboat station in the 1960s.

There are a large number of deeds from the Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company in the collection, including some agreements for facilities and amusements for the pier in the 1900s. These include agreements with a Pierriot troop (they would appear every day except Sundays), a company supplying a Mutoscope Machine (an early motion picture device), a company supplying a confectionary machine, the lessees of a photographer's shop and a fancy dealer's shop.

One of the attractions at the Pier was the Pier Hotel, which included a dance hall. Papers concerning a dispute over the lease of the hotel in the 1940s show how the hotel was enjoyed by people during the Second World War. Officials of the South Wales Transport Company described how goodwill and increased business was brought about by the war, with more troops in the area, a greater safety from bombing in Mumbles over Swansea and travelling restrictions meaning that more people are taking local holidays. Drafts of proofs of evidence from inspectors on the railway explain that during the war dances were held every night except Sunday, with one of the inspectors stating that people seem to have ‘gone crazy on dancing, drinking and any form of amusement during the war’. The visitors to the war time dances were mainly American troops, a large number of merchant seamen of all nationalities, some British troops and munitions workers.

These papers also show the inherent link between the railway and the pier, with one inspector estimating that 90% of people attending the dances would travel there and back on the railway. The trains ran every 16 minutes, and sometimes the driver was unable to stop until Oystermouth because the carriages were so full. With this in mind, it would be interesting to see if there has been, or will be, any talk of proposals to bring back the Mumbles Railway, to complement the planned rejuvenation of the pier.

Mergers and acquisitions

2010-03-11T14:53:00.001Z

The meaning of any document in a business archive is derived from its context; documents should be arranged in a way which reflects the administrative or business processes which generated them. This means that an archivist, in the first stages of cataloguing a business collection, finds themselves acting more like a researcher. We have to delve into the records to find any evidence of how the company was organised, its functions etc (an organisational chart is always a handy find), and read any publications which may help (a published history of the business is ideal). Since January I have been busy doing just that, in order to get my head round the complicated history of The South Wales Transport Company Limited (SWT).

To summarise briefly, in 1914 SWT began life as a subsidiary of the British Electric Traction Company (BET), primarily operating buses. In 1899 the Mumbles Railway and Pier undertakings of Swansea and Mumbles Railway Company Limited were leased to another subsidiary of BET, the Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company (SITC). In 1927 SITC assigned its interests in the Mumbles Railway to SWT, who then acquired full control of the company in 1930. SWT then purchased the railway from the original owning companies (Swansea and Mumbles Railway Company and the Mumbles Railway and Pier Company) in 1958, before it was abandoned in 1960.

A number of smaller bus companies were absorbed into SWT, including Llanelly District Traction Company (acquired in 1952) and J James and Sons Limited, Ammanford (acquired in 1962). Control of two other ex-BET concerns was transferred to SWT in 1969, Neath and Cardiff Luxury Coaches Limited and Thomas Bros (Port Talbot) Limited, before being completely absorbed in Jan 1971. SWT had exchanged bus routes with United Welsh Services Limited, a company formed to amalgamate the Red and White associated independent bus companies around Swansea, in 1939 and 1953. SWT eventually took over this company in Jan 1971.

In 1967-1968 SWT was transferred from BET to the Transport Holding Company, a company which held shares of state owned companies. In 1969 the National Bus Company took over all of the Transport Holding Company’s interests in England and Wales, including SWT. The Transport Act of 1985 meant that National Bus Company subsidiaries were to be privatised and on 8 May 1987 the company was purchased by its management team. A few more acquisitions of smaller bus companies followed, before the company was absorbed by First Cymru Buses Ltd (part of the First Group) in the 1990s.

There are also added complications which have had to be taken into account when cataloguing the collection. Although SWT and SITC were separate BET subsidiaries, they were closely linked and shared management and secretaries which means there is a definite overlap in some records. Western Welsh Omnibus Services Limited, another ex-BET company, transferred 2 of its depots at Neath Abbey and Haverford West to SWT in 1972, so the collection also holds a set of plans for, and by, Western Welsh. There are also papers referring to several acts and agreements between the various companies, and the Swansea Corporation, who themselves leased routes of the Mumbles Railway.

The point of this entry is not just to perplex people with the ins and outs of the South Wales Transport Company, but to show that the content of the collection includes papers from a variety of transport related companies and organisations. Consequently, it holds a wealth of information on the history of transport (both railway and bus), not just in Swansea, but throughout South Wales.

Glossary:

BET: British Electric Traction Company Limited
SITC: Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company Limited
SWT: South Wales Transport Company Limited

Wrexham Lager Beer Co Papers

2009-12-09T12:50:00.000Z

The papers of the Wrexham Lager Beer Company Limited date from its registration in 1881 until its final closure in 2000. It should be noted that as an archive, the papers are far from complete, which is probably due to its complex corporate history.

At first the company found it difficult to establish itself and was soon put into liquidation. In late 1886, under the directorship of Robert Ferdinand Graesser, the company was back trading. Despite his expertise, the production problems and poor sales continued. The company went into voluntary liquidation on 30 September 1892. By July 1900 a consortium headed by the same Robert F. Graesser had acquired the company assets and was back in business producing beer under the 'Ace of Clubs' brand. In 1949 Ind Coope and Allsopp acquired the company. A new brew house was commissioned in 1958 and the national brand of 'Skol' lager was introduced. In 1961 Ind Coope merged with Tetley Walker and Ansells, which in time became Allied Breweries. Following reorganization of Allied Breweries in 1978, the Wrexham Lager Beer Company was reconstituted as an independent subsidiary of Allied Breweries (UK) Ltd. and changed its name to Wrexham Lager Brewery Co. Ltd. in March 1988. In 1992, when Allied Breweries merged with the Danish Carlsberg group, the resulting company became Carlsberg-Tetley. They ran the Wrexham Lager brewery until it closed in 2000.

The majority of these papers relate to business and financial planning, promotional activity and corporate image from the 1970s-1980s. Administrative records include Memoranda and Articles of Association, registration of the company name, the acquisition, and liquidation of the company during the early years. Financial records are limited, but include an account book, 1893-1900, and accounts ledger, 1942-1951. There are a number of files of financial budget and forward planning with analysis of figures, 1980s-1990s. Particularly interesting is the complete series of Brewing books, (1958-1976), and details of specifications of the brewing process and the products, 1953-[1980s]. The Property and Estate papers include mortgages (1922-1954), tenancy agreements and sale of premises, the growth and development of the brewery site and plant, (1970s-1980s). There are also several series of photographs from 1970s-1980s. The archive includes notes and papers compiled 1959-1995, that relate to the history of brewing. The group of Wrexham Lager histories (1980s-1994) was brought together from various sources, (authors and dates often unknown) to produce material for the company’s centenary celebrations in 1982. Much of what was written cannot be substantiated from the original materials found within the collection. There is a large group of public relations material, including newspaper cuttings, photographs, and logos, along with papers relating to the changes in corporate identity. The production of the 'Skol' and later 'XXXX' brands that undoubtedly saved the brewery during the 1970s-1980s, but it is the return to the Wrexham Lager brand name (c.1980), with its aggressive marketing, and new corporate image that is best reflected amongst these papers. There are no papers relating to the demise and closure of the Wrexham brewery in 2000.

The colliery and trade unionism

2009-12-03T11:56:00.000Z

The Emlyn Colliery and Brickworks collection not only reflects the technology and business processes behind anthracite mining, but is also a comprehensive resource for social aspects, and particularly the manpower behind it. The collection has an impressive amount of records relating to employees of the company, including weekly wage cards, employment cards, medical and compensation cards and contract books. Collectively, they are useful in showing the mining companies’ wage scales, pension schemes etc. As individuals’ records they would be enlightening for the family historian whose ancestor was at anytime employed at Emlyn.

Staff and employment records are not always considered historically important within a business collection. Whilst cataloguing these records in the Emlyn collection, I have been surprised at how much important background information they provide to crucial events in the company’s history. A clear example of this are the weekly wage cards, pay sheets, and price lists, which could be viewed in relation to the 1934 stoppage. The stoppage lasted for two months, and was organised by Arthur Horner, executive committee member (and later president) of the South Wales Miners’ Federation (SWMF), and a founding member of the Communist Party. The strike was a battle between the SWMF and company unionism. One of the main grievances of the striking miners’ was the companies alleged dishonouring of price lists, and minimum wages.

The collection holds a box of papers containing correspondence, reports, newspaper cuttings etc concerning the 1934 stoppage. There are letters between the colliery owner, G E Aeron Thomas, and the Miners’ Federation; anonymously written reports on Arthur Horner, and his influence on the stoppage; employee reports of their experience at meetings; and verbatim accounts of discussions at a meeting held in Aug 1934, following the end of the strike. Although inevitably a lot of the papers are obviously biased against Horner and the stoppage (portraying him as a manipulative dictator, looking to further his own political ends), it is actually a rather inclusive set of records for both sides. In particular, an anonymous report from a meeting where Horner and Evans (a Federation leader) were speaking, although written with an obvious anti-Horner bias, shows the range of feelings amongst the miners. It describes how men between 35 and 60 years were fed up with the strike, worrying about lack of pay, their own homes, and the bad feelings between employer and employees. Conversely, younger men aged between16 to 25 were;

‘…Horner and Evans mad. Their God undoubtedly, whatever they said was right. The profits that the Thomas’s family had been making on their backs and robbing them of the fruits of their labour.’

These papers provide evidence of both the employees’, and owners’, experiences of trade unionism in the anthracite colliery.

Wales…powering the world…really?!

2009-11-19T10:42:00.000Z

When I mention the title of this project to people, I am sometimes met with a look of scepticism, a look that asks ‘Wales…powering the world…really?!’. So, in my first blog entry of the project, I am going to take the opportunity to both explain and justify the ostensibly grand title.

From the 18th century, through to the mid 20th century, Wales was a major industrial centre, with the export of its rich mineral deposits indeed ‘powering the world’ (or at least assisting with its industrial and domestic need for coal, iron, slate, steel and tin plate). The collections chosen for the project reflect Wales’ advances and achievements, not only on a local and national level, but as part of the global industrial revolution. 3 months, and 1 and a half collections, into the project, I have come across several records which reveal this.

I recently completed cataloguing the first collection, Vivian and Sons Limited, Copper Smelters of Swansea. Swansea was nicknamed ‘Copperopolis’ due to the huge amount of copper production and smelting, and by the mid 19th century, Vivian & Sons were the largest exporters of finished copper in the UK. The technical drawings, reports and patents demonstrate the scientific developments made by the business. Vivian and Sons were also members of the Copper Trade Association which was formed in 1824 to control of the price of manufactured copper internationally.

I am currently working on a collection from Carmarthenshire Archive Service, Emlyn Anthracite Colliery and Brickworks. South Wales was the major source of anthracite coal in Great Britain (anthracite is a hard coal, which burns slowly with a smokeless flame). An article in ‘The Industrial World’ describes how the company was pioneering in their use of scientific methods. They had their own specialised research department, and product guarantees for quality, purity and ash content. Plans and reports in the collection show the lengthy considerations taken into account when designing and installing a modern type of screening and washing plant. The anthracite was exported to Europe, North Africa, Canada, the United States and South America. A photograph in the collection shows an anthracite exhibition at the Salon Des Arts Menagers, Paris in 1938.

It could be said that the heavy industries of Wales, and South Wales in particular, did, quite literally, ‘power’ the world with its exports fuelling steamships, railways, etc and providing metal for war and industry. Wales also ‘powered’ the world through leading by example, with technological and scientific advances in processes such as smelting and mining. The title of the project, I feel, is not over the top, but reflects the chosen collections’ value as a resource for researching Wales’ great industrial past.