Our ‘Glamorgan’s Blood’ exhibition launched in October 2019 and was on display at Glamorgan Archives until the end of last year.
Caerau Colliery, Accident Inspector pictured walking between two rows of trams, 19 June 1952 (DNCB/14/4/24/5)
The exhibition was due to travel to venues across south Wales during 2020. We were only a few months into the tour when, as a result of the Covid19 pandemic, we had to draw it to a close. The exhibition banners are now packed away until we can resume the tour.
In the meantime, we’ve added the exhibition content to our website so that it can be viewed and enjoyed from home.
The exhibition was funded by Archives and Records Council Wales. It celebrates the completion of our three year ‘Glamorgan’s Blood’ project to catalogue and conserve records of the National Coal Board and those of the colliery companies that existed prior to the nationalisation of the industry. The project itself was funded by the Wellcome Trust, a medical research charity, and as such the exhibition explores several aspects of health and welfare in the coal industry in south Wales.
These include the development of pithead baths and facilities such as hospitals and rehabilitation centres.
We explore the impact of work underground on the health of colliers by looking at industrial disease, such as pneumoconiosis, silicosis and nystagmus.
The danger of the industry is clear in the number of major disasters that affected the south Wales coalfield, including the largest loss of life in the British coal industry at Senghennydd in 1913.
The exhibition explores the positive side of coalfield life as well through the community activities and events which took place, including sport, bands and choirs, boys and girls’ clubs and the Miners’ Institutes.
The exhibition can be found at https://glamarchives.gov.uk/blood/
Take a look and discover more about the coal collections at Glamorgan Archives.
Rhian Diggins
Glamorgan Archives
