Monthly Newsletter
May 2024

What’s on at the Met Cinema

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Fri 21st Jun at 7.30pm ‘Fleetwood Shack’ tribute band £12
Tue 25th Jun at 7pm Buds of May (play) £11

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For more information visit or Tel 01495 533195

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Museum Opening Times

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The Museum is open to the public, free of charge:

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Thursday* to Saturday              10am – 1pm

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April 100 Club

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This month’s prize numbers were drawn by member Denise Ewers  and the lucky winners are:-

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No.  04          Denis Osland         £20
No.  26          Peter Rosser          £10

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If you would like to join our 100 club and be in with a chance of winning, it costs just £1 a month. Ask at the museum for further details.

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Condolences

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I am sad to report that museum supporter Mr Mike Purchase has sadly passed away.  Mike was our Vice Chairman for a long time until he succumbed to illness and was no longer able to help as much as he would have liked.  Our thoughts are with partner Carl, his family andfriends at this sad time.

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The Miners' Strike

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It was forty years ago on 6th March 1984 that the miners' strike started and it didn't end until 3rd March 1985. The museum has some memorabilia relating to the strike and this is on display in one of the mining cases near the banner featured in the photo. 

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The library in Abertillery is putting on an exhibition (which includes some material from our museum) about the strike which had such an impact on the town and its future, so that's something to look out for.

Jen Price.

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NOT JUST ANY OLD PLASTIC

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There is more to running the museum than might seem from a visit.  How do we know how to care for all the different objects in the displays and archive store?  There are many different requirements.  Did you know we have to use acid free boxes? Acid free tissue paper? Special sheets for lining the archive store shelves?  A special conservation vacuum cleaner for use on our artefacts? 

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And then there is the question of cleaning objects – to clean or not to clean is a question that regularly crops up and if something is to be cleaned, then what should we use? We are lucky to have some long standing volunteers such as Mrs Peggy Bearcroft with many years of experience in looking after the objects and those in the know pass on that knowledge to our newer volunteers. 

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We are also lucky to have access to the training sessions organised by the department in the Welsh Government responsible for Museums, Archives and Libraries.  They run a number of courses each year, mostly on-line, and the topics range from policy changes, digital technology, ethical issues and the practical care of items in collections. 

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We try and take part in those courses which we feel are most relevant to us (the courses are available for large national museums and small independent museums like ours and everything in between).

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The latest course we attended on-line was 'The Care and Conservation of Plastics'.  Now, you might think that a museum with a collection of old objects wouldn't have much plastic but that's where you would be wrong.  When we sat down and thought about it, especially after the course, we realised we actually have a lot of objects made of plastic or including a plastic component.  To help us tackle this subject, we were sent a box of plastic samples to use during the course.

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I suppose we all knew there were lots of different sorts of plastics but attending this course really brought home to us just how many different sorts there are.  I don't think any of us had realised before the course that in technical terms 'plastic' includes a number of man made materials such as rubber.

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The box of plastic samples supplied with the course

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At the end of the course we had a better idea what to look out for and how to care for the plastic items in our collections.  What came home loud and clear was, nonetheless, that however carefully we look after our plastic objects, they are destined to deteriorate to the stage when they will have to be disposed of.  All we can do, through good housekeeping such as keeping them away from light, is to slow down the process. 

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We think of plastics as everlasting and to the extent that there are bits of plastic everywhere including in our oceans, that is true.  But their lifetime as recognisable plastic objects rather than plastic 'bits' is limited.

I think we look at plastic with a bit more respect after the course and feel more confident in ensuring their proper care.  Why not visit the museum and see how many different plastics you can see in the objects on display?
 

Jen Price.

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GREAT STINK OF 1858

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In 1858, London had one of its hottest summers on record with temperatures in the mid 30C’s for weeks on end.  At that time London had very inadequate sewers and with the rise in the number of homes with flushable toilets, more and more raw sewage was ending up in the river Thames.

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Cholera outbreaks were frequent in those days and in the run up to the ‘great stink’ there had been no less than three major outbreaks of the disease in London.  The first was in 1831 claiming over 6000 lives, the second in 1848-9 claimed even more at over 14,000 while the third in 1853-4 claimed in excess of 10,000. 

 

However there was very little understanding of how the infection spread.  The general thinking was that it was caused by breathing in smelly ‘miasma’  (bad air) and even though a prominent physician of the day, John Snow, thought it to be from drinking contaminated water, his concerns were not taken seriously.  In those days homes did not have running water – water had to collected from pumps in the street – and Snow had found by removing the handle from a pump he suspected was behind a breakout, the number of people falling sick fell. 

 

So when temperatures rose and stayed high in London that summer of 1858, the heat, coupled with all the raw sewerage being dumped into the Thames, caused the most awful noxious smell, and not surprisingly, Cholera cases started to rise with the smell being blamed. And it wasn’t just sewerage that was polluting the Thames; chemicals from factories and even animal waste from slaughterhouses, all found its way into the river and onto the riverbanks.

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The heatwave and smell had started in May, and by mid June even the Houses of Parliament were being affected to such an extent that some committee rooms were unusable.  In an attempt to combat the smell, the curtains in those rooms were soaked in a solution of lime chloride, which gave some short term relief but ultimately proved unsuccessful.  

 

At least now that parliament was being affected, it meant questions were being raised in the Commons over who was to blame and what should be done.  It transpired that there was no government body with responsibility for the Thames and so the government of the day tabled an amendment to the Metropolis Management Act of 1855.  This Act had created a body called the Metropolitan Board of Works designed to manage London’s infrastructure and now this body was given responsibility for the state of the river Thames.  At the height of the stench, 200 tons of lime chloride was being used on the Thames at a cost of over £1500 per week.

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Two years earlier a gentleman by the name of Joseph Bazalgette had proposed a new sewerage system for London but it had been turned down.  But now though politicians, desperate for a solution, were more willing to listen and they allowed the Metropolitan Board of Works to borrow £3 million pounds to implement Bazalgette’s sewerage system. 

 

Work started in 1859 and would continue until 1874 but it would revolutionize the lives and health of Londoners.  In 1866 there was another outbreak of cholera.  This time there was no bad smell but it was discovered that the outbreak was happening in a part of London not yet connected to the new sewer system and finally the realisation dawned that it was indeed linked to drinking contaminated water and not merely breathing in bad fumes.  John Snow was vindicated!  

 

In 1875 Bazalgette was knighted by Queen Victoria.  His work ensured that raw sewerage was no longer dumped on the banks of the Thames and he brought an end to the outbreaks of cholera in London.  His sewers still serve London today.
 

Sally Murphy

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Channel 5 recently aired a documentary on the Great Stink and you can watch the programme using this link

More information here and here

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HIGH HEELS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You would be forgiven for thinking that high heels are a fairly recent fashion trend and

worn by the fairer sex however you would be wrong as not only do they date back to the 10th century, they were worn by men and not ladies! 

Yes heels were added to boots worn by Persian cavalry to help keep their boots in

the stirrups while riding.  Horsemen were more able to steady themselves in the saddle to fire arrows with the heels of their boots keeping their feet firmly in the stirrup. This trend continued for centuries and explains why the traditional ‘cowboy’ boot also adopted the heel.  Indeed if you have ever ridden a horse you will understand the importance of the heeled boot!

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The fashion for high heels spread to Europe in the 17th century through visiting Persian emissaries though they were still only worn by men and only the wealthy could afford them.  And for men who were on the short side, they added a welcome few inches to their status! 

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King Louis XIV wore heels and as they became a fashion trend the heels tended to get higher and higher to distinguish themselves from the ‘lower classes’ (literally!).  Indeed the height of the heel often determined your place in society with a ½” heel for commoners, 1” for the bourgeois, 1½” for knights, 2” for noblemen and a dizzy 2½” for princes!

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By the mid to late 1700s women had started to wear heels and while men tended to have chunky heels, women’s tended to be thinner and more delicate.  This would be the forerunner of the stiletto heel.  By the 1780s the thin, high heel worn by women had come to represent femininity and is still the case today. 

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It is interesting to note here that both left and right shoes were made using the same last so both were identical and they only became a ‘right’ or ‘left’ shoe through continued wear on the feet which would, over time, mould the shoe to the shape of your foot so they must have been very uncomfortable!  Perhaps this is why we still talk of ‘breaking in’ new shoes today?  Shoes would not be made specifically for left and right feet until 1830. 
 

Sally Murphy

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The Diaries of Joseph Jenkins

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Have you heard of Welshman Joseph Jenkins?  I certainly hadn’t until I read a very interesting article written by BBC correspondent Neil Prior and you can find a link to his article at the end of this piece.

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Joseph was born in Cardiganshire (now called Ceredigion) in 1818 and at the age of 51 decided he needed a change and he deserted his wife Elisabeth and their nine children (the youngest of whom was just one year old) and set off for Australia to seek his fortune where he lived the life of a ‘swagman’ (a swagman is someone of no fixed abode who moves from job to job with all his belongings in tow). 

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He died in 1898 at the age of 80 (by which time he was back in Britain) and he became famous posthumously when it was discovered he had kept a dairy since the age of 21.  The diaries were discovered in the loft of Joseph’s grandson some 80 years after his death and which resulted in the publication of a book, The Diaries of a Welsh Swagman 1869-1894 written by his grandson, William Evans. 

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Although Joseph spoke Welsh, he wrote his diaries in English as an aid to self-education and he also wrote poetry.  His diary begins on 1st January 1839 and he continued to keep a record of his life for over 50 years.  The diaries are considered to be such an important insight into colonial life in Australia that since 1978 they have been a required study for Australian high school pupils. 

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The Australian State Library of Victoria has also now digitised the diaries and have made them available online.

You can read Neil Prior’s article here

And there is further information on this remarkable man here