Uncategorized - Posted 01-03-2023
Though the Northern Lights are not often seen in Wales, especially at their most spectacular, they have been seen by many over the centuries. This is William Williams Pantycelyn’s description of them in his booklet Aurora Borealis, 1774. Williams’ mobile phone was rather primitive. It lacked Photoshop to stimulate his imagination – he obviously didn’t need it.
Robert Lacey
Head of Published Content Development
Collections - Posted 28-02-2023
As part of the celebrations for February‘s LGBTQ+ History month, the Library was proud to sponsor @AberrationAber’s Dreaming up the Past: imagining LGBTQ+ history event. This event on 18 February included performances by harpist, musician Cerys Hafana, a screening of ‘Ysbrydion’ (Spirits) by Amy Daniel, a talk from artist Sarah-Joy Ford about her textile installation ‘Beloved: Crafting Intimacies with the Ladies of Llangollen’, and Queer Tales from Wales’ latest production, ‘The Lost Knitters of Tregaron. In the afternoon, the event also included a Proud Writing Workshop, led by the historian and writer, Norena Shopland. Drawing on newspaper extracts relating to LGBTQ+ people that she discovered in Wales Newspapers Online, Norena encouraged us to create new works inspired by our responses to the extracts. My usual style of writing is directed towards the creation of business cases and strategic plans, so I found composing a creative story inspired by the Ladies of Llangollen extract to be a challenging, but very rewarding, experience. Other members of the workshop selected other extracts and perspectives, which proved how Library collections are a rich source of creativity. Some of the LGTBQ+ collections have been listed by Mair Jones in a previous blog post and there are many others which are available through searching the catalogues, so there are many sources for creativity within our rich and varied collections.
Another event to celebrate the contribution of LGTBQ+ people will be held at the Library on 7 March by the aforementioned Queer Tales, whose creative and informative shows have brought to life the hidden histories of LGBTQ+ people. The performance is inspired by the life of Amy Dillwyn, the cigar-smoking, industrialist, novelist and suffragist, Amy was a niece of Mary Dillwyn, the early Welsh female photographer whose Llysdinam photograph album is available at the Library. Tickets for the show are available on Ticketsource.
Sally McInnes (she/her) Chair, NLW Gender and LGBTQ+ Forum
Collections - Posted 20-02-2023
I’ve always liked to research and learn new and interesting facts, so it was a great pleasure to be seconded to my current post, which is Project Officer for the Children’s Dictionary of Welsh Biography. In September last year The National Library of Wales received funding from the Welsh Government to deliver a project that would produce Welsh biographies for a younger audience, and here is a little background to the venture.
The main aim of the project is to adapt some of the content of The Dictionary of Welsh Biography, in order to create articles that are easier for children to understand and use. This work includes shortening and simplifying biographies for 100 prominent Welsh people, in Welsh and English, and the conditions of the grant require that at least half of them be women, and at least 10% of them from under-represented minorities, in order to ensure equality and diversity.
During the last three months I’ve been busy selecting leading Welsh historical figures who I think will be relevant to the education and interests of young users, and creating a summary of the highlights in the careers and lives of these individuals. Of course, it’s impossible to predict exactly who will be in demand, but the list includes a variety of occupations, backgrounds, gender, periods and regions. The work can be very challenging, since the vast majority of the 5,000 or so articles in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography relate to white men. I had to search diligently to find those women and individuals from underrepresented minorities who have contributed significantly to various fields in Wales. Nevertheless, with the assistance of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography staff, we are on track to achieve the project’s objectives.
Although adapting and simplifying the content of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography is my main responsibility, there is a second part to the project. It was agreed in the initial application submitted to the Welsh Government that we would invite schools from all parts of Wales to become partners in the project by producing short films on notable Welsh individuals from their areas. Ten schools were chosen to represent different regions along the length and breadth of Wales, and we liaised with them, providing the necessary equipment and technical support required to finalise the work.
It is expected that the films will be completed by the summer holidays, ready for translation and subtitling. The articles and films will be placed on a website which is being produced especially for the project, and we hope that this will go live in October of this year: famouspeople.wales.
Betsan Sion
Children’s Biography Project Officer
Collections - Posted 14-02-2023
The National Library of Wales is home to the personal and literary papers, artistic works and personal library of the artist, engraver and poet David Jones (1895-1974), acquired in 1978 and 1985, together with more recent acquisitions such as his letters to Morag Owen and Valerie Wynne-Williams.
In May 2022 however the Library, with generous assistance from the Friends of the National Libraries, purchased at auction two items relating to Jones’s famous war poem In Parenthesis, namely a proof copy of the completed work and a draft radio script.
Jones was a veteran of the Western Front, having seen action with the 38th (Welsh) Division on the Somme and at Ypres. He was wounded in the leg during the attack on Mametz Wood on 10-11 July 1916 and his active service was ended by a bout of trench fever in February 1918.
Following the War he made his name as an artist and engraver. In about 1928, however, he began work on In Parenthesis, which became an epic poem recounting his wartime experiences, culminating in the Mametz Wood offensive. It is also dense with allusions to Welsh and English history and literature and Scripture. Its composition took him a decade and numerous drafts and was interrupted by a severe mental breakdown.
NLW MS 24193B
The first of our new acquisitions, an uncorrected proof copy of the book, dates from early 1937, when the poem was being prepared for the press. The other existing copies of the proofs are heavily emended and corrected; the new volume is ‘clean’, complete and bound and is inscribed on the front cover with the date ‘June 10, 1937’, the day of the book’s publication party.
On publication In Parenthesis was an immediate success and won the 1938 Hawthornden Prize. It was adapted for radio by Douglas Cleverdon but transmission was postponed twice, in 1939 and 1942, on account of the War. The third attempt went ahead on the Third Programme on 19 November 1946, with Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton among the cast. This had a pre-recorded introduction from David Jones and the second item acquired by the Library is a three page manuscript draft – probably the final draft – of this introduction. It contains numerous deletions and corrections but in essence it is very close to the script Jones recorded.
NLW MS 24194E
Both items have now been fully catalogued and, like the rest of his archive, are available to be read in the Library’s reading room. The proof copy and the radio introduction are now NLW MS 24193B and NLW MS 24194E respectively.
Rhys Jones
Assistant Curator of Manuscripts
This blog is also available in Welsh.
Collections - Posted 13-02-2023
There are many things which we take for granted in modern life – watching television programmes and listening to radio programmes and podcasts being some of them. The internet has made it easier to access many broadcast platforms, with social media driving comments and news. Few people in 1923 would have predicted that a local radio station broadcasting around Cardiff would grow to become a national institution at the centre of Welsh life. In 2023, the BBC in Wales celebrates its centenary, and what better way to mark this important historical milestone than to establish the Wales Broadcast Archive at the National Library of Wales.
Radio rules – the BBC begins broadcasting in Wales on 13 February 1923
Some may not know that the BBC began as a commercial company backed by Guglielmo Marconi, the famous pioneer of wireless broadcasting. It wasn’t until 1927 that the British Broadcasting Corporation was set up as a public service broadcaster with a Royal Charter to ‘inform, educate and entertain’. In the 1920s the technology was primitive and few people could afford their own wireless set which cost £7 (the equivalent of £334 today) and the 10 shillings radio licence fee (£23 today). However, radio became very popular with 2.5m licences issued by 1928 as coverage spread across the UK. The early radio pioneers had to experiment to find out what worked and the choice of programmes was very limited. However, at 5pm on 13 February 1923, only four months after the launch of the London station, 2LO, the British Broadcasting Company began broadcasting from Studio 5WA in 19 Castle Street, Cardiff.
At 9.30pm, Mostyn Thomas sang the folk song ‘Dafydd y Garreg Wen’. Fifty years later, he recalled that “I hardly had any time to practice, which made me extremely nervous, as in those days microphones weren’t simple things to use… but we simply had to be ready, the start time had been advertised in all the newspapers”. The programmes were only available within a 20-mile radius of the studio in Cardiff, and then Swansea in December 1924.
In the 1930s the BBC increased the number of transmitters and as a result, in 1937 it launched an all Wales radio service. The previous South Wales and the West service received many complaints from listeners in both Wales and England and people in Mid and North Wales couldn’t listen at all. The historian John Davies suggested that the first all Wales BBC radio service was an important moment in Wales being seen as a distinct nation.
The opening of the Bangor studio managed by the legendary Sam Jones in 1935 led to new Welsh language programmes during the Second World War when radio was used to keep up morale. Home grown talent such as Triawd y Coleg with Meredydd Evans (who later became the Head of BBC Light Entertainment in Wales) became national stars in Noson Lawen. The BBC Light Entertainment Unit moved from London to Bangor between 1941 to 1943 to avoid the Blitz, broadcasting popular shows including ITMA starring Tommy Handley, a radio super star of the time. In the 1950s, children’s programmes were broadcast between 5pm and 6pm with ‘SOS Galw Gari Tryfan’ by the Rev Idwal Jones proving to be hugely popular as a Welsh language equivalent of ‘Dick Barton – special agent’.
In 1945 for the first time, people in Wales could buy a Welsh version of the popular Radio Times which listed BBC programmes.
Radio has a competitor
Although mechanical television sets first appeared in 1929 with experiments by John Logie Baird, the BBC didn’t launch a television service until 1936 – with breaks between programmes to rest the eyes of viewers! This service closed down during the war years but in 1946, television was back – although not everywhere. It took time to build new transmitters and to grow an audience who were more used to listening to the radio. Television needed to attract new audiences and live outside broadcasts such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 encouraged people to buy television sets. It wasn’t until the Wenvoe transmitter opened on 15 August 1952 that people in South Wales could watch television for the first time, paying a licence fee of £2 (around £46 today).
Television in Wales in the 1950s struggled with a lack of coverage and mainly relied on programmes produced in London, as the BBC now competed with commercial television. The first commercial channel in Wales, Television Wales and the West (TWW), began broadcasting in 1958 in South East Wales. Appearing on the opening night were well-known Welsh stars Donald Houston, Stanley Baker and Harry Secombe. The BBC in Wales now needed to produce television content attractive to a Welsh audience.
‘Good Evening, here is the news in Wales today’
But it was in 1964 that television really took off with the beginning of BBC Cymru Wales as a separate service – although only 12 hours of additional programmes were produced with 7 hours in Welsh and 5 hours in English.
The 1960s was a time of social and political change in Wales. The BBC had a responsibility to broadcast the latest news but providing television news programmes in Wales hadn’t been done before. ‘Heddiw’ began in 1961 as a news magazine programme reporting national and international news in Welsh for the first time on television. Several famous broadcasters including Owen Edwards, Robin Jones and Hywel Gwynfryn presented the news. In 1962 ‘Wales Today’ started, sharing the slot with Points West for South West England as there was only one transmitter. That’s why the new BBC Cymru Wales service was so important. When presenter Brian Hoey spoke to viewers in October 1964, it was to Welsh viewers.
Bringing news stories to the screen was very difficult in the 1960s – everything was live, there were no autocues or computers, and the camera films were negative until they were broadcast live on the screen. No wonder the Radio Times warned viewers that ‘it may occasionally be untidy’! Yet over the years, presenters such as Brian Hoey who provided harrowing reports from the Aberfan disaster in 1966, David Parry-Jones, Sara Edwards and Jamie Owen became household names. People all over Wales now tuned in every night for the news and often stayed to be entertained by home grown programmes. Television was here to stay.
Dr Ywain Tomos
Interpretation Officer for the Wales Broadcast Archive
Collections - Posted 06-02-2023
The papers of the senior civil servant Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans came to the Library in 2019, but thanks to the pandemic, it was only last summer that I had the opportunity to organise and catalogue them.
Sir Guildhaume had a very interesting and successful career. After he was injured in the First World War he went to work for Lloyd George and became a specialist on labour matters, serving in the Ministry of Labour and National Service, and representing the British Government on the International Labour Organisation. This gave him the opportunity to travel, make interesting international contacts and witness the occasional political spat.
Sir Guildhaume was a member of the governing body of the International Labour Organization at the time of the petroleum conference in Caracas, Venezuela, in April 1955. Although the representatives of employers and governments supported the bid to hold the conference there, representatives of trade unions had objected because of the treatment of union officials, including the imprisonment of a number of them, by the military government there which had come to power in a coup d’état in 1948. During the opening session the representative of the unions from the Netherlands, Mr Vermeulen, gave a speech drawing attention to the rights of workers in the country and a number of union leaders who were in prison. The response of the Venezuelan government was to send officers of the security forces to his hotel to escort him to the airport and to send him out of the country.
Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans Papers, D3/4
When the other representatives of the unions heard about this, they agreed not to take part in the main conference until he was allowed to come back and because of the International Labour Organisation’s constitution of the, the conference could not go ahead. Vermeulen spent over a week in Curacao while Sir Guildhaume and other officials tried to find some kind of resolution but despite suggested compromises and high level negotiations they were unable to broker an agreement that was acceptable to both Mr Vermeulen and the Venezuelan authorities.
Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans Papers, D3/1
Despite Sir Guildhaume’s efforts to persuade the authorities otherwise, Venezuela temporarily pulled out of the International Labour Organization but it seems that indirectly at least, the whole affair did have the effect that Mr Vermeulen and the union officials had been hoping for. In a letter from Sir Guildhaume to the British delegation in Geneva on 31 May he was able to report that a number of union officers had been released from prison adding in typical civil servant understatement:
“I like to think that I might have some partial responsibility for this happy result”.
The full story can be found in Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans Papers Series D3.
Rob Phillips
The Welsh Political Archive
This blog is also available in Welsh.
Collections - Posted 24-01-2023
A selection of the Library’s archival collections
2022 was a busy year for the Library’s archivists. The easing of covid restrictions meant that they were able to spend the whole year cataloguing archives in earnest as well as undertaking their other responsibilities, so many more catalogues were produced than in the previous two years.
Here is a taste of the catalogues that were completed in 2022. Work continues on other catalogues as ever, including some substantial and important new archives and also small additions to existing catalogues. Details of recently catalogued manuscripts in the NLW MSS and NLW ex series will appear in another blog.
Records of Aber Research, an organisation that conducted opinion polls and gathered statistical information on behalf of Plaid Cymru during the 1990s.
A further addition to the extensive archive of the Welsh youth organisation.
Caryl and Herbert Roese Papers
Academic and research papers of the musician Caryl Roese and her husband, Herbert Roese.
An addition to the archive of the composer David Harries, including works by him and William Mathias.
An addition to the papers accumulated by the historian Sir Deian Hopkin, including a Llanelli Labour Party minute book for the meeting in which Jim Griffiths was selected as a candidate.
Additional papers of the agriculturalist Emrys Bennett Owen (1911-1988), including material relating to his interests in music, farming and community matters.
Greg Hill Papers
Papers of the writer, poet and literary editor Greg Hill.
Educational papers of Hywel Ceri Jones, an official with the European Commission.
Election literature from Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom, 1928-1997, collected by the Reverend Ivor T. Rees.
Jenny Porter Papers
Papers of Jenny Porter, co-ordinator of Cymru Pride Wales.
Papers of the sculptor, draughtsman and teacher John Meirion Morris (1936-2020).
Layers in the Landscape Archive
Papers created in relation to Layers in the Landscape, an interdisciplinary project that applied the concept of deep mapping to the submerged landscape of Cardigan Bay.
An addition to the papers of the politician and broadcaster Lee Waters.
Llangyndeyrn’s Fight for Victory Archive
A collection of material relating to the struggle of communities in the Gwendraeth Valley against the efforts of Swansea Corporation to create a reservoir there in the 1960s.
Lord MacDonald of Gwaenysgor Papers
Political and personal papers of Lord MacDonald of Gwaenysgor (1988-1966), including material relating to issues such as the unification of Newfoundland and Canada.
Mary Silyn Roberts Papers (Women’s Archive of Wales)
Personal and professional papers of the educational campaigner Mary Silyn Roberts (1877-1972), together with those of her husband, Robert (Silyn) Roberts.
NLW Deed 1962
King John’s Abergavenny charter. There was a blog about the charter soon after we purchased it, and a more detailed article about it has also been published recently: D. J. Moore, ‘Abergavenny and Dunwallesland: a 1209 charter of king John’ in The Monmouthshire Antiquary: Proceedings of the Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association XXXVII (2022), 5-13
Literary and academic papers of the writer Alun Eirug Davies (1932-2019), together with personal and literary papers of his father, the Reverend T. Eirug Davies.
Papurau Cymdeithas Lyfrau Ceredigion
Records of the Aberystwyth publishing group which specialises in Welsh-language books.
A small addition to the literary archive of the writer Tecwyn Lloyd.
Professional papers of the harpist Elinor Bennett.
Papers of the Reverend David Samuel Owen (1887-1959), minister of Jewin Chapel, London.
Personal and professional papers of the renowned actress Siân Phillips.
Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans Papers
Papers of Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans (1894-1964), a senior civil servant, industrial relations expert and British representative to the International Labour Organisation, including records relating to the Local Government Commission for Wales, as well as a diplomatic spat in Venezuela with the ILO.
Welsh Political Ephemera Collection
Further additions to the ephemera collection.
Welsh Women’s Aid Archive (Women’s Archive of Wales)
Administrative papers of the Aberystwyth, Pontypridd and Cardiff branches of Welsh Women’s Aid, referring to many issues affecting women and their children who use the service including domestic violence, social welfare and the law.
David Moore (Archivist)
This blog is also available in Welsh.
Collections - Posted 23-01-2023
During the 1980s computer boom, a number of new companies emerged that began creating hardware for the general public. Previously, cost and size was a prohibiting factor, but with computers getting smaller and cheaper to manufacture, a new dawn for tech enthusiasts arose. One of these new companies was named Dragon Data, which was set up in the early 80s in South Wales by the toy company Mattoy.
They had some success with their Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 computers, but life would be short for this Dragon. Technical limitations meant that it would eventually trail behind its competitors, such as Sinclair and Commodore and the company began to struggle. During the mid-80s the company was purchased by Eurohand S.A. which then relocated its base to Spain. In 1987, the original company and name was finally discontinued following bankruptcy.
The National Library holds a number of titles that relate to the Dragon computer (see the photograph). Many of which dive deep into how to program using the machine.
Even though the Dragon’s life was short, its legacy and name lived on. Many social media creators on outlets such as Youtube display their detailed research of the company.
Further reading/watching:
Duncan Smeed. 1983. Inside the Dragon.
George Knight. 1983. Learning to use the Dragon 32 Computer.
Keith Brain. 1984. Advanced sound & graphics for the Dragon computer: including machine code subroutine.
Keith Brain. 1984. Artificial intelligence on the Dragon computer: Make your micro think.
Keith Brain. 1984. Dragon 32 games master: Learn how to write your own top level games.
Tim Hartnell. 1984. Giant book of games for your Dragon.
Tim Langdell. 1982. 35 programs for the Dragon 32.
Dragon user: the independent Dragon magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Data
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_32/64
https://www.nostalgianerd.com/the-dragon-32/
Nostaglia Nerd’s History of the Dragon 32/64: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifDQ,_OlUhTc
Ian Evans,
Shared Cataloguing Programme Manager.
Collections / Uncategorized - Posted 09-01-2023
One of the books purchased recently for our rare book collections is Experiments and observations made in Britain, in order to obtain a rule for measuring heights with the barometer. The author was Colonel William Roy (1726-1790), surveyor and founder of the Ordnance Survey. The report was originally published in the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society in 1777, but the copy we have bought was published separately by J. Nichols the following year.
The experiments described in the report were carried out in various locations, including Schiehallion in Scotland and Snowdon in Wales. As well as descriptions of the experiments, the book includes tables of the measurements and maps of the mountains where they were made. It provides important evidence of the contribution of north Wales to scientific developments in the eighteenth century.
Timothy Cutts,
Rare Books Librarian.
Day in the life - Posted 21-12-2022
During the month of November, staff from the Library visited the National Library of Scotland to attend meetings to discuss operational and strategic matters relating to the Legal Deposit agency. The Agency collects legal deposit material from across the UK and Ireland to then distribute it to all of the legal deposit libraries.
The visit involved being shown around the main National Library of Scotland building on George IV Bridge, their second site at Causewayside, and also the agency itself.
Highlights of the trip included seeing the exhibitions area at the Library, which focused on modern Scottish authors, such as Ian Rankin. There was also an opportunity to discuss library practices. A behind the scenes tour provided an opportunity to visit their extensive storage areas and discuss issues such as how they are dealing with storage space. The Periodical Team also talked about how they dealt with the backlog created because of the Covid pandemic – an issue that all legal deposit libraries needed to manage.
Visiting the Agency building was also an interesting experience, seeing the Library’s own green crates being filled with new material, to be opened and processed the following week by Library staff.
The trip was very successful. It was an opportunity to discuss important matters relating the Agency and it also showed the importance of co-working and sharing knowledge. It was also a chance to meet up with other legal deposit librarians from across the UK and Ireland.