SWML @ 50The South Wales Miners' Library at 50

21. Audio clip of an interview with Archie Lush

In June 1927, Archie Lush, an unemployed miner and self-described ‘working class, extra-mural student’, travelled to Oxford to meet his prospective university tutor at Balliol College. During the meeting, the tutor presented Archie with a list of recommended reading. When Archie responded that he had already read the books suggested, the tutor asked, rather incredulously, ‘Well, where would you get these books?’. The answer, Archie replied, ‘Tredegar Workmen’s Institute’. 

“When I went up and this tutor fellow saw me about June, I was going in October, and gave me a long list of books to read before I came up. When I told him I had read so-and-so, and so-and-so, he just didn’t believe me. And he said, ‘Well, where would you get these books?’ Because I was this sort of working class, extra-mural student, you know. And I said, ‘Tredegar Workmen’s Library’. Well, that convinced him, you know, that I couldn’t possibly… But I had read them, and I was able to tell him what was in them…” - Archie Lush interviewed by Hywel Francis, 11/05/1973 [SWCC/AUD/338] 

Once described as the ‘brains of the coalfield’, institute libraries flourished in the early part of the twentieth century. From Aberaman to Ystradgynlais, Abercraf to Ynysybwl, almost every colliery town had an institute or welfare hall library that offered an array of reading materials - from mathematics and engineering to politics, literature, and the arts. Most institute libraries also had subscriptions to local and national newspapers. 

As the coal industry declined, so too did the popularity of institute libraries and the weekly contributions that had previously helped sustain them. This, combined with the increased provision in secondary education, availability of local public libraries and a change in social pastimes, meant that the institute library was no longer the social and educational hub of the community. 

As institutes closed and collections were disbanded, a project funded by the Social Science Research Council was developed to gather and preserve the libraries of these incredible ‘educational citadels’. It is as a result of this project, that the South Wales Miners’ Library was established in 1973. Fifty years later, almost seventy institute libraries, including Tredegar’s, are still cared for by the SWML. 

22. Advertisement for film screenings at Tylorstown Welfare Hall 

As well as libraries and reading rooms, many miners’ institutes and welfare halls housed games rooms and communal spaces. Some institutes, like Tylorstown Welfare Hall, even had cinemas or picture halls. This poster advertises a screening of the films The Plainsman (1936), Dear Brat (1951), A Summer Place (1959) and A Question of Loyalty (1957) at Tylorstown Welfare Hall in October 1960. 

As part of a Heritage Lottery Funded project in 2021, several Tylorstown residents were interviewed and shared their memories of the cinema in its heyday. To hear some of these accounts, please visit our online exhibition, which was created in partnership with Tylorstown Welfare Hall and the Richard Burton Archives: https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/tylorstown-welfare-hall-and-institute/page/welcome

23. 1972 Miners’ Strike poster 

This poster was produced during the National Union of Mineworkers’ (NUM) strike of 1972 and was frequently on display at demonstrations and picket lines. The strike represented the first national stoppage since 1926, with miners striking for better pay following a significant decline in their wages relative to other industries. By the early 1970s, the net basic pay of surface and underground workers had fallen below the government’s official subsistence levels of £18 a week. The strike was notable for the widespread use of ‘flying pickets’, whereby striking miners travelled to different sites across the country to take part in picketing, as well as for the high levels of solidarity displayed by workers in other industries in support of the NUM.

The strike ended in victory for the miners, who succeeded in securing increased wages following the recommendations of the Wilberforce Report. But with the issue of declining relative wages returning amid the ongoing energy crisis of the early 1970s, a second confrontation with the Heath government would follow soon after in 1974. 

For more information on the 1972 strike, see our exhibition here: https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/1972-strike/page/introduction  

24. Pits and Perverts poster 

In March 1984, thousands of miners went out on strike across the UK in an effort to resist colliery closures and the Thatcher Government’s broader assault on organised labour. Four months into the strike, Mark Ashton held the first meeting of the newly formed Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) group. The group decided that there was a pressing need to raise awareness of the miners’ cause within the lesbian and gay community and to communicate the relevance of the miners’ struggle to lesbian and gay liberation. They soon forged an alliance with the Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valleys Miners’ Support Group, assisting striking miners and their families in the region through collecting funds for the strike appeal. 

After visiting the Dulais Valley, they decided to organise a benefit gig. This event became the Pits and Perverts concert held at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, with Bronski Beat as the headliners. The event raised an incredible £5,650! 

The following year, miners took part in the Gay Pride March in London, with the Dualis Valley’s Blaenant NUM lodge banner among those on display. 

25. Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp badges 

In August 1981, the South Wales based campaign group Women For Life On Earth began a 120-mile march from Cardiff to RAF Greenham Common, Berkshire, to protest against US nuclear weapons being placed at the base amid the escalation of the Cold War. The action led to the formation of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, which was occupied by women from across the UK for nearly two decades. At its height, over 70,000 women gathered in Greenham – the largest women-led protest in the UK since women’s suffrage. 

These badges form part of a wider collection of protest and other political badges held at the South Wales Miners’ Library. The spider web design on the badges became a symbol of the Greenham camp, representing both fragility and resilience. The Miners’ Library also houses a banner from the Swansea group Women Oppose the Nuclear Threat, who organised trips to Greenham on numerous occasions. 

During the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike, significant links developed between the women of Greenham and women’s support groups in mining communities – with many from the Greenham camp travelling to South Wales during the 1984-85 strike to march and picket alongside the miners and women of the coalfields. Likewise, women from the miners’ support groups visited and collected funds for the Greenham camp during the strike. 

26. Abercrave Lodge banner 

The Abercrave Lodge, a division of the National Union of Mineworkers (South Wales Area), created this banner in 1961. It depicts a white and a black miner jointly holding a miners’ lamp. The two figures are standing before a globe, a traditional symbol for international solidarity evident on many miners’ trade union banners. But this banner also has a more specific internationalist message. It was created a year after the Sharpeville Massacre in apartheid South Africa, in which police opened fire on a crowd of people protesting the regime’s racist ‘pass laws’. The massacre left 69 dead and 180 injured, many shot in the back while attempting to flee. The banner was purposefully created using the colours black, green, and gold to echo the colours of the African National Congress (ANC), the anti-apartheid liberation movement, later headed by Nelson Mandela, which was banned by authorities shortly after the massacre. 

Thirty years later, when Nelson Mandela visited the UK following his release from prison in 1990, the Abercrave banner was hanging in the Shadow Cabinet room at the House of Commons. Mandela enquired about the banner and was told that this was a banner of the South Wales miners. ‘Yes, of course, I understand’ was Mandela’s reply, in recognition of their support in the campaign against apartheid. 

27. The Co-op Home Magazine

The Co-operative Group, initially named The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, was founded in 1844. Consumer cooperatives such as these were established to meet the needs of their members in working-class communities as opposed to pursuing commerce solely for private profit. They opened their first shop later that year with a very sparse selection of groceries, limiting them to just butter, sugar, flour, and oatmeal. They traded independently until 1991 when they changed their name after merging with neighbouring co-operatives.

Between the years of 1896 and 1964, The Co-operative Wholesale Society published monthly issues of their magazine ‘The Wheatsheaf’, later renamed ‘The Co-op Home Magazine’. These magazines include short stories, cooking recipes and advertisements for items sold in store, providing an interesting window into the cultural and commercial history of the era. They form part of the Miners’ Library’s dedicated Co-operative Collection, which features an array of sources on the development of the co-operative movement in South Wales. 

28. Book of Cartoons by J.M. Staniforth

Joseph Morewood Staniforth (c. 1864 – 1921) was an artist best known for his cartoons for the Western Mail between 1889 and 1921. His period at the newspaper coincided with significant changes in the Welsh coal industry, not least the formation of the first coalfield wide union – the South Wales Miners’ Federation, commonly known as the ‘Fed’ – in 1898, and its ensuing political influence in South Wales.

Many cartoons deal with the subject of Welsh politics and labour relations in the coalfields, with frequent depictions of Lloyd George, the union leader ‘Mabon’ and a character of Staniforth’s own creation known as ‘Dame Wales’; a ‘Welsh mam’ caricature often cast as a voice of reason within the Welsh working class.

The newspaper, established by the industrialist John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, held an essentially conservative editorial line, hostile to the Fed and growing support for socialism in Wales. But stereotypes and editorial biases notwithstanding, the cartoons serve as interesting visual sources from an especially dynamic period in Welsh history.

29. Photograph of Maritime Colliery No.1 Rescue Squad

This photograph, part of our wider collection of framed paintings and photographs, shows the Maritime Colliery No.1 Rescue Squad from Pontypridd. They are holding their breathing apparatuses and safety lamps and are gathered before a dummy on a stretcher used for training. The team was one of many from across the coalfield that went to assist with rescue efforts in the aftermath of the Senghenydd disaster in 1913.

The explosion at Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, killed 439 people, making it the worst mining disaster in British history. On receiving news of the incident, specialist rescue teams arrived from the Rhymney and Rhondda Valleys, alongside ambulance services and Red Cross workers. Once down in the mine, rescue parties faced fires, roof collapses and toxic gasses. One rescuer was killed, others were injured or suffered from the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, though many lives were saved as a result of the recovery efforts.

On the centenary of the Senghenydd disaster, a monument to all those killed in Wales’s mining disasters was unveiled at the former pithead of Universal Colliery. The memorial sculpture, part of the National Mining Disaster Memorial Garden of Wales, depicts the rescue of an injured miner. 

30. Four Weeks in the Hands of Hitler’s Hell-Hounds by Hans Beimler 

Hans Beimler was a German communist and Reichstag deputy. In April 1933 he was arrested, under the Nazi impetus to rout out potential enemies, and sent to the new Dachau concentration camp. He escaped in May 1933 disguised as a Nazi guard. "Four Weeks" is of significance, being translated into most European languages, as one of the first eyewitness accounts of the fledgling Nazi concentration system. Beimler fled to Spain, eventually becoming Commissar of the Thaelman Battalion of the International Brigade fighting Franco's fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. He was killed during the Battle of Madrid in December 1936. In his honour the XI International Brigade was renamed the Hans Beimler Brigade.