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Gathering the Jewels features over 30,000 images of objects, books, letters, aerial photographs and other items from museums, archives and libraries throughout Wales.

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  • Tin plate rolling mill from Melyngriffith Tin Plate Works, Cardiff, manufactured at South Wales Foundry, Llanelli, 1910-11, with rolls manufactured at Millbrook Foundry, Swansea. The Welsh tinplate industry led the world from the early 19th century to the start of the 20th. At its peak it produced around 90 per cent of the world's tinplate as well as a large proportion of the world's galvanized sheets. The initial hot rolling of iron - later steel - bars into 'packs' of thin sheets was undertaken with a pack mill, such as the one shown here. This work was amongst the most prestigious in the industry and considerable skill and experience was required to prepare the sheets for their thin coating of molten tin. Most descriptions of the industry dwell at length upon the skill and teamwork required by pack mill crews to rapidly and repeatedly roll, double-over and re-roll the sheets before they cooled. The rollermen in charge of each mill held one of the most prestigious and well-paid of manual occupations and members of the pack mill crews required years of seniority as well as well-honed craft skills to achieve this coveted position. Pack mills epitomize uncodeable craft skills and teamwork coupled with immense physical labour undertaken in a gruelling working environment. Pack mills survive in only three museum collections; this is the sole surviving example to bear the name of the largest firm in the industry, Richard Thomas & Company, which grew in the early twentieth century to dominate the British tinplate industry.
Tinplate rolling mill from Melingriffith Tinplate Works, Cardiff, manufactured 1910-11 [image 1 of 3]
  • Rail mounted slag pot from East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, mid twentieth century. The pot was manufactured at Dowlais Foundry, Merthyr Tydfil. The metal smelting processes used in Wales generated molten waste products (slag) as well as smelted metals. Some processes generate relatively large amounts of slag and moving this very heavy, molten waste called for specialist vehicles. Of the Welsh metal smelting industries, the iron and steel industry evolved the largest and most specialised fleet of vehicles for carrying slag from furnaces to tips. This rail mounted slag pot is typical of twentieth century practice. It was manufactured at Dowlais Foundry, Merthyr Tydfil for East Moors Steel Works, Cardiff, probably in the 1950s, and used until the steelworks closed in 1978. The cast iron pot has walls 30cm thick but it required no special lining because slag did not adhere unduly to the pot. The slag was tipped in a molten state onto waste tips which, typically of coastal smelting works in Wales, were used to level up low-lying land for development, to reclaim land from the sea, and to form sea defences. Pre-twentieth century inland smelting works, in contrast, where tipping land was at a premium, were obliged to mound up their slag in a manner similar to mine waste tips. Most of these older inland tips have been reclaimed with their slag being crushed and used as fill and foundation material.
Rail mounted slag pot from East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, mid-20th century
  • Ornate casket made of 'Thomas steel' presented to Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, Welsh steel process inventor, by the Prager Eisenindustrie Gesellschaft in Vienna in 1882. Sidney Gilchrist Thomas (1850-83), assisted by his cousin Percy Carlisle Gilchrist (1851-1935) invented the 'basic process' of steel making at Blaenavon Iron & Steel Works in 1878 and made steelmaking possible from previously unsuitable iron ores. As a result, bulk steelmaking, previously confined to a limited range of iron ores, became possible with all the world's iron ores. Their invention laid the foundation of the European and US steel industries which rapidly eclipsed Britain's. Today all the world's steel is made by the basic process. Both men received widespread recognition for their invention (although they had a hard legal battle to protect their patents in those European countries whose steelmakers had the most to gain from the new process). The casket, which contains a congratulatory message, was presented to S. G. Thomas by the Prague Steel Company during a visit to Vienna a year before his death from tuberculosis.
Casket made of 'Thomas steel' presented to Sidney Gilchrist Thomas by the Prager Eisenindustrie Gesellschaft in Vienna in 1882
  • Steel melter's blue spectacles used at East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff, mid twentieth century. Steel melters' spectacles were not just protective, they also symbolise the empirical nature of the process of steel smelting for much of its history, which was based on visual assessment of molten metal done entirely through such spectacles. The precise shade of glass varied from one pair to the next and so steel melters carefully guarded their own pairs as they'd be unable to accurately judge the condition of the melt if another man's spectacles were used. This was one of the last bastions of a 'black art' i.e. a skill that could only be learnt by years of experience. Such visual assessment of the condition of molten steel was universal in the open hearth process which dominated Welsh steelmaking from the late nineteenth century until the 1970s.
Steel melter's protective blue lensed spectacles used at East Moors Steelworks, Cardiff
  • Sample of steel bullhead rail engraved 'TVR / 82 lbs per Yard / Crawshay Cyfarthfa / 1903', and rolled at Cyfarthfa Iron & Steel Works, Merthyr Tydfil, for the Taff Vale Railway, 1903.
Sample section of bullhead rail made at Cyfarthfa Iron & Steel Works, Merthyr Tydfil
  • Pattern engraved 'NO.447 / DECEMBER 15/58 / AMERICAN / 60 / NO.461 / DEC 21/58', for wrought iron flat bottomed 'pear topped' American rail, probably rolled at Cwmavon Iron Works, 1858.
Nickel-silver pattern for rail probably made at Cwmavon Iron Works, 1858