Tag: museums

A tiger in the castle

March 15, 2024 0 Comments
A tiger in the castle

Powis Castle is quite a frightening place.  A huge lump of sandstone glowering down on the Severn valley from its ridge, it was always intended to be intimidating, when it was first built by Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, a Welsh ally of the Normans, and later on when it was controlled by the powerful Herbert family.  […]

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Swansea’s golden age of innovation

February 16, 2024 3 Comments
Swansea’s golden age of innovation

After five years of labour our baby was born last week.  It weighed in at a whopping 1.88 kilograms and almost 600 pages.  Its many parents are rightly proud of it.  You’ll have guessed by now that it’s a big book.  Entitled Swansea’s Royal Institution and Wales’s first museum, it will stand for many years […]

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Some nineteenth century Cardiff archaeologists

January 13, 2023 0 Comments
Some nineteenth century Cardiff archaeologists

Nineteenth century Glamorgan saw the birth and rapid growth of an industrial working class. But also significant was the rise to prominence, and eventually to power, of an enlarged middle class.  Cardiff, though it failed at first to diversify industrially much beyond coal-exporting, found a role as the chief commercial and administrative centre of south-east […]

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Can the British Museum change?

February 11, 2022 4 Comments
Can the British Museum change?

The recent return to Nigeria of some of the Benin bronzes from collections across Europe has heightened the debate about ‘repatriating’ museum objects to the places from which they were illegally seized. The finely made bronze plaques and sculptures once adorned the royal palace in Benin City and were made over a lengthy period, from […]

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What are museums for?

December 4, 2021 3 Comments
What are museums for?

The 2021 Richard Burton Lecture in Swansea University was given this week by David Anderson, Director General of Amgueddfa Cymru (‘Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales’, to give it its hyper-awkward formal name).  His title was ‘Do Welsh museums matter?’  It was a learned and a challenging talk, raising crucial questions about the role of […]

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Learning about Welsh history

November 12, 2021 6 Comments
Learning about Welsh history

Estyn has published a review of teaching Welsh history in schools, including specifically the teaching of BAME history.  It makes gloomy reading for anyone who believes that understanding where we are now in Wales, and where we might be in future, depend on a reasonable knowledge of how we got here. During the last twenty […]

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The memory of Sir Thomas Picton

August 23, 2019 9 Comments
The memory of Sir Thomas Picton

One of the many noxious elements making up the miasma of Brexiter thinking is exceptionalism.  The idea that Britain is naturally superior to other countries, and that it is strong enough to stand alone against every foe, has deep roots – much deeper than the Battle of Britain, so often trundled out by politicians.  If […]

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The Monmouthshire and Caerleon Antiquarian Association

October 13, 2018 2 Comments
The Monmouthshire and Caerleon Antiquarian Association

1   Origins and foundations The first local archaeological society in Wales, the Caerleon Antiquarian Association, was founded on 28th October 1847.  It owed its existence largely to the efforts of one man, John Edward Lee (1). Born in Hull in 1808, Lee worked from the age of sixteen in his uncles’ shipping office, but […]

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In search of 100 objects

September 30, 2018 1 Comment
In search of 100 objects

September 2018 has turned out to be a month of personal endings. Three weeks ago, after five and a half years of sporadic legwork, we finished the last mile of the Wales Coast Path. This week saw the publication of two books I’ve been working on for what seems almost as long, Wales in 100 […]

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The Powysland Club: its origin and early development

May 13, 2018 0 Comments
The Powysland Club: its origin and early development

1   Foundation The first county archaeological society in Wales was the Caerleon Antiquarian Association, founded in 1847 and renamed the Monmouthshire and Caerleon Antiquarian Association in 1857. It was twenty years before a second local archaeological society in Wales was founded, in 1867.  The gap is puzzling, especially when one considers that this period […]

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