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Glamorgan’s Blood Mining Exhibition

4 February 2020

Pneumoconiosis
'Pneumoconiosis, The Deadly Dust', Miners' Gala, Sophia Gardens, Cardiff

This spring we welcome the Glamorgan’s Blood exhibition on loan from The Glamorgan Archives.  The exhibition examines health and welfare records from across the South Wales Coalfield.

The records include a variety of items from the coal industry, with papers on subjects such as the colliery band, pithead baths, pit disasters and wages.  The exhibition also features the Miners’ Institutes, the focus for the educational, cultural and social life of coalfield communities, a subject we believe our colleagues and students will take a particular interest in.

Another highlight of the exhibition is a guide to using the pithead baths from the original welfare related manual which reads:

Get your “butty” to wash your back. Then you do his. The most up-to-date installation has not yet discovered any better method of “back-washing”.

Pithead baths instruction booklet, Fernhill Colliery
Pithead baths instruction booklet, Fernhill Colliery

The exhibition will be open to the public in the Student Common Room which is accessed from our foyer in the Continuing and Professional Education Building from 3rd March to 24th March.

If you are inspired to learn more about local history, visit our history course pages to view the part-time courses we offer throughout the year.

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