Museum project ‘will give Wales’ iron and steel heritage the global recognition it deserves’

Martin Shipton

Wales’ iron and steel heritage will get the global recognition it deserves when a world class work in progress comes to fruition in Merthyr Tydfil, a lecture audience has been told.

Geraint Talfan Davies – a former Director of BBC Wales and Chair of the Institute of Welsh Affairs think tank – is currently driving a project aimed at turning Cyfarthfa Castle into a major international tourist destination.

Seismic

Delivering this year’s Richard Burton Lecture at Swansea University, Mr Davies said: “Less than two months ago it was announced that Port Talbot’s two blast furnaces are to close. They will be replaced by electric arc furnaces, and 2,800 jobs will disappear. It is one of those pivotal, not to say, seismic moments in an industry that has seen massive change and, across a century and more, far more retrenchment than growth.

“This is something that is particularly apparent to my colleagues and me as we try to engineer a new future for Cyfarthfa Castle and Park at Merthyr Tydfil, a town that for two-thirds of a century – from 1800-1860 – was the world’s largest centre of iron-making – and one with a remarkable global reach.

“In these related industries – iron and steel – in the 20th and 21st centuries, I’m afraid the bugle call of retreat has sounded with depressing regularity. Neath Abbey iron works closed in 1885, Blaenavon in 1904. Production at Crawshay’s Cyfarthfa works – that had started in 1763 – was already limping by the end of the 19th century, and ceased in 1919.

“The Guests’ Dowlais works that had opened in 1759 closed in 1936. Their East Moors works in Cardiff – built on the coast in the 1890s because iron ore now had to be imported – closed in 1978. Steelmaking at Ebbw Vale finished in 1975, at Shotton in north Wales in 1980, and at Llanwern in 2001. The original Port Talbot works, that had opened in 1902, closed in 1961, following the opening of the new and larger Abbey works a decade earlier.

“The figures are striking. In iron and steel (excluding steel processing), peak employment in the UK was reached in 1971, with a workforce of 323,000 across the UK. By 2022 that UK figure had dropped to 23,000. The same figure for Germany, by the way, is still 80,000. Compared with EU countries, we now rank fifth, behind Germany, Italy, France, and Poland.

“At the same time, we have also seen the complete demise of coal, from a peak workforce of 1.2 million across the UK in 1920 – of which no less than 271,000 were employed in Wales alone. Yes, from 1.2 million to NIL. Taken together, a total, 100%, loss of employment in coal, and a 93% reduction in steel.

“But we cannot and should not walk away from our history. So, given the part that our industrial centres have played in Welsh history for almost two centuries, should they be memorialised? And if so, how? Or is that a distraction from the need to reinvent our industrial and economic base? I think not. I believe we can and must do both.

“But how do Merthyr Tydfil and Port Talbot differ? Industrial development is certainly not my expertise, but even the layman can see that coastal sites are better placed in today’s world, as they have been for more than a century. Port Talbot sits astride a main railway line and the M4 motorway; it has the advantage of a deep-water harbour. The admittedly rather eccentric boundary of Neath Port Talbot takes in Swansea University’s new campus, with its science and engineering focus. It seems that, even now, Port Talbot will retain some steel production, albeit greatly diminished. But it is surely that coastal situation and harbour that may help the town attract new

“On the softer side of life Margam Park, at 850 acres, is the largest country park in Wales, and has recently won a £900,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery fund. The castle was built in 1830, five years after Cyfarthfa and at much greater expense. Cyfarthfa cost William Crawshay £30,000. Margam cost the Talbot family £50,000.

“Geography probably dictates that Cyfarthfa and Merthyr Tydfil have to find a different economic salvation. The remedies for coastal sites may not be available to the historic inland centres of the metal industries. Merthyr, Ebbw Vale and Blaenavon all closed and struggled to find a new role. Shotton in the north, on the edge of Liverpool/Manchester conurbation, has been luckier.

“Geography and location apart, the notion of steering the location of industry via Industrial Development Certificates and the designation of Development Areas – the post-war version of ‘levelling up’ that many of us grew up with – was abandoned by the Thatcher government in 1981. And, of course, EU Objective 1 status – that embraced the Valleys and West Wales, disappeared with our exit from the European Union.

“Despite this casting aside of past levers, surely we must hope that any new version of levelling up is constructed with urgency and at the necessary scale, and without entrenching persistent geographic inequities. I won’t mention HS2.”

Lloyd George

Turning to Merthyr and Cyfarthfa, Mr Davies said: “Lloyd George famously took aim at a former colleague, Sir John Simon, saying that ‘the honourable gentleman has sat on the fence so long the iron has entered his soul’.

“Well, I would like to persuade you to see a different meaning: that there is in the history of the iron industry and its community in Merthyr Tydfil a very rich soul – and that we do a disservice to our past if we describe and celebrate the industrial revolution only as an industrial process.

“At Cyfarthfa we want to celebrate the very many manifestations of that soul: a more rounded history, a community with the spirit to transcend its physical circumstances, a natural environment – first despoiled and then healed – a rooted culture that expresses itself in music, art and literature.”

Develop

But he added: “I want to make one thing as clear as I possibly can. I cannot state often enough that our aim is NOT to tart up a local museum, but rather to grow and develop what is there – already emblematic of our history – into a museum and gallery of a national and international depth and quality, commensurate with its astonishing history; and, yes, to make that history usable, to its community and the wider nation – a source of inspiration for the future, rather than mere solace for a vanished past.

“Now Cyfarthfa is an energetic local museum. I have nothing but praise for the small staff who run it – I’m sad to say – on a wing and a prayer. I will also praise Merthyr council, whose support, despite being the smallest local authority in Wales, has been exceptional.

“But given the significance of Merthyr and Cyfarthfa in the history of our world, it can and must be transformed.

“A refreshed and expanded museum and gallery will need all this [currently] unused space to tell a fuller story, and to apply the full gamut of the latest digital display practice – including fact developing AI techniques – to tell the story in all its richness: the achievements of Crawshay, Guest, Homfray and Bacon, a story of collaboration and competition between Cyfarthfa, Dowlais, Penydarren and Plymouth works; a story of global reach; the arms with which wars were fought in Europe and America, and which defeated Napoleon; the rails for the railways that criss-crossed Britain, Europe and America; Trevithick’s ground-breaking engine – the world’s first steam locomotive; the ironworks that Merthyr workmen established in France, America and, of course, in Donetsk – once known as Hughesovska after its founder, Merthyr Tydfil’s John Hughes.”

Poverty

Mr Davies went on to say: “But industry is but one aspect of a society. There are many other sides of the story, that, I have to say, are less well told, or less fully told, in our museums, as part of the industrial story, and which demand equal attention: of the scourges of poverty and disease; of radicalism, riot and rebellion and of religion; of the growth of education as well as of democracy; of the role of women – and not just Charlotte Guest, Lucy Thomas and Rose Crawshay – but the unsung women who also toiled; of the migrations from the rest of Wales, from England and Europe – Irish, Italians and Jews; of 20th century decline and travail; of the challenges of war and peace; of art and culture; and above all, perhaps, a story of endurance.

“And then there is the art. What is insufficiently known is that Cyfarthfa houses a very substantial art collection, embracing works from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. If you haven’t been, go see it.”

Mr Davies concluded: “No project of this scale and intent could or should be attempted without the community that is its subject being central to both its design and execution.

“Our Cyfarthfa plan can be, should be, and must be an engine of social renewal in one of the most deprived communities in the UK. It must be a powerful educational force, and for all ages. It must be a catalytic cultural force in the town and beyond, engaging with other partners – the Theatr Soar language centre, the Redhouse, colleges and universities.

“Cyfarthfa must be an employer and a trainer – right across the professional skill base that the museum, the landscape and the community will need.

“However big the monuments of the past, they won’t stand forever if they are not cared for by this and future generations. Without action, the bureaucratic protection of listed status and scheduled monuments will be mere tokenism.

“Now I know these are not propitious times. I do not for a moment underestimate the funding challenge, nor the encouragement and generosity shown already by the Welsh Government.

“The path ahead is not going to be easy. But I would remind us all that William Beveridge started work on designing the post-war welfare state for this country, not when peace was declared in 1945, but in 1942 – before the battle of El Alamein. Before our fortunes had even turned.

“So, I commend this scheme to you – not as a dream, but as an active project – despite Covid, despite Brexit, despite our current economic difficulties – not only as the necessary rescue of endangered relics, but as the overdue repayment of some small part of the debt we have owed for far, far, far too long to the valley communities of south Wales.”