Engaging new audiences
A new exhibition celebrating the contribution a century ago of local women to the struggle for women’s suffrage is seen here on display in Margam Orangery in November. 2018 was a major year for anniversaries, with centenaries marking the end of the First World War and the partial granting of women’s suffrage. In July, it was also the seventieth anniversary of the foundation of the National Health Service. The activities we undertook to help mark these anniversaries are described in greater detail elsewhere in this report, suffice to say here that the Archive Service plays an important role in the civic commemoration of such events. Together with the two museums services, we are the custodians of much of the original documentary material and artefacts which allow us to understand how national events played out at a local level. Our narrative exhibitions generally attract significant interest from local residents, especially when they coincide with television and press coverage of the anniversary. The major archive exhibition of 2018 was one commemorating the centenary of the partial granting of the women’s voting rights in 1918. It was created in partnership with Swansea Museum, the Dylan Thomas Centre, Richard Burton Archives Swansea University and Women’s Archive Wales and illustrates how working in partnership has become integral to the way we plan such activity. A significant occasion where the women’s suffrage panels were on display was at the unveiling on 14th December (the centenary of the first general election in which women voted) of a Swansea Council blue plaque to the suffragist Clara Neal. The event took place at Terrace Road Primary School in Swansea, where Clara was headmistress for twenty years. This and other local history exhibitions created by the Service are available for loan to community groups, schools and other venues via our web page ‘Exhibitions you can borrow’.