Library & Reading Room

Victorian social thinking widely advocated self-help and the miners Institutes reflected this ideal.   The isolation of valley communities encouraged self-help.   Outside bodies would have been an unfamiliar resource to villages such as Llanhilleth, with its rapidly growing community of virtual strangers moving into an area lacking in housing and basic facilities.  These miners had to rely on each other, their ‘butties’ to help with harsh pit work, and ultimately for their lives.   They developed mutual respect and learned to work together to develop their recreational facilities.

Institutes as a source of Education

From the mid nineteenth century, most mining communities had a Workman’s Hall, Colliers Club or Miners Welfare Hall.   They were given many different names, but provided similar facilities.   In many respects with very little alternative opportunity for adult learning, these buildings were regarded as the Miners’ Universities.   Using resources such as the library, lectures, training courses, and discussion groups, members could educate themselves whilst still working long hours down the pit.   They could read the latest newspapers and catch up on current events.    Some used these facilities to enable them to progress into university, perhaps pit management, or as a passport to discovering the world beyond.

Schooling & Education

Compulsory schooling in the 1880s helped limit the size of some families, as parents were required to pay for their child’s education.    

The ‘Labour Examination’  ensured children could read, write and remained in education until the age of 10, but in 1918 the Education Act raised the age for compulsory education and included children 5-14 years of age.   At times of hardship there was always the temptation to send children of school age to help the local farmers, but the truancy officer (also known as the kid-catcher,) was always at hand.

Improved schooling towards the end of the nineteenth century created a huge increase in literacy and in the desire within the adult population to not only read for recreation, but to improve themselves educationally and culturally.   There was more availability of printed matter, and a demand for access to libraries and reading rooms was growing.  

Later the charge for children’s education was lifted, allowing miners the luxury of affording a compulsory 1d. per week deduction from their wages to pay for their library and later the new Institute building.  

Reading Room

Llanhilleth Institute’s Reading Room was separate from the Library.   Both were larger and more luxurious than in the previously rented building.  

The Reading Room, located on the upper ground floor, was situated at the back of the building, behind the “Lesser room.”   Newspapers were placed on a long wooden desk in the middle of the room.    Each paper had a wooden bar and a lock to prevent removal or creasing, as the miners crowded to read the latest news. 
 

Every broadsheet newspaper of the 1900’s , including Punch and Titbits was available here.     The Daily Mail, first published in 1896, unlike other newspapers was written in a style to attract readers with little education.

Passions ran high during the 1926 strike and the Western Mail was banned from many Institute and Welfare Libraries during that time because of its stance in supporting the coal owners.

In the 1960’s there were around 40 newspapers and magazines available, and men were known to work their way around the room, taking up to four hours to read every paper.

Gambling in the early part of the twentieth century was illegal (although commonplace), so, to ensure the men were not tempted, the racing pages were always removed or blacked out and made illegible.

Although no refreshments were available in the building, and no talking was allowed in the Reading Room, smoking was allowed, so men could remain in this warm comfortable, quiet environment all day to study every paper away from a nagging wife and noisy children.   No ladies visited this room.   Often younger members would read to their elders, but care had to be taken always to show respect.   Miners, heavy smokers or not, always ended every laugh with a cough.   A spittoon was located in the corner of the room, for use by those in need of relieving themselves from the lung congestion caused from years of breathing coal dust.    Eventually, even ex-underground miners living closest would be unable, due to shortness of breath, to make the short walk to the Institute.

People today remember as small children, being taken along to the Reading Room, where they would have to sit quietly while their fathers or grandfathers read the national newspapers.   “They were like giants,” was one memory of the broad sheets, (no tabloids allowed).   An estimate of the cost to provide the daily and weekly newspapers in the 1930s was around 10s. a week (50p).   Unfortunately, as membership dwindled during the 1960’s and costs increased, the papers were discontinued.

The Library

The Institute library was originally a tiny room (around 12ft x 8ft) to the left of the entrance on the upper ground floor, part of the current office, Later in the century the public library moved to the lower ground, where it remained until the latest renovations.    Unlike the Reading Room, talking was allowed.   This was a room for selecting and borrowing books, not for reading or study.   

Memories still remain of the splendour of the shelves of books revealed as the librarian slid back the wire mesh shutters.   Book subjects included light-hearted fiction as well as political copy and technical books for students at the Crumlin Technical College.   This was a luxury.   The miners had an eclectic reading habit, covering anything from history, philosophy, poetry and science.   Their thirst for knowledge was insatiable. Books were generally expensive and stores such as W H Smiths were located on larger railway stations and in cities, not in villages such as Llanhilleth.

The Joint Committee for the Promotion of Educational Facilities in the South Wales and Monmouthshire Coalfield, in 1928, looked into conditions in Workmen’s Libraries in the Rhondda and Aberdare areas.   Although Llanhilleth was not included in the survey,and I have been unable to find details, the following statistics, show the importance of Institute libraries within the valley community:

Tredegar Institute during the inter-war period spent £300 per annum on books.     

Clydach Vale Library held 15,000 volumes.

Park & Dare Institute, Treorchy, received contributions from 3,500 miners.

After the depression, books were in poor condition from usage  and there were no funds to purchase new.   Various Institutes sent out letters in the press and requested donations.   Unfortunately, as with all donations, the quality and volume was variable.

The current library

Various opinions exist as to the selection and choice of reading matter of miners during the first half of the twentieth century.    With very little to occupy their leisure time during strikes, unemployment or lay-offs, many had read every book in the library.   There is a view that they read whatever the local librarian purchased.   In many Institutes, it was, therefore, the librarian’s choice of reading matter and not the miners’ themselves.

However, the Institute library was run by a committee who could, no doubt, influence the choices made by the librarian.   Miners inevitably would have been able to approach members of this committee regarding any particular volume they wished to read.

In the 1940s older pupils attended Crumlin Technical College, many using the library for their course books.   If a particular book was not available, the librarian would obtain it.   Men of all ages borrowed books to progress their education whilst working on the railway and underground, using the Institute as a location for heated debates on many varied topics.

“Its hard to overcome feeling you’re an outsider.”   Sixty years ago, one young child, a baker’s daughter, always felt jealous of her friend, a miner’s daughter, who was allowed to change her mother’s library books.    Originally, the library was for miners’ families only.    

Tarzan of The Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs seems to have been a popular boy’s choice of reading.

Computers at the 'Stute

Later, in the 1970s, librarians would read to groups of children – keeping them quiet, is definitely a skill to be learned.    Over the years, costs and prices have  consistently increased, but in 2010 local government library membership was free (whether a lady or otherwise).   Back in 1982 Lady members of the Llanhilleth Colliery Workman’s Institute and Library were expected to pay 5s. (25p) annual subscription.    In 1987 it must have been a shock to the members to hear of a 100 per cent increase in charges, to 10s. (50p) per year.

The Council library was brought down to the ‘stute in the late 1980s.   Presumably the annual fee was then dropped.

The current public library is located in the Red Ash Cafe, along with computers linked to the internet.

Llanhilleth Colliery Workmens Institute & Library Membership Card

The membership card was made from sturdy cloth on board, designed to last for seven years.  The outside was pillar box red with gold lettering.   The inside provided space for the owners name and address, their membership number and details of their annual payments.

Members of the Club did not keep the same membership number for life.   As members of the Social Club moved away or died, their membership number became available, so each year, membership numbers would change, reflecting the total membership of the club.

Strict rules applied to the involvement of ladies within the Institute.   As with most Workmens Institutes, they were not allowed to attend general meetings, vote at elections or hold office.   Neither could they propose or second candidates for office.

By 2004 the membership card had become a much cheaper blue card with the title “Llanhilleth Workingmens Club.”

Pass cards were issued every year when a club associate member paid his membership fee.   It would have to be presented should the bearer attend another club, to prove dues had been paid to the WMCIU union.   As printing and photocopying methods improved, the plain 1967 card was superseded by more complex gold foil and sophisticated designs to make them harder to replicate.

The Surgery

During the 1950s the doctor’s surgery in the ‘Stute was on the ground floor.

In the 1980s there was a Doctor’s surgery in the main street of Llanhilleth, but the stairs made it quite difficult for people to manoeuvre.   The Committee agreed that they would move to the building and Florence Smith (Chris Smith’s nan) officially opened the surgery around 1986.   

During the 2007 renovations the surgery was moved into a temporary building on the nearby Industrial Site and then brought back in 2008 to the lower ground floor.