Wales’ industrial past will be the focus of a national touring exhibition hosted by Gwynedd Archives this summer.
Powering the World: Looking at Welsh Industry through Archives will be shown at Caernarfon Archives during August before moving on the Dolgellau Archives in September.
The exhibition aims to raise awareness of the wealth of knowledge that industrial records can reveal about our ancestors’ day to day lives.
“The exhibition will be a great opportunity for local people to learn more about their past,” said Councillor John Wynn Jones who leads on Culture on Gwynedd Council.
“Company archives show the kinds of jobs our ancestors did, how they were trained, their working conditions and their economic situation.”
Of special local interest will be records from Gwynedd’s slate quarrying industry.
As part of a joint bid with other archives services in Wales, Gwynedd Archives were successful in getting a National Cataloguing Grant to catalogue the collections of local slate merchants Inigo Jones and the Davies Brothers of Porthmadog.
“The archives of Inigo Jones demonstrate our long and proud history, having worked continuously at the Tudor Slate Works at Groeslon since 1861,” said John Lloyd, Managing Director of Inigo Jones & Co Ltd.
He added: “We are pleased that our corporate memory is in safe hands at Gwynedd Archives.”
For more information about the archives services provided by Gwynedd Council, including contact details and opening hours, go to www.gwynedd.gov.uk/archives
