An anorak’s paradise

PB Abery's 1930s picture of 'Tom Hamer, butcher and Mr Jones, Swan Hotel, Builth Wells, with by-election candidate' from a collection at the National Library of Wales

THE calling of a parliamentary general election transforms the political life of the nation as the political parties all swing into their activities at once and their election machines move up a gear. Political life is characterised by a frenzy and passion not seen usually seen at other times in the Parliamentary cycle.

At the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, the Welsh Political Archive is also given a new lease of life at this time as it makes a concerted effort to collect all the election manifestos, candidates’ addresses, leaflets, posters, flyers and stickers which circulate around Wales during the few frenzied weeks of the election campaign.

The Welsh Political Archive was originally set up at the National Library in the spring of 1983, just before the general election held in June of that year which eventually led to the election of the second Thatcher administration. Its establishment was the result of a growing conviction and concern, both within the Library and outside, that political archives were not being properly preserved in libraries and record offices.

The main thrust of the Archive’s activities during the 27 years since its inception has been the acquisition and cataloguing of the papers of Welsh politicians and public figures, political parties and pressure groups.

It has some considerably important papers in the collection. There are thousands of letters from David Lloyd George to his first wife Dame Margaret and his younger brother William, both of whom were based at Criccieth in north Wales. There is a massive Plaid Cymru archive, extending right back to the formation of the party in August 1925, and right through to the new millenium and the present day. There are the papers of Ron Evans, who was the local party agent to both Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot in Ebbw Vale. And there are the books of the City of Cardiff Conservative Associations, extending back to the period of the First World War.

The WPA set up a consultative committee in 1985 and then published its first Newsletter shortly afterwards. Some 40issues have been published to date. In 1987, a high-profile public lecture was instituted which, now held each year on the first Friday evening in November, has become an annual event of some importance in the Aberystwyth calendar.

From the outset, the WPA has succeeded in building up a near complete set of the ephemera circulated in Wales during parliamentary general and by-elections, elections to the European Parliament at Brussels and, since 1999, those to the National Assembly.

A network of dedicated contacts, many of them relatives and friends of NLW staff, has been built up throughout the 40 Welsh constituencies. They conscientiously retain all the leaflets, addresses, posters and other election material which come their way during the election campaign and forward them to the WPA once the results are known. Wales is a small enough unit electorally, with some 200 candidates standing usually in each General Election, to make the collection of a complete set of election materials possible and indeed attainable.

We also secure the ready assistance of the Welsh headquarters of the major political parties at Cardiff, which forward to us copies of their Welsh manifestos and other publications circulated nationally to add to our collections.

All these materials are added to what is known as the Welsh Political Ephemera collection, which also contains old election addresses and leaflets some of which date back to the late 19th Century. A definitive list of the entire archive was completed back in 2004 and is available for consultation online via the National Library’s web pages. Potential readers that want to consult these materials in the Library’s South Reading Room are also able to order them beforehand using the NLW website.

The election materials are sorted on arrival and filed by each individual constituency within acid-free archival wallets. They are then numbered within a new series and added to the Welsh Political Ephemera collection a few months after each election. The publications of the Welsh parties are placed at the end of each series.

This makes it easy for potential researchers to call up all the files deriving from a single parliamentary constituency. Comparison of candidates’ standpoints and emphases in succeeding elections is illuminating as attitudes and policies vary considerably with the passage of time. Useful comparisons can be made between candidates’ policies when they stood for the Westminster Parliament and later for the National Assembly for Wales.

Other relevant sources are preserved here, too. The websites of the main political parties in Wales are archived at regular intervals during the course of the election campaign. The staff of the Screen and Sound Archive of Wales make every effort to record news bulletins, documentaries, political broadcasts, and other relevant programmes broadcast throughout the general election campaign. They are then available for viewing at the Library by holders of accredited readers’ tickets.

In due course, some prominent Welsh politicians will doubtless present to the Archive their papers which relate to the 2010 general election in Wales. The political parties will also donate their archives covering this momentous general election campaign and its nail-biting outcome. But this will not happen for a few years yet.

As a copyright receipt or legal deposit library, the NLW receives many publications relating to Welsh politics and political history. Some of these will eventually cover the 2010 general election. Thus the National Library will be home to a rich, disparate array of relevant sources materials available under the umbrella of the Welsh Political Archive.

- The Welsh Political Archive has several pages on the Library’s website.