Wooden handled hammer used in James Williams’ Bonded Stores for corking bottles or barrels. The hammer has compressed rubber pads on either ends of the cylindrical head. It was donated by Bridget Lee-Davies (1915-2009), a long-time supporter of Narberth Museum. The ‘Bond’ was built for James Williams (Narberth) Beer and Wine Merchants (established 1830) in around 1896 and was used for storing and blending spirits. 

Whisky was shipped from Glasgow to Cardigan and then brought to the stores. Brandy, port and sherry came from Europe. Kegs were hoisted to the first floor and left to mature. Water for blending was drawn from a tap in Church Street. When ready, the contents were poured into a trough that led to the downstairs area and into a blending tank. Everything was held in the stores ‘in bond’ until it was bottled. No duty was paid until the alcohol left the building. Twice-weekly visits were made by the Customs and Excise officer to assess the spirits and duty owed. Security was naturally tight – two keys were required to unlock the large wooden doors, one held by the Customs officer, the other by the Store Manager. 

The bonded stores closed following the company’s move to the edge of town. The building was in use until the 1990s as a warehouse and in 2012, after a major restoration project, was re-opened as a home for Narberth Museum. 

The rubber component of this corking hammer shows a link to raw materials made available through the continued expansion of the British Empire. Rubber has a long connection to colonization. By the 1800s, with the huge world demand for rubber, Britain decided to grow plants in its tropical colonies. In 1873 Henry Wickham, a British planter living in South America, was hired to take seeds out of Amazonia to send back to Britain. Of the 70000 seeds taken only 12500 survived. Seedlings from British greenhouses were transplanted to British colonial plantations in Southeast Asia. By the 1890s 740,000 acres of rubber trees grew in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Belgian administration of the Congo took place from the 1870s to the 1920s and was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley who explored under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold extracted ivory, rubber, and minerals in the upper Congo basin for sale on the world market, formally acquiring rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and made the land his private property. 

On May 29, 1885, the king named his new colony the Congo Free State. The state would eventually include an area now held by the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Leopold’s reign in the Congo eventually earned infamy due to the increasingly brutal mistreatment of the indigenous peoples. In the Congo Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of cars and development of rubber tires created a growing international market. From 1885–1908, millions of Congolese died as a consequence of exploitation and disease. Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. The Abir Congo Company (founded as the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company) also exploited natural rubber in the Congo Free State. The company was founded with British and Belgian capital and was based in Belgium. .