Studies in Welsh History

Between 1450 and 1720, Wales was a place of opportunity as well as a society in transition. This book is an exciting new study of how one elite family navigated political, social, and cultural change while maintaining their Welsh identity.

The lordship of Denbigh, held by prominent English barons following its creation in 1282, was directly affected by several major events culminating in its incorporation in Denbighshire, newly-formed by the Union legislation of 1536–43. The social policy adopted by the central administration, based at Denbigh castle, featured a colony comprising English settlers who inhabited five English settlement centres surrounded by localities containing displaced Welsh tenants. Members of kindred groupings succeeded in evading traditional restrictions, with detailed information presented in several rentals on the acquisition and disposal of lands by male and female members of both Welsh and settler families. Despite the earlier extensive English settlement, the area has been considered to have contributed immensely to the Welsh literary heritage.

This is the first full-length study of Swansea's urban development from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. It tells the little-known story of how Swansea gained an unrivalled position of influence as an urban centre, which led it briefly to claim to be the 'metropolis of Wales', and how it then lost this status in the face of rapid urban development elsewhere in Wales. As such it provides an important new perspective on Welsh urban history in which the role of Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil and even Bristol are better known as towns of influence in Welsh urban life. It also offers an analysis of how Swansea's experience of urbanisation fits into the wider picture of British urban history.

This study examines the spread of socialism in late-Victorian and Edwardian Wales, paying particular attention to the relationship between socialism and Welsh national identity. Welsh opponents of socialism often claimed it to be a foreign import, whereas socialists often asserted that the Welsh were socialist by nature. This study—the first full-scale study of the influence of early socialism across all of Wales—demonstrates that the reality was more complex than either assertion would admit. Rather than focusing on the structural growth of socialism, the topic is discussed in terms of the spread of ideas and the development of a political culture. The study culminates in a discussion of attempts, in the period before the Great War, to create a specifically Welsh socialist tradition. In approaching the topic from this angle, this study restores a part of the lost diversity of British socialism that is of striking contemporary relevance.

The booming coal industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the main reason behind the creation of modern south Wales and its miners were central to shaping the economics, politics and society of south Wales during the twentieth century. This book explores the history of these miners between 1964 and 1985, covering the concerted run-down of the coal industry under the Wilson government, the growth of miners' resistance, and the eventual defeat of the epic strike of 1984-5. Their interactions with the wider trade union movement and society during these years meant the miners were amongst the most important strategically-located sections of the British workforce during this time. The South Wales Miners is the first full-length academic study of the miners and their union in the later twentieth century, in a tumultuous period of crisis and struggle.

An organized women's suffrage movement operated continuously in Britain for more than sixty years, from the mid-1860s until the achievement of equal voting rights with men in 1928. In the decade prior to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, both militant suffragettes and law-abiding suffragists ensured that the issue came to the forefront of British politics. This book presents a comprehensive investigation of the movement in Wales, which participated in the agitation throughout the whole of the period. Grounded in primary research of extensive archival material, “The Women's Suffrage Movement in Wales” assesses the impact of all the various campaigning organizations, highlighting the role of the many hugely committed but unsung individuals on whom local impact was dependent, and accounting for the stances adopted by various politicians as well as parliamentary developments. The book covers the dramatic and sensational actions of the suffragettes in Wales (including several of the most widely publicized clashes between demonstrators and authority outside London), and the more mundane work undertaken by the vast majority of campaigners across the decades—with due consideration of the arguments and organized resistance of the opponents of women's suffrage. This is a study that focuses on the survival of the campaign in the face of wartime difficulties, detailing the much-neglected last decade of the campaign, between the granting of partial enfranchisement in 1918 and the triumph of equal franchise in 1928.

While electorally weak, the Communist Party of Great Britain and its Welsh Committee was a constant feature of twentieth century Welsh politics, in particular through its influence in the trade union movement. Based on original archival research, the present volume offers the first in-depth study of the Communist Party's attitude to devolution in Wales, to Welsh nationhood and Welsh identity, as well as examining the party's relationship with the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru and the labour and nationalist movements in relation to these issues. Placing the party's engagement of these issues within the context of the rapid changes in twentieth century Welsh society, debates on devolution and identity on the British left, the role of nationalism within the communist movement, and the interplay of international and domestic factors, the volume provides new insight into the development of ideas by the political left on devolution and identity in Wales during the twentieth century. It also offers a broad outline of the party's policy in relation to Wales during the twentieth century, and an assessment of the role played by leading figures in the Welsh party in developing its policy on Wales and devolution.

This book uses, principally but not only, a case study of the Denbighshire town of Ruthin to discuss both the significance of Englishness versus Welshness and of gender distinctions in the network of small Anglo-Welsh urban centres which emerged in north Wales following the English conquest of 1282. It carefully constructs an image of the way in which townspeople's everyday lives were influenced by their ethnic background, gender, wealth and social status. In this manner it explores and explains the motivations of English and Welsh townspeople to work together in the mutual pursuit of prosperity and social stability.

Wales's development as a post-Roman successor state is established in this groundbreaking study of medieval warfare and society. Dominant perceptions of the country in this formative period come from Gerald of Wales, who portrayed a race of noble savages, but a more sophisticated approach can now be taken which views the story within the context of Europe. The organisation of a king's forces is examined along with their actions in the field; raiding, ravaging, sieges, battles and conduct are discussed, with analysis of infantry, cavalry, archers, equipment and fortifications. This book questions assumptions regarding the relationship of 'fringe' cultures to dominant civilisations and the image of the 'barbarian', from the Norman invasion of Wales to the Edwardian conquest of 1283.

This study is the first thorough analysis of the extent of the opposition to the Great War in Wales and is the most extensive study of the anti-war movement in any part of Britain. It is, therefore, a significant contribution to our understanding of people's responses to the conflict, and the difficulty of mobilising the population for total war. The anti-war movement in Wales and beyond developed quickly from the initial shock of the declaration of war, to the civil disobedience of anti-war activists and the industrial discontent excited by the Russian Revolution and experienced in areas such as the south Wales coalfield in 1917. The differing responses to the war within Wales are explored in this book, which charts how the pacifist tradition of nineteenth-century Welsh Nonconformity was quickly overturned. The two main elements of the anti-war movement are analysed in depth: the pacifist religious opposition, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the Nonconformist dissidents who were particularly influential in north and west Wales; and the political opposition concentrated in the Independent Labour Party and among the radical left within the South Wales Miners' Federation.

Was migration from Victorian Cardiganshire simply a flight from rural poverty? This book relates the rate and timing of the outward movements from the county to the prevailing social and economic conditions. It provides insights into the factors involved in migration, and using computer-assisted analysis of census enumerators' books examines key dimensions of the communities at the major migrant destinations.

This original study, focusing on the impact of the crusading movement in medieval Wales, considers both the enthusiasm of the Welsh and those living in Wales and its borders for the crusades, as well as the domestic impact of the movement on warfare, literature, politics and patronage. The location of Wales on the periphery of mainstream Europe, and its perceived status as religiously and culturally underdeveloped did not make it the most obvious candidate for crusading involvement, but this study demonstrates that both native and settler took part in the crusades, supported the military orders, and wrote about events in the Holy Land. Efforts were made to recruit the Welsh in 1188, suggesting contemporary appreciation for Welsh fighting skills, even though crusaders from Wales have been overlooked in modern studies. By looking at patterns of participation this study shows how domestic warfare influenced the desire and willingness to join the crusade, and the effect of such absences on the properties of those who did go. The difference between north and south Wales, Marcher lord and native prince, Flemish noble and minor landholder are considered to show how crusading affected a broad spread of society. Finally, the political role of crusading participation as a way to remove potential troublemakers and cement English control over Wales is considered as the close of the peak years of crusading coincided with the final conquest of Wales in 1282.

This is a study of the landed gentry of north Wales from the Edwardian conquest in the thirteenth century to the incorporation of Wales in the Tudor state in the sixteenth. The limitation of the discussion to north Wales is deliberate; there has often been a tendency to treat Wales as a single region, but it is important to stress that, like any other country, it is itself made up of regions and that a uniformity based on generalisation cannot be imposed. This book describes the development of the gentry in one part of Wales from an earlier social structure and an earlier pattern of land tenure, and how the gentry came to rule their localities. There have been a number of studies of the medieval English gentry, usually based on individual counties, but the emphasis in a Welsh study is not necessarily the same as that in one relating to England. The rich corpus of medieval poetry addressed to the leaders of native society and the wealth of genealogical material and its potential are two examples of this difference in emphasis.

Wales is often considered to be one of the most anti-Conservative parts of Britain, with the party unable to connect with voters. “The Conservative Party in Wales, 1945—1997” offers a more nuanced perspective as the first book-length study of Wales's second political party in the decades after the Second World War. From the places where Conservatism was often successful, the book questions why it failed to find any purchase in other parts of Wales, discussing how the party communicated its policies, who its candidates were, and how the party deliberately crafted specific policies 'for the nation'—from introducing the first Minister for Welsh Affairs to making Welsh a compulsory subject in schools. Adopting a holistic approach to the party, the book scrutinizes activists and prominent Tories at the grassroots, asking what they reveal about understudied aspects of Welsh history, particularly the lives of the Anglicised and socially conservative middle class.