A Radnorian and the Ku Klux Klan

John Evans, originally of Esgair Rhiw, Nantmel (1867-1958) and later a Saskatchewan politician and member of the Canadian House of Commons between 1921 and 1930, was a radical, anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist voice who eventually left the Progressive Party to join the socialist CCF.

Why given this background was Evans accused of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and why does his comment in the Canadian Commons that the Klan's members were "not in any way what one might call hot-headed and they are absolutely against any violent or unconstitutional way of doings things" get quoted in various histories of racism in Canada?

It comes as a surprise to learn that the Klan was estimated to have 25,000 members in Saskatchewan in the late 1920s, this in a province with less than a million inhabitants.  The prairie Klan had only the most tenuous links with its American progenitor, although it adopted the same regalia and cross-burning antics.  It exploited fears about East European immigration and the influence of the Roman Catholic church in some of the province's public schools.  If John Evans sought to ride the Klan tiger - and he would have known of another popular, secretive, oath-bound society from his native parish, the Rebeccaites of Radnorshire - his political enemies rode it better; Evans' defeat in the 1930 General Election being put down to Klan backing for his Conservative opponent.
 

Musical Interlude

Synchronised Slurring

The BBC's Christmas drama offering Restless has been widely mocked for errors such as the sight of this lovely 1947 Truimph roadster trundling through wartime New Mexico ........ on the wrong side of the road.

Of more interest was the factual background against which the play was set, the Vanlo incident and, especially, British Security Coordination, Churchill's information/disinformation outfit operating in the United States.

It's doubtful if the practitioners of black and grey propaganda ever really went away, but surely they'd not waste their talents on anything as trivial as Wales and its ailing tongue?

Well, there have been some interesting newspaper articles concerning the Welsh language in the English press of late.  These usually hit on some minor incident or invention, which is suddenly thought important enough to raise blood pressure throughout Middle England ..... an obscure tweet complaining about school toilets in Ceredigion perhaps, or an arch-druid involved in a spat in a Pwllheli shop.  In the latest example an author moans about the Welsh Books Council and it makes the pages of, well, the usual offenders, the Telegraph and the Mail.

Are we to expect more of this synchronised slurring in the run-up to the Scottish Independence vote?  At least the most recent furore led me to this commaful "tribute" page.

End of the world as we know it

I thought I should take a break from making my Christmas plate of beans on toast to note the somewhat pleasing fact that "Nadolig Llawen" has been trending worldwide on twitter this morning.  Perhaps the Mayans were on to something after all.

I would have thought "saturated" would have made the top ten as it seems to be a word that dominates our news broadcasts nowadays.  I know English is really a Norman-Saxon pidgin but what's wrong with waterlogged?  I'm told that "surrender" was the only French word in Churchill's "fight them on the beaches" speech, couldn't our broadcasters follow his lead and dump "saturated" into the nearest standing water?

Anyway  back to the microwave and Nadolig Llawen i bawb o'm darllenwyr.

Not a Posh Boy, Knew the Price of Milk

This is Clem Edwards, the Knighton born trade unionist, journalist, barrister and politician, pictured at the age of 25 in 1894. By which time he had already:

Assisted Ben Tillett in founding the Tea Operatives and General Labourers Union.

As Assistant Secretary of the Dockers Union played a leading role in the London Dock Strike of 1889.

As General Secretary of the newly formed Federation of Carrying Trades built up a union with 130,000 members.

Organised the great Hyde Park rally of female laundry workers in 1891.

Masterminded the Progressive Party's clean sweep of the East End in the London County Council elections of 1892.

As Labour Editor of the Sun newspaper organised the fund which raised £67000 (around £3 million in modern terms) for the striking miners of Wales and the English Midlands in 1893.

Of course in later years Edwards, always a conciliator, opposed the Leninists and those who sought to use the trade union movement for their own more revolutionary ends.  Sylvia Pankhurst called him "the notorious anti-socialist."  Perhaps this is the reason his contribution to the New Unionism has been largely ignored.  Personally I would knock down the monument in New Radnor to "Radnorshire's... most distinguished son" and replace it with a statue of Clem Edwards.  Not much chance of that though, he didn't even get a mention in the recently published history of his home town.

A Christmas Tale

Long before Father Christmas took to clambering down chimneys in the middle of the night, a Montgomeryshire sweep called Richard Thomas figured that the aperture would prove an excellent means of  gaining admittance to the Kinnerton home of Mrs Lloyd.  So it happened that on the night of 16th December 1793 the terrified widow awoke to find the sweep in her bed chamber, where he demanded that she hand over her money or be murdered.

Mrs Lloyd gave the rogue what cash she had, it amounted to three shillings, and he made his escape.  To no avail, since he was soon caught and tried at the Radnor Assizes.  Found guilty, according to the Newgate Calendar if not here, Thomas was executed the following summer.

Anglicisation, that's not the name of the game

Anglicisation, now there's a word whose use needs to be severely curtailed in Wales.  It's a word that suggests that there's a shrinking heartland, a proper Wales if you like, and then a watered-down version where most of us live and which is well on the way to becoming England.

I just did a google search using the term "anglicisation of Wales" and got 309,000 hits. By contrast searching for "anglicisation of Ireland" came up with less than 20,000. Most of those Welsh hits refer to just one topic - language shift, and perhaps that would be a better term to use.  There are very few people in Wales who never speak English and in that sense they are anglicised, as are people who read English newspapers, watch English television, shop at Tesco or whose ancestors adopted an English style surname.  Indeed the Welsh have been adopting English ways since before the good folk of Chester complained that it was hard for them to spot a Welshman because they had started wearing trousers!  We are all anglicised to an extent and to pretend that there is some Pura Walia is daft.

Now I tend to accept that the British state, either deliberately or by default, has always sought to extirp Wales's separate identity.  If that is their intention then they're not making a very good job of things.  A hundred years ago the Valleys were full of English migrants, today the census figures show that these are the areas of Wales where the highest % of the total population identify themselves as mere Welsh.  Even Newport with 55.5% of the population choosing an exclusively Welsh identity, outstripped Ynys Mon (54.7%) and the Monmouth council area at 44% only just failed to outscore Ceredigion (46.6%).  Not much evidence of the two Wales model there.

Of course those low figures in North and West Wales are the result of recent in-migration, especially of the old and economically inactive. What the census does tell us is that most Welsh born people feel Welsh and nothing else.  Using my rough and ready calculation (see earlier post) the figure for those born in Wales and identifying as solely Welsh (not British and Welsh) are: Ynys Mon 82%, Gwynedd 88%, Conwy 76%, Denbigh 76%, Flint 72%, Wrexham 75%, Powys 87%, Ceredigion 84%, Pembroke 80%, Carmarthen 85%, Swansea 78%, Neath 83%, Bridgend 81%, Vale of Glamorgan 75%, Cardiff 73%, Rhondda 83%, Merthyr 83%, Caerffili 80%, Blaenau Gwent 80%, Torfaen 78%, Monmouth 73%, Newport 71%.  What these figures* show is that there is one Wales, a Wales that, whatever its first language, feels Welsh.  Like Ireland it is an identity that could well be strong enough to survive the further marginalisation of the language.

Incidentally I believe the language stats are not as bad as some believe.  The figures for school age children are more believable than in 2001 and old people attracted to the Costa Geriactica surely cannot pose the threat to the future of the language their numbers might suggest.  A greater problem is the new class of here-today-gone-tomorrow managers in local government, you must have heard them blundering through the bilingual declarations on election night.  Bring back democracy!

* By the way a large majority of the half million Welsh born folk living in England also tracked down and ticked the Welsh only identity box.

The Census

Look back at government statistics for Radnorshire in the 19C and even some quite emminent historians have been led up the garden path.  This is because they fail to differentiate between the historic county of Radnorshire and the registration county of the same name.  Most of southern Radnorshire, the hundreds of Colwyn and Painscastle, were included in the Breconshire statistics, while much of the east of the county eventually ended up being listed under Herefordshire.  Meanwhile the Knighton district, which was indeed counted as being in Radnorshire, also covered parishes in Herefordshire and Shropshire.

Look at yesterday's census release for Powys and a similar anomaly needs to be borne in mind.  Powys is the only authority in Wales where those identifying themselves as Welsh actually exceeds the number born in Wales.  This is because so many locals were born in hospitals in Hereford and Shrewsbury, it's a factor to remember when the more detailed community level figures for Radnorshire are published in the new year.

We can all remember the huge propaganda effort made during the summer Olympics to convince us that we were all British.  The Census figures tell a quite different story.  Less than 17% of the population of Wales opted for an exclusively British nationality.  In every authority in Wales from Newport to Ynys Mon the % of the locally born population opting for an exclusively Welsh identity was in the 70% to 90% range*.  Around a fifth of Wales's population were actually born in England and some 50% to 60% of these opted for an exclusively English identity.  In England itself 70% or so of the population opted for an English identity.  Only in London, with around 30% plus, and Northern Ireland, 40%, did Britishness have any purchase whatsoever.  I wonder what our rulers will make of all this?  More propaganda I expect.

* I've arrived at these figures by showing the exclusively Welsh respondents as a % of the locally born.  In Pembrokeshire for example that would be 80%.  Of course there will be those born in England or elsewhere who quite rightly ticked the Welsh box, but they would only have skewed the overall figure by a couple of percentage points at most.

Christmas Shopping

I see 1960s Newbridge-on-Wye racing driver Liz Jones's Mini is currently for sale at £25K.  The snap shows Liz, or Rosemary as she was known locally, at the Paris start of the 1963 Monte Carlo Rally, accompanied by co-driver Daphne Freeman..

As far as I can tell Liz competed in the Monte Carlo rally on three occasions, in 1963 as above in car 92, in 1964 starting from Minsk with Shelagh Aldersmith in car 27, and again from Minsk in 1965 in car 89 with Tish Ozanne.  On each occasion in an Austin Mini and all non-finishing.

They came, they saw, they took photographs

Hippie Nostalgia from Llanbister, Pont-ar-Elan, Rhayader and Clyro Court.  See here

Bonkers

Billionairess J K Rowling wants me to sign a petition, so do Emma Watson and Tom Watson, Dorset squire Billy Bragg, lovable Stephen Fry and a host of other cultural icons and rich people.  Sorry guys, no can do, not even for Alastair Campbell.

We all know that Cameron was panicked  into setting up the Leveson inquiry by the Digger's snooping into such modern-day saints as the Rev Chris, Blessed Charlotte of Cardiff and Max Mosley.  Dave said he would implement its recommendations as long as they weren't bonkers.

Now that the great tome has been published perhaps Cameron should just be honest enough to admit that this lawyers' beanfeast is indeed bonkers.  How else to describe a proposed coercive system of "self-regulation" that would make a non-compliant paper liable for its own legal costs, even in libel cases it had won, or which envisages a kitemark for state-approved journalism.

A new book from Builth

Perhaps like the black American soldiers from the Pencerrig camp this blog should stick to its own side of the Wye bridge,* but here we have a book (or maybe booklet - it only has 96 pages) full of interesting snippets about life in Builth during the Second World War.

Of course a locally produced book like this - it's published by the Builth Wells and District Heritage Society - isn't going to delve too deeply into the more controversial aspects of wartime life: profiteering, the black market, sexual shenanigans, the Epynt clearances etc.  What we do get are individual memories of varying quality and interest, the first chapter is particularly fine while one or two others would have benefited from a little discreet editing.

Some thoughts: the young Builth nurse who was badly wounded in the Coventry blitz and subsequently died.  More than 60000 civilians were killed during the war on the Home Front, shouldn't their names also be recorded on our war memorials?  The Bootle mothers who returned home after a few weeks because "they would prefer to face the bombs ,,,,, than stay in Builth."  One would like to know more.  The young Home Guarder much mocked for running off when confronted by a German parachutist, surely the sensible course of action?

All in all a volume that should fascinate younger readers and stir memories for the older  generation.

* It seems that the bridge was guarded to ensure that locally stationed white American troops stayed in Builth, while their black compatriots could go no further south than the Llanelwedd Arms. 

Forgotten Radnorians

While the Anglicans continue to agonize over female bishops, Quaker women like Mary Pennell were leading congregations and preaching on both sides of the Atlantic some 300 years ago.  Born Mary Morgan in the parish of Nantmel in 1678, she migrated to Pennsylvania at the age of sixteen, presumably with her brothers John and Hugh Morgan.  In 1703 Mary married and in 1722, by which time she had had six children, "became a Quaker Minister and traveled through the eastern states, England, Ireland and on the Continent."

Mary Pennell left a sister Amy (1689-1762) back home in Radnorshire who had married a farmer from a non-Quaker background called John Griffith.  In 1726 a visitor from Pennsylvania inspired Amy's fourteen year old son John to travel out to the colony accompanied, at his father's insistence, by an older brother Thomas and their eight year old sister Martha.  In time they would be joined by two other sisters Mary and Sarah.

 The Quaker congregation at Talcoed, Nantmel provided the following certificate to accompany the young adventurers:

"To the Monthly Meeting or Quarterly Meetings of Friends and Brethren in the Province of Pensilvania in America but more particularly to the Monthly Meeting of Friends at Abington in the Sd. Province --- whereas three children Thomas Griffith about 18 years of age and John Griffith his brother about 14 years of age and Martha Griffith their sister about 8 years of age, all born in the Parish of Nantmeal and County of Radnor in South Wales, Being the Sons and Daughter of John Griffith and Amy his wife, inhabitants and Land holders in the Parish and County aforesaid, are by the order and free consent of their sd parents intending in a few days to go aboard a Ship Belonging to the Port of Bristol, Whereof Edward Foy is Captain, In order to Sail in Sd Ship (if God permit) to the City of Philadelphia in the Sd. Province. There to be delivered to their uncles, John Morgan, Hugh Morgan or either of them or to Mary the wife of John Pennell who is their Mother's sister, who all of them if living are settled inhabitants in this Sd. Province to the intent that they the Sd. John Morgan, Hugh Morgan and Mary their sister may take care of them and dispose of them as they shall think best and in case their relations doe perform what is desired and hoped for by the Sd. parents. --We then the persons hereunder named who are members of the Meeting which the Sd. parents belong by order of our Monthly Meeting held at Talcoed the 10th instant doe desire that the Sd. three children or either of them may be disposed of according as Friends of the Sd. Meeting of Abington shall think most expedient, and as to their Sd. children's descent we give you to understand that their Parents are Honest Friends having each of them a Public Testimony for the Truth wherewith Friends have Unity; and we further Desire (as well on the behalf of the Sd. Children who are hopeful as also for their parents and their aged Grandmother's sake who is an Honest Woman, namely Sarah Rees) that you will as need shall require, advise or assist the Sd. children in Order that they may be settled to Honest Friends,further and we, according to our power shall be willing to answer what you or any of our Brethrenvshall in Love desire of us who are your Loving Friends. Signed at and by Order of our MonthlyMeeting at Talcoed the 10th of the 4th month 1726"

This younger John Griffith (1713-1776) also became a Quaker minister eventually settling in Chelmsford, Essex.  His journal published in both England and Philadelphia is available here.

It's clear from reading about these Radnorshire Quakers that they were at home with the English language and that marriage to fellow Friends was more important to them than any national or regional loyalty.  They were also better educated than others of their class, the small farmers, weavers etc.  Take a look at the signature of John Griffith's sister-in-law Alice Pugh, a farmer's wife from Llandegley.  At a time when many would have made a mark or signed with a scrawl it has the look of a hand well used to using a pen:

What's in a Name

As the mail-shot industry is well aware forenames can tell a good deal about gender, age, ethnicity, religion and social class.  After all a Ken or a Margaret is far more likely to be a grumpy sixtysomething rather than a fresh-faced teen and you're unlikely to find many Liams on the Shankhill Road.

If this is true today then it must surely have been true in the past and the lay subsidy assessment of 1544 and the Hearth Tax of 1670, both published in the Radnorshire Society transactions, provide us with the great majority of names of heads of household in the county for those years.  What else can they tell us?

The Act of Union divided Radnorshire into six hundreds which more or less coincided with the traditional Welsh administrative divisions in this part of East Central Wales - Rhayader was basically Gwerthrynion, Colwyn was Elfael Uwch Mynydd, Painscastle was Elfael Is Mynydd, the hundreds of Knighton and Cefnllys covered the old cantref of Maelienydd and Radnor hundred a handful of minor lordships in the east of the county.  Luckily both the 1544 and the 1670 records are based on these hundreds and the parishes that they contained, they allow us to identify differences in naming practices in the various parts of the county..

Firstly it should be said that in 1544 the great majority of the newly designated Radnorians still used the traditional patronymical system, only in and around Presteigne were settled surnames after the English fashion at all common.  Already some of the older Welsh forenames had fallen out of fashion, there were only a handful of Cadwgans, Madocs, Meurigs and Cadwaladrs.  Still we find more than half of the county's men, some 55%, had forenames that were either Welsh in origin or, in the case of Dafydd and Ieuan, understood as Welsh by ancient usage.

Turning to the differences between the six hundreds. In the town of Presteigne just five names accounted for 61% of the male population.  These were John, Thomas, William, Richard and Hugh and their distribution was perhaps typical of the less traditional areas of the county.  In Radnor Hundred as a whole these five names accounted for 44% of the population, in Painscastle 33%, in Knighton 16%, in Colwyn 15%, in Cefnllys 10% and in Rhayader just 6%.  Meanwhile the five most common Welsh forenames, Dafydd, Ieuan, Rhys, Hywel and Gruffudd, made up 56% of the population in Rhayader, 58% in Cefnllys, 54% in Knighton, 48% in Colwyn, 38% in Painscastle and just 23% in Radnor.

Move on to 1670 and we find that the five Welsh names, by then Ieuan had been usually modified to Evan, were far less popular: Rhayader 33%, Colwyn 28%, Cefnllys 25%, Knighton 20%, Painscastle 18% and Radnor 13%.  The fashion for the five new names had seen them spread throughout the county: Rhayader 35%, Cefnllys 40%, Colwyn and Knighton both 43%, Radnor 55% and Painscastle 56%.

Now no doubt this is all fairly predictable and mirrors the decline of patronyms and the language shift that would occur in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Something of a puzzle though are female names - female heads of households do appear quite frequently in both the 1544 and 1670 recods - In the earlier list a majority of Radnorian women had traditional Welsh names like Gwenllian, Dyddgu, Gwenhwyfar, Lleucu and Tangwystl but by 1670 there were just a handful called Gwenllian or Goleu.  Why would male Welsh names survive in substantial numbers whereas their female equivalents largely disappeared?

Talk of the Town

The 2011 Census figures may well show an increase in the numbers of Welsh speakers, but this will only mask the continuing decline of Welsh as a community language or even - to use a useful term from the past - a hearth language.  Although Wales may have the appearance of being a bilingual country, in essence this is not the case - for example, while every public servant in Wales must be able to speak English, a knowledge of Welsh is not a necessity, even in those areas considered to be Welsh-speaking heartlands; while many local and central government policies, far from assisting the language, might just as well have been designed to hasten its demise.

It is with this surface appearance of bilingualism in mind that we should consider Llandrindod council's recent deliberations in respect of placenames in the town.   First up a request that Temple Drive should have a street sign, with the council agreeing that any sign also read  - Rhodfa'r Teml.  To me this is the worst kind of faux bilingualism.  It only serves to provide ammunition to the enemies of the language who could quite justly demand that Lon Cwm also read Valley Lane.  If councils really want fair play for the language then they should ensure that every new street have a name with some historical basis in the locality, which in most cases will mean a Welsh name.

Next the naming of the new court and police building in Llandrindod.  The town council preferring  Parc Neuadd Park but having to accept Powys Council's Parc Noyadd Park.  There are two issues here, firstly the demands of faux bilingualism which require both Parc and Park. Surely no-one would object to the use of Parc alone?  Secondly the use of Noyadd instead of Neuadd.  Now as it happens I'm all in favour of idiosyncratic spellings such as Noyadd, which reflect a traditional pronunciation and/or long historical usage.  It's why I'm quite happy to use Rhayader or Llandegley on this blog.  Mind you the town council did have a point, as this will from 1832 shows.

The original impulse to make Welsh visible as a public language was all well and good, but bilingualism will not be a reality until, for example, any police officer stopping a speeding motorist anywhere in Wales is able to converse  with the miscreant in either of the country's two languages.  Anything less is mere show.

The Story Of Knighton - New Book

Knighton. For the very occasional visitor such as myself it's as exotic as any distant holiday destination, with it's eccentric architecture, unexpected shops and the only multi-story car park in Mid Wales.  I actually drove across the county and back about twenty years to pick up a copy of the book in the town itself.  It was pleasing to see the precipitous main street decorated with the flags of St David and Owain Glyndwr.  Clearly the great patriot has been forgiven for laying the place to waste some six hundred years ago.

My major quibble with the new purchase was answered in the first sentence of the foreword, the book "is mainly concerned with the period from the 1770s to the 1970s."  The first 40 or so of its 200 pages do concern earlier times but medieval Kighton is done and dusted in the first 15 pages.  In any case I doubt if the author is as comfortable with the traditional Welsh society of the middle ages as with later periods.  Calling Glyndwr's lieutenant Rhys ap Gethin is revealing - a bit like saying Ethelred the son of Unready.  The book could certainly have done with better proof-reading, a few errors have made it through to the final version, especially in regard to dates, for example the Knighton jockey Garnet Evans is said to have been born in 1887 and killed at Epsom in 1805.   I was also surprised that Mr Parker could not find a few lines to mention a man who should surely be, if not the town's favourite son, at least better remembered, Clem Edwards.

Yet carping aside it's a fascinating book that should be on every Radnorian bookshelf.  A fact-filled volume which left me wanting to know more, to give just one example, about the company of 60 or more Knightonians who enlisted with the Duke of York's Inverness-shire Highlanders in 1795.  A body of men, who I learn elsewhere, were "more partial to the plaid" than some of their Highland comrades.  At a mere £10 with over 50 photographs this is another welcome addition to Logaston's growing list of books of Radnorshire interest.

Dorothy Levitt - Update

If the Radnorian blog has done nothing else, at least it has rescued the pioneer sporting motorist Dorothy Levitt from being characterised as some Downtonabbeyesque Edwardian toff.  Her real identity being far more interesting.

A recent blog comment rounds off the story by detailing Dorothy's death certificate:  Died 17th May 1922 at 50 Upper Baker Street, London aged 38 years  - She was nearer 40 - occupation spinster, independent means, daughter of Jacob Levi.  The cause of death as supplied by the London coroner after an inquest held on 20th May: found dead in bed, morphine poisoning while suffering from heart disease and an attack of measles. Misadventure.

So does this suggest that Dorothy was some 1920s Amy Winehouse?  She wouldn't be the only racer of that period to have problems with morphine, for example the aviator and Brooklands racer Gerald Le Champion was convicted in 1925 for possession of the drug.  Like others from that period Le Champion had become addicted as a result of medical intervention, in his case treatment for wounds sustained in the war.

Forgotten Radnorian

This North Korean stamp commemorates the destruction of the General Sherman, a heavily armed American merchant ship, in 1866.  Among those executed after escaping from the burning vessel was a Protestant missionary, Robert Jermain Thomas, who had been engaged as an interpreter.

Mr Thomas, he was born in Rhayader in 1839, is still remembered by Korea's nine million Protestants and many come to Wales to visit sites associated with his life.  This blog has more information.

Who was Rhys Gethin?

On not much evidence Rhys Gethin is said to have been Owain Glyndwr's leading general, and historians from Sir John Lloyd to Sir Rees Davies have identified him as being Rhys Gethin of Nantconwy.

Cledwyn Fychan makes an entirely convincing case that the Rhys Gethin of the contemporary historical record wasn't Rhys Gethin of Nantconwy at all, he comes up with a far more likely candidate.

The handful of reviews I've read agree that if you want to know who Rhys Gethin is, then you should read this little book.  The advice seems to defeat the object of the essay, which was to make the real Rhys Gethin better known.  It's not the easiest work to get hold of and you may end up, like me, getting a version with a perfect cover and binding but with contents consisting of a different essay altogether.  One of the drawbacks, I guess, of getting a Welsh language book printed in Italy.

Anyway the Rhys Gethin of the historical record was Rhys Gethin of Llwyngwychwyr, Llanwrtyd, of that there can be little doubt.  There are only two mentions of Rhys Gethin in connection with Owain Glyndwr in contemporary records - there was the Rhys Gethin who captured Carmarthen in the company of others, including kinsmen of Rhys of Llwyngwychwyr; and there was the Rhys Gethin who Prince Hal mentions, in a letter to his father King Henry IV, as having raised an army in Buallt with the intention of invading Herefordshire.  English nationalists should note that this letter was written in French.

As early as 1401 Rhys Gethin's father, unnamed sons and various kinsmen were "deprived" of their lands in Buallt because they had risen in insurrection with Owen Glyndourdy.  As for the family's military prowess, that leading military commander in the 15C French wars Sir Richard Gethin of Builth was the son of Rhys of Llwyngwychwyr.

Some points of Radnorshire interests: Was Rhys Gethin the Rees a Gytch who an English chronicler says was involved in the Battle of Pilleth?  It's impossible to say.  There were certainly kinship links between Rhys Gethin's family and Philip ap Rhys of St Harmon, Glyndwr's son-in-law.  As so often, the contribution of East Central Wales - in this case to Glyndwr's war - is underestimated.  This elegant little book goes some way to illuminating one aspect of that contribution.  If only it were better known.

A Radnorshire Mormon from Nantmel

The parishes east of Presteigne seem to provide fertile ground for the more radical religious movements of the day.  After all the Lollard John Oldcastle was from Almeley and Ffransis Payne has some interesting things to say about the Quakers of the area, who "in comparison to whom the driest and least joyful members of our most narrow puritan sects would appear like cheerful pagans."

It was to this district that a young fellow from the Ysfa, Llewellyn Mantle of Crugnant, made his way in the 1820s.  Here he found work as a waggoner and in 1835 married a local girl, Kitty Watkins, in Byton parish church.  In 1842 the couple were converted by the latest missionaries to invade the district and quickly determined to join their prophet Joseph Smith and his Latter-Day Saints in Nauvoo Illinois.  You can read about Llewellyn's subsequent adventures here.  The Mantles were in Nauvoo when Smith was murdered, they migrated west, crossing the frozen Mississippi into Iowa. Having lost his sight in 1848 Llewellyn walked the thousand miles to Salt Lake City, arriving there in the autumn of 1851.  He died in Utah in 1901, aged 83.

Its easy to forget just how radical a group the Mormons were, with their polygamy - Llewellyn took a second wife in 1870, a Swiss woman called Margaret Egg - and violent confrontations with their neighbours such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857.  Indeed the Mantles' daughter Sarah married the son of the legendary gunfighter Porter Rockwell, Mormondom's "destroying angel."

Radnorshire Pioneers in Wisconsin

The migration of Radnorshire Quakers and Baptists, and indeed Anglicans, to Pennsylvania and Delaware in the 1680s is well-known.  Perhaps the biggest Welsh, and no doubt Radnorian, contribution to the American gene-pool is less remarked upon - the migration of individuals as indentured servants to the Carolinas and other southern states.  For example in the 1790s more than 10% of the free population of the Carolinas had typically Welsh surnames.  It's why a name like Wynette Pugh (AKA Tammy Wynette) raises no eyebrows in Mississippi.

An even less familiar migration is that of families from North Radnorshire (mainly the parishes of Llanbadarn Fynydd, Llananno, Bugeildy and Llanbister) to Green County in Wisconsin - an area better known today for its Swiss cheesemakers.  Together with neighbours from Kerry and Llandinam in Montgomeryshire and Betws-y-Crwyn in Shropshire, this migration, which commenced in 1844 and lasted until 1881, was centered around what is rather inaccurately called the English Settlement in the township of Albany.

A local historian from Wisconsin has done a great deal to rescue the history of these Welsh pioneers, publishing articles and booklets, organizing a reunion and seeing the settlement recognized as an official historic site.  Mrs Bagley estimates that the 77 Welsh families who moved to Green County would have comprised more than 700 individuals in the first generation.  These settlers, in addition to those with the usual Welsh surnames, had names familiar to Mid-Walians - Ingram, Bubb, Hamer, Layton, Bufton, Gravenor, Smout, Sheen, Kinsey, Jarman and a good many Swancutts*.  Having initially bought land - it had been taken by the US governemt from the Ho-Chunk tribe - at $1.25 an acre, by the 1870s the Welsh families owned over 6000 acres, around half the farmland in the township of Albany.  Large families were the order of the day, Margaret Davies had nine children, Kezia Hughes eleven, Mary Ann Hamer nine, Mary Swancutt nine and Mary Jarman fourteen.  You can find photographs of some of these early settlers and their offspring here.

Here are a selection Radnorshire weddings in Green County:  Willaim Hope and Mary Lloyd (1846); Edward Price and Elizabeth Swancutt (1848); James Trow and Caroline Price (1850); Aaron Jones and Eliza Edmonds (1852); Ellen Griffith and Moses Ingram (1854);  Jane Gravenor and George Jones (1856); William Francis and Jane Swancutt (1857); John Swancutt and Ann Lloyd (1858); Thomas Lewis and Margaret Jones (1860); Benjamin Swancutt and Emma Francis (1860); Evan Layton and Eliza Francis (1864);  James Francis and Sarah Griffith (1864); John Jones and Emma Pryce (1868); Thomas Bufton and Ellen Jones (1870); Richard Williams and Mary Kinsey (1878)

* According to Mr Howse cider was called swancut in the Radnorshire argot.

Keep Digging

You know this new Britishness agenda is in full-swing when the archaeologists solve the mystery of Stonehenge. Seemingly it's a unification monument, "a monument to unify the peoples of Britain, after a long period of conflict and regional difference." 

It only seems the other day that the BBC were telling us that Stonehenge was a healing centre, the Lourdes of prehistoric Europe.

Not a Book Review

It's a bit daunting when someone expresses the view that they miss my book reviews.  Do people actually make or avoid a purchase on my recommendation?  Good heavens, sometimes a book has been reviewed here even before it's been read.  It's often an excuse to upload something visual on to the blog.  Like this:

There are books that you want and procrastinate over buying and then there are books like this that are bought on a whim and leave one reflecting "why?"

Not that it isn't a fascinating book, even if it does include one of the daftest maps ever published by an academic press.  This map, purporting to be of post-1284 Wales, shows the future county of Monmouthshire in England and Tintern located somewhere west of Newport.  Thankfully the map is so small that you need a magnifying glass to spot its stupidity.

As the title suggests, the book deals with towns in medieval Wales and consists of a dozen chapters each written by a different author covering topics such as townswomen, fairs and feast days, entertainment, bardic poetry and the Welsh element in towns across the border such as Bristol and Hereford.  The multiple authorship does lead to repetition, for example Gruffudd ab Adda's poem to the maypole in Llanidloes turns up in three of the chapters.

Radnorshire towns get mentioned in passing but as is often the case my interest is piqued by the footnotes more than anything - the bard Bedo Brwynllys' presence in Knighton for example.  I didn't know that and I'd like to know more.  Perhaps my suggestion that he was from the township of Brwynllys in Maelienydd rather than Bronllys in Breconshire has some substance.  I do hope so.

Stop Thief!

We've done our best to combat Breconshire's depredations.  Of course they've won the big prizes - like convincing the world that the Royal Welsh Show is held in Builth, but we've had some small victories.  We've reclaimed Caesar Jenkyns for the county of his birth and shown that the first Welsh novelist wasn't a Breconian.  There are more, here for example, it's thankless work but someone has to do it.

Yet still the thefts continue, aided and abetted by the likes of the Welsh Books Council.  Here they describe the painter Thomas Jones as a Breconshire landowner.  Maybe he was, but do a couple of fields count for more than his Radnorshire birthplace or his Radnorshire home?   And while we're at it, why do none of these people use paypal?  Don't they want to sell books?  It's not as if I'm willing to hand over my card details to every Tom, Dick and Cardi!

Musical Interlude

Bettye Lavette, defining soul music.

Bad for Business?

Now I've always been told that mixing politics and business was a bad idea, you might alienate those customers who don't share one's point of view.  Clearly this wasn't the case with the Radnorshire non-conformists who eagerly refused to pay the education rate levied as a result of the 1902 Education Act.  The point at issue, why should chapel-goers subsidise Church schools.

More than a hundred Radnorians were subjected to the depredations of the bailiffs and in Llandrindod we find some of the leading hoteliers in the town being dragged through the courts for non-payment.  These included Jeffrey Jones - we've met him before - proprietor of the Brynawel (now the Glen Usk), Edward Thomas of the Gwalia, Thomas Owen at Baveno and William Lewis Harper at the Manor and his father Job Harper at Southend House.

Bad for business?  Well if you catered for a mainly non-conformist clientele, maybe not.

A Process not an Event

The election of December 1910 might have been the last time that the undiluted voice of  the Radnorian voter was heard on the parliamentary level, but the Sunday Closing votes of the 1960s also saw the old county treated as a single constituency.  At the time these votes were regarded as referendums on "welshness" or at least welshness as it was defined by the upholders of the non-conformist tradition.  In urban Wales that tradition took one hell of a beating, while the three thousand (42%) Radnorians who voted in 1961 to maintain the ban on Sunday drinking were not enough to hold back the brewers, whose Welsh campaign was headed by Mr Baird Murray of Llandrindod.  This and subsequent votes buried that particular version of Welshness and today sobriety is one of the last virtues one associates with Wales.  It went the way of patronyms and partible inheritance as a marker of Welsh identity.

The 1960s were also when the geographer E G Bowen came up with his two Wales model, the theory that the country could be divided into an Inner Wales - a Welsh speaking heartland if you like - and an Outer, less Welsh area encompassing the borderlands and the industrial districts.  These two cultural regions some believed had a distinct identity stretching back for centuries.  The gloriously cockney singer Adele put it more succinctly when she said she was Welsh but not "proper Welsh" like her Nefyn raised and welsh-speaking rival Duffy.

Now Bowen's theory, and modifications such as the Three Wales model, have had a real influence on opinion in Wales.  It is treated as if Inner Wales is a reality rather than the "product of day dreaming over a map."   Take that vote on booze.  Yes, there was a clear division between a dry Inner Wales and the boozy remainder back in the Sixties, but today Duffy can just as easily enjoy a Sunday snifter in the Nanhoran Arms as can Adele in Penarth's Railway Hotel.  The maps might show a coincidence between the Sunday closing vote of 1961, the Welsh speaking districts of that year's census and the medieval principality of Edward the First, but that is what they were - a coincidence.

A map records a moment in time, it's out of date even before it leaves the printers.  What the geographers identified as markers of an Inner Wales were processes, they were misled by their maps.

It's a reproach to Welsh historians that when Radnorians want to learn about their district in the medieval period, they might as well turn to the work of the UKIP parliamentary candidate for the Cheshire seat of Weaver Vale.

We may not accept Mr Remfry's promotion of the name Cynllibiwg to describe the Middle March - although Rhwng Gwy a Hafren sounds more like a geographical description than an actual placename - but he is right when he criticises the mainstream for ignoring Maelienydd and Elfael - the heart of the future county of Radnorshire.

Maelienydd and Elfael play havoc with the Inner/Outer Wales cultural model.  Right up to the death of Llywelyn and even afterwards these districts were an area of contention: between Gwynedd, Deheubarth, the Normans and the greatly underestimated (today) strength of the local rulers themselves.  This was far more Pura Wallia than Marchia Wallia, for although the Normans might, temporarily, occupy a castle or two, their real power like that of the British Army in Helmand Province was limited.  Yet neither of these two cantons proved to be lasting strongholds of the Welsh language as the Two Wales model should predict.

Move on a couple of centuries and the bards of the 15C did not seem to be aware of any great cultural divide between Inner and Outer Wales.  For example over 60 of the surviving poems of Lewis Glyn Cothi were composed for Radnorshire patrons, more than for patrons in any other of the future 13 counties of Wales.

Of course the Inner/Outer Wales model is correct when it says that the east of Wales is more open to new ideas spreading in from England than is the west. That is a geographical reality.  Where it goes astray is to look at moments in time and accord them some great significance, while failing to recognize that what is at work is a process which eventually overwhelms the west as much as the east - the adoption of surnames would be an example.  The Two Wales and the Three Wales models only serve to artificially divide a country with a common past and a common future, whatever that might be.

Radnorshire Welsh

A fascinating comment has been left on an old post from 2008.  Anyone interested in the story of the Welsh Language in Radnorshire should check it out, you can find it here.

The comment also draws my attention to Meic Stephens' recent autobiography Cofnodion, which I see discusses the author's Radnorshire roots -  his father was born in Walton.  What to make of this blurb on his publisher's site though: "an account of how the young boy from an English-speaking household grew up to be a Welshman."  As Stephens was born in Treforest I would have thought he was a Welshman from the moment he gulped in a lungful of Glamorgan air.

A Herefordshire Will

While wilfing around some Herefordshire sites, this one in particular, I saw a brief reference to the case of Lewis Powell of Craswall who in 1749 had left what property he had to his wife Mary.  The will was disputed by Lewis's brother William and this led to an enquiry into the circumstances under which the will was made.  It was written and witnessed by 42 year old Thomas Price and also witnessed by 49 year old Ann Griffiths.   Both witnesses told the same story. In Ann's statement we read: "... immediately after drawing the same, the said Thomas Price read over the said will to the said testor in English and immediately afterwards began to explain the contents and substance in Welsh to him .."

You can find the will and the various statements here, courtesy of the National Library and I think we can agree that Thomas Price was bilingual and that Lewis Powell, if he was not a monoglot Welsh speaker was at least far more familiar with that language than he was with English.  Ann Griffiths too must have had sufficient grasp of Welsh to know that Price was explaining the contents of the will to Powell. 

This ties in with other evidence for the survival of Herefordshire Welsh into the 18C.  According to those who have examined the relevant records, of nine defamation cases in and around Craswall/Clodock between 1712 and 1774, eight were in Welsh.  While in a 1757 court case a 19 year old  from Michaelchurch Escley, one Lewis Jenkins, was said to be "a strainger to the English tongue able to speak or understand but very few words."  The last Welsh-speaking native of Clodock is said to have died in 1883.

A Radnorian Family in Manitoba

In some ways the Patagonian migration reminds me of the Welsh contribution to the Spanish Civil War.  They were both minor chapters in a much bigger story and their importance has been exaggerated by interested parties for political and romantic reasons.  Just as the 150 or so, overwhelmingly Communist, Welsh volunteers to the International Brigade count for not very much when set beside the hundreds of thousands of Welsh folk who took part in the actual war against Nazism; so the 2000+ migrants to Patagonia were dwarfed in numbers by the tens of thousands who upped sticks for America, Canada, Australia etc.

These less celebrated migrants also have their stories and this one starts with my father, who told me that every Christmas his family would receive a box of apples from Canada.  That was all he knew, but an elderly aunt added that these relations lived in Selkirk, Manitoba and that once a girl called Ann Miller had visited Radnorshire from Canada.  Given the large families common in the late Victorian period, my grandfather was one of nine and his father one of eleven, there was plenty of choice as to who these migrants might have been.  Recently I tracked them down in the Canadian census, a Benjamin Davies who had married my great-great-aunt Anne in Diserth Church in 1836 and who had migrated to Canada in 1881.  And yes, they also had a grand-child - one of around thirty born in Manitoba and British Columbia - called Anne Miller.

Without boring the reader further I'll just comment on a couple of aspects of their lives:  Firstly the pioneering spirit.  We hear a lot about this, but in the case of Benjamin Davies and family, and others like them, I wonder if it was true.  It's not as if they sailed to Patagonia in a 447 ton clipper or crossed the prairie in a covered wagon.  Infact Anne and her children sailed on one of the most modern liners of the day, the Parisian.  The voyage from Liverpool to Quebec taking just eight days and from there to Manitoba, well I guess they would have taken the train. 

Secondly there is the question of ethnicity.  The Canadian census included a question on this topic and it was directed at second and subsequent generation Canadians as much as at recent immigrants.  In the 1891 census Benjamin and his entire family are recorded as ethnicity - English, religion - Baptist, unforgivable!  A weak excuse: at the time of their migration they had infact been farming in Shropshire.  Benjamin and Anne had one son and five daughters, they all married spouses of Scottish descent, except for one who married an Irish Anglican from County Cavan.  In subsequent censuses some of the daughters recorded their ethnicity as Welsh, others as Scotch, perhaps their husbands filled in the forms.  The one son died young and his children also took their mother's ethnicity when it came to completing a census - they too were Scotch.

Cwm Irfon to Cwm Hyfryd

While Llandrindod celebrates its annual Victorian fantasy its worth recalling that there were those in Wales who were eager to get as far away as possible from the great Queen and her Empire.   Given the linguistic situation at the time Radnorians were hardly likely to play a part in the establishment of the Welsh-speaking colony in Patagonia.  There is mention of a colonist named Jemima Jones of Llandrindod, but I've not been able to find out anything about her; while in the 1911 census there's a 20 year old draper's assistant called Hughes, living and working at Llandrindod's Central Wales Emporium. He lists his birthplace as Patagonia.

To find a more substanial figure in the history of the Welsh settlement we need to cross the Wye into Builth and to a farm called Tymawr in the parish of Llanafanfechan, the childhood home of Thomas Dalar Evans - his middle name celebrating the chapel at Troedrhiwdalar on the Newbridge-Beulah road.

Here's one of a number of youtube videos featuring Mervyn Evans, great grandson of Thomas Dalar, who has recreated the original watermill built by his family at Nant Fach in the beautiful Andean foothills of Cwm Hyfryd:

I'm afraid Mervyn's Spanish is a little too fluent for me, but we know that Thomas Dalar went to Patagonia in 1875.  There he married a girl, Esther Williams, who had come from the little remembered Welsh colony in Brazil.  The couple had ten children with significant names such as Irfonwy, Buallt, Brychan, Briallen, Eurgain etc.  I'm told that some of Dalar Evans' descendants came back to Builth a few years ago and discovered that while they still spoke Welsh, their stay-at-home connections did not.  In this one case at least the aim of the heroic migration had been a success.

Better Late than Never

There's a cartoon in the current issue of Private Eye of a young lad writing a comment at the end of an article in his father's newspaper.  As Dad points out, the printed page isn't the internet, it doesn't do comments. Anyway a few days ago I purchased an old copy of Cronicl Powys, the Powys Family History Society's journal.  It contained an article called "The Mantles of the Ithon Valley" and since my grandmother was a Mantle from said valley - although she was soon removed to the mining village of Fochriw - it was something I wanted to read.

Having read the article I felt a bit like the boy in the Eye cartoon.  I wanted to leave a comment, one I'm sure would have been of interest to the author and to anyone else interested in the Mantles of Radnorshire.  The author, who notices that there are no Mantles in the 1670 Hearth Tax, believes that the family "probably arrived in the Ithon valley between 1670 and 1680."   I'm not so sure that there were no Mantles in the Hearth Tax, there were certainly Mansells and as a Bufton was wrongly transcribed as Buston, well who knows.  But in any case the Mantle family were certainly in Llanbister a good 80 years or more before the author's estimate of their arrival.

Proceedings in Chancery between 1596 and 1616 involved a Thomas Mantle of Llanbister, who was accused of defrauding Sir George Carew of various local rents and leases.  This Thomas Mantle made a will in 1617 which mentions his sons John, Richard and Griffith, daughters Mauld, Margaret and Johan and various properties belonging to the family in Llanbister and Llanddewi Ystradenni.  It also mentions a mill in Stottesdon in Salop, which may give a clue to where they came from before they entered Radnorshire.  Later on in the 17C we find wills or bonds for a William Mantle (1637), Griffith Mantle (1661), Gwenhwyfar Mantle (1661) - all of Llanbister - and William Mantle of Llanddewi (1695).

I wonder why local societies don't make more use of blogs and the opportunity they afford for timely comments and follow-ups.  Of course, as the editor of Cronicl points out, their magazine is archived at the NLW,  whereas a blog can easily disappear into the ether at the whim of its author or host.

A Forgotten Radnorian

It's something of a mystery, at least to me, but every one of the fifteen Treasurers of the United States appointed since 1949 has been a woman, indeed five of the last six have been Latinas.  It must be a quaint custom in a far off country of which we know less than we think.

To avoid any misunderstanding, the Treasurer is not responsible for the corruption and on-going destruction of western capitalism.  No, that would be the similarly named but quite separate Secretary of the Treasury.  But still it's an important role and was even more so in 1789 when George Washington appointed the son of an old friend to the post.  The son was Samuel Meredith and his father, Washington's friend, was one Reese Meredith, born in Llandegley in 1708.  You can read about Reese and his connections here.

To listen to some accounts you'd think Radnorshire was a remote backwater which the speaker had personally discovered.  The truth is that the county has been as much at the centre of things as anywhere else.  Examine the will of some humble fellow who died 300 years ago and one shouldn't be too surprised to find a reference like this:

Same Old Same Old

It's significant that the London media - and especially its more "liberal" wing, which has been wallowing in a faux unionjackery since the London Olympics - failed to carry even a mention of the death of Eileen Beasley, never mind an obituary.  Obviously such a significant figure in the history of modern Wales is of no interest to these outraged defenders of the human right to kick off in a Moscow Cathedral.  The newly discovered Britishness of the metropolitan elite clearly doesn't encompass anything as unfashionable as the recalcitrant Welsh, or the independently minded English working class for that matter.

UPDATE:  I see the Guardian did get around to publishing an obituary.

A Frontier Defended

The world is full of territorial disputes but at least this one, between the blameless Radnorians and an avaricious neighbour, seems to have been settled fairly.  More modern maps show the disputed ground to be within Radnorshire.

Olympic Legacy

By Jingo, the unionists and the agenda driven BBC think they've got Alex Salmond on the run.  I doubt it. Not much evidence, around here at least, of those flag-bedecked cars you see during the big rugby and soccer tournaments.  Does anyone really believe that political and national loyalties are influenced by how well TeamGB does in the Lightweight Double Sculls?

Your blogger did learn one useful thing during the two week, red white and blue extravaganza though, the natives of Flint are adamant we should say "off Flint" rather than "from Flint."  Why?

Meanwhile back in the real world ............

On a Radnorshire Roadside

Hurrah for the Daily Mail

A big thank-you to the Daily Mail and all those who've made the non-singing of  Duw gadwo'r Frenhines by Giggs and pals such a huge issue.  It's even been picked up in the foreign papers and, by highlighting our separate identities, has doubtless done something to diminish the threat posed by the Great Britain team to the continued existence of Welsh, Scottish and English international football.

We all know that Welsh soccer players rarely sing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.  It's never caused a fuss in easy-going, moderate Wales.  But when this tight-lipped tradition transfers to the more rabidly nationalistic acres east of Offa's Dyke all hell breaks loose.

It's a puzzle of course why folk who are quite happy to see their laws made in Brussels, their armies deployed in support of American foreign policy, their best companies sold off and jobs transferred abroad and their respected head of state reduced to acting in a spoof advertisement for the James Bond franchise, get quite so up-tight about soccer players maintaining a respectful silence during the playing of the pre-match anthems.

Shades of Anni Goch

The Radnorshire village of Norton may have a war memorial (in the form of a horse trough) with an inscription commemorating "its faithful sons who fought and died for England" but it also has a place in the history of Welsh literature.

There was a time when some might have claimed that Anni Goch, the subject of four (or is it five?) poems by the bard Ieuan Dyfi, wasn't a real person but a type, a stock figure.  The researches of academic Llinos Beverley Smith in the early 16C records of the Leominster Consistory Court have shown that Anni was real enough. She was the wife of John Lippard of Norton and her adulterous affairs, together with accusations of rape and attempted murder were enough to have her bardic paramour whipped around Presteigne church, while hubby John received similar exercise at Presteigne, Noron and Byton.

It's said that some 160 bardic poems addressed to Radnorshire patrons have survived, to which should be added nearly 30 more for patrons living just across the border in what is now Herefordshire.  Hopefully these will one day be brought to wider Radnorian attention by someone qualified to do so.  In the meantime here's a rough translation of one of the poems to Anni Goch.  As Ieuan Dyfi's work found it's way into the manuscripts Anni's connection with Norton was forgotten and copyists substituted another placename that met the requirements of cynghanedd - Overton in Flintshire.  One manuscript did get it right though - Nortyn:

Cynydd ydwyf yn canu I am a huntsman blowing the horn That musters the host. I'll hunt with my swift hounds, Finding the scent is not easy, It was a hind with a bright form, That escaped me from a nearby forest . Everywhere there are snares I've set for my girl. Ni wn ar hynt yn y rhwyd Yn nydd antur na ddeintiwyd.* She stirs like a hart stirs Retreating and leaving the covert. And I'm like a huntsman's pup Pursuing her like a rampant stag. From Norton, colour of hazy sunshine, Out there she was lost. I don't know what land or region She makes for from my pursuit. Maybe she heads down south to the two Gwents To escape her confinement. The symbol of the island and my chieftain, Sir Water, allow me the field; And if the doe comes from the south, Then, Sir Rhys, allow me to yoke; Not to a wild beast or a tame creature But one who flies with your birds. If to Builth between turf and wind, Sir Wiliam, allow me to hunt. If  Gwynedd's your intention, Sir Tomos, allow me a prison. If to Powys, I'd spy you After the chase and settling the hounds, Further thanks will be paid, To tall Mr. Richard Herbert. If to Hereford, perchance, the fair one Flees, for fear of being mocked, In that land there's a chief, Mr. Owain Pwl, allow me a pure fist, May Ovid not forsake me, This is my complaint, she's hiding. From following the banks of the Wye, Nor a step above Monmouth, If she escapes from this lawsuit, Then to the Vaughans I'll present my case. If to England she tries to flee, I know judgement will come there: the barons of my king, The men of the guard who love wine, Will find the slim, upright girl In one of the winehouses of London. Or failing that, there's a long task To find the girl who I'm seeking, If she's disappeared completely then Dyfi will seek the girl throughout the world. Before the time comes to sing I lose the scent in the hazels. I'm sorrowful like Uthur for Eigr It nurses a pain. Oh for the wizards of Merddin To give me high magic for her! Like Gwdion who they often kept Working endlessly for Huan. If she resists the sorcerers' enchantments Is there a magic word she doesn't know? Beware she doesn't come on a bier To Edmund from the mount to the sea. Was there in the tale of Taliesin A girl from Greece of such great sorcery? In daylight she rules In purgatory her face will be! * Maybe someone can come up with a translation of this couplet which makes sense.

Like It Was

I'm not sure who this is meant to annoy, fanboys of Jimmy Clark or Sebastian Vettel.

The thing is that qualifying just wasn't that important in the 1960s. Racing was important though and here we find that Innes and Jimmy raced together 23 times for Team Lotus in Formula One with Innes winning 4 races with 3 seconds and a third, while Jimmy managed a second place and two thirds.

And for those who argue that Jimmy was just getting quicker, well in their last seven races together, after Innes returned from his Monaco tunnel crash, Ireland took 3 wins against a best finish of fourth for Clark - this without any team orders.

TeamGB

It seems that Gareth Bale - his uncle played for Rhayader Town - has been arrested for failing to turn out for the TeamGB soccer team, see picture here.

Of course that's really Bale lookalike and fellow Welshman Liam Stacey, who was recently imprisoned for 56 days for some ill-judged comments on Twitter.  I doubt if any of the current anti-Bale tweets, many of which involve the adjective Welsh teamed up with various parts of the human anatomy and/or the perceived failings of Welsh people in general will lead to a similar period of incarceration.

As one of the dwindling band of those who support free speech I've no argument with that, but there really should be a law against the use of this term Team GB.  According to my passport our little region of the EU has three names: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; Teyrnas Gyfunol Prydain Fawr a Gogledd Iwerddon and Rìoghachd Aonaichte Bhreatainn is Èireann a Tuath.  What or where Team GB is, heaven alone knows - perhaps it's a registered trademark.

Against the Odds

Just as  modern day censuses tend to exaggerate the strength of the Welsh language in Radnorshire, those of the late 19C and early 20C probably exaggerate its weakness, especially in the west of the county.  The rapid process of language shift - 19C observers describe the language retreating 20 miles in a lifetime - can surely be best explained by a deliberate rejection on the part of the local community.  The situation in Radnorshire may well have echoed that described by a witness who lived through a similar period of rapid language shift in Limerick in Ireland:  "the growing public feeling that Irish was a dying language, a mark of a degraded people who were not 'decent' - all this combined to produce a new people who from youth were pledged to speak no Irish. And so in West Limerick you had many who persisted in trying to speak a broken English and never again uttered a word in the old tongue they knew so well."

Given such attitudes it comes as a welcome surprise to come across a local Crossgates/Penybont family who actually seem to have passed on a knowledge of Welsh in the late 19C, when all around them were denying any connection with the native tongue.

Edward Stephens, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Elizabeth were born in Nantmel parish in the 1790s - a time and a place where you would expect them to have a knowledge of both languages.  By the time of the 1841 Census they were living at the Cummey, a place in Llanddewi Ystradenni parish, but nearer to the Gwystre Inn than the Walsh Arms.  By 1851 Edward has died and Elizabeth and her sons have moved to the Breconshire iron town of Beaufort, where in 1864 the youngest son, Hugh, marries a local girl called Ann Williams.  Perhaps it is Ann who is responsible for the subsequent linguistic history of the family.

Hugh and Ann have returned to Radnorshire by 1871 with their children Thomas and Sarah - both born in Beaufort.  Two more children, Elizabeth and Hugh jnr would be born in Llanddewi and Penybont respectively.  At first Hugh snr is as an agricultural labourer, later working as a plumber and glazier.

The first language information is provided by the 1891 census. The Stephens family were then living in the part of Llandegley parish which fell under the Kington Union and did not bother itself with such details.  In 1901 Thomas and Sarah have married but Hugh, his wife and two younger children are all recorded as being able to speak Welsh.

Ann Stephens died in 1903, her husband in 1905, but the 1911 Census identifies all of their children, living in and around the Penybont area.  Thomas and Hugh have married English speaking wives but are still recorded as being able to speak Welsh themselves.  Elizabeth and Sarah, both dressmakers, are living together - Elizabeth's English-speaking husband, a coachman, was away, lodging in Garth Road, Builth.  Both Elizabeth and Sarah are recorded as being able to speak Welsh, as is Elizabeth's five year old son - the child of a Llanddewi born mother who has never lived outside the county.

If we look at this through modern-day eyes this example of language survival within a family must seem commonplace.  But in early 20C Penybont?  Without the benefit of Welsh medium education or S4C and in the face of an animus against the language which had seen it abandoned on hearths across the county.  No, this family's persistence is surely quite remarkable.

Bwgy Town

The previous vid could have done with some local accents but that's not a problem here.

Radnor Pop

Frontier Post

Although the road from Walton to Presteigne flits to and fro across the border, it's easy enough to tell where you are; the Herefordshire sections being in such a worse state of repair than those of Radnorshire.  Arriving in Presteigne it's reassuring to see Owain Glyndwr's standard flying in the High Street. Some might argue that the reality was that Owain's forces sacked the town, but that would be to forget Edmund Mortimer's call for the Welshmen of Presteigne to give their allegiance to Glyndwr.  Clearly some still do.

On a recent visit I took the opportunity to purchase Mr. Parker's excellent history of the town, it's a book I read when it first came out in 1997 but this was a fairly recently updated edition.

If I have a criticism of this deservedly much praised volume. it's that only about 10% of  the book concerns the medieval town.  Perhaps local historians could make more of Welsh sources.  The public chastisement of the bard Ieuan Dyfi, he was symbolically whipped eight times around Presteigne church in 1501 after admitting adultery with Anni Goch - the basis for the bardic dispute between Ieuan and the female poet Gwerful Mechain.  Then there are the poems by Lewis Glyn Cothi to the lord of Stapleton, Dafydd Goch.  He came from the Fron, near Crossgates.  Or what about Morgan Elfael, the bard from Diserth who lived in Presteigne for at least twenty years and whose burial is recorded in the parish register, now found in Hereford Record Office - As an aside I find it interesting that Morgan was known by his bardic name in the public records (here for example in the lay subsidy for Presteigne, nine lines from the top).  And of course Elen Gethin lived out her days in Nash.

Moving on to a more general point, historians seem to get a bit sniffy when they use Welsh genealogical and historical sources.  They'll qualify a source by mentioning their unreliability or the bard's proneness to exaggeration.  As far as I can see these Welsh sources are no less reliable than the English records.  Are English lawyers and landowners and churchmen always reliable?  I'd make a guess that they were just as much a parcel of rogues as our present day establishments.

A Sober Christian Gentleman

William Stephens, clerk of the peace for Radnorshire and a churchwarden at Presteigne, had obviously taken quite a dislike to the town's young Carmarthen born curate John Davies.  For in 1884 the reverend gentleman and Stephens' 34 year old daughter Agnes were forced to marry "surreptitiously" in London.

The 71 year old Mr Stephens, he was born in Kington of a Llananno family, was not prepared to take this lying down. He had complained to the Bishop of Hereford that Davies was a drunkard and a vulgarian and had brought great scandal upon the church.  In January 1885 the Bishop ordered an ecclesiastical inquiry, which was held, appropriately enough given the charges, in Presteigne's Radnorshire Arms.

Stephens' lawyer presented his case to the Chancellor of the Diocese and the five members of the Ecclesiastical Commission. Davies had fallen drunkenly into the street while alighting from a carriage - witnesses said the horse had lurched unexpectedly and the curate was sober. Davies had frequently been drunk in his lodgings - the proprietors of the lodging house said no such thing although they had been pressed by Stephens to say otherwise. Mr Booker, a former teacher and church organist, recalled an incident of profanity following the death of the vicar's wife. Davies had argued that a hymn was too lively a choice for her funeral service.  He'd even resorted to extemporising a verse to the tune "Brief life is here our portion, tee-tum, tee-tum, tee-tum, Mrs West, old girl is gone" - ah but the ex-schoolteacher had been helped financially by Mr Stephens and admitted under cross-examination that he couldn't swear that Davies was drunk.  All the points in favour of the curate being greeted with laughter and applause from the delighted audience.

With Stephens' case disintegrating amidst accusations that it was brought through malice, the remainder of the curate's 25 character witnesses were excused and Davies himself took the stand.  Under oath he denied all the charges against him and that was the end of the matter.  The happy couple being borne away in a carriage by their many supporters and an evening of "the greatest enthusiasm prevailed."

William Stephens died in 1890, who knows if he was ever reconciled to his daughter's new husband.  John and Agnes Davies, she died in 1932, are found in later censuses living in Northamptonshire and Dorset.  Sadly the 1901 census records that their only child had been "feeble-minded" since birth.

UPDATE:

There's a brief mention of this - names withheld - in Mr Parker's History of Presteigne, which also reminds us of an earlier incident involving the church organist who had played the Dead March when the happy couple returned from their London elopement.  This incensed the good folk of Presteigne who burnt an effigy of the organist to the accompaniment of the self same tune played by a band.

Inspector Maddox tells it best by relating the charges brought by the organist against nine men for: "unlawfully and maliciously making or having caused to be made, a certain effigy or figure intended to represent the complainant, with having carried or caused it to be carried through the street of Presteigne, and made or caused to be made a great noise or disturbance with a band of music, and having caused a large number of people to collect around the said effigy in a certain field in the township of Stapleton, and having burned same in the presence of about three hundred people, with having riotously and tumultuously caused certain music to be played and making a great noise and disturbance, thereby creating a breach of the peace."

The nine were bound over and the town's police sergeant, whose evidence was deemed too flippant by the powers that be, reduced to the rank of a second class constable.  The organist, perhaps wisely,  moved back to Oxfordshire.