Wales, History of. The history of Wales is the story of the people who settled on the western coast of the island of Great Britain. The first of these people arrived from Europe about 500,000 years ago. Beginning in A.D. 43, a series of invasions by such groups as the Romans, Angles, Saxons, and Normans helped shape the history and culture of Wales. England conquered Wales in 1283 but did not fully unite its government with England’s until 1536. Through this union, Wales came to share the English religion, language, and political system. Wales also maintained its own language, literature, and traditions. Through the Act of Union of 1707, Wales and England joined with Scotland to form the united kingdom of Great Britain. This union expanded further in 1801, when the whole of Ireland joined to form the United Kingdom.
In the 1900’s, the divisions of the United Kingdom sought self-government. Ireland gained independence. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland gained some self-government in a transfer of power called devolution. From this history of union and devolution, Wales has developed a rich heritage.
Prehistoric Wales
The Paleolithic Period.
Archaeologists think that the earliest hominins (the group including modern humans, their close relatives, and their ancestors) may have crossed from Europe to Britain on a land bridge more than half a million years ago. These hominins belonged to the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Period, which began over 2 million years ago and lasted until about 10,000 years ago. The hominins traveled as hunters and gatherers, following herds of migrating wild animals. They used stone tools and probably discovered how to control fire.
About 75,000 years ago, the climate of Britain became colder as ice sheets advanced to cover much of northern Europe. It is likely that no human beings inhabited Wales for tens of thousands of years. Those who did venture there during short mild spells sometimes found shelter in caves. Archaeologists have discovered signs of inhabitants from this period in Coygan Cave at Laugharne, in what is now Carmarthenshire. The cave dwellers included the earliest physically modern human beings, whom scientists call Homo sapiens sapiens.
The late Paleolithic era began in Wales about 30,000 years ago, when a wider range and better quality of tools came into use. Human beings of this period continued to live by hunting and gathering. Vast herds of wild animals, such as mammoth, musk ox, reindeer, and woolly rhinoceros, roamed wide open plains and provided food for the cave-dwelling hunters.
Archaeologists made one of the most important discoveries of the late Paleolithic Period in 1823, in the Paviland cave on the coast of Gower Peninsula in southern Wales. There, archaeologists discovered a skeleton covered in red ocher (earth mixture used as a dye). The remains are of a young man, often called the Paviland Man, who died more than 25,000 years ago. His body had been smeared with red ocher, perhaps as part of a burial ritual.
The Mesolithic Period.
The Stone Age hunters and gatherers who lived in Britain after the Ice Age, from about 10,000 years ago through the next several thousand years, are called Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) people. During this period, the melting of the polar ice caused the sea level to rise. About 8,500 years ago, Britain lost its land link with the rest of Europe and became an island. By about 7,000 years ago, Wales had roughly the same shape as it has today.
As the climate became milder and the temperature rose, the countryside became covered with thick woods. The open grasslands with roaming herds of animals gradually disappeared. The people gradually stopped living in caves and began to live in campsites made in forest clearings. They made such tools as axes and mattocks, large tools with a flat blade, used for loosening soil and cutting roots. The people tamed dogs and used them to help guard the camps and to hunt the small animals of the woodlands. They also used boats to catch fish.
The Neolithic Period.
About 6,000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C., knowledge of agriculture was brought from the mainland of western Europe to Britain. This marked the beginning of a new period in Welsh history—the Neolithic (New Stone Age) era.
The people of this period built chambered tombs of stone called cromlechs or megaliths. The cromlech was both a place of burial and the center of the community’s rituals and ceremonies. Most cromlechs in Wales are in Anglesey, Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Gwynedd, Pembrokeshire, Swansea, and the Vale of Glamorgan. The most magnificent cromlech is Barclodiad y Gawres (Apron of the Giantess) in Anglesey, dating from about 3000 B.C.
The farmers of Neolithic Wales used flint axes to clear forests and open up land for cultivation. They grew various types of wheat and harvested the crop with flint sickles. They kept herds of cattle, sheep, and goats on the newly opened grasslands and also raised hogs.
The Bronze Age.
The use of stone tools continued in Wales until about 1400 B.C. But between 3000 B.C. and 2500 B.C., people also began using metal tools. These early tools were made of copper, but later ones were made of bronze (copper hardened with tin). During the early Bronze Age, from about 2400 to 1500 B.C., the climate of Wales grew milder. It became possible to farm the upland regions of the country. The presence of numerous stone circles and burial chambers indicates that these areas could support large populations.
During the Bronze Age, distinctive wide-mouthed pottery vessels called beakers appeared in Wales and other areas of Britain. The beakers were often buried with the dead. Scholars once thought that large numbers of immigrants, whom they called the Beaker Folk, brought metalworking and the new beaker pottery to Britain. But archaeologists have not found evidence of large migrations. Many scientists now believe that small groups or individual traders and craftworkers probably spread the new skills and ideas.
In the late Bronze Age (about 1400 to 600 B.C.), the climate grew colder again. People living in the uplands of Wales abandoned their settlements and moved to lower ground. Metalwork flourished. Archaeologists have unearthed several groups of metal objects from this period, including swords.
The first hill forts appeared around this time. The United Kingdom has many of these sites. Wales alone has about 600 hill forts. They range in area from more than 50 acres (20 hectares) to less than 1 acre (0.4 hectare). The largest formed entire communities, and the smallest were farm enclosures or fortified homesteads. Hand mills found at several sites show that the people who lived in the hill forts relied heavily on grains. Cattle bones discovered at some sites suggest that cattle raising formed a part of the economy.
The Iron Age.
Soon after 700 B.C., the use of iron was introduced into Britain. Iron soon became a far more plentiful metal than either copper or tin, giving people an almost unlimited source of material for making tools and weapons. One of the oldest manufactured iron objects found in Britain is part of a sword discovered in a lake called Llyn Fawr, in Rhondda, in southern Wales. The Llyn Fawr sword was made around 600 B.C. Archaeologists have discovered a large number of iron objects from the 500’s B.C. and later in Wales. The most notable belong to a group of objects that scientists found in a lake called Llyn Cerrig Bach in Anglesey. These objects, which date from between 150 B.C. and A.D. 50, may have been thrown into the lake as religious offerings.
The Celts.
Most historians believe that the Celtic language began to spread to Britain during the Iron Age as a result of trade with Europe. The various groups who spoke Celtic are known as (usually pronounced Celts << kehlts >>). Several sources provide historians with a background to the Celtic history of Wales. These sources include archaeological discoveries, such as those from Llyn Cerrig Bach, and the written evidence about Britain and Wales in the works of such ancient writers as the Roman general Julius Caesar, the Greek geographer and historian Strabo, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, and the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus. Their writings show that the ruling class of Britain spoke a Celtic language and that Celtic culture was dominant.
Celtic society was aristocratic, based on a government system in which the nobles or a privileged upper class ruled. Only two classes, the warriors and the Druids, enjoyed the full rights of free people. The Druids included priests, judges, physicians, and other learned people. See Druids.
By A.D. 50, Wales was inhabited by five Celtic tribes. The Silures occupied the southeast, the Demetae the southwest, the Ordovices the northwest, the Deceangli the northeast, and the Cornovii held the middle reaches of the River Severn. See Celts.
Roman Wales
The Roman emperor Claudius launched a full invasion of Britain in A.D. 43. By 47, the Romans had overrun southeastern England. The Welsh tribes continued to resist Roman rule, particularly the Silures, led by a prince from southern Britain named Caratacus, also spelled Caractacus, Caradoc, or Caradog (see Caratacus). It was not until A.D. 78 that Wales came fully under control of the Romans, who then established the frontier system. Under this system, the Roman forces maintained control through a series of fortresses. The Romans built two legionary fortresses, housing foot soldiers and horsemen, at Chester and Caerleon. These were linked with a number of smaller fortresses by a network of roads.
By about A.D. 120, most of Wales had accepted Roman rule, and many of the fortresses stood empty. Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire, but the country’s inhabitants also continued to use Brythonic, the form of the Celtic language spoken in Wales. The Romans granted the Silures a measure of self-government, and Caerwent (then called Venta Silurum) became their civitas (Roman provincial capital). Carmarthen (then called Maridunum), in the territory of the Demetae, probably received the same status. These were the only Roman towns in Wales. But some of the Roman trading centers outside the fortresses were extensive. The Romans also created large industrial centers. Workers created pottery at Holt in what is now Wrexham, mined gold at Dolaucothi in Carmarthenshire, and produced iron at Ariconium, in what is now Herefordshire, England. The Romans also established in Wales about a dozen villas—Roman-style mansions that were the centers of large country estates. Because all of these villas have been discovered in southeast Wales, historians think this was the most Romanized part of Britain. There is evidence that the Romans saw Wales as an excellent training ground for their soldiers. At Llandrindod Wells, in mid-Wales, Roman soldiers practiced warfare and other skills at special camps.
The upper classes in Wales came to consider themselves Roman, particularly after 212, when all free men throughout the Roman Empire were granted Roman citizenship. Further Roman influence came through the introduction of Christianity. Around 304, two Welsh Christians, Aaron and Julius, were reportedly martyred (put to death because of their beliefs) at Caerleon. They were, along with the more famous Saint Alban, among the first British saints. Many Welsh people converted to Christianity after 313, when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great gave Christians freedom of worship.
Medieval Wales
The decline of the Roman Empire
in the A.D. 300’s and 400’s brought the end of Roman rule in Britain. After the collapse of Roman rule, Welsh history is difficult to interpret for about 400 years, until the late A.D. 800’s. The evidence available is scarce and confusing, and much of what has come down to historians is legend rather than confirmed facts. The Romanized British probably tried to retain most of the features of a Roman lifestyle. But by 500, Britain was divided into a number of kingdoms. Most of these were Brythonic in language and culture.
In the 400’s and 500’s, the Angles and Saxons, migrants from the mainland of Europe, set up small kingdoms in the east and southeast of Britain. Archaeologists have found some evidence of Irish settlements in Wales from this period. The victory of the legendary British leader Arthur in about 496 temporarily halted the Anglo-Saxon expansion, but that expansion was renewed in the late 500’s. By about 700, the whole of southern Britain, apart from Wales and Cornwall, had become Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Between 784 and 796, Offa, ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, built a boundary between Mercia and the Welsh kingdoms, possibly to keep out Welsh raiders. At its longest, the dike extended 140 miles (225 kilometers), from the mouth of the River Dee in the north to the mouth of the River Wye in the south. See Offa’s Dyke.
Brythonic language.
The Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of England were absorbed into the English kingdoms. The Brythonic language, which had once been spoken in the whole of Britain south of the Scottish Highlands, disappeared in the areas colonized by the English. The Welsh language (Cymraeg) is a daughter language of Brythonic and is directly related to the other Brythonic languages, Cornish and Breton. Welsh emerged by about A.D. 600, when it was used by Taliesin and Aneirin, court poets in the Celtic kingdoms of the northern part of the island of Great Britain. The word (pronounced Cymry << KIHM ree >>, meaning fellow countrymen) was adopted as the name for the speakers of Welsh. See Welsh language.
The rise of Christianity.
Most of the Welsh people were Christians from the beginning of the Middle Ages, about A.D. 400. Part of their Christian tradition came from the Christianity of Roman Britain. But it was also influenced by missionaries who came to Wales along the western sea routes. The Christianity of Wales was linked with that of Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and Scotland. The Celtic Christian Church developed its own characteristics. Among them was the central role played by monasteries (religious centers). The saints of the Celtic church were usually monastic leaders. Saint David, who probably lived from 530 to 589, was the most important of them. His monastery at St. David’s in southwest Wales became the center of a bishopric (bishop’s territory) that extended over most of south Wales. See David, Saint.
Early kingdoms.
Early Wales was divided into a number of small kingdoms. In the course of time, four major kingdoms developed: (1) Gwynedd in the northwest; (2) Powys in the center; (3) Dyfed (which later became Deheubarth) in the southwest; and (4) Gwent in the southeast. One of the most powerful royal houses was that of Gwynedd, which claimed descent from Cunedda, a leader who had migrated to Wales from the banks of the River Forth in what is now Scotland.
In the mid-800’s, Rhodri Mawr (Rhodri the Great), king of Gwynedd, united much of Wales under his rule. He also succeeded in defending Wales from the Vikings in 856. His grandson Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) married the daughter of the king of Dyfed and continued to unite Wales, reigning for more than 40 years. Hywel issued an official currency and assembled the laws of Wales into a code. He recognized both Edward the Elder and Athelstan, the kings of England during his reign, as his overlords (rulers). Hywel’s great-great-grandson Gruffydd (also spelled Gruffudd) ap Llywelyn brought the whole of Wales under his control, after a long series of battles in the south. Gruffydd was killed by his own army in 1063. See Kings and queens of the United Kingdom (Wales).
Harold, Earl of Wessex, invaded Wales in 1063, and Gruffydd’s kingdom collapsed. After William of Normandy won the throne of England in 1066, Wales was again divided. William established three earldoms—Chester, Shrewsbury, and Hereford—on the Welsh border. The earls gradually expanded into Welsh territory along the border with England. This borderland was called the March or the Welsh Marches, and the wealthy landowners were known as Marcher lords. The Marcher lords built castles on their lands and gradually expanded their estates. They soon controlled most of central and southern Wales. See Welsh Marches.
By the 1090’s, Welsh rule in Wales seemed doomed. But several revolts at that time stopped the Normans from further western expansion. Among Welsh contenders for power were Madog ap Maredudd of Powys, Owain Gwynedd of Gwynedd, and Rhys ap Gruffydd (known as The Lord Rhys) of Deheubarth.
The Normans also sought to control the Welsh Church. By 1143, the whole of Wales was under the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. The Welsh reacted by seeking archbishop status for the bishop of St. David’s. Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales), a Welsh scholar, church reformer, and diplomat, played a prominent role in this campaign. Gerald wrote several books on Wales, providing a fascinating picture of the life and character of the Welsh.
Several monastic orders from the mainland of Europe established monasteries in Wales. Some of their abbeys, notably Strata Florida, not far from Tregaron, became important centers of Welsh culture. The Welsh rulers were also patrons of culture. The Lord Rhys held an eisteddfod << eye STEHTH vod >>, a festival featuring poets, musicians, and singers, in 1176. See Kings and queens of the United Kingdom (The last rulers of Wales) .
The English conquest of Wales
The English kings tried to weaken the power of the Welsh rulers in the 1200’s. The princes of Gwynedd reacted by trying to unite Wales. Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, also known as Llywelyn the Great, ruled the territory of Gwynedd in northwestern Wales and gradually expanded his control over Wales. In 1267, King Henry III of England acknowledged Llywelyn ap Iorwerth’s grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (also spelled Gruffudd) as Prince of Wales, with authority over all the other Welsh rulers. In return, Llywelyn recognized Henry as his king.
After Henry died in 1272, Llywelyn refused to accept Henry’s son Edward I as his king. Edward’s armies attacked Llywelyn in 1277. Edward forced Llywelyn to give up much of his territory but allowed him to keep his title. A new Welsh revolt broke out in 1282, and Llywelyn was slain in a battle with English troops the next year. After Llywelyn’s death, the Welsh revolt collapsed.
In 1284, Edward issued the Statute of Rhuddlan. This order placed the conquered Welsh lands directly under English control and divided them into counties under the control of English sheriffs. To ensure control over Wales, Edward built a number of powerful castles, including those at Caernarfon (also spelled Caernarvon) and Harlech. The Welsh Marches continued to exist as a series of lordships. The territories formerly controlled by Llywelyn, called the principality of Wales, became divided into the six counties of Anglesey, Caernarfon, Meirionydd (also spelled Merioneth), Flint, Cardigan, and Carmarthen.
Edward I gave the principality of Wales to his eldest son, Edward of Caernarfon, the future King Edward II, who in 1301 became the first English Prince of Wales. Since then, nearly all English and British monarchs have given the title to their oldest son.
The 200 years following Edward’s conquest of Wales saw many contrasting developments. Literature flourished. Poets wrote verses with a complex system of alliteration and internal rhymes called cynghanedd << kihng HAH nehth >>. The greatest of these poets was Dafydd ap Gwilym. Towns and trade developed. But, in 1349, a deadly plague called the Black Death greatly reduced the Welsh population.
Changes in landholdings.
Although the English conquest left most Welsh customs unaffected, the Welsh system of landholding gradually fell out of use. Before the English conquest, the property of a Welsh nobleman had been divided equally among his surviving sons. The subdivision of land had gone on for generations, and eventually the plots of inherited land became quite small. In the 1200’s and 1300’s, English and some Welsh landlords obtained batches of these small plots to form large estates. The new landowners were known as the gentry. The Welsh who were too poor to have their own land worked for the gentry as peasant farmers.
Glendower’s rebellion.
Many Welsh people came to accept the English conquest, and large numbers of Welshmen fought in the armies of the English kings. The Welsh troops won particular fame as archers. Not all Welsh people were prepared to accept English rule, however. There were revolts among the Welsh in 1287, 1294, and 1316, and several serious disturbances during the 1340’s and 1370’s. Finally, there was a great rebellion led by Owen Glendower from 1400 to 1410.
Owen Glendower (Owain Glyn Dwr in Welsh), a Welsh prince, was descended from the Welsh princes of Powys. A man of culture, Glendower studied law in London before returning to live in north Wales. In England, he had been an ally of Henry of Bolingbroke, who later became King Henry IV. But when Glendower returned to Wales in 1400, he became angry over poverty and border disputes with the English. He decided to try to regain his country’s lost independence. A violent disagreement with one of his English neighbors in north Wales provided the spark that led to Glendower’s rebellion. See Glendower, Owen.
Glendower proved to be an inspiring leader, winning several battles against English forces. He set up an independent parliament for Wales and tried to separate the church in Wales from the church in England. He also had plans for two Welsh universities. In 1405, however, he suffered the first of a series of defeats. Henry IV’s son, who later became King Henry V, led a successful campaign against Glendower, and by 1410, Glendower’s rebellion was crushed. Glendower’s struggles against the English—despite his final defeat—made him a hero of many Welsh people.
In 1455, a struggle for the throne of England broke out between the House (family) of Lancaster and the House of York. These wars were called the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485). During this period, the Welsh tried to find a Welsh leader among the various leaders of the Yorkists and the Lancastrians. The most convincing candidate was Henry Tudor. Henry belonged to an old Anglesey family and was a member, through his mother, of the House of Lancaster. Landing in Wales in 1485, Henry sought support from the Welsh. Many Welshmen joined Henry’s army that defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. After that battle, Henry became King Henry VII.
Act of Union.
In 1536, Henry VIII, the son of Henry VII, joined Wales and England under a single government by the first Act of Union. Under the act, the March was dissolved. Parts of the March joined up with existing counties, and the rest formed seven new counties: (1) Denbigh, (2) Montgomery, (3) Radnor, (4) Brecon, (5) Monmouth, (6) Glamorgan, and (7) Pembroke. The Act of Union also abolished Welsh law and prohibited the use of the Welsh language for official purposes.
At that time, Christians in England and Wales—like Christians in most of Europe—recognized the spiritual authority of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church. In an effort to dissolve his marriage, Henry VIII began a movement to abolish the pope’s authority in his kingdom. In 1534, Parliament made Henry head of the Church of England, beginning the process that separated the Church of England from the Catholic Church and caused England and Wales to become Protestant. By 1540, Henry’s adviser Thomas Cromwell had suppressed all of the monasteries in Wales and destroyed many sacred images. Parliament demanded the translation of the Bible into Welsh in 1563 to encourage the Welsh to accept the Church Settlement of Elizabeth I. That settlement established the Church of England as the official religion of England and Wales. The New Testament in Welsh appeared in 1567 and the entire Bible in 1588. The publication of the Welsh Bible helped set standards for written Welsh.
Roman Catholics disloyal to Queen Elizabeth I were persecuted. So were the Puritans, who wanted the Church to be more Protestant. The first Puritan martyr (person put to death because of his beliefs) in Wales was a clergyman named John Penry, who was hanged in 1593.
English Civil War.
In the early 1600’s, the English monarchs came into conflict with Parliament. These disagreements resulted in the English Civil War (1642-1648), a struggle between supporters of King Charles I and supporters of the English Parliament (see English Civil War). During the war, most of the Welsh supported the king. The war ended with the triumph of Parliament, led by the Puritan general Oliver Cromwell. With the victory of Parliament, the Welsh Puritans received encouragement to press for religious reforms. Vavasor Powell, a leading Puritan, was a powerful and effective preacher.
King Charles II came to power in 1660. His reign, known as the Restoration, led to the persecution of the Nonconformists (worshipers who did not agree with principles of the Church of England). In 1688, Protestant leaders in England who opposed a Roman Catholic king invited a Protestant Dutch prince called William of Orange to take the throne. This transition is now known as the Glorious Revolution.
In 1689, Parliament passed a Toleration Act, granting freedom of worship to dissenters (Protestants outside the Church of England) but not to Roman Catholics. Even after the English Parliament passed this act, most Welsh people remained members of the Church of England. Sir John Philipps, a wealthy nobleman, supported an educational organization called the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). The SPCK distributed Welsh religious books and established schools and libraries. Sir John also supported the work of Griffith Jones of Llanddowror, an Anglican clergyman and pioneer of Welsh education. Jones established a system of temporary schools called circulating schools. The schools taught children and adults to read the Welsh Bible and the catechism. A school would generally hold classes for about three months before it moved to another location.
Economic changes.
The late 1600’s and early 1700’s were the golden age of the landowners. Wales became a land of large estates, and the estate owners dominated local government and parliamentary representation. The upper classes became increasingly English in speech and culture. As a result, Welsh language and culture was led by the middle classes, mainly yeomen (small landholders and landowning farmers), craftworkers, tenant farmers, and miners. The economy remained largely rural. Carmarthen and Wrexham were the largest towns in Wales, but they each had only a few thousand inhabitants.
The lack of fertile land in Wales and the poor climate caused great economic difficulties among many farmers. The tenant farmers, who made up as much as half of the population, lived simple lives. The classes below them, the laborers, servants, and the poor, endured extreme poverty. With so little fertile land, the raising of cattle and sheep was the backbone of the economy in the 1600’s and 1700’s. The cattle trade was the main source of money, and drovers (the workers who moved cattle and sheep to market in England) were of central importance. Much sheep’s wool was made into a type of fabric called flannel, for which there was a demand in many parts of the world. The production of flannel was a major industry that the Welsh carried out in their homes.
The Methodist Revival
began as a reform movement within the Church of England that stressed personal faith and good works. The movement in Wales started in 1735, when Howel Harris, a lay (not belonging to the clergy) preacher, began to hold Methodist religious meetings outdoors in Breconshire, now southern Powys . Meanwhile, Daniel Rowland, a Church of England clergyman, attracted large congregations to his open-air sermons at Llangeitho, in what is now Ceredigion. Both men preached doctrines that were Methodistic, promoting a moral life, and evangelical, emphasizing personal religious experience. The Methodist Revival gained much inspiration from hymns composed by the preacher and poet William Williams of Pantycelyn, in Carmarthenshire. Many evangelical religious societies formed as part of this movement.
By the end of the 1700’s, Welsh Methodism had almost all the characteristics of a separate denomination (religious group). In 1811, the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church began to ordain its own ministers. The leader at that time was the Welsh clergyman Thomas Charles of Bala.
The Methodist Revival occurred at the same time as the Welsh Renaissance of the 1700’s, a movement to revive and celebrate the cultural traditions of Wales. Supporters established Welsh organizations, such as the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, founded in London in 1751. As literacy increased, the publication of Welsh books and magazines greatly expanded. The eisteddfod (festival of the arts), which had largely been abandoned since the 1500’s, revived (see Eisteddfod). Welsh people studied the classic literature of the past, and interest in history began to grow. The most remarkable figure of the Welsh Renaissance was the Welsh scholar and poet Iolo Morganwg, whose real name was Edward Williams. To promote Welsh culture, he created a large body of literature that he claimed was written by ancient Welsh writers (see Iolo Morganwg). Iolo also invented the ceremonies of the Gorsedd of the Bards, a governing body of Welsh poets who, Iolo claimed, traced their origins to the Druids.
Industrialization.
In 1770, Wales probably had about 500,000 people. But the population began to grow rapidly in the late 1700’s, rising to about 587,000 in 1801 and to about 1,163,000 in 1851. In 1770, most Welsh people had jobs related to agriculture. But by 1851, that proportion had fallen to one-third. The growth of industry caused many people to leave their farming jobs. Wales had iron ore and coal in the south and northeast, lead ore in the center and northeast, and copper ore and slate in the northwest. These raw materials enabled Wales to take part in the Industrial Revolution, a boom in industry and development during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s that caused massive economic, social, and political changes.
Although industry came first to the northeast, the greatest developments occurred in the south. There, the northern rim of the south Wales coal field contained all the resources necessary for the manufacture of iron. By 1830, the area was making 40 percent of the United Kingdom’s pig iron (iron produced in a blast furnace). By the 1840’s, the Dowlais Ironworks near Merthyr Tydfil had become the largest ironworks in the world. Merthyr, a tiny village in 1770, had a population of about 46,000 by 1851. In the 1790’s, a series of canals connected the upland industries to the coast. But the real revolution in transportation was the advance of the railroad from 1841 onward. After the 1840’s, the coal industry overtook the iron industry in the south Wales coal field.
The new communities built near the coal fields were often unsafe. The mines and furnaces were dangerous places. A lack of clean water, sewerage systems, and adequate housing meant that disease and death were all too common. In the iron towns, violence often erupted. Several groups emerged that fought for the rights of the workers. The Scotch Cattle of the 1820’s and early 1830’s was one such group. It consisted mainly of workers from the mines who attempted to improve working conditions and increase pay. However, the group was secretive and used intimidation and violence to force the workers to cooperate. The group’s symbol was a red bull’s head. During their attacks, the leader, or “bull,” wore bull’s horns, and the enforcers dressed in animal skins. The movement declined after the execution of one of the leaders, Edward Morgan, in 1835.
In 1831, the people of Merthyr rose in rebellion, calling for parliamentary reform and increases in wages. Government troops put down the uprising. Richard Lewis (also known as Dic Penderyn) was convicted as one of the leaders of the riot and was hanged. Welsh people today still regard him as an innocent man who was executed to set an example—a martyr in the cause of social reform.
In the 1830’s, a movement called Chartism emerged in many areas of the United Kingdom. The supporters of the Chartist movement demanded votes for all men, the abolition of the rule that members of Parliament must be property owners, and the creation of electoral districts of roughly equal populations. Finally, they called for annual elections to Parliament and secret ballots. In 1839, a Chartist group led by a Welsh tailor named John Frost marched on Newport. Soldiers fired on the group, killing 20 Chartists and wounding many more (see Frost, John).
Despite the social and political instability, the population of the south Wales coal field areas continued to rise during this period. The population of Monmouthshire increased from about 45,000 in 1801 to about 450,000 in 1901.
Most of the people who lived in the new industrial towns had come from the overpopulated countryside of Wales. Agriculture had flourished during a series of wars between Britain and France in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. But after these wars ended in 1815, there was a severe economic depression. Tenants accused landowners of demanding excessive rents. The enclosure movement, which divided and enclosed open fields and common land to form independent farms, deprived the people of the use of the common land.
The Welsh farmers’ discontent exploded in the Rebecca Riots of 1839 to 1844. The riots began as demonstrations against having to pay a toll to use roads. Then the participants expanded their protests to include such issues as high rents, the payment of tithes (church dues), and the injustices of the system. See Rebecca Riots.
Religious issues.
The Reform Act of 1832 had increased the number of Welsh members of Parliament from 27 to 32. But the increase in the number of working-class voters was small, and the landowners continued to dominate Welsh parliamentary representation. Nonconformists became increasingly involved in politics because they were resentful of the privileged position of the Church of England.
The question of the relationship between church and state aroused great interest in Wales, largely because of the rapid growth of Nonconformity. The 1851 census reported that 87 percent of the Welsh people attending a place of worship chose a Nonconformist chapel rather than an Anglican church. Nearly every Welsh community had at least one chapel. The chapels were not only places of worship; they were major centers of education, culture, entertainment, and politics. They provided the setting for the growth of a tradition of choral music, and their ministers became the recognized leaders of national life and opinion.
Education.
Conflict between the Church of England and Nonconformist chapels particularly affected education. Because there were no state schools before 1870, both religious groups provided denominational schools. In 1847, a commission set up by the British government issued a report on the state of education in Wales. The report, known as the Blue Books, showed that the education system in Wales was inadequate, but it also declared that the Welsh were immoral and that their language was a drawback to their progress. In response to the report, the British government discouraged the use of the Welsh language or, in some cases, removed it altogether from the Welsh education system.
Developments in education were an important part of the history of Wales in the period from 1850 to 1914. The 1870’s saw the creation of a network of elementary schools. In 1872, the University College of Wales opened at Aberystwyth. Two more university colleges soon opened, at Cardiff in 1883 and at Bangor in 1884. The three became federated (joined together under one governing body) as the University of Wales in 1893. The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 led to the establishment of secondary schools. By the early 1900’s, the opportunity to advance through education was much greater in Wales than it was in England.
Political developments.
Further parliamentary reform came later in the 1800’s, and more people won the right to vote. The Reform Act of 1867 extended the vote to many working men in the towns and owners of small farms. The Reform Act of 1884 gave the vote to many agricultural laborers. Women were still not allowed to vote, however.
Partly because of its sympathy for Nonconformists, the Liberal Party attracted most Welsh voters. In 1885, it won 30 of the 34 parliamentary seats then assigned to Wales. Welsh Liberals called for the disestablishment (removal from official status) of the Church of England in Wales. But this was not achieved until 1920, when an Anglican church called the Church in Wales came into existence under its own archbishop.
A Welsh nationalist movement gained strength in the late 1800’s as several Welsh politicians called for independence and self-government for Wales. In the 1850’s and 1860’s, a small group of Welsh radicals who were frustrated with the slow progress of the Welsh nationalist movement began a movement to establish Welsh communities outside of Wales. Michael Daniel Jones, one of the main leaders of modern Welsh nationalism, helped set up a self-governing Welsh colony in Patagonia, Argentina, in 1865. The nationalist movement Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) was active between 1886 and 1896. One of its leaders was David Lloyd George, who was elected a member of Parliament for Caernarfon in 1890 and later served as prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Among the nationalists was Robert Ambrose Jones (also known as Emrys ap Iwan), who worked for the preservation of the Welsh language. The weak position of Welsh in education was symbolized by the use in some schools of the Welsh Not, a piece of wood worn around the neck as a punishment for children who spoke Welsh in school. In 1889, the British government allowed Welsh to be included in the curriculum. But many years passed before the language came fully into use in schools.
The emergence of modern Wales
Industrial growth and depression.
By the beginning of the 1900’s, the rapid growth of the south Wales coal field had changed the balance of the population of Wales. The growth of the Rhondda Valley area was particularly spectacular. Its population rose from 951 in 1851 to 167,000 in 1924. The number of coal miners in south Wales reached a peak of 271,000 in 1920. In the late 1800’s, Wales produced about one-quarter of the world’s international trade in coal.
With the growth of the coal industry, the industrial working class began to organize itself into labor unions. This unionization often brought conflict with employers, however. The most significant labor union in Wales was the South Wales Miners’ Federation, founded in 1898. The union developed a reputation for aggressive policies and conflict with the coal mine owners. A 10-month strike by workers in the Rhondda District began in October 1910. In November, striking workers erupted into riots in Tonypandy, in an incident now called the Tonypandy Riots. Many police and rioters were injured, one miner was killed, and many of the town’s businesses were destroyed in looting.
Dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party led many working-class Welsh to join the Labour Party, which held five Welsh seats by 1910. The Liberal Party remained the leading party in Wales until the 1920’s, however. Welsh people followed with great pride the career of David Lloyd George, the Liberal prime minister from 1916 to 1922. See Lloyd George, David.
World War I
(1914-1918) claimed the lives of about 40,000 Welsh servicemen. It had many profound effects upon Wales. One of them was the weakening of Welsh support of the Liberal Party. In 1922, the Labour Party won half the seats of Wales. Another effect of the war was the decreased market for coal from Wales, as other countries began producing their own coal and turning to other sources of energy. Partly because of this, Wales entered a depression in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Between 1920 and the mid-1930’s, about half of all the jobs in the coal-mining industry in south Wales disappeared. Unemployment soared, reaching a peak of about 40 percent in 1932. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, rural areas also suffered depression as the wartime boom in agricultural prices collapsed.
For the first time in hundreds of years, the population of Wales began to decline. More than 430,000 people moved out of the country between 1921 and 1940. The depression was made worse by bitterness between employers and workers, which came to a climax in a miners’ strike and the General Strike of 1926. The miners’ strike protested the reduction in wages and expansion of work hours of Welsh miners. The Welsh Trades Union Congress organized the General Strike in support of the miners. The General Strike was called off after nine days, after negotiations resulted in some victories for the miners. The miners themselves, however, stayed on strike for several more months, until poverty forced them back to work.
As Wales experienced economic, political, and social instability, its claim to be a united nation seemed to be in peril. The proportion of the population able to speak Welsh, which had been 54 percent in 1891, had fallen to about 37 percent by 1931. Concern over the language was one of the chief factors leading to the establishment in 1925 of the nationalist movement Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru (the National Party of Wales, later shortened to Plaid Cymru, or the Party of Wales). Its most important figure was Saunders Lewis, a Welsh writer and lecturer. The new party found little support among the voters, but it gained attention in 1936 when its leading members, including Saunders Lewis, burned a Royal Air Force Bombing School in Caernarfonshire.
World War II and its aftermath.
Soldiers from Wales fought in World War II (1939-1945) alongside other troops from the United Kingdom. Wales was hit by German bombing raids. In 1941, a three-night bombing campaign destroyed much of downtown Swansea.
In the period following World War II, Wales was transformed economically, politically, and culturally. Much of the Welsh economy was nationalized (taken into state ownership) in the aftermath of the war and remained so until the privatization (return to private ownership) of the 1980’s. The coal industry was nationalized in 1947, but this action failed to prevent the long-term decline of the industry. In 1947, there were more than 150 coal fields in Wales. By 1979, there were only 37. Following the miners’ strike of 1984 and 1985, the pace of decline increased. By 2000, there was only one mine left in Wales. An industry that had once employed a third of Welsh men was reduced to only a few hundred workers.
Such industries as tin-plate and textile production also declined. These declines led to high levels of unemployment in the early 1980’s. However, these shifts also led to a new economy based on manufacturing and services. This new economic base was largely due to the efforts of a government agency called the Welsh Development Agency. The agency worked to attract foreign investment into Wales by American, European, and Asian companies, such as the Ford Motor Company and Sony Corporation. As a result, the Welsh economy was transformed by the early 2000’s. Parts of the country, especially along new roads in the northeast and the southeast, experienced a new prosperity. Problems remained in the old coal field areas and in rural Wales, where the agricultural industry faced severe difficulties. These parts of the country are among the poorest areas in Europe.
The change in the economy was partially responsible for the transformation in the role and status of women in Wales. Men had dominated the traditional industries, but by the 1990’s, half of the Welsh work force was women.
Cultural change in Wales
in the late 1900’s was no less dramatic. The Welsh language changed from being the language of the rural west to becoming more broadly spoken throughout Wales. This change was largely because of the rapid growth of Welsh-language schools. The number of Welsh speakers declined from 29 percent in 1951 to 19 percent in 1981, but there was little change over the next 10 years. For the first time, the number of young people speaking the language increased during that period.
Supporters of the Welsh language had campaigned for equal rights with English since the formation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) in 1962. Hundreds of activists were arrested for vandalizing English-only road signs and holding other illegal protests. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, there was an arson campaign aimed at English people who bought houses in Welsh-speaking areas. After a long campaign, a Welsh language television station, S4C, began transmitting in 1982. In 1993, a new Welsh Language Act guaranteed Welsh equality with English, and much of the language campaigning ceased.
Welsh culture flourished in many areas in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Wales produced a number of popular musicians, such as the rock band Manic Street Preachers, the classically trained singer Charlotte Church, and the opera singer Bryn Terfel. A new generation of Welsh actors, including Timothy Dalton and Catherine Zeta-Jones, emerged to succeed such veteran actors as Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, and Desmond Llewellyn. In sports, the Welsh rugby team achieved great success, especially in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The Rugby World Cup was held in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in 1999. In 2003, Rowan Williams became the first Welsh archbishop of Canterbury in more than 1,000 years (see Williams, Rowan Douglas).
Devolution.
Fundamental political changes in this period transformed the status of Wales within the United Kingdom. In 1945, Wales possessed few national institutions. The nationalist party Plaid Cymru and powerful sections within the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats strongly campaigned for devolution, the transfer of some political powers from the British government to the Welsh government. The devolution movement slowly began to gain success later in the 1900’s. A Council for Wales and Monmouthshire was appointed in 1948, but it had few powers. A minister for Welsh Affairs in the British government was appointed in 1951. In 1964, the Welsh Office and a secretary of state for Wales in the British Cabinet were established. The first secretary of state was a socialist, Welsh-speaking former miner, James Griffiths. Cardiff was recognized as the capital of Wales in 1955. See Devolution.
The powers of the Welsh Office grew over the following 30 years, but the people of Wales decisively defeated the idea of an elected government of their own in a referendum in 1979, by a vote of 4 to 1. By the time of the next referendum in 1997, however, there had been a change in public opinion regarding Welsh devolution. The proposal was approved in a referendum, though by a narrow margin.
In 1999, a National Assembly for Wales was established with 60 elected members. The first Assembly had a higher percentage of women than any governing body in Europe at the time. The powers of the former Welsh Office and the secretary of state for Wales were transferred to the National Assembly, though the secretary of state remained in the British Cabinet.
For the 1999 elections for the Assembly, Wales introduced a proportional representation system, a system designed to give a political party a share of the seats in the legislature in proportion to its share of the total vote cast in an election (see Proportional representation). In those elections, the Labour Party emerged as the largest party, continuing the dominance it had had in Wales since World War II. The most dramatic challenge to the Labour Party came from Plaid Cymru. Although it had previously been a minor party, Plaid Cymru became the second largest party in the Assembly, winning some seats in the former coal field valleys.
In 2019, the Assembly approved legis lation that lowered the voting age to 16 for local government and Welsh parliamentary elections. The voting age for United Kingdom parliamentary elections remained at 18.
The National Assembly for Wales became known as the Welsh Parliament, or Senedd Cymru, in 2020. The Senedd has no tax-raising powers, but it has considerable powers within Wales, including economic development, education, health, transportation, and culture. The Senedd is led by a first minister who governs with a Cabinet.
