How Plaid Cymru Was Founded – Tracing The Background

This year’s National Eisteddfod in Llanrwst will include a session focussing on the turbulent period that led up to the foundation of Plaid Cymru in 1925.

The celebrated author T Robin Chapman will trace the history of the events preceding the launch of the party in a lecture promoted by the Plaid Cymru History Society.

The Society’s chairman Dr Dafydd Williams says that the events of the early 1920s are highly relevant for contemporary Wales.

Robin Chapman is a noted author and historian, whose work includes biographies of both Islwyn Ffowc Elis, published in 2005 and Saunders Lewis (2007).

The lecture will be delivered in Welsh in Pabell y Cymdeithasau 2, on Thursday 8 August at 12:30pm.

Remembering Steffan Lewis

Tributes have been paid  to the late Steffan Lewis AM, who died at the age of 34 after a courageous battle against cancer.

Steffan’s funeral took place at Abercarn’s Welsh Church, established by the nineteenth century campaigner Lady Llanover, Gwenynen Gwent.  The text of tributes given at the funeral by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price  (translated text bracketed) and former Assembly Member Jocelyn Davies can be found here, together with a personal recollection of Steffan by Plaid Cymru History chairman Dafydd Williams.  The funeral service on the 25 January 2019 was conducted by the Reverend Aled Edwards.

A Tribute to Steffan by Adam Price

[We are drawn together today by a great loss and a deep sense of pain.  The loss of  a son, the loss of a husband, of a father and a friend.  And also the loss of a great ...

NEW LIGHT ON RHONDDA POLL

Many thanks to the family of the late Vic Davies, Rhondda, for donating to Plaid History a truly inspirational collection of material concerning the Rhondda West by-election that took place over half a century ago.

The collection includes a scrapbook of press cuttings that recall the dramatic contest in 1967 when Vic Davies succeeded in slashing Labour’s towering majority from seventeen thousand to just 2,306 votes, a swing of 29 per cent to Plaid Cymru.

1967 Rhondda By-election

There are a number of valuable telegrams and letters, including congratulations from Plaid Cymru president Gwynfor Evans, who had been returned as MP for Carmarthen the previous year.

1967 Llongyfarch Vic Davies

The collection also includes a letter from the SNP’s Dr Andrew Lees of Bearsden near Glasgow inviting Vic Davies to travel to Scotland to support Winifred Ewing’s campaign in the Hamilton by-election – in particular by accompanying her ...