Wales is a singular noun but a plural experience.1
By the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century socialism had become embedded, albeit as the belief and enthusiasm of a minority, into the culture of the industrial regions of south Wales. This, however, only comprised part of the Welsh experience of socialism in this period. Welsh historiography has little to say about the fortunes of socialism outside south Wales in the period before 1906, but if a full understanding of the relationship between Wales and socialism is to be achieved, there is a need to cross the heads of the valleys and engage with the Wales beyond.
This demands both a geographical and a cultural shift, but neither are straightforward.
In the first place, the geographical and cultural boundaries of Wales have never been coterminous. A significant amount of Welsh culture was created outside of Wales, and, as Emrys Jones has recognised, „had there not been a distinctive Welsh identity beyond Wales … the cultural heritage of Wales would have been considerably diminished‟.2 Many of the major British cities had significant Welsh populations, which kept their native language and culture alive during this period,3 and members of these expatriate communities played their role in infusing socialism into Welsh thought. A full consideration of the interaction between Welshness and socialism cannot, therefore, be restricted to the geographical boundaries of Wales.
This is not, however, the end of the problem. If a geographical definition of
Welshness is difficult to achieve, a cultural definition is hardly any easier. Wales was
1 Dai Smith, Wales! Wales?, Allen & Unwin, London & Sidney (1984), p. 1.
2 Emrys Jones, „The Welsh Language in England c. 1800-1914‟, in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.), Language and Community in the Nineteenth Century, University of Wales Press, Cardiff (1998), pp. 231-259, p.
231.
3 Emrys Jones, The Welsh in London 1500-2000, University of Wales Press, Cardiff (2001); R. Merfyn Jones & D. Ben Rees, Cymry Lerpwl a‟u Crefydd: Dwy Ganrif o Fethodistiaeth Galfinaidd Gymreug / The Liverpool Welsh and their Religion: Two Centuries of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism,
Cyhoeddiadau Modern Cymreig, Liverpool (1984); D. Ben Rees, The Welsh of Merseyside, 2 Vols., Modern Welsh Press, Liverpool (1997 & 2001). Welsh communities, were of course, not confined to the British Isles, see William D. Jones, Wales in America: Scranton and the Welsh, 1860-1920, University of Wales Press, Cardiff (1993); Ronald L. Lewis, Welsh Americans: A History of Assimilation in the Coalfields, University of North Carolina Press (2008); W. Ross Johnston, „The Welsh Diaspora: Emigrating Around the World in the Late Nineteenth Century‟, Llafur, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1993), pp.50-74.
3 Emrys Jones, The Welsh in London 1500-2000, University of Wales Press, Cardiff (2001).
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(and continues to be) host to a variety of competing and evolving cultures, ideologies and identities.4 This chapter, though, is concerned with what might be considered
„traditional‟ or „national‟ Welsh culture. The very concept is potentially invidious and almost impossible to define, but its existence is also inescapable, and during the 1880s and 1890s it was resurgent. This culture was (and is) partly defined by language, although language alone is insufficient to establish its full nature, as a contributor to Cymru Fydd explained in 1888.
Y mae cenedlaetholdeb yn sylfaenedig ar undod mewn meddwl a theimlad.
Mewn cymundeb, ac nid mewn cyfrwng cymundeb y mae sylfaen
cenedlaetholdeb. … Y mae i bob cenedl ei meddyliau mawrion llywodraethol a nodweddiadol, nad oes yr un genedl arall ar y ddaear yn eu meddu fel eu meddienir ganddi hi. A diben bodolaeth cenedl ydyw datguddio y meddyliau hyny i‟r byd.5
Religious, literary, musical and political culture – conveyed either through Welsh, English or both languages - all played a part in defining Welshness. It is tempting to argue that another important defining factor was a sense of separateness and
opposition to the burgeoning, new, bilingual, industrial culture of the south. This, though, would be dangerous. The impressive geological barrier running from the Black Mountain to the Black Mountains was eminently permeable in cultural terms.
Consequently, Welsh national culture existed jeek by jowl with the new
„international‟ or „American‟ culture of the south – very often within indivdiual personalities. To some observers even Monmouthshire, which was legally English and was the most apparently anglicised of all the Welsh counties, could appear, in terms of its political traditions, to be „more Welsh than Wales‟.6
4 See Merfyn Jones, „Beyond Identity? The Reconstruction of the Welsh‟, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (October 1992), pp. 330-357; Neil Evans: „Gogs, Cardis and Hwntws: Regions, Nation and State in Wales, 1840-1940‟, in Neil Evans (ed.), National Identity in the British Isles (Coleg Harlech Occasional Papers in Welsh Studies No. 3), Harlech (1989). pp. 60-72; Emyr W. Williams:
„The Dynamic of Welsh Identity‟, in Neil Evans, National Identity in the British Isles, pp. 46-59.
5 William Jones „Y Deffroad Cenedlaethol‟, Cymru Fydd, November 1888, pp. 405-412, pp. 405-6 („Nationalism is founded on unity in thought and feeling. The foundation of nationalism is in community, and not in the medium of community, every nation has its own great governing and characteristic thoughts that are not owned in the same way by any other nation on earth. And the point of the existence of a nation is to disclose those thoughts to the world‟).
6 “Gwent”, „The Revolution in Monmouthshire‟, Cymru Fydd, March 1889, pp. 131 – 134, p. 131.
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In many respects, then, the boundary used to demarcate this chapter from what has gone before is artificial, and a journey „across the heads of the valleys‟ can demand a revisitation of Ystalyfera or Bedlinog, just as it can take in Bethesda or Manchester.
With these important qualifications in mind, this chapter will begin with an
examination of the diffusion of socialism in the geographical entity of Wales beyond the heads of the valleys. It will then examine the impact of one of the great industrial disputes of twentieth century Wales, the Penrhyn dispute of 1900-1903, and discuss the ways in which socialists responded to it. Finally it will examine some of the ways in which „native‟ Welsh political culture was beginning to relate to socialism, both within Wales and, in one notable case, in the epicentre of industrial England.
(i). British Socialism and Welsh Wales.
Most of rural Wales, including the industrial districts of the north, provided much less fertile ground for the growth of socialist organisations than the industrial south. The penetration of rural Wales by socialist propagandists during the 1880s was, as we have seen, limited to a few random holiday visits by members of the SDF and Socialist League, while the development of formal socialist societies seems to have been restricted to the establishment of a Fabian Society at Aberystwyth University in 1886.7 This does not mean, however, that socialism was an entirely unknown creed during the 1880s. Indeed, it was frequently discussed in the press, and by the end of the decade readers of both the Welsh and English language presses in Wales had been offered a variety of interpretations with which to furnish their imaginations. Many of these portrayed socialism as a bogey, which originated and continued to exist
primarily on the European mainland, but which constantly threatened to spread closer to home. Mr Benjamin Piercy JP, of Marchwiel Hall, near Wrexham, for example, thought it appropriate to warn his audience when opening a new chapel school in Wrexham in 1885 of a range of dangers arising from the evils of the present time.
These included „Nihilism in Russia …Socialism in Germany, Communism in France, and things in our own country and in Ireland [which] were all more or less traceable
7 Deian Hopkin, „Labour‟s Roots in Wales‟, in Tanner, Williams & Hopkin (eds.), The Labour Party in Wales, pp. 40-60, p. 51.
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to the same cause‟.8 Likewise, Colonel Platt of Gorddinog, Llanfairfechan, told an audience of the Primrose League at Bangor‟s Masonic Hall in 1887 that „Socialism was making great progress in our midst, and unless it was combatted it could have but one ending – the ruination of the country‟.9 Despite failing to produce any concrete evidence to support such claims, it was occasionally asserted that socialism was putting down roots in rural Wales. The leader writer of the North Wales Chronicle claimed to have met a socialist „madcap‟ at Machynlleth in 1887, who was „a pattern of many others in the Principality … a man … in advance of his time [who] for the sake of decency [should] have been born in the twentieth instead of the nineteenth century‟, and whose ideas threatened to seriously endanger the public morals.10 A correspondent to The Times in the same year asserted that Montgomeryshire was a hotbed of socialism:
Englishmen have long been blind to the fact that the fires of the spirit of lawlessness – call it Socialism or Communism, or what you will – have long been smouldering on the lonely hillsides of Wales.11
Indeed, the bogey was so convincing that by the end of the decade, in response to the supposed rapid spread of „the spirit of Socialism‟ in Wales, a Conservative Registry had been established, which aimed to vet prospective tenants on behalf of landlords and „ascertain whether candidates for their farms are the friends of order and justice, or of anarchy and confiscation‟.12
Such representations do not, however, account for the whole spectrum of debate concerning socialism in Wales in this period. Comment on the socialist agitation of the 1880s in England began to permeate the Welsh press relatively quickly, and by the turn of the decade more intelligent analysis was appearing. Indeed by the mid 1880s the Welsh press was increasingly being forced to admit that the questions raised by
8 He had given the same warning a few days previously to an audience at the Wrexham Music Festival, opining his hope that „When music comes to reign supreme, such plants as the Nihilism of Russia, the Socialism of Germany, and the Communism of France will not thrive. … Neither will the Fenianism of our unhappy Ireland‟. Wrexham Advertiser and North Wales News, 28 February 1885.
9 North Wales Chronicle, 23 April 1887.
10 North Wales Chronicle, 26 March 1887. The article asserted that the chief agitators reponsible for the spread of socialism were nonconformist ministers.
11 The article is reported in Wrexham Advertiser and North Wales News, 3 December 1887.
12 Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 30 October 1889.
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socialists in England were of fundamental importance, even if editors and contributors were by no means supportive of socialism. Baner ac Amserau Cymru, for example, implicitly accepted the precepts of the socialists when it stated in a series of articles on the labour question in Wales in 1886 that „Pwngc masnachol mawr y ganrif ddiweddaf oedd sut i gynnyrchu fwyaf o gyfoeth. […]. Ond pwngc mawr y dyddiau hyn ydyw sut i ranu cyfoeth‟,13 and within a year the paper was conceding the significance of the rise of socialism in Britain:
Ni bu „Sosialaeth‟ erioed yn dangos ei hun mor amlwg yn Mhrydain ag y gwna y flwyddyn hon. Un o „arwyddion‟ amlycaf „yr amseroedd,‟ yn ddiau, ydyw, cynnydd yr egwyddorion „sosialaidd‟ yn mysg y werin Brydeinig.14
Y Faner was never reconciled to socialism, or even (or perhaps especially) to
independent labour representation, and made hostile comment on both throughout the period of this study. Indeed, it saw its own radicalism as an antidote to both socialism and anarchism,15 and saw socialist leaders like Keir Hardie as extremists.16
Nevertheless, the hostility of such influential media did not wholly inhibit the dicsussion of socialism within Welsh society, and there is evidence that during the late 1880s and increasingly throughout the 1890s the concept was being discussed at a local level in many parts of Wales.
One site for this was provided by the numerous literary and debating societies, which, operating through the media of both Welsh and English, acted as centres of
intellectual and cultural transmission in many Welsh towns and villages. St. Tudno‟s Literary Guild at Llandudno included a session on socialism in its programme as early as 1888,17 and by the 1890s the topic was becoming a more commonplace feature in the programmes of similar groups across Wales. The Wesleyan Mutual Improvement
13 Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 25 August 1886 („The great commercial question of the last century was how to produce the greatest amount of wealth … but the great subject of the present is how to share wealth‟).
14 Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 9 March 1887 („Socialism has never manifested itself so prominently in Britain as it is doing this year. One of the most obvious “signs of the times” is surely the growth of
“socialist” principles amongst the gwerin of Britain‟).
15 Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 20 January 1894.
16 Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 4 July 1894: „I‟n tyb ni, y mae Keir Hardie yn ddyn eithafol iawn, ac yn mhell o flaen ei oes‟ („In our opinion, Keir Hardie is a very extreme man, and far in advance of his time‟).
17 North Wales Chronicle, 5 May 1888.
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Society at Wrexham discussed a paper on socialism which was read by one of their members in April 1891,18 and later in the same year a Mr. Tickle of Liverpool visited the Christian Meeting House there to deliver a paper on „the socialism of
Christianity‟, to which the shop assistants of the town were specially invited.19 The annual Cylchwyl Lenyddol at Salem chapel in Pwllheli at Easter 1893 offered a prize of £1/1 for a victorious essay on the subject of „Cymdeithasiaeth Gristionogol (Christian Socialism)‟.20 The subject of socialism was again on the agenda at
Wrexham in 1893, when the Arena Society discussed a paper on the subject,21 while nearby at Coedpoeth the Cymdeithas Lenyddol yr Adwy undertook a similar debate, but through the medium of Welsh, in November 1894.22 The subject was debated again at Llandudno in 1895, this time under the auspices of the Llandudno Literary and Scientific Society.23 The Cymdeithas Lenyddol at Dinorwig joined the debate in 1896, under the presidency of the Reverend Puleston Jones, who was to become a prominent nonconformist advocate of socialism during the succeeding decades. On this occasion though the majority voted against socialism.24 The same was true at Porthmadog, although only narrowly, when the Presbyterian Church Literary Society there held a debate on the socialism of Merrie England in 1897,25 while members of the Cymdeithas Lenyddol Ebenezer at Pwllheli were content to hear a paper on
„Sosialaeth‟, which was presented by the Reverend Owen Evans in 1898, without taking a vote.26
By the end of the decade, though, there were perhaps signs that the ideal of socialism was making progress. The Young Men‟s Literary Society at Ponkey, for example, debated Individualism and Socialism in 1899, and voted in favour of socialism.27 Such events were signs that the cultural and intellectual leaders of at least some Welsh communities were finding socialism a significant enough topic to merit interest. In some cases, this interest went beyond just taking part in discussions. In
18 Wrexham Weekly Advertiser and North Wales News, 11 April 1891.
19 Wrexham Weekly Advertisier and North Wales News, 12 September 1891.
20 Genedl Gymreig, 14 December 1892.
21 Wrexham Weekly Advertiser and North Wales News, 18 November 1893.
22 Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 21 November 1894.
23 North Wales Chronicle, 26 January 1895.
24 Genedl Gymreig, 11 February 1896.
25 North Wales Chronicle, 13 February 1897. The margin was 14-12.
26 Genedl Gymreig, 15 March 1898.
27 Wrexham Weekly Advertiser and North Wales News, 28 October 1899.
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1899 the Reverend O.D. Williams, curate of Berse-Drelin Court, Wrexham, gained an M.A. from Durham University for a thesis on socialism.28 Academic awareness of the subject was also shown by Professor Brough of Aberystwyth, who claimed in 1891 that land ownership among the early Welsh tribes was organised on a socialistic basis, thus adding an interesting academic dimension to the debate about the inherently socialistic nature of the Welsh.29 Neither were such scholarly investigations restricted to the English language. The Anglesey schoolteacher and antiquarian Owen
Williamson, for example, produced a detailed survey in Welsh of the various schools of socialism, under the title „Cymdeithasiad‟.30
What exactly was being discussed and debated under the name of socialism is another matter. Certainly, it was agreed that arriving at a definition was not easy. The Radical newspaper Y Genedl Gymreig discussed „Sosialaeth – Hen a Diweddar‟ in November 1898, tracing the roots of socialism in a range of historical situations and movements, but admitting „nid hawdd rhoddi i‟r darllenydd ymofyngar ddeffiniad cyflawn o athrawiaeth Sosialaeth yn ei hagwedd bresenol. Y mae yr athrawon yn gwahaniaethu yn fawr‟.31 For Owen Williamson, „cymdeithasiaeth‟ included any attempt to improve society.32 For some, as we have seen, the mention of socialism was enough to trigger accounts of bomb-throwing Russian nihilists or French revolutionaries. It must be emphasised, however, that not all references to socialism were hostile. Indeed, for every mention of socialism as a bogey in the Welsh press of this period, there is also a positive reference, more often than not towards something very vaguely defined as
„Christian Socialism‟. As Mr E.O.V. Lloyd put it, when opening a new Parish Institute at Ruthin in 1889,
They had heard a good deal those days about Socialism, a system which would put all men on the same level. That, of course, was impossible, but there was a kind of Christian Socialism, in which they could all be equal. In
28 North Wales Chronicle, 24 June 1899.
29 North Wales Chronicle, 27 June 1891.
30 Bangor MS 1781. It is not clear exactly when Williamson (1840-1910) wrote this document, although it is feasible that it was produced sometime in the 1890s, possibly as an entry to a local eisteddfod competition.
31 Genedl Gymreig, 8 November 1898 („Socialism – Old and New‟; „It is not easy to give the inquiring reader a complete definition of socialist philosophy in its present form. The teachers differ greatly).
32 Bangor MS 1781, p. 8: „Yr enw cyffredinol am bob ymgais i wella cymdeithas ydyw
“Cymdeithasiaeth”‟. („The general name for every attempt to improve society is “Socialism”‟).
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that Socialism he was a believer, and its doctrines he would recommend to them all.
Mr. Lloyd saw the parish institute he was opening as a means of „bringing [its users]
closer together in the bonds of common Christian socialism‟.33 This „Christian Socialism‟ was, moreover, non political, and something quite separate from
independent labour politics. Indeed, it could be quite comfortably expressed within the Liberal Party, as reported in Baner ac Amserau Cymru, when Mrs Tomkinson of Willington Hall, Cheshire, opened the Connah‟s Quay Liberal Club in 1891: „Yr oeddynt wedi clywed pobl yn sôn yn fynych am Sosialaeth Gristionogol. Yr oedd Sosialaeth Gristionogol a Rhyddfrydiaeth yn dermau anghyfnewidiol ac
anwahanol‟.34 On one level this usage might be seen as a cynical attempt to capture or outflank the idea of socialism, although the fact that such speakers felt the need to make these references does say something about their perception of the spread and potential of socialist ideas. It would be wrong, however, to dismiss all such references as cynical. Sometimes a belief in „Christian Socialism‟ could be strongly and
genuinely held. W. Lewis Jones of Bangor, a journalist and prospective newspaper editor, outlined the issues that he thought Welsh Liberalism should address in 1889:
How to redress the balance between class and class, how to solve the problem of the enormous inequalities which we see around us, how to readjust the relations between vast wealth and terrible poverty, between capital and labour, between the large-estated landlord and the toiling labourer – these are
questions which we must face and which are common to all nations. I think we should learn to look a little beyond our own insular concerns, and take our stand shoulder to shoulder with the great party of freedom and justice
questions which we must face and which are common to all nations. I think we should learn to look a little beyond our own insular concerns, and take our stand shoulder to shoulder with the great party of freedom and justice