The Welsh in London 1500-2000 Edited by Emrys Jones This is the human story of the London Welsh, with its focus on the coming and goings of ordinary men and women, their cultural and social life, as well as the contribution of some outstanding individuals.

• Contents
  
  Introduction 1
  1 Tudor Prelude W. P. Griffith
  2 From Medieval to Renaissance City Emrys Jones
  3 The Age of Societies Emrys Jones
  4 The Early Nineteenth Century Emrys Jones
  5 Victorian Heyday Emrys Jones
  6 Flow – and Ebb Emrys Jones
  7 The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land Rhidian Griffiths
  8 Today and Tomorrow Jeremy Segrott
  Conclusion Emrys Jones
  Capital Men and Women
  (i) London Welsh Writers Hafina Clwyd
  (ii) Music and the London Welsh Wyn Thomas
  (iii) London Welsh doctors and Welsh doctors in London H. T. Ivor James and Neil McIntyre
  (iv) Visual culture among the London Welsh Peter Lord
  (v) Leading Welsh personalities and the London Welsh David Lewis Jones
  Places of Interest Emrys Jones
  Notes
  Index
  
  
• Illustrations
  
  1  The Welsh Bible, 1588
   2  Thomas Jones the Almanac-maker
   3  Opening the New River Head
   4  Statue of Sir Hugh Myddleton
   5  Smithfield
   6  Selling strawberries
   7  Welsh Charity School, Clerkenwell
   8  Children of the Welsh Charity School, Gray’s Inn Road
   9  Lewis Morris
  10  Sir Watkin Williams Wynn
  11  Sir Watkin Lewes
  12  Owain Myfyr
  13  Mrs Piozzi (Hester Thrale)
  14  A Welsh ‘gentleman’s’ journey to London, 1747 . . .
  15  . . . followed by his wife
  16  St David’s Day in 1790
  17  A cow-keeper’s shop
  18  A street milk-seller
  19  A Welsh dairy
  20  Jones Brothers, Holloway Road
  21  Peter Jones, Sloane Square
  22  Sir Hugh Owen
  23  Portnall Street, Paddington
  24  Hyde Park Gardens, Bayswater, Paddington
  25  Wholesale milk distribution
  26  Lloyd’s Dairy, Clerkenwell
  27  Gorsedd of the Bards in Kensington Gardens, 1909
  28  St David’s Day dinner, 1914
  29  London Welsh Centre, Gray’s Inn Road
  30  London Welsh Rugby Football Club, 1970–1
  31  London Welsh Youth Choir, 1957
  32  Council of the Cymmrodorion, 1951
  33  Evolution of Jewin chapel
  34  Jewin Presbyterian chapel (1961)
  35  Elfed
  36  Baptist chapel near Oxford Circus
  37  The Borough (Y Boro) Congregational chapel, Southwark
  38  St Benet (Benet Sant) metropolitan church
  39  Presbyterian chapel, Mile End Road
  40  Caradog Prichard
  41  Morfydd Llwyn Owen
  
  
• Figures
  
  1a Distribution of Welsh in London in 1638
  1b Distribution of Welsh in London in 1695
  2 Distribution of members of the Cymmrodorion Society, 1762
  3 Meeting places of the eighteenth-century societies
  4 The growth of London
  5 Distribution of Welsh-born, 1851
  6 Paddington: housing conditions in 1902
  7 Distribution and origin of Welsh-born in Paddington, 1891
  8 Distribution of Welsh-born, 1951
  9 Distribution of Welsh-born, 1991
  10 Membership of Tabernacl, King’s Cross, 1900–76
  
  
• Preface
  
  Books on London are legion. Studies of its topography, growth and fabric have left no stone unturned, and its history has been minutely recorded and exhaustively analysed. There can be no other city to have had so many aspects of its life assiduously examined and the results laid before the reader in such detail. London is an open book. Why add another?
  
  In those social groups who feel themselves to be ‘different’ – and every city abounds in such groups – the need seems to arise to identify the part they have played in the story of London, how they have fitted, or failed to fit, into the general picture, what contribution they may have made to its history. In this respect, the Welsh have been uncharacteristically reticent. Academics have made sporadic forays into their history, the results all but lost in scholarly journals. There is, however, one outstanding study of the London Welsh, The History of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and of the Gwyneddigion and Cymreigyddion Societies, 1751–1951, by R. T. Jenkins and Helen Ramage. To all intents and purposes, their seminal work traces the history of the London Welsh over two centuries; and it should be made clear at the outset that the present book is in no way a substitute for it. Nevertheless, there did seem to be a need to pull together what was already known, to explore some aspects a little further, to push the story back to its origins and on to the threshold of the twenty-first century, and to put the whole into a coherent framework. It is a story that will be of interest to the Welsh themselves and it will also fill a gap in the vast studies of ethnic groups in a metropolitan city. After all, the time-scale is some five hundred years, the numbers involved substantial, and the contribution of the London Welsh to both London and to Wales has been considerable. What better time to take stock than the beginning of a new millennium?
  
  The timing seemed even more propitious as the study was also conceived as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion in 1751. This seemed to be just the right moment to review the past and to look into the future, and it is most appropriate that the Society has undertaken to produce the work and publish it in partnership with the University of Wales Press. The Council of the Cymmrodorion Society has been most enthusiastic and supportive, giving the editor an entirely free hand in every aspect of this work. I am particularly grateful for the understanding and advice of the chairman, John Elliot, the secretary, John Samuel, and the treasurer, first Ron Hammond and then Cecil Roberts. Nevertheless, responsibility for the form, and indeed most of the content, of this book has fallen to me.
  
  Since I have been deeply immersed for many years in the study of the social geography of London and in its multiracial population, it is not surprising that I saw this book as a survey of all the Welsh migrants who came to London, and not just of the famous – or infamous – whose lives are often recorded elsewhere. There are, of course, individuals who emerge as outstanding contributors to the life of Wales and sometimes to London as well. However, for the most part, the heroes and heroines of this story are nameless; indeed, with so many Joneses, Davieses, Evanses and Williamses, anonymity is almost guaranteed. As a result, most of the book is about ordinary people; the stress is on choirs, not on soloists. My main concern in pulling its contents together has been to explore what happened to those people who made a new home in London and yet continued to care about their own institutions and who were keen to preserve their own culture.
  
  I am indebted to innumerable people who have written in depth on many aspects of this field, and it will be seen that I have borrowed extensively from specialist books and articles. For certain chapters it seemed more appropriate to call directly on specialized help; William Griffith on the Tudors, Rhidian Griffiths on chapels and churches, Jeremy Segrott for his research on the contemporary scene. I am also grateful to Hafina Clwyd, Wyn Thomas, Peter Lord, Neil McIntyre, Ifor James and David Jones for their appraisals of the contributions of some outstanding individuals.
  
  Further thanks are owed to Martyn Fields, who combed the archives for much preliminary data, and to Jane Pugh and the cartographic staff of the Geography Department of the London School of Economics. I owe a particular debt to Rita Clark for her invaluable contribution to the illustrations, many of which she photographed especially for this book, and for sharing with me her immense knowledge of the London Welsh scene in the latter half of the twentieth century. I have been sustained throughout by the expert help of my son-in-law, Tim, in overcoming the idiosyncrasies of a laptop computer to which I was introduced too late fully to appreciate its capabilities. Last, but not least, my thanks to Iona, not only for her patience over two years when she often took second place to the same laptop, but more particularly for reading consecutive drafts with a practised eye to keep my spelling and style within bounds.
  
  Emrys Jones