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William Abraham (Mabon) is regarded as the first working-class MP. He won
his seat in 1885, representing Rhondda as a Liberal, and retained the seat at seven
succesive elections, remaining an MP until 1920.
In 1877, he became full-time organizer of the Cambrian Miners' Association, and in 1888, he had won a holiday for the miners on the first Monday of every month - Mabon's Day. Mabo's day was abolished after the bitter strike of 1898. Immediately after the strike, the South Wales Miners' Federation was formed and mabon became active in this union as well, becoming its president. | 
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| Shirley Bassey. From Cardiff - the Adamsdown area, I believe - definitely NOT from the Tiger Bay / Butetown area, as widely misreported. | 
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He did win a scholarship to the Central labour College, but on the completion of his studies, his old employer refused to re-employ him. He spent three years unemployed, found work eventually at Bedwellty Colliery, but that was closed down within a year. After a brief spell of unemployment, he found work as a Union official, in the fateful year of 1926 - the year of the General Strike, the miners continuing to strike for a further six months after the General Strike ended.
He was elected to Monmouthshire Council in 1928, and then became an MP in 1929, representing Ebbw Vale.
He argued forcibly that Britain should support the democratic government in Spain, but was expelled from the party for this viewpoint (along with Stafford Cripps).
During the Second World War, he became a notable critic opponent of Churchill (as he had been right from the beginning of his career as an MP because of Churchill's actions during the General Strike).
During the 1945 election, he is quoted as saying : We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, now we are the builders. We enter this campaign at this general election, not merely to get rid of the Tory majority. We want the complete political extinction of the Tory Party."
He became Minister of Health in the new government, instituting the National Health Service. In 1951, he became Minister of Labour, but resigned when the Labour Government decided to introduce some charges for prescriptions, and other articles.
From 1956, he appeared to be making some compromises with new Leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell, and shocked many people by opposing Britain's scapping of Nuclear Arms, in 1957. He became Deputy Leader of the Party, but died in 1960.
Some other quotes :
| Richard Burton |
During the war, he was a pilot.
Quote from 'Have I Got Good News For You' : 'Dahl's father admits - I couldn't spell Ronald'.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows...
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Ellis Humphrey Evans (Hedd Wynn).
In 1917, the large Welsh community on Merseyside staged the National Eisteddfod at
Birkenhead. The winner of the Chair
was Ellis
Humphrey Evans (Hedd Wynn) who had been killed on 31 July 1917 in France fighting with the
Royal Welsh
Fusiliers. The winning chair was draped in black. A collection of the dead poet's
work, "Cerddi'r
Bugail" (Poems of the Shepherd) was published in 1918
He lived as a shepherd at Yr Ysgwrn farm in Trawsfynydd. He won several local eisteddfod chairs, and very nearly won the chair at the 1916 National Eisteddfod. Reluctantly conscripted into the Army in 1917, he wrote his award-winning poem Yr Arwr (The Hero) whilst in training, completing all the entry details while on service in France. He died on the first day of the Battle of Passchendale. Click on his photo for more details. |
Frost established himself as the leader of the supporters of universal suffrage in Newport. In 1835 he was elected as a councillor and also became a magistrate. The following year he was elected mayor. However, his aggressive behaviour apparently upset a lot of people and he was replaced as mayor in 1837.
In May 1838 Henry Vincent was arrested for making inflammatory speeches. Frost planned to march on Newport where the Chartists planned to demand the release of Vincent.
When John Frost and the 3,000 marchers arrived in Newport they discovered that the authorities had made more arrests and were holding several Chartists in the Westgate Hotel - the Chartists immediately marched to the hotel. Twenty-eight soldiers been placed inside the Westgate Hotel and when the order was given they began firing into the crowd. Afterwards it was estimated that over twenty men were killed and another fifty were wounded.
Frost and others were arrested and charged with high treason. In a 'trial' in Monmouth presided over by Charles Rolls' grandfather, several were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. After protests, execution was commuted to imprisonment or transportation. John Frost was sent to Tasmania where he worked for three years as a clerk and eight years as a school teacher.
Chartists continued to campaign for the release of Frost. Thomas Duncombe pleaded Frost's case in the House of Commons but attempt to secure a pardon in 1846 was unsuccessful. Duncombe managed, in 1854, to persuade the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, to grant Frost a pardon but there was a stipulation that Frost must not enter British territory - Frost and his daughter, Catherine, who had joined him in Tasmania, went to live in the United States. He toured the USA lecturing on the unfairness of the British system of government.
In 1856 the government changed its mind and Frost was allowed to return to Britain.
| Anthony Hopkins only person to win an Oscar for playing a cannibal. A usual cliche is to point out that "Silence of the Lambs" has a slightly different meaning in Wales. | 
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| Tom Jones got his first "break" at the Treforest Non-Political Club, Wood St, Pontypridd. |
Plusses :-
Minuses :-
Megan Lloyd George 1929 Liberal MP for Anglesey until 1951. In 1957, became
the Labour MP for Carmarthen.
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His arithmetical methods were apparently in some importance in helping the introduction of the present-day arabic numerals. Support for the continued use of Roman numerals was strong at the time (and similar support for stupid ideas still continues to this day).
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One of America's oldest and grandest universities has used all its might to force a new college in Wales to change its name or face a huge legal bill.
Yale university insisted that Yale college, in Wrexham, would cause confusion with its name and website, and after the threat of legal action - an intimidatory letter, claimed college principal Emlyn Jones - the Welsh institution caved in.
Yale college, founded in 1993, took the name from Elihu Yale, a 17th century millionaire whose elegant tomb is in the local churchyard. But Yale university, which had altered its own name - from the collegiate school at Saybrook - when the same Mr Yale donated gifts and a portrait of George I in 1718, decided it could not tolerate the effrontery.
Mr Jones could have pointed out that Mr Yale had family links with Wrexham and, though born in Massachusetts, had left the colony aged three, never returned and certainly never seen the Yale campus at New Haven, Connecticut. Yale, too, is an anglicisation of the Welsh ll, which refers to a limestone outcrop near Wrex-ham. "That name predates Columbus by 500 years, so we seem to have history on our side," mused Mr Jones.
But Yale, whose alumni include Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford and George Bush, plus Samuel Morse of code fame, and actor Paul Newman, stood firm, and the deal now is that the college will keep its Welsh name (coleg ll) but in English becomes Yale college of Wrexham.
Mr Yale, who died in 1721, is buried beneath his own epitaph - which sets his name in a worldly context: "Born in America, in Europe bred, In Africa travell'd and in Asia wed, Where long he liv'd and thriv'd; in London dead; Much good, some ill, he did; so hope's all even. And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to Heaven."
The above is a genuine search engine, not an advert
