1940 in Wales explained

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1940 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

• Archbishop of Wales – Charles Green, Bishop of Bangor^[1]
• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales – Crwys

Events

• 21 January - Lowest ever temperature recorded in Wales, -23.3 °C (-9.9 °F) at Rhayader.^[2]
• 27 January - A freak ice storm across the UK brings down telephone and electricity lines in many parts of Wales.^[3]
• 3 March - The steamer Cato is damaged by a mine off Nash Point and 13 of the crew are killed.^[4]
• March - The scenic railway opens at Barry Island Pleasure Park.
• May
  • The newly created Coalition Government includes Hugh Dalton as Minister of Economic Warfare.^[5]
  • Alun Lewis enlists.
• 8 May - Three Nazi German Luftwaffe Heinkel He 111s crash in separate incidents over Wales: one near Wrexham, one at Malpas in Denbighshire, and one at Bagillt, Flint. In all nine crew are killed and four captured.
• 3 July - Cardiff is bombed for the first time.
• 9 July - Cardiff suffers its first bombing fatalities.^[6]
• 10 July - Ten people are killed in an air raid on Swansea Docks, as shipping convoys become a target.^[7]
• 11 July - Communist minister and poet Thomas Evan Nicholas ("Niclas y Glais") and his son are arrested and interned for "endeavouring to impede recruitment to HM Forces". Nicholas is eventually released on 20 October.^[8]
• 11 August - Seventeen people are killed in an air raid on Manselton, Swansea.
• 14 August - Three German Heinkel 111s are shot down during an air-raid on Cardiff, and another over North Wales after a raid on RAF Hawarden.
• 22 August - A steamer, the Thorold, is sunk by German aircraft off the Skerries. Ten crew are killed.
• 2 September - 33 people are killed in an air raid on Swansea.
• 3 September - Eleven people are killed in an air raid on Cardiff.
• 4 September - A German Junkers Ju 88 crashes near Machynlleth. Four crew and a Gestapo officer are captured.
• 13 September - A German Heinkel 111 crashes into a house in Newport, Monmouthshire.
• 22 November - The steamer Pikepool is damaged by a mine off Linney Head, Pembrokeshire, with the loss of 17 crew.
• The Urdd changes its policy to include 16- to 25-year-olds.
• Gwilym Williams becomes chaplain of St David's College, Lampeter.
• Percy Cudlipp becomes editor of the Daily Herald.
• Alun Talfan Davies and his brother Aneirin found the publishing house Llyfrau'r Dryw.

Arts and literature

• Lewis Casson directs John Gielgud in King Lear.

Awards

• National Eisteddfod of Wales (held in Bangor (radio))
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Chair - withheld
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Crown - T. Rowland Hughes
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Prose Medal - withheld

New books

• Richard Bennett - Cyfrol Goffa Richard Bennett
• Clara Novello Davies - The Life I Have Loved
• David Delta Edwards - Rhedeg ar ôl y Cysgodion
• John Cowper Powys - Owen Glendower (U.S. publication)
• Howard Spring - Fame is the Spur
• Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (published 2011; partially set in Wales, 1940)

Music

• Mai Jones & Lyn Joshua - "We'll Keep a Welcome" (performed for the first time in the forces' variety show, Welsh Rarebit on 29 February)
• Grace Williams - Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes (score dated 9 February)

Film

• March 25 - Plaza Cinema opens in Port Talbot.^[9]
• April 6 - Paul Robeson and Rachel Thomas star in The Proud Valley (cinematic release)

Broadcasting

• 25 February - The Proud Valley is the first film to have its première on radio, when the BBC broadcasts a 60-minute version.^[10]
• May - The BBC Radio Variety Department relocates to Bangor because of wartime disruption; it will broadcast from here until August 1943.^[11]
• August - The National Eisteddfod of Wales is broadcast on the British Home Service, including 15 minutes each for the crown and chair ceremonies.^[12]

Sport

• Football
  • 13 April - Wales defeat England 1 - 0.
• Quoits - Jack Price wins the Welsh championship for the third time.

Births

• 4 January - Brian Josephson, theoretical physicist^[13]
• 17 January - Leighton Rees, darts champion (died 2003)^[14]
• 23 January - Ted Rowlands, politician
• 1 March - David Broome, show jumping champion^[15]
• 16 May - Sir Gareth Roberts, physicist (died 2007)
• 7 June - Tom Jones, singer^[16]
• 29 June - John Dawes, rugby player (died 2021)^[17]
• 17 July - C. W. Nicol, Japanese writer and environmentalist (died 2020 in Japan)
• 3 September - Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Uruguayan writer of Welsh descent
• 20 September - Anna Pavord, gardening writer
• 1 October - Atarah Ben-Tovim, flautist and children's concert promoter (died 2022)^[18]
• 14 October - Christopher Timothy, actor^[19]
• 31 October - Eric Griffiths, skiffle guitarist with The Quarrymen (died 2005)
• 4 November - Daniel Sperber, Talmudic scholar^[20]
• 30 November - Peter Shreeves, footballer, coach and manager
• 5 December
  • Michael Jones, medieval historian
  • "Exotic" Adrian Street, professional wrestler (died 2023)
• 24 December - John Marek, politician
• date unknown
  • Donald Evans, Welsh-language poet^[21]
  • Keith Miles, detective novelist and screenwriter

Deaths

• 12 February - William Edwards, educationist, 89^[22]
• 21 February - Sir Alfred Edward Lewis, banker, 71^[23]
• 15 March - John Davies, author, 71
• 20 March - William Thomas Edwards (Gwilym Deudraeth), poet
• 7 April - Ernest Rowland, priest and Wales international rugby player, 75
• 27 April - Fred Cornish, Wales international rugby player
• 23 May - Hugh Hesketh Hughes, polo player, 37 (killed in action)^[24]
• 4 June - Owen Picton Davies, businessman and politician, 68
• 25 June - Stanley Winmill, Wales international rugby union player, 51
• 3 July - George Bevan Bowen, landowner, 82^{[25] [26]}
• 8 August - Daniel Lleufer Thomas, lawyer and biographer, 76^[27]
• 20 August - Henry Maldwyn Hughes, Wesleyan minister
• 26 September - W. H. Davies, poet and author, 69^[28]
• 9 October - Sir Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Newfoundland and Labrador
• 9 November - Gwilym Owen, physicist
• 15 December
  • Robert Thomas Jones, quarrymen's leader, 66^[29]
  • Sir David Richard Llewellyn, 1st Baronet, industrialist

See also

• 1940 in Northern Ireland

Notes and References

1. Book: C. J. Litzenberger. Eileen Groth Lyon. The Human Tradition in Modern Britain. 2006. Rowman & Littlefield. 978-0-7425-3735-4. 92.
2. Book: Simons, Paul. Since Records Began. London. Collins. 2008. 978-0-00-728463-4. 205–7.
3. Web site: Weatherwatch: 1940 Ice Storm added to misery of war. 26 January 2018. Stephen Moss. The Guardian. 8 April 2019.
4. Web site: Porthcawl's Guinness shipwreck remembered. 19 September 2015. BBC News Wales. 8 April 2019.
5. Book: Sheila Lawlor. Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940-1941. 12 May 1994. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-46685-1. 36.
6. Book: Edwin Webb. John B. Duncan. Blitz Over Britain. 1990. Spellmount. 978-0-946771-89-9. 95.
7. Book: Julitta Rydlewska. Barbara Braid. Unity in Diversity, Volume 1: Cultural Paradigm and Personal Identity. 18 September 2014. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 978-1-4438-6729-0. 69.
8. Web site: Thomas Evan Nicholas 1879-1971. National Library of Wales. 6 September 2019.
9. Web site: Plaza Cinema, Talbot Road, Port Talbot. Cinema Treasures. 2017-06-14.
10. Book: Stephen Bourne. Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television Second Edition. 30 November 2001. A&C Black. 978-0-8264-5539-0. 28.
11. Book: British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC Handbook. 1944. 50.
12. Web site: Literature Wales: Encyclopedia - Broadcasting. 2013-01-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304031019/http://www.literaturewales.org/encyclopaedia/i/130659/. 2016-03-04. dead.
13. Web site: Brian D. Josephson Biographical. The Nobel Prize. 9 April 2019.
14. Web site: Leighton Rees. 10 June 2003. The Telegraph. 9 April 2019.
15. Book: Julia Longland. Clear round!: Interviews. 1 October 1978. Mayflower Books. 978-0-8317-0012-6. 112.
16. Book: Eggar, Robin. Tom Jones – The Biography. 14.
17. http://www.espnscrum.com/wales/rugby/player/6889.html John Dawes rugby profile
18. Web site: Atarah Ben-Tovim obituary. 7 November 2022. The Guardian. June Emerson. 8 August 2023.
19. In Bala, Gwynedd. Book: Screen International Film and TV Year Book. 1990. Screen International, King Publications Limited. 978-0-900925-21-4. 220.
20. Web site: Daniel Sperber. Bar-Ilan University. 8 August 2023.
21. Book: Donald Evans. Rhydwen Williams. 16 December 1991. University of Wales Press. 83.
22. Web site: Edwards, William (1851-1940), H.M. inspector of schools. Edgar William Jones. Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. 9 November 2019.
23. Web site: Lewis, Sir Alfred (Edward) (1868-1940), banker. Edward Morgan Humphreys. Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. 9 November 2019.
24. Web site: Hugh Hesketh Hughes. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Regiment/Service: Welsh Guards Date of Death: 23/05/1940 Service No: 103800 Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead . 11 April 2011.
25. ‘BOWEN, Sir George Bevan’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 accessed 30 Nov 2013
26. Obituaries (Obituaries) The Times Friday, Jul 05, 1940; pg. 7; Issue 48660; col E
27. Web site: Thomas, Sir Daniel Lleufer (1863-1940), stipendiary magistrate. David Williams. Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. 9 November 2019.
28. Book: Lawrence Normand. W.H. Davies. 1 September 2003. Seren. 978-1-85411-261-3. 152.
29. Web site: Jones, Robert Thomas (1874-1940), Labour leader. David Thomas. Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. 9 November 2019.