A hundred years ago, in 1911, John Edward Lloyd (1861-1947) published his History of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest, the manuscript draft of which is now NLW MSS 15071-3E. In doing so, according to his friend and colleague R. T. Jenkins, Lloyd had ‘created Welsh history’.
J.E. Lloyd by Ivor Williams, © Annie Williams
Like all historians, Lloyd was a product of his time. Born in the Welsh community of mid-Victorian Liverpool, he was a patriotic Liberal who considered that Welsh national consciousness and aspirations required a coherent narrative account of early Wales, which would help to illuminate the steps by which the ‘Welsh people’ had progressed through time to reach their highest point under the British Empire.
Most significantly, Lloyd took the view that such a history could only be written by adopting a ‘scientific’ approach. Having been educated at Aberystwyth and Oxford, he started with the assumption that this would involve rigorous and impartial examination of evidence, binding history with other humane ‘sciences’, including archaeology, linguistics, literature and ethnology in an extraordinarily ambitious project. The scope of the work was such that he could not investigate everything thoroughly, so the primary sources he consulted were only those in printed editions; fortunately, the growth of empirical historical study meant that most of these were available to him, one of the most significant exceptions being the corpus of native Welsh charters.
Lloyd’s purpose was not to ‘research’ in the modern sense of establishing new facts, but to establish a skeleton upon which the history of Wales could be built, disentangling legend from fact by referring to the earliest available sources rather than the writings of other historians. The result was a pioneering synthesis, woven together with great literary skill, and embracing the entire period from the Palaeolithic Era to the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282.
Lloyd’s History did not rewrite the narrative of Welsh history, but it provided much firmer ground for it, bringing both Wales and its historiography into the mainstream of European thought. In this, it achieved its purpose, and today, a century later, it remains the starting point for the study of medieval Wales.
David Moore
I would be interested to read this book to expand my knowledge about Welsh history. I am not Welsh but my parents met in Wales, and retired there a few years ago. It is also where I used to spend most of my summer holidays as a child. That many people outside of the UK do not understand that Wales is a country in and of itself, and has a unique history often independent of English influence, disappoints me. I hope views about Wales begin to change soon! Heather
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