Wales glossary

(8 May 1648) Taking place near present-day Cardiff, in terms of numbers engaged it was the biggest battle fought in Wales. Government troops under Thomas Horton, defeated a Welsh rebel force (made up of disaffected Parliamentarians and Glamorgan localists) under Rowland Laugharne.

The pillar and stall method of mining involved taking coal from an area, leaving a pillar of coal to support the roof. The mined area was the chamber or stall assigned to one miner to work.

Joseph Morewood Staniforth (1863–1921) was staff cartoonist for the Cardiff daily newspaper the Western Mail, its sister paper the Evening Express, and also for the Sunday newspaper the News of the World, from the early 1890s until his death. Estimated to have drawn over 15,000 cartoons in the course of his career, some of his most popular work was republished in separate volumes.

Paid magistrate as opposed to voluntary, unpaid justices of the peace.

Most famous of twentieth-century advocates of birth control. Founded the first United Kingdom birth control clinic in 1921.

(1687–1765) English antiquary, especially interested in Druidism.

A form of taxation for a specified purpose.

The right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Prohibited the selling of alcohol in Wales on Sundays. This was in response to the growing influence of the Temperance Movement, which began in the United Kingdom in the 1830s and gained wide support in the second half of the century – notably, in Wales, amongst the nonconformist denominations.

Schools held by the religious denominations on Sundays as part of worship. Reading taught from the Bible and, in Wales, embraced adults as well as children. In Wales conducted very largely in the Welsh language. Came to have an important social and, to some extent, recreational function.