See Abraham, William (Mabon).

A monthly holiday negotiated for miners by Abraham, William (Mabon) by which the miners were given the first Monday of every month off. Lasted from 1892–8. Stopped by the owners after the 1898 dispute.

First Labour Prime Minister in 1924. Prime Minister again in 1929, continuing as head of the so-called National government which was created in the financial crisis of 1931.

Family of landowners living at Neath in west Glamorgan. The first member of the family to settle in Wales was Sir Humphrey Mackworth (1657–1727), industrialist and founder of the SPCK.

Said to have been the son of the Welsh prince Owain Gwynedd. He was said to have discovered America in the twelfth century and to have been the ancestor of a tribe of Welsh-speaking Indians, thought in the late eighteenth century to be living in the Midwest.

The estate around a hamlet.

Wealthy landowner, usually a peer.

The Reverend Thomas Malthus, professor of political economy at a Haileybury college. Formulated the so-called Malthus Law in the 1790s, which argued that population growth would outstrip the means of subsistence.

See Customs of the manor.

(1695–1723) Eldest son of the first Lord Mansell of Margam; considered to have been a Jacobite.

Originally Norman lords who had settled on the border between England and Wales and who acquired land by westward advance and conquest.

The area of Wales conquered by individual Norman marcher lords and held by them from the eleventh to the sixteenth century.

Died 1272. Prince of Deheubarth.

Bar against the employment of married women in some jobs – teaching was a prime example until after 1944.

Adherent of Marxist philosophies of society promulgated by Karl Marx which postulated the coming of the Communist revolution.

A title for the central rite of the Christian religion – the Eucharist, Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper. Especially applies to the Roman Catholic church.

Effectively, a university entrance qualification. Applied, in the inter-war years, to those who gained a five-subject certificate at credit level (significantly higher than pass level) of an authorised examining board – in Wales, for most schools, this was the Central Welsh Board.

An archaic word meaning ‘in spite of’.

Import duties imposed by the United States of America on tinplate. Import duties imposed by the United States of America on tinplate.

The system by which welfare benefits, including money for the unemployed, the ‘dole’, was cut in line with income brought in by any member of the household.

See Cromlechs.

Designed by Thomas Telford to link Anglesey to the north Wales mainland. Constructed between 1819 and 1826, it was one of the earliest suspension bridges in the world.

(c.1520–1587). Landowner and antiquary from Bonvilston, Glamorgan. Gathered much historical and antiquarian information on Glamorgan, much of which was included in his unfinished Morganiae Archaiographia (Glamorgan Antiquities), begun in 1578.

Disorders in May–June 1831 in Merthyr Tydfil by coalminers and ironworkers protesting at the lowering of wages and insecurity of employment. Merthyr debtors’ court was sacked, and there were conflicts with troops sent to restore order: several rioters were killed and one soldier, for whose death Lewis, Richard (Dic Penderyn) was subsequently hanged.

An intermediate tenant, whose grant of land from his overlord had been let to a sub-tenant, but who still owed feudal service for that land to the overlord (mesne lord).

Boundaries.

Revival movement in the Church of England beginning in the 1730s and eventually breaking away to form a Nonconformist denomination. Particularly strong in north Wales. While in England most Methodists were Wesleyan, so-called after John Wesley, Welsh Methodism generally embraced, at least in theory, the harsh doctrines of John Calvin, the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer, hence Calvinistic Methodists.

Police force of London: responsible to the Home Secretary.

Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. The union of British miners to which the South Wales Miners' Federation affiliated in 1899.

Established a truce of two years between Llywelyn Fawr and Henry III, with Llywelyn maintaining his recent conquests.

The union of British coalfield unions. In 1908 it affiliated to the Labour party.

After the collapse of the General Strike in 1926 the miners were locked out by the owners for six months.

Manifesto written in 1912 by the ‘Unofficial Reform Committee’ which included Ablett, Noah, calling, amongst other things, for control of the mines to be given to the workers.

French orator and revolutionary. President of the Jacobin club in 1790.

Miners attacked the manager of Leeswood Green Colliery, who had announced a wage-reduction and a prohibition on speaking Welsh underground. Disturbances followed the conviction of miners for their part in the attack, and troops killed 4 rioters when they opened fire on the crowd.

Opened the largest nickel works in the world in Clydach, West Glamorgan in 1902. Liberal MP and eccentric. Staunch supporter of Lloyd George.

Network of canals linking Brecon and Newport.

Speakers of one language.

(c.1208–65) Became Earl of Leicester. Married Eleanor, sister of Henry III in 1238. Leader of barons’ revolt against the King, whom he defeated in 1264 at the Battle of Lewes. Defeated by royal forces, including Marcher lord, at the Battle of Evesham 1265. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd married Simon de Montfort’s daughter, Eleanor, in 1278.

Henry III recognised Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as Prince of Wales, with feudal overlordship over most of the other Welsh princes.

See Morcellation.

Land divided up repeatedly by cyfran or gavelkind.

Owned vastly wealthy estate and industrial resources – lived in Tredegar Park.

See Iolo Morgannwg.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith in Salt Lake City, USA.

Letters of the Morris brothers of Anglesey (Lewis, Richard, William and John), known as ‘Morrisiaid Môn’.

(1701–65) Poet, antiquary and surveyor; one of the Morris brothers of Anglesey.

Money obtained by providing land as security.

Died 1282. One of the great adversaries of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd who defeated Mortimer in 1262 and 1266, obtaining substantial areas of Mortimer lands by the Treaty of Montgomery 1267.