Important Welsh scholar, notable particularly for his translation of the New Testament into Welsh in 1567.

State capital of Utah and international headquarters of the Mormons.

(1725–1809) English watercolourist and engraver.

The Royal Commission on the coal industry which in 1919 advocated state ownership of the industry. The report was rejected by the government.

Literally, without knee-breeches. Term applied to ultra-democrats of the French Revolution, especially to poor, ill-clad leaders of the populace.

Name given to the Muhammadans of Syria and Palestine. Later used to denote all ‘infidel’ nations against whom crusades were preached.

Secret societies of colliers mainly in Monmouthshire in the 1820s and 1830s who enforced community sanctions against blackleg workers and profiteers by direct action. The colliers wore masks and cattle skins and were led by a man rigged out with a horned bull's head.

See Scotch Cattle.

The manuscript copying and illuminating section of a monastic house: the copying was often done in open carrels in the cloister rather than in a special room.

A bridge which carries the M4 across the River Severn. Work on the crossing began in 1992 with completion in 1996.

The office of Secretary of State for Wales was created in October 1964 under Harold Wilson’s new Labour government. The Secretary, who in April the following year became head of the newly-created Welsh Office, had responsibility for Welsh issues and for some areas of public expenditure.

Pertaining to a feudal lord rather than to the king.

Land worked directly by the lord of the manor’s servants.

In legal possession of property.

Official in household of prince to whom control of justice and administration was given.

An underground explosion at the Universal Colliery, Senghennydd, Glamorgan, killed 436 miners on 14 October, 1913: the worst disaster in the history of UK coalmining.

Serfs were tied to the lord’s land and went with the land when it changed ownership.

The first Severn Bridge, a suspension bridge, was opened in 1966.

Constructed by the Great Western Railway company between 1873 and 1886 to connect the west of England with south Wales by railway. Chief engineer was Brunel.

Theoretically outlawed the exclusion of women from the professions on grounds of their sex alone. The act was often ignored and, in any case, women were excluded, on marriage, from, for example, the teaching profession.

Open field belonging to a township or hamlet in which land is held in strips.

The principal royal official in English shires, introduced into Wales after the conquest.

Shon is one Welsh version of the name John. Shonis is a slang, partly anglicised, version of the name.

Merchants at Shrewsbury who dominated much of the trade in Welsh cloth.

The equipment required by an army to cut off all outside communication and supplies to a castle or town, so compelling surrender.

Taking out excess plants to allow one to grow fully.

Cutting slate to suitable sizes – mainly for roof construction purposes.

The process of separating slate rock into thin sheets.

Way of determining miners’ wages according to the price of coal.

Founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, a Church of England minister, to publish Christian literature and promote Christian education.

Derived from the names of two continental theologians who held Unitarian views (see also Unitarianism).

(1899–1920). Also know as the ‘Second Boer War.’ Arose to resolve issues of sovereignty between Britain and Afrikaners, and resulted in the absorption of the two Boer (Afrikaner) republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic into the British Empire.

‘The Fed’, established in 1898 to represent the interests of coal miners in south Wales.

Fought from 1936 to 1939 between right-wing generals under Franco and the left-wing popular front government. About 2,000 Britons fought for the International Brigade against Franco. The biggest contingent in terms of national population came from the ranks of unemployed south Wales miners, though north Wales was represented too.

See Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK).

(c.1552–1629) The great map-maker of the early seventeenth century.

1930s’ coal miners’ union in the English Midlands which broke away from the official old-established coalfield union.

The prop used to support the roof when working a seam of coal.

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.

(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.

Founded in 1946 in the grounds of St. Fagans Castle, a 16th-century manor house in Glamorgan, it was originally called the ‘Welsh Folk Museum’ and was set up to provide reconstructed examples of Welsh vernacular architecture. Most buildings are domestic, but the museum now includes a working-men’s institute, a mill, several workshops, a nonconformist chapel and a medieval parish church.

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.

Appeals to God through prayer, usually for the forgiveness of sins and the release of souls from purgatory.

See South Wales Miners' Federation.