Ffynh 5M

A few remarks may, however, be made as to the chief centres and districts where Welshmen are found congregated in England. And first as to London. The number of persons actually born in Wales and enumerated in the London Registration District in 1891 was returned as 31,292, while it has been estimated that there were also 14,828 natives of Wales resident in the outlying districts. Thus in West Ham alone (which is outside the boundary of the Registration District of London) there were 961, Willesden 529, Tottenham 329, and Leyton 259, while a little further afield we find 856 returned as resident to Croydon. Mr Thomas Darlington has estimated that out of a total of 46,120 natives of Wales resident in London and outlying districts (in 1891), as many as 23,954 were able to speak Welsh. At all events, we have the fact that religious services are conducted in Welsh every Sunday at about 40 different centres in London.

As compared with the resident population enumerated in each of the Welsh counties, we find that the proportion of their natives settled in London is much higher for Cardiganshire than for any other county. Omitting nearly 5,000 Welsh-born London residents, the county of whose birth was not stated, we find that a number equivalent to 5.25 per cent of the total population of Cardiganshire had migrated from that county to and were settled in London, 3.5 per cent from Pembrokeshire, about 3 per cent from Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire, and 2 per cent from Breconshire. The remaining counties of north Wales are represented by a number equivalent to about 1 per cent of the population enumerated at home. Monmouthshire and Carmarthenshire have 1.7 and 1.4 respectively, while Glamorganshire comes last with 0.8 per cent. The most interesting point about this is that it is the agricultural counties (more especially of south and mid Wales) that, in proportion to their home population, send the largest number of persons to settle in London. The comparative paucity of north Walians is due to the fact that north Wales comes more within the sphere of influence of Liverpool than of London, and that the former town therefore stands for many purposes in the position of a capital for north Wales, whence there is ready access not only by rail but by water also. In a lesser degree and of more recent years Manchester has begun to compete with Liverpool in this respect.

We can make but a very rapid survey of the distribution of the natives of Wales in the provincial towns of England. In the chief towns of Lancashire and Cheshire they are to be counted by the thousand. Liverpool in 1891 had 17,449 persons born in Wales, Birkenhead 5,654, and St Helen’s 1,393. The number in Manchester was 6,764 and in Salford 2,699. The total number of persons born in Wales and enumerated in Lancashire amounted to 60,819, while the neighbouring county of Cheshire had 21,379. But these figures give a very inadequate idea of the total Welsh population of these towns. Thus, as the result of a special inquiry conducted by Mr Thomas Darlington in connection with the Welsh congregations of Manchester, it was estimated that 25 per cent of the ‘hearers’ at these churches had been born outside Wales, and would therefore not be included in the figures quoted above from the Census. The proportion of Welshmen resident in Liverpool but born outside the Principality is stated to be much greater than in Manchester.

(Royal Commission on Land in Wales, Report, 1896, pp. 57–8 [Tip: daliwch Ctrl a chliciwch dolen i'w agor mewn tab newydd. (Cuddio tip)] )