Glanmor Williams: A Life

Glanmor Williams

‘ . . . an immensely readable and fascinating volume of autobiography. Glanmor Williams writes with unfailing humanity, generosity and humour. His personal experiences are described against the backdrop of local and national events. The text is characterised by the lucidity and clarity of style of which the author is an undisputed master, and touches on many aspects of our national life during the last century. The volume is notably well produced, a real credit to its printers, Gwasg Dinefwr, and contains a host of charming and highly evocative photographs. It is a real pleasure to peruse its pages.’ www.gwales.com

“Like all his written compositions, Glanmor’s memoir is a delight to read: concise, lucid and candid, it twinkles with puckish humour and vivacity.” Welsh History Review

‘This autobiography gives a fascinating insight into the motivation of an individual, the interplay of personalities, the politics of institutions – and the accidents of fate – during the course of a truly remarkable career . . . This is a book which will fascinate and inspire.’ (Archaeologia Cambrensis)

Sir Glanmor Williams is one of Wales’s most celebrated historians and the chief authority on early modern Wales. He is also well known as a lecturer, teacher, broadcaster and an active public figure, and in 1995 was awarded a KBE for ‘services to the history, culture and heritage of Wales’.

In this autobiography, he writes movingly of his childhood and youth spent amid a warm-hearted, closely-knit community which suffered the full force of economic blight. Born in Dowlais in 1920, the only child of working-class parents, he was educated at Cyfarthfa Castle School and later at University College, Aberystwyth, where his contemporaries included such distinguished writers as Alun Lewis and Emyr Humphreys. He later spent nearly forty years as a university lecturer in Swansea, twenty-five of them as professor of history.

During the course of an active public career, Glanmor Williams has been chairman and member of a diverse range of bodies, including the Broadcasting Council for Wales, the British Library Board, the Board of Celtic Studies, the Pantyfedwen Trusts and CADW. Glanmor Williams not only writes revealingly about many aspects of Welsh public and academic life, but also describes his life and achievements with characteristic insight, generosity and humour.