Glamorgan History Society | Writing for the Morgannwg Journal

Morgannwg Journal - 1957.

In late 2018 I was approached by Lisa Tallis, the Assistant Librarian at Special Collections and Archives at Cardiff University and co-editor of the Morgannwg Journal to write a piece for their new section on online and digital resources. As someone who regularly uses the journal as a research source, I jumped at the chance to write for the journal.  

What is the Morgannwg Journal?

The Morgannwg is the journal of the Glamorgan History Society. Founded in 1950, the Society promotes an encourages the study of the history of the county of Glamorgan. The Society published the first volume of its journal 'Morgannwg' in 1957. The bi-lingual publication was funded by Society subscribers and a donation from the Welsh Church Act Fund of Glamorgan County Council.

For more than fifty years, the Glamorgan History Society has played a prominent and highly respected role in encouraging the study of the history of Glamorgan in all its many aspects.

The Glamorgan History Society is open to all those with an interest in the history of Glamorgan. Annual membership costs £10. Each member receives a copy of the Society's journal and is entitled to attend the Annual General Meeting and the Autumn Day School. More information can be found here.

The National Library of Wales has digitalised past issues of the Morgannwg Journal (1957 - 2004) which can be accessed here.

A view of Bridgend.

Many of my readers do not have access to the Morgannwg Journal so I wanted to publish my article here. I hope that you will find it of interest. A huge thank you to both editors Lisa Tallis and Prof. Madeleine Gray for their help and encouragement.

'Hellohistoria' was founded in 2012 as a way for me to share my passion for local history. In the beginning, the blog focused solely on the history of Bridgend. I wanted to make local history more accessible.

My first blogpost was about my first visit to St. John's House, the oldest habitable house in Bridgend Town. This was picked up by various media outlets and it seems to have flourished from there. As I result of that article have now been involved with the house for nearly seven years.

I've been working with St. John's House as a researcher for nearly seven years. My focus is on the social history of the house, I'm interested in who lived, worked, and played there. The house was built c.1511, that's 507 years of occupancy! That said, the bulk of my research involves transcribing records. For example, at the moment I am transcribing the Edward Loveluck Papers relating to St. John's House.

I founded Remembering Bridgend in 2012/13 as a 'sister' site to 'hellohistoria'. It was set up as a platform for people to share their memories, photographs, and stories. Again, this was a way of making local history more accessible. I wanted to share my research with people who had the same passion for our town as I did but didn't have access to local history resources.

People from all over the world can now access the history of Bridgend, no matter what their connection is with our town. People have reconnected with long lost friends and relatives who have been reunited through Remembering Bridgend. At the moment the page following stands at 17,000 people.

As my interests changed and developed, so did my blog. I've slowly drifted away from focusing solely on Bridgend. It took me a while to do so as at the start, I felt that I was betraying my hometown by exploring history in other areas of Wales.

The concept of betraying my hometown seems rather silly now, but at the time it was very real. I can now say it was a very good decision to do so. Drifting away from local history has enabled me to explore parts of Welsh history that have always interested me. I'm not so much confined to one place or governed by the history of one town. There's a whole country for me to write about and explore. I now write and research to feed my own curiosity.

Detail of a memorial at Amroth Parish Church.

I became interested in what some would call 'morbid' aspects of history. I first became interested in the death aspect of history when I started visiting churches more frequently. I became interested in the lives of the people buried in the churchyards and burial grounds. Who were they? Where did they come from? What lives did they lead?

It reminded me that at some point, everyone is important to someone. People buried yesterday are no different from people buried hundreds of years ago. They were important to someone. They loved and they were loved. So I started writing about them. I created a series of sorts called 'Who is buried here?.' My aim was/is to explore and research the little-known burial grounds in the area.

My first was about a tiny chapel yard at the top of Newcastle Hill. The chapel yard was one that I had walked through countless times. It once housed the Old Ruhamah Welsh Baptist Chapel which was founded in 1789. When the congregation moved to a new chapel in 1890, the chapel and chapel yard fell into disuse. It is now nothing more than a mess of tipped and smashed gravestones.

“There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”  - David Eagleman. 

When I write about these people, they are remembered again for one moment. I like to be able to look at a grave and have some sort of concept of who that person was, what they did and what their life was like. My most recent post in the 'Who is buried here?' series is about those buried in Angelton Asylum Cemetery.

Angelton Asylum Cemetery.