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Dr J. Graham Jones
Dr J. Graham Jones is a
native of Trecynon, Aberdare in the Cynon Valley. He was educated at the County
Grammar School for Boys, Aberdare, the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth,
and the College of Librarianship Wales. He graduated with First Class Honours in
History and Welsh History in 1977, and was awarded the degree of MA in 1980 for
a thesis on 'The General Election of 1929 in Wales', a dissertation which was
awarded the Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Memorial Medal for the best Welsh
History thesis of that year. In 2001 he received the PhD degree in recognition
of his extensive publications on the theme 'David Lloyd George and Welsh
Liberalism' and was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
He spent the
whole of his career as a professional archivist in the employ of the National
Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he served for many years as Senior
Archivist and Head of the Welsh Political Archive. He has published more than
250 scholarly articles in various academic journals and volumes on the
political, psephological and constitutional history of late nineteenth and
twentieth century Wales, many on Lloyd George and the Liberal Party. His
monograph publications include The History of Wales (University of Wales
Press, 1990, 1998 and 2014) and David Lloyd George and Welsh
Liberalism (National Library of Wales, 2010). He also writes large numbers
of book reviews.
This volume re-publishes nine
scholarly articles on aspects of Welsh political life originally published by
the author in various academic journals between 1987 and 2019.
During the
late 1980s he researched the vital contribution of the Liberal MP E. T. John to
the home rule campaigns of 1910-14, which eventually culminated in the
introduction of the abortive Government of Wales Bill, 1914, in the House of
Commons, and in the immediate post-war years when, after defecting to the Labour
Party, he stood as a candidate for the party in three parliamentary elections.
The first two articles in this volume are the fruit of these researches.
More
recently, the author turned his attention to the activities and effects of the
tenacious, all-important Parliament for Wales campaign, launched at a national
conference at Llandrindod Wells in July 1950, and whose activities eventually
culminated in the presentation of a monster petition, bearing some 250,000
signatures, to parliament by Goronwy O. Roberts MP in the spring of 1956. These
researches cast much light on local responses to the campaign in various
counties and localities and on the disparate reactions of several high-profile
Welsh Labour politicians. Five of the most prominent are discussed in chapters 3
to 7 in this collection. Chapter 8 is devoted to a discussion of the
presentation ceremony at Dolgellau of the completed petition in April 1956.
Shortly after
his retirement in the summer of 2013, the author was commissioned by the
officials of the Parliament for Wales Campaign of the second creation,
1987-2011, which had recently come to an end, to write its history based mainly
on the extensive archive which had been deposited at the National Library of
Wales. This ambitious project led in due course to the final contribution to
this volume.
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