Introduction
The Welsh and Welsh Local History Collections are research-level collections of historical primary sources, complemented with a range of periodicals, reference works, bibliographies, and archive guides. The collections cover Welsh history from the early middle ages to the present day. General Welsh history bears the classmark BW, while local Welsh history has the classmark BWL. All of the collection is on open access; the general and local collections can be found on the first floor in the Wohl reading room while oversized material is located in the Foyle reading room also on the first floor.
Highlights from the Collections
Guides to Sources and Historiography
Selected available titles include:
- Libri Walliae: a catalogue of Welsh books and books printed in Wales, 1546-1820
- Welsh women: an annotated bibliography of women in Wales and women of Welsh descent in America
- Cofrestri anghyduffurfiol Cymru = Nonconformist registers of Wales
- Guide to the department of manuscripts and records: the National Library of Wales
- Welsh manors and their records
- A guide to the records of Great Sessions in Wales
- A bibliography of Cardiff directories 1795-1978
- The tithe maps of Wales: a guide to the tithe maps and apportionments of Wales in the National Library of Wales
Historiography
General Works
Selected available titles include:
- Publications of the Cymmrodorion record series, including:
- A calendar of the register of the Queen's Majesty's Council in the dominion and principality of Wales and the Marches of the same (1535) 1569-1591
- The court rolls of the lordship of Ruthin or Dyffryn-Clwydd of the reign of King Edward the First
- An extent of all the lands and rents of the Lord Bishop of St. David's
- The Welsh port books (1550-1603): with an analysis of the customs revenue accounts of Wales in the same period
- Publications of the History and Law series, including:
- Welsh society and nationhood: historical essays presented to Glanmor Williams
- The History of Wales 350-1064, 1063-1415, 1415-1642, 1642-1780, 1880-1980
- The statutes of Wales
- A guide to the churches and chapels of Wales
- The lost houses of Wales: a survey of country houses in Wales demolished since 1900
Biographical Resources
Dictionaries and encyclopedias
- Y bywgraffiadur Cymreig (hyd 1940), (1951-1970)
- Necrologies: a book of Welsh obituaries
- Who's who in Wales (1933)
Genealogy and heraldry
Medieval Wales
General works
- Annales Cambriae
- Wales and the Welsh in the Middle Ages: essays presented to J. Beverley Smith
- Cronica de Wallia and other documents from Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3514
- The Welsh laws
- The abbeys and priories of medieval Wales
- Traditions of the Welsh saints
To c.1067
- Welsh history in the early Middle Ages: texts and societies
- Early medieval settlements in Wales A.D. 400-1100: a critical reassessment and gazetteer of the archaeological evidence for secular settlements in Wales
- Latin redaction A of the law of Hywel
- The law of Hywel Dda: law texts of medieval Wales
- The Welsh life of St. David
- The early Church in Wales and the West: recent work in early Christian archaeology, history and place-names
- Buchedd Beuno : the Middle Welsh life of St Beuno
1067-1283
- Brut y tywysogion: or, the chronicle of the princes
- 1282: casgliad o ddogfennau
- The Welsh king and his court
- Handlist of the acts of native Welsh rulers, 1132-1283
- The acts of the Welsh rulers: 1120-1283
- The black book of Carmarthen
- Vita Griffini Filii Conani: the medieval Latin life of Gruffudd ap Cynan
1283-1536
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Wales
Selected available titles include:
- Three treatises concerning Wales
- The dialogue of the government of Wales (1594): updated text and commentary
- John ap John and the early records of Friends in Wales
- The Ilston book: earliest register of Welsh Baptists
- The account of the official progress of His Grace Henry the first Duke of Beaufort, Lord President of the Council of Wales and Lord Warden of the Marches, through Wales in 1684
- Welsh tokens of the seventeenth century
- The calendar of Wynn (or Gwydir) papers, 1515-1690 in the National Library of Wales and elsewhere
Wales Since 1700
Selected available titles include:
- The correspondence of Iolo Morganwg
- Political pamphlets and sermons from Wales 1790-1806
- Correspondence and records of the S.P.G. relating to Wales, 1701-1750
- Johnes on the causes which have produced dissent from the established Church in the principality of Wales
- John Welsey in Wales, 1739-1790: entries from his journal and diary relating to Wales
- Accounting, costing, and cost estimation: Welsh industry, 1700-1830
- A gazetteer of the Welsh slate industry
- Collieries of Wales: engineering and architecture
- Public health in mid-Victorian Wales: correspondence from the principality to the General Board of Health and the Local Government Act Office 1848-71
- Changing lives: workers' education in Wales, 1907-2007
- The Welsh language of the 1891 census
- Statistical evidence relating to the Welsh language 1801-1911/Tystiolaeth ystadegol yn ymwneud â'r iaith Gymraeg 1801-1911
- Topographical and statistical description of the principality of Wales
- A tour in Wales, MDCCLXXIII
- Right from the start: the memoirs of Sir Wyn Roberts
Local Welsh History
The Welsh local history collection makes up approximately one third of the entire Welsh collection and consists of a range of individually published primary source titles, record and historical society publications and local Welsh history journals. A selection of available titles include:
- Welsh administrative and territorial units, medieval and modern
- Pevsner architectural guides: the buildings of Wales (Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion), (Clwyd), (Glamorgan), (Gwent/Monmouthshire), (Gwynedd), (Pembrokeshire), (Powys)
- Publications of the South Wales Record Society, including:
- Cas gan gythraul: demonology, witchcraft and popular magic in eighteenth-century Wales
- 'I hope to have a good passage...1902-11': the business letters of Captain Daniel Jenkins
- A spiritual botanology: shewing what of God appears in the herbs of the Earth; together with some of their natural virtues and uses: in blank verse and rhime
- An inventory of the ancient monuments in Anglesey
- Cardiff records: being materials for a history of the county borough from the earliest times
- The Vincent family diary: gentry life in Victorian Bangor
- The history and antiquities of the county of Cardigan
- Carmarthen Castle: the archaeology of government: the results of archaeological, historical and architectural investigations, 1993-2006
- Gabriel Powell's survey of the Lordship of Gower 1764
- The Gwent county history
- Glamorgan county history
- The Pembrokeshire county history
- Blaenavon: from iron town to world heritage site
- Flint pleas, 1283-1285
- Dowlais Iron Company correspondence: London house letter book calendar 1837/9-1867
Welsh local history journals
- Brycheiniog
- Trafodion Cymdeithas Hanes sir Gaernarfon
- Ceredigion
- Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes a Chofnodion sir Feirionnydd
- The Montgomeryshire collections
Online Resources
Please note that access to the majority of these resources is available onsite at the IHR, or offsite for staff and students of the IHR only.
Periodicals
- Archaeologia Cambrensis
- The journal of religious history, literature and culture (formerly entitled: Welsh journal of religious history)
- Llafur: the journal of the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History
- Trafodion Anrhydeddus Gymdeithas y Cymmrodorion
- Welsh history review
Theses
The library has an extensive collection of University of London PhD and MPhil history theses from the early twentieth century to the twenty-first. Some titles relevant to Welsh history include:
Other Collections
Within the IHR Wohl Library
Browse collection guides to find material relevant to your particular area of interest. Other collections that may be relevant include:
Other libraries, archives, organisations
Further Help
Contact us if you would like help on finding or using our collections, or if you have any comments or suggestions about the content of this guide. We are happy to help.
You can also book a tour or training session
