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This study is concerned with the Welsh county of Montgomeryshire during the years 1690-1815. Following an introduction, which examines the county's physical features, demography and fluctuations in economic prosperity during the century, the first half of the study concerns the county's landowning elite. In turn, the second half of the study surveys the remainder of the populace. The structure of, and the changes affecting landed society provide the subject of chapter 2. Two chapters are subsequently devoted to a study of the landowners and their administration of their estates, in the agricultural and industrial contexts. The fifth chapter inspects the role of the landowners in politics and local government, with particular reference to their exercise of authority over the community. In turn a sixth chapter examines the social life of the landowners. The study of the community at large is intended to complement the first half. The opening chapter examines the social structure of the wider community, and is subdivided to scan the clergy, the artisans, craftsmen and tradesmen, the farmers, the labourers and the poor. Subsequently chapter 8 provides an examination of farming in Montgomeryshire during the eighteenth century. In chapter 9 law and order in the community is studied, with particular reference to the forces of social harmony, protest and attitudes towards the ruling elite of landowners. Finally, prior to a brief concluding chapter, the social life of the wider community is reconstructed.

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The thesis concerns itself with the phonetic realisations of Welsh place-names and is based on a large corpus of Welsh place-names collected in the county of Cardiganshire/Ceredigion (Wales, UK), with extensive references to the pronunciation of Welsh place-names outside the county. After discussing the varying conventions adopted by Welsh phoneticians of the past century and a half, improvements in International Phonetic Association notation for Welsh are suggested. The body of the thesis deals with the main features that characterise the pronunciation of Welsh place-names. Since place-names are anchored both in space and time the study of place-name forms give a dynamic picture of the evolution of language. Some new conclusions on the evolution of the Welsh language are advanced, with suggestions as to the motivation behind these changes. It establishes the connection between the Welsh of the Medieval period and the present-day dialects, and complements K.H. Jackson's <U>Language and History in Early Modern Britain</U> (1953) and J. Morris-Jones' <U>A Welsh Grammar</U> (1913), neither of which dealt methodically with the development of Welsh after the Medieval period. The emphasis on place-names rather than literary texts gives a different - I believe more reliable - standpoint from which to chart phonetic developments in language. The methodical description given to attested phonetic developments in Welsh place-names should constitute a useful tool for toponymists to elucidate Welsh place-names which otherwise seem opaque. By demonstrating the underlying patterns of phonetic development in Welsh the study hopes to dispel the notion that the disconcerting variety of place-name forms are mere dialectisms, localisms, or even corruptions. Included is the corpus of place-names which contains some 15,000 headworks. Each headword is followed by a location by grid-reference, often by a notation of pronunciation phonetic script, by historical forms, and often by a discussion of etymologies.

This thesis examines Welsh national identity in the twentieth century through the medium of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. The National Eisteddfod is arguably the largest cultural festival in Europe; it is certainly the largest cultural event in Wales. At the turn of the twentieth century it was a popular festival but very different from its present form. During the course of the past century, the Eisteddfod has evolved into a highly symbolic Welsh-language festival, and one of the more powerful and evocative manifestations of Welsh language culture and nationhood. The ideological imperative given to the festival as a result of its perceived intrinsic connection to the language gives the Eisteddfod much its identity and its political power. However, language is not the only significant device through which the Eisteddfod has demonstrated Welshness; there are other, equally powerful, facets of Welsh identity that resonate from the festival. The chapters demonstrate these different elements, as well as the varied theoretical approaches I am taking in this process. The first chapter focuses heavily on historical cultural geography and looks at the role of location and place in Welsh identity in the twentieth century. The second chapter looks at various contemporary stereotypes of Welsh identity, using a post-colonial framework of Metropole and Periphery, and an emphasis on the role of binary juxtapositions in the construction of identity. Chapter three looks at various structural aspects of the festival itself, considering the formal performance of identity through the Eisteddfodic ritual. Chapter Four looks at the informal performances on the Eisteddfod field (<i>Maes</i>). Finally, the last chapter examines at the role of language and nationalism in the construction of modern Welsh identity. Together they paint a picture of the changing nature of Welsh culture and the correlated construction of identity during the twentieth century.

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This thesis has sought to fill a gap in Welsh social history in its focusing on women's role and status in rural society. It is claimed, moreover, that the period covered allows us to capture the position of women within the traditional rural economy before the huge changes setting in during the final decades of the nineteenth century, not least the movement of women out of agriculture, and, of many, out of the countryside altogether, worked for the young in particular a profound change in their circumstances. The approach is an overarching one which deliberately seeks to explain the subject from as wide a perspective as possible. As such, it may be open to criticism that insufficient focus is given to certain areas as women's migration, spinsterhood, old age and to those few privileged females occupying the middling and upper ranks in society. The defence I make in adopting this comprehensive treatment is that it the more easily allows us to perceive the total world inhabited by women and to appreciate their predicament within the larger society. The thesis falls naturally into two sections, namely, first, women's participation in the rural workforce and their material circumstances, and, second, their public responsibilities and recreational pursuits and their private lives. The three chapters in section one cover female employment, women and the domestic economy, and coping with poverty. It will be demonstrated how precarious life was for small farmers' and cottagers' families and the vital role which women played in their continuing survival; of significance here was the fact that young girls were expected to enter farm service and domestic service in order to support themselves. Section two will examine their life outside the sphere of work. This will, firstly, explore their recreation and leisure activities and seek to understand their system of values and beliefs. The discussion will then turn to examining women's public role within the community, and here particular attention will be drawn to their importance as providers of nurture and care and as upholders of the community's morality and enforcers of what they perceived as natural justice. In the second place, the discussion will focus on women's private and domestic lives. The main themes here will cover marriage and sexuality, which exploration will range over aspects like illegitimacy, wife-beating, adultery and infanticide. The overwhelming disadvantaged position of women within matters pertaining to sexuality and private relations will be emphasised.

The history of the women in the South Wales coalfield is a subject that has not received adequate attention by historians. Where women are included in novels and histories of the area, they appear as shadowy figures in their prescribed role as the wives and mothers of the working men, the miners. This thesis is a broad-based study of the lives of some of the women who lived in the Rhondda Valley area of the coalfield during the period from 1870 to the years immediately preceding the Second World War. The adequacy of representing women solely as working-class wives and mothers is questioned through an investigation of various activities in which some women were able to participate, including the sphere of politics and protest, leisure, work and education. In addition to analysing activity outside of the domestic sphere, the thesis also looks more closely at the women whoformed the community, especially, although not exclusively, those whofall outside of the traditional perception of Rhondda Women, for example middle-class women and unmarried women. Furthermore, attention has been paid to them throughout their stages of the life cycle; from girlhood - thereby incorporating their experiences in schools and participation in leisure activities - through their adult years to old age. In essence, the thesis seeks to give a more rounded view of the lives of women in the Rhondda Valleys from the hey day of the mines in the late nineteenth century to the decline of the industry in the inter-war period.

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