Dictionary of Welsh Biography

JONES, THOMAS (1908 - 1990), trade unionist and Spanish Civil War veteran 1926 and miners' lockout, which strongly influenced Jones's political views. He served for a short time in the army before returning to work in Bersham where he became a member of the union lodge committee. Like many of his contemporaries, he was attracted by the Communist Party but its atheism did not sit easily with his Christian beliefs (he later became a chapel deacon), and he remained a
LLOYD, DAVID TECWYN (1914 - 1992), literary critic, author, educationalist and grew in the other colleges of the then University of Wales, especially Swansea. The movement waned when the founders left college and it came to an end at the start of World War Two. But Tecwyn Lloyd never lost his socialist convictions and from 1939 to 1941 he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, wearing its badge when he was called to be assessed for military service during
MAINWARING, WILLIAM HENRY (1884 - 1971), Labour politician of the sitting Labour MP, Colonel D. Watts-Morgan. But his election to parliament was by no means a foregone conclusion. He was opposed by Arthur Horner as a Communist candidate, and a Liberal also stood. Mainwaring's majority over Horner was just 2,899 votes, while the Liberal came in third. The constituency was a stronghold of Communism, and in each subsequent parliamentary election Mainwaring
MORGAN, DYFNALLT (1917 - 1994), poet, literary critic and translator Tung's Communist forces and the Nationalist Kuomintang had recently resumed. He sailed to Shanghai in June 1946 and travelled to Chengchow in the Honan province, where around five million refuguees had returned after fleeing from Japanese forces. His main task was to help transport food and other essential goods from Shanghai to Chengchow, and later to Hankow, until he had to return to Britain in 1947
MORGAN, ELAINE NEVILLE (1920 - 2013), screenwriter, journalist, and author in the organisation of Burnley's celebration of International Women's Day. She also joined the Communist Party, a fact which, later in life, having rejoined the Labour Party, she kept carefully hidden for professional reasons. It was whilst living in Burnley that the first of Elaine Morgan's children, John Dylan (1946-2011) was born. A second child, Gareth, followed in 1949. But for the onset of
NICHOLAS, THOMAS EVAN (Niclas y Glais; 1879 - 1971), poet, minister of religion and advocate for the Communist Party the ministry in 1918 and established himself as a dentist in Pontardawe. His wife, and later he himself, had been trained as dentists by a good friend, David Ernest Evans (1870-1956) of Mountain Ash who also trained their son, Islwyn ap Nicholas. The family moved to Aberystwyth in 1921 and he, his wife and son set up a dental practice in the town. He joined the Communist Party when it was formed in
PHILIPPS, WOGAN (2nd Baron Milford), (1902 - 1993), politician and artist years. Rosamond Lehmann had a passionate affair with Goronwy Rees and was then involved with the poet, Cecil Day-Lewis. At the end of 1943, Phillips divorced his wife and married, soon afterwards, Cristina, the former wife of the Earl of Huntingdon, daughter of the Marchese di Roma and his eccentric wife Luisa, and who was a Communist and former treasurer of Spanish Medical Aid. Infuriated that his
PHILLIPS, THOMAS BEVAN (1898 - 1991), minister, missionary and college principal in Plasnewydd. One of his close friends there was Idris Cox who became a leading member of the British Communist Party. In 1911 T. B. Phillips left school to help the family and began work at the coal face in the Davies Colliery. There he met a large number of miners who were active in the St John's Ambulance Brigade. Other movements which gained his adherence were the 'Good Templars', a temperance
POWELL, ANNIE (1906 - 1986), teacher, local politician and Communist mayor of Rhondda teaching years in Trealaw during the Great Depression, she saw the desperate hardship in which the families of unemployed miners lived, and as a result she joined the Labour Party. However, after a long ideological struggle of reading and reflection, persuaded by its emphasis on political theory and getting things done, she joined the Communist Party in 1938. There was a good deal of support for
REES, MORGAN GORONWY (1909 - 1979), writer and university administrator childhood) and, by way of an epilogue, a meditative account of convalescence following his motor accident. The whole is beautifully written, Rees's crystalline elegance flecked with humour and sadness. Rees's final phase might be said to have begun in February 1966 when he joined the board of Encounter, a distinguished journal anti-communist in thrust, for which he wrote a regular column on subjects of
ROBERTS, JOHN (Jack Russia; 1899 - 1979), miner, councillor and a prominent member of the Welsh Communist Party constituency by the Communist candidate, Robert (Bob) Stewart. Though he received only 2,592 votes compared with 13,699 for the Labour candidate, Morgan Jones, and the Liberal-Conservative candidate W. R. Edmunds with his 8,958 votes, the young miner decided on the night of the election, 24 August, to join the Communist Party. He spoke so forcefully during the 1926 General Strike about Russia's support of
SILVERTHORNE, THORA (1910 - 1999), nurse and trade unionist Thora Silverthorne was born at 170 Alma Street, Abertillery, on 25 November 1910, the fifth of eight children of George Richard Silverthorne (1880-1962), a coal hewer, and his wife Sarah (née Boyt, 1882-1927). Her father was an active member of the South Wales Miners Federation and a founder member of the Abertillery branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Her younger brother Reginald

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