Ffeil B2/7. - Letters to Mary Casey and Gerard Casey

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963), was a prolific novelist, poet, and literary critic. He wrote one of the most remarkable autobiographies in the English language; he was the author of several works of popular philosophy; and throughout his long life he was an obsessive letter writer and diarist. Although never fully accepted as part of the ‘canon’ of English novelists, he is widely regarded as one of the great novelists of the 20th century, and his admirers include many eminent writers and critics. He was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, on 8 October 1872. In 1879 the family moved to Dorchester, Dorset, eventually settling, in 1885, in Montacute, Somerset. Powys therefore spent most of his childhood within the borders of the ancient kingdom of ‘Wessex’. Its landscape – which was also the setting for Thomas Hardy’s novels – came to dominate his imagination. He was the eldest of eleven children in a family notable for its strong-willed and individualistic characters. Two of his brothers, Theodore Francis Powys (1875-1953) and Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939), also became distinguished writers, while his sister Marian Powys (1882-1972) settled in New York, becoming a leading lace designer and a world authority on the history of lace making. Their father Charles Francis Powys (1843-1923) was a clergyman who took great pride in his Welsh ancestry, while their mother Mary Cowper Powys (1849-1914) was descended from the English poets John Donne and William Cowper. John Cowper was educated at Westbury House preparatory school, Sherborne, and Sherborne School (1883–1891), and subsequently at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1896 he published his first volume of verse, Odes and Other Poems, and in the same year he married Margaret Alice Lyon (1874-1947). They had one son, Littleton Alfred Powys (1902-1954), but the marriage was a failure and Powys and his wife eventually separated. After leaving Cambridge Powys had found work as a teacher at various girls' schools before becoming an extension lecturer affiliated to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Between 1909 and 1930, he earned his living as an itinerant lecturer in the USA, where he won fame as an inspired and charismatic orator. His first novel, Wood and Stone, was published in New York in 1915, and his first full length work of popular philosophy, The Complex Vision, appeared in 1920. During a visit to Missouri, in 1921, he met Phyllis Playter (1894-1982) who became his life companion, his muse, and a powerful influence upon his literary career. While in the USA Powys also made the acquaintance of several eminent American literary figures, including the poet, Edgar Lee Masters, and the writers, Theodore Dreiser and Henry Miller. He reached his maturity as a novelist with the publication, in 1929, of his fifth novel, Wolf Solent. Its success led him give up lecturing and devote his life to writing. In 1930 he and Playter went to live in Phudd Bottom, upper New York state. There followed two other novels of immense scope and psychological subtlety: A Glastonbury Romance (1932), and Weymouth Sands (1934). In the same year he published his very frank and revealing Autobiography. Although written in America, these books are full of sensuous descriptions of the ‘Wessex’ landscapes of his youth. Like Powys himself, many of the protagonists of his novels are introspective characters who develop a personal ‘mythology’ as a means of coming to terms with the world. In 1935, while in his sixties, Powys fulfilled a long cherished ideal by moving to live in Wales. For twenty years, he and Phyllis Playter made their home in Corwen, Meirionnydd, where Powys immersed himself in the language, history and mythology of the country. He also made the acquaintance of several eminent Welsh academics and writers, including Iorwerth Peate, the founder of the Welsh Folk Museum, and Gwyn Jones, Viking scholar and translator of the Mabiniogion. Powys's two late masterpieces, Owen Glendower (1940) and Porius (1951), belong to this period. In 1955 he and Playter moved to a quarryman’s cottage at Blaenau Ffestiniog. John Cowper Powys died at the Memorial Hospital, Blaenau Ffestiniog, on 17 June 1963.

Lucy Amelia Powys (1890-1986) was the youngest of the eleven children of the Rev. C. F. Powys, vicar of Montacute, Somerset, and Mary Cowper Johnson; her siblings included the writers John Cowper Powys, Theodore Francis Powys, and Llewelyn Powys. She married Hounsell Penny, a miller, in 1911 and they had one daughter, Mary (b. 1915). The family lived at Horsebridge, Hampshire, before moving to Shootash, Hampshire, in 1938. Hounsell Penny died in 1945 and later that year Mary married Gerard Casey. In 1950 Lucy moved to Mappowder, Dorset, to be near her brother Theodore. She was joined there in the nineteen seventies by Mary and Gerard, who lived in the cottage next door until Mary's death in 1980. Lucy Penny died in November 1986.

Phyllis Playter was born in 1894 in Kansas City, Missouri, to Canadian-American parents. She first met John Cowper Powys in March 1921 during a lecture tour of the United States and subsequently became Powys's long-term companion from 1923 until his death forty years later. Herself a gifted writer and poet, Playter's own career was largely subsumed in that of Powys's, upon whose work she nevertheless exerted significant influence. In his letters and diaries Powys commonly refers to Playter as 'the T.T.' (the 'Tiny Thin' or 'The Tao'). Following Powys's death in 1963, Playter continued to live in their last home at 1 Waterloo, Blaenau Ffestiniog, until her own death in 1982.

Roland Mathias was a poet, editor, critic and historian.
Roland Glyn Mathias was born in 1915 in Talybont-on-Usk, Breconshire, the eldest of three children of Muriel and Evan Mathias. His mother, a former pupil-teacher, was raised locally, and his father was a native of Llanelli, whose family originated from Carmarthenshire. Evan Mathias served as an army chaplain and spent a number of years abroad during Roland's childhood, and following the First World War the family accompanied him to Germany. On their return to England, Roland Mathias was educated at Caterham School, Surrey, and Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated with First Class Honours in Modern History, 1936. He completed a B.Litt. thesis on 'The Economic Policy of the Board of Trade 1696-1714', in 1939, and subsequently obtained an M.A., 1944. In 1944 Roland Mathias married Mary Annie (Molly) Hawes, and they have three children, Jonathan Glyn and Mary (twins) and Ceinwen.
Roland Mathias began his teaching career at Cowley Boys' Grammar School, St Helens, in 1938, and was later engaged at the Bluecoat School, Reading, 1942, Carlisle Boys' Grammar School, 1945, and St Clement Danes Grammar School, London, 1946. He was registered to undertake non-combatant duties in support of the war effort in 1940, and imprisoned as a Conscientious Objector on two occasions.
Roland Mathias was appointed Headmaster of Pembroke Grammar School in 1948, and the headmasterships of the Herbert Strutt School, Belper (1958-1964), and King Edward's Five Ways School, Birmingham (1964-1969), followed before he resigned in 1969 to become a full-time writer. During this period Roland Mathias was awarded schoolmaster-fellowships at Balliol College, Oxford (1961), and University College, Swansea (1967), and was a member of several educational bodies and committees.
Roland Mathias's first book of poetry, Days enduring, was published in 1942. Whilst living in Reading in 1944 he founded and co-edited an arts magazine, Here Today, which provided an outlet for his poems and literary criticism. In 1946 his second volume of poetry, Break in harvest, appeared, followed by The roses of Tretower (1952), and The flooded valley (1960). Later volumes of poetry, Absalom in the tree (1971) and Snipe's Castle (1979), were awarded Welsh Arts Council Prizes. In addition, he published a collection of short stories, The eleven men of Eppynt, (1956); historical work such as Whitsun riot (1963); and studies of Anglo-Welsh literature and writers, including his critique of Vernon Watkins for the Writers of Wales series (Cardiff, 1974), The hollowed-out elder stalk: John Cowper Powys as poet (1979), and A ride through the wood: essays on Anglo-Welsh literature (1985). He also edited, and contributed to, numerous other works. During 1949 Roland Mathias appointed Raymond Garlick as an English teacher at Pembroke Dock, and both were among the group who established the Dock Leaves Press and the magazine Dock Leaves (later known as The Anglo-Welsh Review). He became a prolific contributor to this journal, and succeeded Raymond Garlick as editor from 1961-1975.
Roland Mathias was a part-time lecturer in the Extra-Mural Department of the University of Cardiff between 1970-1977, and made several tours abroad as a visiting lecturer to universities in Brittany (1970), the United States and Canada. He was elected a member of the Welsh Arts Council, 1970-1979, and Chairman of its Literature Committee, 1976-1979, and also served as Chair of Yr Academi Gymreig (English Language Section), 1975-1978. He was honoured by the Welsh Arts Council in 1968 for services to writing in Wales, and in 1985 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa by the University of Georgetown, Washington DC.

Roedd Iorwerth Cyfeiliog Peate (1901-1982) yn ysgolhaig ac yn fardd.
Fe'i ganwyd ym Mhandy Rhiwsaeson, Llanbryn-mair, Trefaldwyn, yr ail o dri phlentyn George H. ac Elizabeth Peate. Derbyniodd ei addysg yn Ysgol Sir Machynlleth a Phrifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth, lle'r astudiodd dan T. Gwynn Jones a H. J. Fleure a gafodd gryn ddylanwad arno. Arbenigodd mewn Archaeoleg Geltaidd ac yn 1927 penodwyd ef yn Is-Geidwad yn Adran Archaeoleg Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru. Dyrchafwyd Iorwerth Peate yn Bennaeth Is-adran Diwylliant a Diwydiannau Gwerin yn 1932, a gweithiodd yn ddiflino i sefydlu amgueddfa werin yng Nghymru ar batrwm amgueddfeydd awyr-agored gwledydd Llychlyn. Gwireddwyd ei freuddwyd pan agorwyd Amgueddfa Werin Cymru yn Sain Ffagan yn 1948 a phenodwyd yntau'n Guradur cyntaf hyd ei ymddeoliad yn 1971. Roedd yn ŵr o argyhoeddiadau cryf ac un annibynnol ei farn ac ymhyfrydai yn 'nhraddodiad Llanbryn-mair' y magwyd ef ynddi, sef traddodiad anghydffurfiol, radicalaidd. Bu'n heddychwr gydol oes a chollodd ei swydd fel Curadur am gyfnod oherwydd ei safiad fel gwrthwynebydd cydwybodol yn ystod yr Ail Ryfel Byd.
Roedd Iorwerth Peate yn awdur toreithiog o weithiau ysgolheigaidd Cymraeg a Saesneg yn ogystal â barddoniaeth, rhyddiaith a beirniadaeth lenyddol. Ymhlith ei brif gyfraniadau ym maes diwylliant gwerin mae Y crefftwr yng Nghymru (1933), The Welsh house (1940), Diwylliant gwerin Cymru (1942), Clock and watch makers in Wales (Caerdydd, 1945), a Tradition and folk life: a Welsh view (1972). Cyhoeddodd amryw gyfrolau o ryddiaith, yn eu plith Sylfeini (1938), Syniadau (1969), a'r gweithiau hunangofiannol Rhwng dau fyd (1976), a Personau (1982); bu'n olygydd monograffau megis Hen Gapel Llanbrynmair 1739-1939 (1939), John Cowper Powys: letters 1937-54 (1974), a'r cylchgronau Dragon (1922-1923), Y ddraig goch (1926-1927), a Gwerin. An international journal of folk life (1956-1962). Ymhlith y casgliadau o farddoniaeth a gyhoeddwyd mae Y cawg aur a cherddi eraill (1928), Canu chwarter canrif (1957) sef detholiad o'i gerddi, a Cerddi diweddar (1982) wedi iddo farw. Cyfrannodd nifer helaeth o erthyglau ac adolygiadau i'r wasg, rhai ohonynt dan y ffugenw 'Gwerinwr', ac roedd yn ddarlledydd radio poblogaidd.
Roedd Iorwerth Peate yn aelod o amryw bwyllgorau a bu'n Llywydd y Gymdeithas Fywyd Gwerin, Llywydd Adran H (Anthropoleg) o'r British Association for the Advancement of Science, Is-Lywydd Anrhydeddus Gymdeithas y Cymmrodorion, un o sefydlwyr a chyn-Gadeirydd yr Academi Gymreig, ac aelod o Lys a Chyngor Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru. Derbyniodd gydnabyddiaeth am ei gyfraniad ysgolheigaidd gyda'r graddau D. Litt. Celt. er anrhydedd gan Brifysgol Genedlaethol Iwerddon (1960), a D. Sc. (1941) a D. Litt. honoris causa (1970) gan Brifysgol Cymru. Cyflwynwyd bathodyn y Cymmrodorion iddo yn 1978 am ei waith dros Gymru, a chyfrol festschrift, Studies in folk life, gol. J. Geraint Jenkins, yn 1966.
Priododd Nansi (Annie) Davies, yn 1929, a ganwyd mab iddynt, Dafydd (1936-1980). Bu farw Iorwerth C. Peate ar 19 Hydref 1982.