File NLW MS 23157C - 'O. M. Edwards',

Identity area

Reference code

NLW MS 23157C

Title

'O. M. Edwards',

Date(s)

  • 1956 / (Creation)

Level of description

File

Extent and medium

ii, 14 ff. Guarded and filed.

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

Saunders Lewis, dramatist, poet, historian and literary critic, was born in Wallasey, Cheshire to a family of prominent Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. He was educated at a boys's school in Liscard and at Liverpool University, where he studied English and French. His academic career was interrupted by the First World War, in which Lewis served with the South Wales Borderers, but he quickly resumed his studies at the end of the conflict, and, having graduated, worked as librarian in Glamorgan before taking up a post as lecturer in the Welsh department of the University College of Swansea. In 1925, Lewis was one of the pioneering figures involved in establishing the National Party of Wales (later known as Plaid Cymru) and was made President of the fledgeling organisation the following year. Having written about the Roman Catholic church for a number of years, in 1932 Lewis converted to the faith also practised by his wife Margaret. In 1936, Lewis, D. J. Williams and Lewis Valentine set fire to the Royal Airforce's Bombing School in Penyberth on the Lleyn Peninsula, an event which has gone down in the annals of Welsh history and which earned Lewis imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs and dismissal from his lecturing post in Swansea. He was eventually appointed senior lecturer in Welsh at the University of Cardiff but retired in 1957 to devote his time to writing. Lewis's litarary output is prodigious and he is considered by many to be the most important Welsh literary and political figure of the twentieth century; it is considered that his radio address for 1962, Tynged yr Iaith, was the direct instigating force behind the establishment of the Welsh language movement Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Professor Gwynedd O. Pierce; Cardiff; Purchase, in aid of the Saunders Lewis Appeal Fund; 1993

Content and structure area

Scope and content

Manuscript draft of an article, in Welsh, by Saunders Lewis on 'Owen M. Edwards', published in Triwyr Penllyn (Caerdydd, 1956), edited by Gwynedd O. Pierce, together with a related letter, 1956, from Saunders Lewis to the latter.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Readers consulting modern papers in the National Library of Wales are required to abide by the conditions noted on the 'Modern papers - data protection' form issued with their Readers' Tickets.

Conditions governing reproduction

Usual copyright laws apply.

Language of material

Script of material

Language and script notes

Welsh

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

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Related descriptions

Notes area

Note

Title based on contents.

Note

Preferred citation: NLW MS 23157C

Alternative identifier(s)

Virtua system control number

vtls004628573

Access points

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Description control area

Description identifier

Institution identifier

Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru = The National Library of Wales

Rules and/or conventions used

Description follows NLW guidelines based on ISAD(G) 2nd ed.; AACR2; and LCSH

Status

Level of detail

Dates of creation revision deletion

February 2009.

Language(s)

  • English

Script(s)

Sources

Archivist's note

Description compiled by Bethan Ifans for the retrospective conversion project of NLW MSS. The following source was used in the compilation of this description: Handlist of Manuscripts in the National Library of Wales, Volume IX (Aberystwyth, 2003);

Accession area

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Physical storage

  • Text: NLW MS 23157C.