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Though young and usually poor they were men and women who were determined to make a better world for themselves and their children. Most of them were involved in the growth of Liverpool from a small port to a large cosmopolitan city. The Welsh played their part in the extension of the city to the north and the south. Townships such as Everton, Anfield, Kensington and Wavertree became Welsh in speech and in culture. The streets were often given Welsh names. Young men who arrived in Liverpool with very little money were within 30 years affluent and successful as builders and merchants. Their heritage is still around us in Liverpool, from large stores such as T.J. Hughes to Welsh streets in Anfield, Kensington and Toxteth.
Medicine also attracted Welsh men and women. The Anglesey bonesetters family of Evan Thomas were responsible, through him and his eldest son Hugh Owen Thomas and Sir Robert Jones, for the growth of orthopaedic medicine. Liverpool gained a great reputation in this branch of medicine. The University of Liverpool attracted both sexes as students and many of the notable names in Welsh history taught at the different departments, the poet J. Glyn Davies, a native of the city, in the Celtic Department followed by Idris Foster who later left for Oxford, Melville Richards and Dr D. Simon Evans. In History Professor W. Garmon Jones is still remembered as well as Professor D. Seaborne Davies in the Law Department.
The University today has a large number of Welsh academics. Among the prominent Welsh students of yesteryear we would have to mention the playwright J. Saunders Lewis, the biochemist R.A. Morton, product of the Welsh Presbyterian chapel of Garston, the physicist Gwilym Owen who pioneered the writing of books on science in the Welsh language, and Dr G. Penrhyn Jones who later became a celebrity in the University of Sheffield.
Music has also been at the core of the Welsh culture within the city and we are glad to announce that the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union has been in existence since the National Eisteddfod came to Liverpool in 1900. It first came in 1884 and the last time it was staged at Sefton Park in 1929 when a local Welsh Independent Minister, Reverend J.O. Williams, better known by his bardic name of Pedrog, was the Archdruid. Poets of the calibre of William Thomas (Gwilym Deudraeth), polymaths like William Rees (Gwilym Hiraethog) and hymnwriters such as Peter Jones (Pedr Fardd) have kept the name of Liverpool before the cultured Welsh people of our generation. Some of the Liverpool Welsh have concentrated on writing in English such as the playwright and friend of the Beatles, Alun Owen.
A great deal has been written on the Liverpool Welsh mostly in Welsh though Professor D. Ben Rees and Professor R. Merfyn Jones have illustrated the vast contribution of the Liverpool Welsh to the city and the nation of Wales. The monthly magazine in Welsh called
Angor is worth ordering for £7 a year, for it underlines the events that have happened and will happen.
Source:
BBC - North East Wales History
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