1959 in Wales
This article is about the particular significance of the year 1959 to Wales and its people.
Incumbents
Events
Arts and literature
- Harry Secombe is voted Show Business Personality of the Year.
- Sir Lewis Casson and Dame Sybil Thorndike celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by appearing together in Eighty in the Shade, a play written especially for them.
- Shirley Bassey is the first Welsh singer to hit number one in the UK pop charts, with "As I Love You".
Awards
- National Eisteddfod of Wales: Chair – T. Llew Jones
- National Eisteddfod of Wales: Crown – Tom Huws
- National Eisteddfod of Wales: Prose Medal – William Owen
New books
Music
Film
Broadcasting
Welsh-language television
- Lili Lon (children's programme)
- Trysor O Gan (Treasury of Song)
English-language television
Sports
Births
- 25 February – Mike Peters, musician
- 21 March – Colin Jones, boxer
- 3 May – Eddie Niedzwiecki, footballer
- 8 May – Jillian Evans MEP, politician
- 17 May – Paul Whitehouse, comedian
- 20 May – Annabel Giles, model
- 28 May – Steve Strange, singer
- 18 June – Jocelyn Davies AM, politician
- 5 September – Mike Ruddock, rugby coach
- 26 November – Dai Davies MP, politician
Full date unknown
Deaths
- 1 January – Dan Jones, Wales international rugby player, 83
- 13 January – Henry Weale, Victoria Cross recipient
- 3 February – Sir Evan Williams, Baronet, industrialist
- 21 February – Kathleen Freeman, classical scholar, 61
- 3 March – Billy Bancroft, rugby and cricket player, 88
- 21 April – David Bell, writer and curator (b.1915)
- 26 May – Thomas Baker Jones, Wales international rugby player, 96
- 18 June – Nantlais Williams, poet and preacher, 84
- 23 July – George Davies, international rugby player, 83
- 5 August – D. W. Davis, Governor of Idaho, 86
- 6 September – Edmund Gwenn, actor, 83
- 15 October – Thomas Wynford Rees, army officer, 61
- 27 November – Grenville Morris, footballer, 81
- 28 December – David Brazell, singer