1940 in Wales

1940 in Wales

Other years

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1940 in: The United Kingdom • Ireland • Scotland

Other events of 1940

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1940 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

• Prince of Wales – vacant
• Princess of Wales – vacant
• Archbishop of Wales – Charles Green, Bishop of Bangor
• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales – Crwys

Events

• The Urdd changes its policy to include 16 to 25-year-olds.
• 21 January - Lowest ever temperature recorded in Wales, -23.3°C (-9.9°F) at Rhayader.^[1]
• 27 January - A freak ice storm across the UK brings down telephone and electricity lines in many parts of Wales.
• 3 March - The steamer Cato is damaged by a mine off Nash Point and 13 of the crew are killed.
• May
  • The newly created Coalition Government includes Hugh Dalton as Minister of Economic Warfare.
  • Alun Lewis enlists.
• 8 May - Three Nazi German Luftwaffe Heinkel 111s crash in separate incidents over Wales: one near Wrexham, one at Malpas in Denbighshire, and one at Bagillt, Flint. In all nine crew are killed and four captured.
• 3 July - Cardiff is bombed for the first time.
• 10 July - Ten people are killed in an air raid on Swansea Docks.
• 11 August - Seventeen people are killed in an air raid on Manselton, Swansea.
• 14 August - Three German Heinkel 111s are shot down during an air-raid on Cardiff, and another over North Wales after a raid on RAF Hawarden.
• 22 August - A steamer, the Thorold, is sunk by German aircraft off the Skerries. Ten crew are killed.
• 2 September - 33 people are killed in an air raid on Swansea.
• 3 September - Eleven people are killed in an air raid on Cardiff.
• 4 September - A German Junkers 88 crashes near Machynlleth. Four crew and a Gestapo officer are captured.
• 13 September - A German Heinkel 111 crashes into a house in Newport, Monmouthshire.
• 20 October - Communist minister and poet Thomas Evan Nicholas ("Niclas y Glais") and his son are arrested and interned for "endeavouring to impede recruitment to HM Forces".
• 22 November - The steamer Pikepool is damaged by a mine off Linney Head, Pembrokeshire, with the loss of 17 crew.
• Gwilym Williams becomes chaplain of St David's College, Lampeter.
• Percy Cudlipp becomes editor of the Daily Herald.
• Alun Talfan Davies and his brother Aneirin found the publishing house Llyfrau'r Dryw.

Arts and literature

• Lewis Casson directs John Gielgud in King Lear.

Awards

• National Eisteddfod of Wales (held in Bangor (radio))
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Chair - withheld
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Crown - T. Rowland Hughes
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Prose Medal - withheld

New books

• Cyfrol Goffa Richard Bennett
• Clara Novello Davies - The Life I Have Loved
• David Delta Edwards - Rhedeg ar ôl y Cysgodion
• John Cowper Powys - Owen Glendower (U.S. publication)
• Howard Spring - Fame is the Spur

Music

• Mai Jones & Lyn Joshua - "We'll Keep a Welcome" (performed for the first time in the forces' variety show, Welsh Rarebit on 29 February)

Film

• Paul Robeson and Rachel Thomas star in The Proud Valley

Broadcasting

• February 25 - The Proud Valley is the first film to have its première on radio, when the BBC broadcasts a 60-minute version.
• August - The National Eisteddfod of Wales is broadcast on the British Home Service, including 15 minutes each for the crown and chair ceremonies.^[2]
• October - The BBC Radio Variety Department relocates to Bangor, Gwynedd because of wartime disruption.

Sport

• Football
  • 13 April - Wales defeat England 1 - 0.
• Quoits - Jack Price wins the Welsh championship for the third time.

Births

• 4 January - Professor Brian Josephson
• 17 January - Leighton Rees, darts champion
• 23 January - Ted Rowlands, politician
• 1 March - David Broome, show jumping champion
• 16 May - Sir Gareth Roberts, physicist (died 2007)
• 7 June - Tom Jones, singer
• 29 June - John Dawes, rugby player
• 3 September - Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Uruguayan writer of Welsh descent
• 12 September - Patrick Mower, Welsh-descended actor
• 14 October - Christopher Timothy, actor (in Bala, Gwynedd)
• 5 December - Michael Jones, historian
• 13 December - Klaus Armstrong-Braun, environmentalist
• 24 December - John Marek, politician
• date unknown
  • Donald Evans, poet
  • Keith Miles, novelist and screenwriter

Deaths

• 12 February - William Edwards, educationist
• 21 February - Sir Alfred Edward Lewis, banker
• 20 March - William Thomas Edwards (Gwilym Deudraeth), poet
• 7 April - Ernest Rowland, priest and Wales international rugby player, 75
• 27 April - Fred Cornish, Wales international rugby player
• 25 June - Stanley Winmill, Wales international rugby union player, 51
• 8 August - Daniel Lleufer Thomas, lawyer and biographer
• 20 August - Henry Maldwyn Hughes, Wesleyan minister
• 26 September - W. H. Davies, poet and author
• 9 October - Sir Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Newfoundland and Labrador
• 9 November - Gwilym Owen, physicist
• 15 December
  • Robert Thomas Jones, quarrymen’s leader
  • Sir David Richard Llewellyn, 1st Baronet, industrialist

References