Neha Patil (Editor)

1940 in Wales

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Centuries:
  
18th 19th 20th 21st

Decades:
  
1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s

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

Contents

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.
  • 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

  • Richard Bennett - 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
  • Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

    • 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)
  • Grace Williams - Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes (score dated 9 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.
  • 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 - Brian Josephson, theoretical physicist
  • 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)
  • 4 November - Daniel Sperber, Talmudic scholar
  • 5 December - Michael Jones, medieval historian
  • 13 December - Klaus Armstrong-Braun, environmentalist
  • 24 December - John Marek, politician
  • date unknown
  • Donald Evans, poet
  • Keith Miles, detective 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

    1940 in Wales Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA