Antony David Davies FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI MIoL

The Uncrowned Kings: How the Preacher Ruled Victorian Wales

Imagine a Sunday evening in November 1880. Outside, the valley is pitch black, hammered by rain sweeping down from the mountains. But inside the gas-lit chapel, the air is thick with damp wool, peppermint, and anticipation. Five hundred people sit shoulder to shoulder in a silence so taut it hums. They are not waiting for…

antonydaviesfrsa

05/12/2025

Articles

19th-century-wales, Blue Books, Chapel Revival, Christmas Evans, Coalfield History Wales, Cymraeg, Hwyl, Liberal Wales, Methodist History, Nonconformist Wales, Rural Wales, Slate Quarrying Wales, victorian-wales, Wales Social Change, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Communities, Welsh culture, Welsh heritage, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh Language History, Welsh Literacy, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh politics, Welsh Preachers, Welsh Pulpit Tradition, Welsh Radicalism, Welsh Religion, Welsh Revivalism, Welsh Social History, Welsh Theology
Why the English and the Welsh Keep Misunderstanding Each Other — And Why It Still Shapes Modern Britain

We talk endlessly about the politics of the Union, the economics of devolution, and the future of the UK. But beneath all of that lies a quieter, deeper truth: The English and the Welsh speak the same language, but not the same culture.And because no one acknowledges this, we constantly misread each other. These aren’t…

antonydaviesfrsa

03/12/2025

Articles

behavioural culture, bilingualism, British culture, British identity, communication styles, cross-border relations, cultural differences, cultural literacy, cultural misunderstanding, Devolution, england, English culture, English history, English identity, English values, history, identity politics, inter-cultural communication, language, National identity, national stereotypes, Offa’s Dyke, Politics, social psychology, soft power, UK nations, Wales, Welsh culture, Welsh diaspora, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh values, Welsh vs English, workplace culture, writing
Why I Left The Range

By Antony David Davies, FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI MIoL When I finally received the documents from my Subject Access Request, this is how The Range described my departure: “Anthony(sp) left our store with immediate effect, with no communication to anybody in store, only texting the store manager, just left his store keys on the manager’s…

antonydaviesfrsa

10/11/2025

Articles

Antony David Davies, assistant manager experience, British retail, corporate culture, employee wellbeing, ethical workplace, family, fiction, health and safety inspection, integrity at work, leadership failure, leaving The Range, life, management accountability, management dysfunction, mental-health, moral courage, moral leadership, refusing to lie, retail leadership, retail management culture, retail sector, retail whistleblower, SAR disclosure, standing up for integrity, subject access request, The Range, toxic management, toxic workplace, walking out with dignity, whistleblowing, Why I Left The Range, workplace bullying, workplace ethics, workplace truth, writing
“My Relations Are Part of a Rich Tapestry of Welsh Heritage” — My Feature in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine

I’m delighted to share that my family history research has been featured in the latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine. The article, written by Claire Vaughan, explores my decades-long journey tracing my Welsh roots — from hill farmers and Calvinist ministers to a musical icon and a self-taught solicitor — all…

antonydaviesfrsa

04/11/2025

Articles

ancestry research, Antony David Davies, Arthur Owen Jones, British history, Caeadda, Calvinistic Methodists, Charles Shorto, Christ Church Oxford, Davies family, Edwardian Wales, Elinor Bennett, family, family history, family tree, Genealogy, genealogy research, heritage writing, historical biography, history, Llanwrin, magazine feature, Mid Wales history, Montgomeryshire, Oxford archives, Rural Wales, Shorto family, Shropshire history, travel, Trevor Owen Davies, Victorian Wales, Voices from the Uplands, WDYTYA, Welsh ancestry, Welsh culture, Welsh farming families, Welsh heritage, Welsh identity, Welsh language, Welsh music, Welsh Nonconformity, Who Do You Think You Are magazine
Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft: The Gentleman Who Inspired a Historian

When I trace the beginnings of my love of history, I always return to one figure — Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft of Stokesay Court, the elderly baronet who, quite unknowingly, set a child on the path to becoming a historian. I met him in the great Shropshire house that dominated my early world. He would summon…

antonydaviesfrsa

15/10/2025

Articles

20th century biography, AFRHistS, Anglo-Jewish heritage, Antony David Davies, art, biographical writing, books, British biography, British historians, childhood inspiration, Edwardian England, Elizabeth Longford, English country houses, FRSA, Gladstone biographer, historian memoir, historians of character, historical reflection, history, inspiration, intellectual formation, literary biography, Ludlow history, mentorship, moral history, New College Oxford, Onibury Church, rural gentry, Shropshire heritage, Shropshire history, Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft, Stokesay Court, Victorian and Edwardian era, writing
William Halse Gatty Jones (1825 – 1897): From Gold-Rush Melbourne to the Hills of Merioneth

My first cousin four times removed, William Halse Gatty Jones, lived a life that stretched across two hemispheres and mirrored the restless energy of the nineteenth century. Born in London on 8 March 1825, he began as a City solicitor, made his fortune amid the Australian gold rush, and returned to Wales to become a…

antonydaviesfrsa

29/09/2025

Articles

Australian legal history, Borthwnog Estate, City of London history, family history, family history blog, Gatty Jones, Genealogy, Glandwr Hall, history, Jones family history, Law Institute of Victoria, Melbourne gold rush, Merionethshire history, nineteenth century Wales, scotland, Skinners Company, Victorian Legislative Assembly, Victorian Wales, Wales, Welsh ancestors, Welsh diaspora, Welsh emigrants Australia, Welsh genealogy, Welsh landed gentry, William Halse Gatty Jones
Teenage Years on the Doldowlod Hall Estate

The mid-1990s were years of transition in rural Wales. Farming incomes were under strain, country houses were redefining their purpose, and politics in Britain seemed poised between the certainties of Thatcherism and the coming landslide of New Labour. For me, those years were marked most vividly by the Doldowlod Hall estate on the upper reaches…

antonydaviesfrsa

21/09/2025

Articles

1990s-wales, books, british-politics, conservative-party-history, country-estate-life, country-house-history, doldowlod-hall, family history, fiction, forestry-and-woodland-management, garden, gardening, gibson-watt-family, historical-memoir, lady-diana-gibson-watt, Local history, lord-david-gibson-watt, Mid Wales, personal-history, Powys, rhayader, river-wye, rural-heritage, sir-philip-magnus-allcroft, Social history, teenage-memories, Welsh history, welsh-country-houses, writing
When Firelight Forged a Nation: A Machynlleth Tribute to Owain Glyndŵr

On a Dark Winter’s Afternoon, Everything Changed On a wind-lashed winter’s afternoon, my Uncle Glyn beckoned me closer to the hearth. His eyes glowed like ember as he whispered, “Owain Glyndŵr was born from these hills—and he swore to shield every farmer, every family.” In that flickering glow, I felt my heartbeat echo Machynlleth’s ancient…

antonydaviesfrsa

16/09/2025

Articles

Cambrian Mountains, Cymru heritage, england, fireside stories, Glyndwr Day, Machynlleth, Medieval Wales, Nation Cymru, Owain Glyndŵr, travel, uk, Wales, Wales culture, Welsh ancestry, Welsh community, Welsh folklore, Welsh heritage events, Welsh heroes, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh independence, Welsh language, Welsh legends, Welsh nationalism, Welsh parliament, Welsh pride, Welsh storytelling, Welsh tourism, Welsh writers
How Childhood Environments Shape Intellectual Identity: A Historian’s Reflection

When we think about how people become who they are, we often turn to education, professional training, or moments of career opportunity. Yet the truth is that much of what defines our intellectual and professional identity is sown far earlier – in the unnoticed textures of childhood. My own journey as a historian was not…

antonydaviesfrsa

07/09/2025

Articles

education, family, life, memories, writing
Yma o Hyd in My Blood: What My DNA Reveals About the Welsh Story

When we explore family history, we often begin with parish registers, gravestones, and sepia photographs. Yet DNA now allows us to go far deeper, reaching back not hundreds but thousands of years. My own paternal line — the Davies men of Montgomeryshire — has recently been confirmed as belonging to a branch called R-L96. This…

antonydaviesfrsa

26/08/2025

Articles

ancestry, DNA, family history, Genealogy, heritage, history, Wales

Welcome

I’m Antony David Davies FRSA, a historian, biographer and cultural commentator dedicated to exploring the overlooked stories of Welsh rural life, Nonconformity and family memory.

Through my books, articles and public advocacy, I aim to safeguard the fragile records and moral worlds that shaped our upland communities — and to spark wider conversations about the soul of Wales.

Latest

I’m pleased to share my latest book, Voices from the Uplands: The Davies Family and the Soul of Rural Wales, now available on Amazon. With a foreword by Elinor Bennett O.B.E., the book explores the rich cultural, social, and familial heritage of the Davies family of Caeadda, set within the wider story of Montgomeryshire’s upland communities and the disappearing world of rural Welsh life.

Drawing on archival research, oral testimony, and over twenty years of genealogical and historical study, Voices from the Uplands traces how identity, tradition, faith, and landscape shaped generations of families in the Dyfi valley. From Nonconformist chapels to sheep walks and farm kitchens, it offers an intimate portrait of a community whose rhythms and values once defined upland Wales.

📘 Voices from the Uplands is both a deeply personal family history and a broader contribution to understanding the cultural soul of rural Wales at a moment when so much of this world is slipping beyond living memory.