Antony David Davies FIoL FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI

Wales is a nation woven together by memory and identity. Its story is told not only through the slate quarries, chapel pulpits, and small farms of our landscape, but also through the societies and institutions that have sustained Welshness far beyond our own borders. One of the most remarkable of these is the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion.

Founded in 1751 by Welshmen living in London, the Cymmrodorion was conceived as a cultural and intellectual haven for the Welsh diaspora. In an age when many sought fortune and professional advancement in England, it provided a way to maintain a distinctly Welsh sense of self — to nurture the language, literature, and social bonds of a people determined not to be lost in the swirl of metropolitan life.

Over the centuries, its members have included poets and prime ministers, historians and harpists, Nonconformist preachers and aristocrats — all united by a common commitment to the cultural vitality of Wales. From fostering the Eisteddfod tradition to championing the National Library at Aberystwyth, the Society has quietly shaped the national story.

Last month I joined the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion myself. It might seem a small gesture — the simple act of paying a subscription and adding a line to a biography. But for me, as a historian of Welsh rural life and family memory, it carries profound meaning. It is a way of placing my own work — researching and writing about the chapels, farmsteads, and values that built upland Wales — into a living tradition of Welsh cultural stewardship that stretches back nearly three centuries.

It is also, in a way, a deeply personal return. One of my ancestors, William Jones of Dolgellau, left Merionethshire in the early 1800s to make his way as a solicitor in London, where he too joined the Cymmrodorion. For him, membership was a sign of professional standing and a statement of enduring Welsh identity in the heart of the imperial capital. That I should follow, two hundred years later, feels like a quiet continuity of family allegiance to the nation’s cultural life.

At a time when Welsh communities — especially in our rural heartlands — face demographic decline, economic fragility, and the erosion of cultural institutions, societies like the Cymmrodorion remind us of the importance of deliberate, conscious belonging. They are more than nostalgic clubs. They are places where history, language, and ambition are nurtured, debated, and projected forward.

Joining the Cymmrodorion means aligning oneself with that cause. It means recognising that the story of Wales is never secure — it must be retold and renewed, generation by generation, whether in the hills of Montgomeryshire or the streets of Westminster.

If we care about the future of Wales — not merely as a geographical space, but as a living culture with its own distinctive values and voice — we need to support and engage with these institutions. They are part of the fragile scaffolding that holds up our national consciousness.

For my part, membership is a promise to keep doing the work: to research, to write, to advocate, and to ensure that the overlooked lives of Welsh farming families and chapel congregations are remembered, not only as curiosities of the past, but as building blocks of who we still are.