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Why Plaid Cymru is the Best Choice for Wales in the 2026 Senedd Elections
By Antony David Davies FRSA Although I now live in England, my roots run deep in Welsh soil. My elderly mother still resides in the quiet heartlands of rural mid-Wales, where I was raised on a tradition of civic responsibility, cultural pride, and community resilience. Every decision I make — from the words I write…
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Keeping the flame: Why I joined the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion — and why it matters for Wales
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…
Antony David Davies FIoL FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI
Welsh history, biography & cultural memory
Welcome
I am Antony David Davies, a Welsh historian, biographer, and cultural commentator. My work explores the overlooked lives and moral worlds of rural Wales — its farming families, Nonconformist chapels, local institutions, and the inherited codes of duty, belief, and respectability that shaped everyday life.
Through books, long-form biography, and public writing, I seek to recover fragile records and silenced voices, and to place them back within their proper historical, cultural, and human contexts. Much of my work is rooted in long-term genealogical and archival research, but it is also shaped by lived experience and a deep personal connection to the landscapes and communities I write about.
I am particularly concerned with how power, memory, and authority operate — within families, churches, charities, workplaces, and civic life — and with what happens when those structures fail the people they are meant to serve. My writing asks not only how the past worked, but what it still demands of us.
This site brings together my books, published articles, and ongoing research, alongside reflections on history, identity, governance, and cultural responsibility in modern Wales.
➡️ Read my published articles
➡️ Explore my books & research
📘 Latest publication
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.
Antony David Davies FIoL FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI 