Full Project Title: Glan-llyn, crud y cynnwrf
Doctoral Researcher: Beryl H. Griffiths
Supervised by: Dr Lowri Ann Rees and Dr Mari Wiliam
This will be a study of the Glan-llyn estate in Meirionnydd. It became part of the huge Wynnstay estate which included lands in the counties of North Wales and Shropshire in the eighteenth century. The project will depict the estate's historical background and the way in which many of the small estates in the area were absorbed into it. But the intention is to focus on the glory days of the nineteenth century when it controlled the parish of Llanuwchllyn, almost in its entirety. This was a period when the political, educational and religious tensions between the landlord and his steward and the tenants were at their height.
This estate offers an exceptional case study to analyse the dynamics of an estate in the political, social, religious, educational and cultural context of the nineteenth century in Wales, particularly the relationship between tenant and landlord and between the community and the landlord.
Given that Llanuwchllyn was the birthplace of some of Wales' most prominent leaders at the time, people such as Michael D Jones and Owen M Edwards, the intention is to investigate the influence of the estate on the ideas and politics of both and the wider implications of this. The fact that the estate was eventually sold to its tenants is also an element that will have to be studied.
