1889 in Wales

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1889 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales – Clwydfardd

• Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey – Richard Davies
• Lord Lieutenant of Brecknockshire – Joseph Bailey, 1st Baron Glanusk
• Lord Lieutenant of Caernarvonshire – John Ernest Greaves
• Lord Lieutenant of Cardiganshire – Herbert Davies-Evans
• Lord Lieutenant of Carmarthenshire – John Campbell, 2nd Earl Cawdor
• Lord Lieutenant of Denbighshire – William Cornwallis-West
• Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire – Hugh Robert Hughes
• Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan – Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot
• Lord Lieutenant of Merionethshire – Robert Davies Pryce
• Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire – Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort
• Lord Lieutenant of Montgomeryshire – Edward Herbert, 3rd Earl of Powis
• Lord Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire – William Edwardes, 4th Baron Kensington
• Lord Lieutenant of Radnorshire – Arthur Walsh, 2nd Baron Ormathwaite

• Bishop of Bangor – James Colquhoun Campbell
• Bishop of Llandaff – Richard Lewis
• Bishop of St Asaph – Joshua Hughes (until 21 January) Alfred George Edwards (from 25 March)
• Bishop of St Davids – Basil Jones

Events

• January – First Glamorgan County Council elections are held.
• 8 February – Nine people drown in a ferry accident at Pembroke Dock.
• 14 February – The first edition of the North Wales Weekly News is published (under the title Weekly News and Visitors’ Chronicle for Colwyn Bay, Colwyn, Llandrillo, Conway, Deganway and Neighbourhood).
• 13 March – Twenty miners are killed in an accident at the Brynmally Colliery, Wrexham.
• 1 April – New elected county councils in England and Wales created by the Local Government Act 1888, take up their powers. That for Radnorshire meets in Presteigne.
• June – A lion escapes from a travelling menagerie at Llandrindod Wells.
• 18 July – Opening of the first dock basin at Barry.
• 3 August – Opening of Hawarden Bridge.
• 12 August – The passing of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act marks the beginning of secondary education in Wales.
• 15 August – Three men are killed in a mining accident at Wenvoe Quarry, Glamorgan.
• 26 August – Act of incorporation of the Barry Railway Company#Vale of Glamorgan Railway.
• Approximate date – The Showmen's Guild of Great Britain is co-founded in Salford as the United Kingdom Van Dwellers Protection Association by Jacob Studt and other active Welsh cinema pioneers.

Arts and literature

Awards

National Eisteddfod of Wales – held at Brecon

• Chair – Evan Rees, "Y Beibl Cymraeg"
• Crown – Howell Elvet Lewis

New books

• Owen Morgan Edwards – O'r Bala i Geneva

Music

• Sir Henry Walford Davies – The Future, for chorus and orchestra

Sport

• Cricket – Glamorgan County Cricket Club plays its first match, against Warwickshire at Cardiff Arms Park.
• Rugby union – Bedwas RFC, Blackwood RFC and Llantwit Major RFC are formed.

Births

• 12 January – John Bryn Edwards, ironmaster and philanthropist (died 1922)
• 22 January – John Emlyn-Jones, politician (died 1952)
• 28 January – Phil Waller, Wales and British Lions rugby player (died 1917)
• 31 January – Jack Evans, footballer (died 1971)
• 1 February – John Lewis, philosopher (died 1976)
• 10 February – Howard Spring, novelist (died 1965)
• 28 February – George Jeffreys, Pentecostal (died 1962)
• 5 May – Stanley Winmill, Wales international rugby union player (died 1940)
• 24 June – Harry Symonds, cricketer (died 1945)
• 17 July – Aled Owen Roberts, politician (died 1949)
• 5 August – William Davies Thomas, academic (died 1954)
• 10 August – Irene Steer, swimmer (died 1977)
• 21 August – Henry Lewis, Professor at Swansea University (died 1968)
• 23 October – William Havard, Bishop of St Davids and international rugby player (died 1956)
• 11 December – Cedric Morris, artist (died 1982)

Deaths

• 21 January – Joshua Hughes, Bishop of St Asaph, 81
• 27 March – John Bright, Radical politician associated with Llandudno, 77
• 10 April – Kilsby Jones, nonconformist minister, writer and lecturer, 76
• 27 May – George Owen Rees, Welsh-Italian doctor, 75
• 8 June – Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anglo-Welsh poet, 44 (in Ireland)
• 17 June – John Hughes, industrialist, 73 (in St Petersburg)
• 26 June – Walter Rice Howell Powell, landowner and politician, 69
• 28 September – Samuel Goldsworthy, Wales international rugby player, 34
• 15 October – Sir Daniel Gooch, railway engineer and politician, 73
• 29 October – Godfrey Darbishire, Wales rugby international player, 36
• 14 November – James Stephens, stonemason, Chartist, and later Australian trade unionist, 68
• 18 November – Charles Easton Spooner, railway pioneer, 71
• date unknown – G. Phillips Bevan, statistician, geographer and author, 59/60
• probable – Richard Williams Morgan, clergyman and poet

See also

• 1889 in Ireland

References