The two best volumes on the history of Wales are John Davies, A History of Wales (Oxford, 1993), and K.O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation (Oxford, 1981). An account that is especially good on the equivocal role of Wales within the British state is G.A. Williams, When Was Wales? (London, 1985). The most accessible account tracing the fortunes of the Welsh language and its associated culture is Janet Davies, The Welsh Language (Cardiff, Wales, 1993).
A popular and detailed account of the Welsh in Canada is Carol Bennett, In Search of the Red Dragon (Renfrew, Ont., 1985), while David Greenslade’s Welsh Fever (Bridgend, U.K., 1986) provides a region-by-region overview of Welsh activities in North America. The single best academic account is Muriel Chamberlain, ed., The Welsh in Canada (Swansea, U.K., 1986), with particularly insightful essays by W.K. Davies on the history and geography of Welsh settlement and by Peter Thomas on the first Welsh settlements in Canada. Thomas’s monograph, Strangers from a Secret Land: The Voyages of the Brig Albion and the Founding of the First Welsh Settlements in Canada (Cardiff and Toronto, 1986), examines both the conditions influencing the departure of the settlers from West Wales in 1819 and their subsequent struggle with the new land during the first generation. The counterclaims of Cambriol, Newfoundland, to be Canada’s first Welsh settlement are discussed by Gillian Cell, Newfoundland Discovered (London, 1985), and in her contributions to Britain’s Dictionary of National Biography on Lewis Roberts (1985), Sir William Vaughan (1985), and Edward Wynne (1985).
The careers of individual Welsh explorers are traced in A. Davies, “Prince Madoc and the Discovery of America in 1477,” Geographical Journal, vol.150 (1984), 363–72; Gwyn A. Williams, Madoc: The Making of a Myth (London, 1979); and G.A. Williams, The Search for Beulah Land (London, 1980).
The first Welsh settlement near London, Ontario, was the subject of F.T. Rosser, “The Welsh Settlement of Upper Canada” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Western Ontario, 1954), and also of Muriel Chamberlain’s “The Welsh Settlement Near London, Ontario,” Minerva, vol.1, no.1 (1993), 17–22.
The fluctuations in Welsh migration flows are treated as part of more general British population movements in J.R. Burnet and H. Palmer, “Coming Canadians”: An Introduction to a History of Canada’s Peoples (Toronto, 1988). The only detailed treatment of Welsh emigration rates in the nineteenth century is W.R. Johnston, “The Welsh Diaspora: Emigrating around the World in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Llafur: Journal of Welsh Labour History, vol.6, no.2 (1993), 50–74.
The Welsh relocation from Argentina’s Patagonia to Saskatchewan in 1902, together with governmental support for attracting more Welsh settlers to Canada, is covered in L.H. Thomas, “From the Pampas to the Prairies: The Welsh Migration of 1902,” Saskatchewan History, vol.24, no.1 (1971), 1–12, and idem., “Welsh Settlement in Saskatchewan 1902–04,” Western Historical Quarterly, vol.4, no.4 (1973), 435–49. The same episode is covered with more detail on Patagonia in R.O. Jones’s excellent account, “From Wales to Saskatchewan via Patagonia,” in C. Byrne, M. Hamry and P.O. Siadhail, eds., Celtic Languages and Celtic People (Halifax, N.S., 1992), 619–43; and in G.W. MacLennan, “A Contribution to the Ethno-History of Saskatchewan’s Patagonian Welsh Settlement,” Canadian Ethnic Studies, vol.8, no.2, (1975), 57–72.
Good examples of local Welsh-Canadian historical accounts are H.D. Atkinson and E.R. Smith, eds., Land of My Fathers: Shelbourne County Nova Scotia’s Early Welsh Families, 2 vols. (Yarmouth, N.S., 1989); and K. Hughes and G. Jones, eds., From Wales to Wood River and Surrounding Districts (Ponoka, Alta., 1980).
Unpublished documentation may be found in the Glenys James Collection JAM 4/2 at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, which includes taped interviews in both Welsh and English together with The Welsh in Canada: Report Submitted to the Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies (Ottawa, 1974). The National Library of Wales also holds the original account which inspired Peter Thomas’s Strangers from a Secret Land, namely “Hanes ail fordaith y Brig Albion ynghyd a’i mor-deithwyr i’r America Ogleddol yn y Flwyddyn 1819” (The history of the second voyage of the Brig Albion together with its sea passengers to North America in the year 1819; Carmarthen, Wales, 1819).
Within Canada the best archival collection is the Welsh Canadian Papers (Series 83) of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, which span the period between 1904 and 1978, and include letters, church records, biographical notes on prominent Welsh-Canadian religious figures, music and cultural festivals, and radio broadcasts. A rich, if fragmented, documentary source, it also covers non-Ontario material, such as the St David’s Society of Montreal Papers, the Salem Welsh Presbyterian Church of Montreal records and reports, and constitutions and dealings of Welsh societies across Canada, particularly in Vancouver.
Public libraries and city archives in Calgary, Regina, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa, and London have holdings on the Welsh, and material can also be found at the libraries of the University of Toronto, the University of Manitoba, and Dalhousie University. Details of land holdings and early maps depicting the distribution of Welsh settlers may be consulted in the University of Toronto Map Library (in particular the Toronto, Sudbury, Charlottetown, Cornwall, and Cardigan Bay settlements). The Serge Sauer Map Library of the University of Western Ontario has an outstanding collection of historical maps including documentation on the Welsh in Upper Canada in general and Middlesex County in particular, especially around Denfield, Lobo, and North Dorchester, Ontario. Cf. The Historical Atlas of Middlesex County (Toronto, 1878). Another important source is the Hudson Bay Company Archives in London, England, and at the Provincial Archives of Manitoba.
