1889 in Wales

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

← 1888 1887 1886 1885 1884 1889 in Wales → 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
See also:	List of years in Wales 1889 in The United Kingdom Ireland Scotland

Incumbents

• Prince of Wales – Albert Edward
• Princess of Wales – Alexandra
• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales – Clwydfardd

Events

• January – First Glamorgan County Council elections are held.[1]
• 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).[2]
• 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.[3][4][5] That for Radnorshire meets in Presteigne.
• June – A lion escapes from a travelling menagerie at Llandrindod Wells.[6]
• 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.[7]
• 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"[8]
• 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)[9]
• 31 January – Jack Evans, footballer (died 1971)
• 1 February – John Lewis, philosopher (died 1976)
• 10 February – Howard Spring, novelist (died 1965)[10]
• 28 February – George Jeffreys, Pentecostalist (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)[11]
• 23 October – William Havard, Bishop of St Davids and international rugby player (died 1956)[12]
• 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[13]
• 10 April – Kilsby Jones, nonconformist minister, writer and lecturer, 76[14]
• 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)[15]
• 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[16]
• 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[17]
• date unknown – G. Phillips Bevan, statistician, geographer and author, 59/60[18]
• probable – Richard Williams Morgan, clergyman and poet

References

1. "The County Council Elections". Cambrian. 18 January 1889. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
2. "Weekly News 125: How it all began 125 years ago..." www.dailypost.co.uk. Daily Post. 13 February 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
3. Edwards, John (1955). "County". Chambers's Encyclopedia. London: Newnes. pp. 189–191.
4. "The County Council Elections". The Times (32595). London. 14 January 1889. p. 10.
5. "The County Councils". The Times (32601). 21 January 1889. p. 10.
6. Clay, Jeremy (19 April 2014). "Victorian strangeness: The tale of the lion and the spa break". BBC. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
7. Western Mail - Friday 16 August 1889, p.3, Accessed via The British Newspaper Archive (subscription required). Retrieved 19 November 2014.
8. "Winners of the Chair". National Eisteddfod of Wales. 3 October 2019.
9. Nigel McCrery (29 January 2014). Into Touch: Rugby Internationals Killed in the Great War. Pen and Sword. p. 252. ISBN 978-1-78159-087-4.
10. Contemporary Authors. Gale Research Company. 1975. p. 594. ISBN 978-0-8103-0036-1.
11. David Myrddin Lloyd. "Lewis, Henry (1889-1968), Welsh and Celtic scholar, university professor". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
12. Mary Gwendoline Ellis. "Havard, William (1889-1956), bishop". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
13. Trevelyan, George Macaulay (1913) The Life of John Bright. Pages 462-3
14. Smith, Robert V. "Jones, James Rhys Kilsby". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15019. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
15. "John Hughes". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
16. Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland. S. Low, Marston & Company. 1923. p. 363.
17. Peter Johnson (30 April 2017). Festiniog Railway: The Spooner Era and After, 1830–1920. Pen & Sword Books. p. 176. ISBN 978-1-4738-6988-2.
18. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Bevan, William Latham" . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). 1. London: Smith, Elder & Co.