Thanks to the hard work of Library Staff, the Gregynog Press collection is now on FINDit. Read our news item and find out how they bought the collection to light.
The Gregynog Press collection is now on FINDit.
Because of the age and value of the items, this collection can only be accessed by prior arrangement with library services. To view the resources on campus, students and staff should email library staff on librarysupport@southwales.ac.uk
Margaret and Gwendoline Davies were wealthy sisters and philanthropists. They bought Gregnyog Hall - a large estate nestled in the Powys countryside near Newtown - in 1920 to celebrate and promote arts, crafts and music for the Welsh people. The printing press was set up in 1922.
© Image from Gregynog: The Davies sisters | Gregynog
One of the oldest Gregynog titles we have is "Caneuon Ceiriog" - a collection of posthumous poems by esteemed Welsh poet, John Ceiriog Hughes (pictured) and selected by John Lloyd-Jones. Published in 1925, the woodcut illustrations by Robert Ashwin Maynard and Horace Walter Bray throughout the book are typical of Gregynog's earlier printing style.
From 1923 until 1939, Gregynog Press published one or two limited editions a year using traditional letterpress printers, woodcut and high-quality handmade paper. The books were published in Welsh, English or in both languages. They were mixture of poems, prose and biblical tales.
This is a favourite of USW Library staff: The beautifully designed and bound Welsh langiage book "Clych Atgof" by Owen M. Edwards. It was published in 1933 as an ilustrated autobiography detailing Welsh places and times of personal significance.
In Clytch Atgof - chapter 'Ysgol Y Llan', Edwards recounts happy early childhood memories. He remembers his first encounters in the hills near his home with his father, learning and identifying the flora and fauna, skipping over rocks and through streams and discovering nesting sites of birds. He paints a vivid picture of learning and growing in the great outdoors before starting traditional school, which is depicted in the woodcut illustration by William MacCance.
Over two decades, books published by Gregynog Press reflected the changing styles of the pressmen and illustrators who worked there.
This title page for "Visions of a Sleeping Bard" was illustrated by Blair Hughes-Stanton, a dual Welsh and English title published in 1940.
Gregynog stopped printing soon after the start of World War II when most of the predominantly male work force were called up to fight.
Gwendoline died in 1951 and in 1960, Margaret donated Gregynog to University of Wales. She remained there as tenant until her death in 1963.
In 1965, the old Gregynog Press went into liquidation. The University of Wales bought out the printing press & renamed it Gwasg Gregynog. Production restarted in 1976 when Laboratories of the Spirit, a collection of spiritual poems by R.S. Thomas was published.
Over the years, many of our Gregynog titles were donated to us by lecturers and academics.
Miss Phyllis Morris - a Welsh speaking teacher of history - donated Lamentations of Jeremiah to Barry Training College in 1949. She had been teaching for 11 years when she donated the book under the leadership of Ellen Evans, the formidable principal and leader who had a considerable impact on embedding the Welsh language into schools throughout Wales.
In the 1930s, Ellen Evans raised enough money to build a chapel for reading and reflection. It was known as "The Quiet Room" - Yr Hedd-dŷ or ‘House of Peace’. It housed a valuable collection of books printed at Gregynog where Ellen’s friend Dora Herbert Jones, an occasional visitor to the college, was based*.
Several stickers in the donated Gregynog books at USW depict this listed building which still exists in Barry today. This black and white photograph - taken sometime in the early 1990s, show the chapel next to the former polytechnic of Wales (which Glamorgan Training College merged with in the 1970s).
Alice Ethel Philpott (1885-1970) worked closely with Ellen Evans throughout her career at Glamorgan Training College.
Born in Finchley, Alice was living in Llandaff by 1901 as a pupil in Howell's School. In 1905, she graduated from Cardiff University with a BA Honours in History. She worked as a schoolteacher in Reading and Bristol until she was recruited as one of the first lecturers of Glamorgan Training College in 1914. She had risen the ranks to Vice Principal by the start of World War II in 1939.
She turned 60 in 1945, so the message was likely to signal her forthcoming retirement, paying tribute to 'thirty one years of happy work'.
Photograph ©: Glamorgan Archives, Publisher Ref: ECOLLB/73/7. Sourced from People's Collection Wales.
© Images reproduced with the kind permission of Gwasg Gregynog and The Davies Trust
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