1940 in Wales

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1940 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

*Prince of Wales - "vacant"
*Princess of Wales - "vacant"
*Archbishop of Wales - Charles Alfred Howell Green
*Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales - Crwys

Events

*The Urdd changes its policy to include 16 to 25-year-olds.
*27 January - A freak ice storm brings down telephone and electricity lines in many parts of Wales.
*3 March - The steamer "Cato" is damaged by a mine off Nash Point and 13 of the crew are killed.
*May
**The newly-created Coalition Government includes Hugh Dalton as Minister of Economic Warfare.
**Alun Lewis enlists.
*8 May - Three German Heinkel 111s crash in separate incidents over Wales: one near Wrexham, one at Malpas in Denbighshire, and one at Bagillt, Flint. In all nine crew are killed and four captured.
*10 July - Ten people are killed in an air raid on Swansea Docks.
*11 August - Seventeen people are killed in an air raid on Manselton, Swansea.
*14 August - Three German Heinkel 111s are shot down during an air-raid on Cardiff, and another over North Wales after a raid on RAF Hawarden.
*22 August - A steamer, the "Thorold", is sunk by German aircraft off the Skerries. Ten crew are killed.
*2 September - 33 people are killed in an air raid on Swansea.
*3 September - Eleven people are killed in an air raid on Cardiff.
*4 September - A German Junkers 88 crashes near Machynlleth. Four crew and a Gestapo officer are captured.
*13 September - A German Heinkel 111 crashes into a house in Newport, Monmouthshire.
*20 October - Communist minister and poet Thomas Evan Nicholas ("Niclas y Glais") and his son are arrested and interned for "endeavouring to impede recruitment to HM Forces".
*22 November - The steamer "Pikepool" is damaged by a mine off Linney Head, Pembrokeshire, with the loss of 17 crew.
*Gwilym Owen Williams becomes chaplain of St David's College, Lampeter.
*Percy Cudlipp becomes editor of the "Daily Herald".
*Alun Talfan Davies and his brother Aneirin found the publishing house Llyfrau'r Dryw.

Arts and literature

*Lewis Casson directs John Gielgud in "King Lear".

Awards

*National Eisteddfod of Wales (held in Bangor (radio))
*National Eisteddfod of Wales: Chair - "withheld"
*National Eisteddfod of Wales: Crown - T. Rowland Hughes
*National Eisteddfod of Wales: Prose Medal - "withheld"

New books

*"Cyfrol Goffa Richard Bennett"
*Clara Novello Davies - "The Life I Have Loved"
*David Delta Edwards - "Rhedeg ar ôl y Cysgodion"
*John Cowper Powys - "Owen Glendower"
*Howard Spring - "Fame is the Spur"

Music

*Mai Jones & Lyn Joshua - "We'll Keep a Welcome" (performed for the first time in the forces' variety show, "Welsh Rarebit" on February 29)

Film

*Paul Robeson and Rachel Thomas star in "The Proud Valley"

Broadcasting

*February 25 - "The Proud Valley" is the first film to have its première on radio, when the BBC broadcasts a 60-minute version.
*October - The BBC Radio Variety Department relocates to Bangor, Gwynedd because of wartime disruption.

port

*Football
**April 13 - Wales defeat England 1 - 0.
*Quoits - Jack Price wins the Welsh championship for the third time.

Births

*4 January - Professor Brian Josephson
*17 January - Leighton Rees, darts champion
*23 January - Ted Rowlands, politician
*1 March - David Broome, show jumping champion
*16 May - Sir Gareth Roberts, physicist (died 2007)
*7 June - Tom Jones, singer
*29 June - John Dawes, rugby player
*3 September - Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Uruguayan writer of Welsh descent
*12 September - Patrick Mower, Welsh-descended actor
*14 October - Christopher Timothy, actor (in Bala, Gwynedd)
*13 December - Klaus Armstrong-Braun, environmentalist
*24 December - John Marek, politician
*"date unknown" - Donald Evans, poet

Deaths

*12 February - William Edwards, educationist
*21 February - Sir Alfred Edward Lewis, banker
*20 March - William Thomas Edwards (Gwilym Deudraeth), poet
*8 August - Daniel Lleufer Thomas, lawyer and biographer
*20 August - Henry Maldwyn Hughes, Wesleyan minister
*26 September - W. H. Davies, poet and author
*9 October - Sir Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Newfoundland and Labrador
*9 November - Gwilym Owen, physicist
*15 December
**Robert Thomas Jones, quarrymen’s leader
**Sir David Richard Llewellyn, 1st Baronet, industrialist