Immigrants and Minorities in Wales, 1840–1990: A Comparative Perspective

Václav Havel believes that a nation can be judged by the way it treats minorities.² Wales has often measured itself favourably by this standard and outsiders have also applied the same rule. It is an encapsulation of one of the subthemes of the Welsh idea of thegwerin– the Welsh people were the most upright, God-fearing, radical, moral, philosophical, cultured and tolerant in the world. The principled internationalism of thegwerinreceives some academic support from one of the major studies in modern Welsh social history, Hywel Francis and David Smith’s The Fed: A History of the South Wales