http://www.womensarchivewales.org/

Archif Menywod Cymru / Women's Archive of Wales, c/o Richard Burton Archives, Swansea (2026)

03/04/2026

HALEN Y DDAEAR? / SALT OF THE EARTH?

Women’s Archive Wales’ History Day School this year will be held in St Michael’s Centre, Pen y Pound, Abergavenny, NP7 5UD on Tuesday 12th May 9.30-3.30.

The title of the Day School is ‘Salt of the Earth?’ Discovering the History and Heritage of the Women of north Monmouthshire and there will be an opportunity to learn more about some of the remarkable women of the area, including those who campaigned for the vote for women; a workshop on the 1924 Peace Petition; films from the ‘Women and Sport’ and ‘ The Commemoration of the Equalities Legislation of the 1970s’ projects and a glimpse into the women recorded in Gwent Archives.

Please register through emailing [email protected] or through Eventbrite, by searching 'Halen y Ddaear?' / 'Salt of the Earth?', Iink below. We will be asking attendees for a donation of £10 at the door to help pay room hire fees and teas/coffees. ALL WELCOME – members and friends.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/halen-y-ddaear-salt-of-the-earth-tickets-1984707787419?aff=oddtdtcreator

03/04/2026

HALEN Y DDAEAR?

Cynhelir Ysgol Undydd Hanes, Archif Menywod Cymru eleni yng Nghanolfan Sant Mihangel, Pen y Pound, Y Fenni, NP7 5UD ar ddydd Mawrth 12fed Mai, 9.30-3.30.

Teitl yr Ysgol Undydd yw: ‘Halen y Ddaear?’ Darganfod Hanes a Threftadaeth Menywod gogledd Sir Fynwy a bydd cyfle i glywed hanesion rhai o fenywod rhyfeddol yr ardal, gan gynnwys ymgyrchwyr dros y bleidlais i fenywod; gweithdy ar Ddeiseb Heddwch 1924; ffilmiau’r prosiectau ‘Menywod a Chwaraeon’ a ‘Cofio Deddfau Cydraddoldeb yr 1970au’ a golwg ar fenywod yn Archifdy Gwent.

Gellir Cofrestru trwy ebostio [email protected] neu trwy Eventbrite gyda’r teitl ‘Halen y Ddaear?’ ‘Salt of the Earth?’, dolen isod. Gofynnwn yn garedig am rodd o £10 wrth y drws i dalu am gostau llogi ystafell a choffi / te.

CROESO CYNNES I BAWB – aelodau a ffrindiau.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/halen-y-ddaear-salt-of-the-earth-tickets-1984707787419?aff=oddtdtcreator

24/03/2026

Celebrating the Women and Sport: Wales project in Y Drwm, National Library of Wales – Monday 16th March 2026

It was a pleasure to welcome a good audience, including Archive members and friends, members of Aberystwyth Football Club and about twenty Ysgol Penweddig schoolgirls, to celebrate the success and completion of the Women and Sport Wales project. It was a special pleasure to have the company of several notable athletes: Lisa Pudner, who competed in power-lifting at the Sydney Para Olympic Games in 2000 and who had travelled from Llanelli to be with us, and Anwen Butten, her mother Anita Williams and her daughter Alys, from Lampeter all three winners of national and international championships in Lawn Bowling. Anwen spoke about her experiences as a competitor and her period as Captain of Team Wales for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The main aim of the celebration was to hand over of the disk of the oral histories filmed to the safekeeping of the National Screen and Sound Archive and the disk of pictures of community sports (500 of them) to be transferred to the People’s Collection Wales website. It was also a chance to appreciate the film ‘What’s the Score?’ (see above) on a large Drwm screen – a very special experience. Many thanks to Nia Dafydd, NSSA for organising the event so successfully and for the tasty refreshments!

24/03/2026

Dathlu prosiect Menywod a Chwaraeon: Cymru yn Y Drwm Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – Dydd Llun, Mawrth 16eg 2026

Braf oedd croesawu cynulleidfa dda, yn cynnwys aelodau’r Archif a ffrindiau, aelodau o dîm pêl-droed Menywod Aberystwyth a thuag ugain o ddisgyblion Ysgol Penweddig i ddathlu llwyddiant a chwblhau ein prosiect Menywod a Chwaraeon: Cymru. Pleser arbennig oedd cael cwmni sawl athletwraig o fri: Lisa Pudner cystadleuydd ar bŵer-godi yng Ngemau Para Olympaidd Sydney yn 2000 a oedd wedi teithio o Lanelli i fod gyda ni; ac Anwen Butten, ei mam Anita Willams a’i merch Alys o Lanbedr pont Steffan - y tair yn enillwyr pencampwriaethau bowlio lawnt yn Genedlaethol a rhyngwladol. Siaradodd Anwen am ei phrofiadau fel chwaraewraig ac yn arbennig am ei chyfnod yn gapten Tîm Cymru yng Ngemau’r Gymanwlad yn 2022.

Prif nod y dathlu oedd trosglwyddo disg yr hanesion llafar a ffilmiwyd i ofal Archif Sgrin a Sain Cymru a disg y lluniau o chwaraeon cymunedol (500 ohonynt ) i ofal Berian Elias, Casgliad y Werin Cymru. Roedd cael cyfle i werthfawrogi camp y ffilm ‘Beth yw’r Sgôr’ (gweler uchod) ar sgrin fawr y Drwm yn brofiad arbennig iawn. Diolch i Nia Dafydd, ASSGC, am drefnu’r digwyddiad mor llwyddiannus ac am y lluniaeth blasus!

14/03/2026

GALW AM BAPURAU ar gyfer ein 29ain Cynhadledd Flynyddol a gynhelir ar Ddydd Sadwrn 3 Hydref a dydd Sul 4 Hydref 2026 yn Adeilad Faraday, Campws Singleton, Parc Singleton, Prifysgol Abertawe, Abertawe.

Mae ein cynhadledd yn fforwm i unrhyw un sydd â diddordeb yn hanes menywod yng Nghymru, boed yn academaidd neu’n amatur, i gyflwyno eu gwaith a derbyn adborth mewn awyrgylch hamddenol a chyfeillgar. Gwahoddir papurau gan haneswyr proffesiynol ac amatur, archifyddion, ac eraill sydd â diddordeb mewn unrhyw agwedd ar hanes menywod yng Nghymru i'w cynnwys yn rhaglen y gynhadledd. Bydd croeso arbennig i gynigion gan ymchwilwyr a myfyrwyr newydd [sylwer hefyd ein bod yn cynnig Bwrsariaeth Avril Rolph ar gyfer un papur o’r fath a gyflwynwyd – gweler yr atodiad]. Rydym yn croesawu papurau yn Gymraeg ac yn Saesneg.

Gan amlaf mae papurau yn para 20-30 munud. Dylai cyfranwyr anfon crynodeb o tua 150-200 o eiriau yn amlinellu'r themâu allweddol i'w cwmpasu a bywgraffiad byr 100 gair.

Dylid anfon ceisiadau erbyn dydd Mawrth 19 Mai 2026.
E-bostiwch eich crynodebau neu’ch ymholiadau i: [email protected]

Dylid nodi mai elusen yw Archif Menywod Cymru a bod aelodau’n gweithio’n wirfoddol. Am y rheswm hwn, ni allwn gynnig treuliau.

Diolch i chi am eich diddordeb, edrychwn ymlaen at glywed gennych, a gobeithiwn y byddwch yn manteisio ar y cyfle hwn i gyfrannu at ein cynhadledd.

14/03/2026

CALL FOR PAPERS for our 29th Annual Conference to be held on
Saturday 3th October and Sunday 4th October 2026 at the Faraday Building, Singleton Campus, Singleton Park, Swansea University, Swansea.

Our conference is an opportunity for anyone who has an interest in the history of women in Wales to share their work with interested and supportive colleagues. We invite professional and amateur historians, archivists and others who have an interest in any aspect of the history of women in Wales to submit papers which will be part of the programme of our Conference. We especially welcome submissions from new students and researchers and would especially like to draw their attention to the Avril Rolph Bursary (please see the attached details). We welcome papers in both English and Welsh.

Papers should be 20-30 minutes in length, and we ask that you submit a summary of 150-200 words outlining their key themes. We would also ask that you submit a short biography of about 100 words.

Submissions should be made by Tuesday 19th May 2026. Please email your submissions or any queries to:

[email protected]

As we are a charity, run by volunteers, we are unable to offer any fees or expenses to speakers.

Thank you for your interest and support, we look forward to hearing from you and sincerely hope that you are able to take this opportunity to contribute to our conference.

06/03/2026

MARCH ZOOM LECTURE

The next Zoom lecture will be ‘The Diary of Amy Dillwyn: editing a Victorian life’ by Professor Kirsti Bohata to be held on Wednesday 18th March at 4pm.

The novelist, campaigner and industrialist, Amy Dillwyn, kept a daily journal from the age of 17 until she was nearly 30. Later travel journals and more sporadic journal entries provide an insight into key moments of her life, including her extraordinary industrial career.

Written with a self-deprecating humour, the diaries provide a rare glimpse into upper-middle class life in south Wales and London. More importantly, and unusually, Amy Dillwyn wrote down some of her innermost thoughts and feelings about her struggles as a young woman coming of age in mid-Victorian Wales. We see colliery villagers and their children through the earnest but often perplexed eyes of a woman trying to find a purpose in life, her excitement and frustration with fashionable London society, and witness the turmoil of her passionate feelings for her ‘bien aimée’, Olive. Later we encounter Dillwyn’s frustrations at her failing health and newfound energy as a businesswoman and feminist.

This talk will give a flavour of the diaries and the extraordinary life they document and comment on the process of abridging and editing almost half a million words for publication. The Diary of Amy Dillwyn, 1863-1917 was published by the South Wales Record Society in 2025 https://www.southwalesrecordsociety.co.uk/37.htm

Kirsti Bohata is Professor of English Literature and co-Director of CREW, the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales, at Swansea University. She is the author of several essays on the fiction of Amy Dillwyn, as well as publishing on Welsh writing in English more widely. Recent books include the co-edited volume of short stories, with Mihangel Morgan and Huw Osborne, Q***r Square Mile: Q***r Short Stories from Wales (Parthian, 2022) which includes one of Amy Dillwyn’s stories, and the co-authored book, with Alexandra Jones, Mike Mantin and Steven Thompson, Disability in Industrial Britain: A cultural and literary history of impairment in British coalfields 1880-1948 (Manchester University Press, 2020).

To book a link [by Monday 16th March] please email: [email protected]

[Please note that this lecture will not be recorded]

06/03/2026

DARLITH ZŴM MIS MAWRTH

Darlith nesaf yr Archif fydd ‘The Diary of Amy Dillwyn: editing a Victorian life’ gan yr Athro Kirsti Bohata i'w chynnal ar Ddydd Mercher 18fed Mawrth am 4 o’r gloch.

Roedd y nofelydd, yr ymgyrchydd a’r ddiwydiannwraig Amy Dillwyn, yn cadw dyddlyfr o 17 mlwydd oed tan ei bod bron yn 30 oed. Mae dyddlyfrau teithio diweddarach a chofnodion dyddlyfrau achlysurol eraill yn taflu goleuni pellach ar agweddau allweddol o’i bywyd, gan gynnwys ei gyrfa ddiwydiannol ryfeddol.

Wedi eu hysgrifennu gyda hiwmor hunan-fychanol, mae’r dyddiaduron yn cynnig cipolwg prin o fywyd y dosbarth canol-uwch yn ne Cymru a Llundain. Yn bwysicach, ac yn anarferol, cofnododd Amy Dillwyn rai o’i meddyliau a’i theimladau dyfnaf am ei hymdrechion yn fenyw ifanc yn dod i oed yng Nghymru ganol oes Victoria. Gwelwn bentrefwyr glofaol a’u plant trwy lygaid difrif, ond dryslyd droeon, menyw yn ceisio cael hyd i bwrpas i’w bywyd, ei chyffro a’i rhwystredigaeth gyda chymdeithas ffasiynol Llundain, a thystiwn i drybestod ei theimladau angerddol am ei ‘bien aimée’, Olive. Yn ddiweddarach, ymglywn â rhwystredigaeth Amy gyda’i hiechyd brau a’i hynni adnewyddol yn fenyw fusnes a ffeminydd.

Bydd y sgwrs hon yn cynnig blas o’r dyddiaduron a’r bywyd rhyfeddol a groniclir ynddynt a bydd yn trafod y broses o dalfyrru a golygu bron i hanner miliwn o eiriau i’w cyhoeddi. Cyhoeddwyd The Diary of Amy Dillwyn, 1863-1917 gan Gymdeithas Gofnodion De Cymru yn 2025 https://www.southwalesrecordsociety.co.uk/37.htm

Mae Kirsti Bohata yn Athro Llenyddiaeth Saesneg a chyd-Gyfarwyddwr CREW, Canolfan Ymchwil i Lenyddiaeth Saesneg ac Iaith Cymru, Prifysgol Abertawe. Mae hi’n awdur sawl traethawd ar ffuglen Amy Dillwyn, ac mae wedi cyhoeddi yn ehangach am awduron Cymreig sy’n ysgrifennu yn Saesneg. Ymhlith ei llyfrau diweddar mae cyfrol o straeon byrion, ar y cyd â Mihangel Morgan a Huw Osborne, Q***r Square Mile: Q***r Short Stories from Wales (Parthian, 2022) sy’n cynnwys un o storïau Amy Dillwyn, a chyd-awduro llyfr, gydag Alexandra Jones, Mike Mantin a Steven Thompson, Disability in Industrial Britain: A cultural and literary history of impairment in British coalfields 1880-1948 (Gwasg Prifysgol Manceinion, 2020).

I archebu dolen [erbyn dydd Llun 16eg Mawrth] e-bostiwch [email protected] os gwelwch yn dda.

[Nodwch os gwelwch yn dda na chaiff y ddarlith hon ei recordio]

26/02/2026

INVITATION!

We invite you to join Women’s Archive Wales’ special session in Y DRWM, National Library of Wales, on Monday 16 March at 11.00 (for 11.30) to celebrate the amazing success of the Archive’s project ‘Women and Sport: Wales’. When the Archive discovered around two years ago that the members knew the names of famous Welsh male sportswomen such as Gareth Edwards, Gareth Bale, Geraint Thomas and Barry John etc, but couldn’t name any champion sportswoman who has represented Wales at national and international level – even those such as Irene Steer, Nicole Cooke and Elinor Barker etc who had won Olympic Gold Medals - we realised that a project was needed to put right this imbalance.

We began the project in 2023, and two years later we have completed it and reached the aim of helping to raise the profile of women in Wales and safeguarding the sources of that history. We shall be celebrating this in Y Drwm when we will hand over the project’s archive to the National Archive and show the amazing project film ‘What’s the Score?’

Please come and support us. The session will last around an hour with light refreshments to follow. We would love to have your company.

To join the celebration please contact [email protected] – you must register beforehand.

02/02/2026

FEBRUARY ZOOM LECTURE

The next Zoom lecture will be ‘Y merched oedd yn rhan o ddechreuad Plaid Cymru, 1924–6’ [‘The women who were part of the beginning of Plaid Cymru 1924-26’] by Dr Gwen Angharad Gruffudd to be held on Wednesday 18th February at 4pm.

In this talk, Dr Gwen Angharad Gruffudd will examine the contribution of some of the women who were prominent in the establishing of Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru a century ago; among them:

• Elisabeth Williams and her role in the Mudiad Cymreig – one of the three strands which united to form a political party;
• Mai Roberts, the key link in bringing south and north Wales factions together;
• Mallt Williams, the new party’s main sponsor and her contacts with national movements in Scotland and Ireland;
• Kate Roberts, the ‘target member’ who oscillated a great deal before joining.

Each one of these influenced the movement, which was successfully established eventually, and which was celebrating its centenary last year, under the name of Plaid Cymru.

Gwen Angharad Gruffudd comes originally from the village of Rhiwlas in Arfon and she was educated there and in Ysgol Dyffryn Ogwen, Bethesda. Thence she studied for her first degree, her MPhil and doctorate in the Welsh Department, Aberystwyth University and then worked as a fellow on two research projects. Since 2010, she has been an Editor at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. Among her main research interests are the early history of Plaid Cymru and the popular literary culture of the slate-quarrying areas. She co-authored with Arwel Vittle Dros Gymru’n Gwlad: Hanes Sefydlu Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, (on the establishing of Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru) which was published last year to mark its centenary, and this lecture will reflect some of the research undertaken for this volume.

To book a link [by Monday 16th February] please email: [email protected]

This talk is in Welsh with simultaneous translation provided.

14/12/2025

Launching the ‘Women and Sport: Wales’ film and exhibition at St Fagan’s National History Museum.

To celebrate the remarkable success of Women’s Archive Wales’ project ‘Women and Sport: Wales’ an exhibition and film were launched at St Fagan’s National History Museum on December 4th.

It was a delight to meet up with so many of the women who had participated in the project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. In the exhibition you will see the yellow jersey of gold medal Olympic and World Champion cyclist, Nicole Cooke, the skating dress of Olympic skater and judge, Mollie Phillips, the official uniform (skirt, blazer and cap) of swimmer Cynthia Shaddick, who competed in the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958 and other objects such as the taekwondo helmet of twice Olympic gold medalist Jade Jones, the cricket bats of Lynne Thomas, the first person to reach a century in the World Cup and the Wales football cap of pioneer Laura McAllister.

But do sit down too to watch the brilliant film ‘What’s the Score?’, which summaries the oral histories of the women recorded as part of the project – from Eirianwen Thomas, hockey captain, who describes the team’s journey to America on the Queen Mary, to Gwynedd Lingard the petite gymnast faced with dancing the jive with the giant Mohammed Ali, and Kirsty Jones, world champion kite-surfer, on being accompanied by dolphins as she beat the ferry when crossing the Irish Sea. And there is so much more to enjoy and appreciate.

Many thanks to St Fagan’s for facilitating curating this inspiring exhibition. You can visit it until November 27th, 2026. Please call to see it – you will be enthralled and amazed.

Archif Menywod Cymru / Women's Archive of Wales

03/04/2026

03/04/2026

24/03/2026

24/03/2026

14/03/2026

14/03/2026

06/03/2026

06/03/2026

26/02/2026

02/02/2026

14/12/2025

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