Welsh Journals

READERS will have learnt with great sorrow of the sudden death on 23 June of Charles Loch Mowat, Professor of History at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, since 1958. This is not the occasion for a formal obituary. Others will record Charles Mowat's immense contribution to the study of recent British history, with his Britain between the Wars as a superb achievement of pioneering scholarship, the essential starting-point for all future scholars in the field. Mention will be made elsewhere of his great gifts as a teacher and a supervisor of research, of his contribution to the Historical Association and other professional bodies, and, above all, of his warmth, humanity and generosity of spirit (of which the present writer had more cause than most to be aware). However, it ought to be recorded here how close was the interest that Charles Mowat took in the history of Wales, his adopted land. Evidence of this can be seen in several of his writings, especially his trenchant little biography of David Lloyd George (1964) and his charming account of the Golden Valley Railway (1964). In addition, he always showed a real concern for the progress of the WELSH HISTORY REVIEW. He gave the present editor much wise and sympathetic advice at the time of his appointment. He was a frequent and willing reviewer in this journal of works relating to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Wales, especially those dealing with recent politics and with the history of his beloved Welsh railways. The present issue contains a review article, written by him some months before his death, a contribution which displays yet again his complete mastery of his subject and the incisive and utterly lucid style which gave it expression. Charles Mowat's death is a sad blow to the wider world of historical scholarship in Britain and the United States. But we in Wales have especial cause to mourn his loss. August 1970 EDITORIAL K.O.M.