Welsh Journals

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for individual chapters or the book as a whole. The occasional factual error is sometimes important-Henry Richard was not M.P. for Merthyr in 1847; Labour probably did not fall in 1924 over the Zinoviev letter. The attempt to augment factual material with potted biographies in note form at the end of some chapters is not worthy of the book. The work, though, is no mere catalogue of facts and there is analysis enough to stimulate discussion and controversy. The author is aware of much recent work but sometimes reiterates views now highly controversial, for example that appeasement was the cause of war with Hitler in 1939. Mr. Earnshaw must be complimented on his enterprise. He has provided pupils in Wales with a readable, often stimulating, introduction to the modern period. More than this, he has set a valuable example to others. Praise must also go to the publishers for undertaking this venture. Would it be uncharitable to remind them that a soft cover, easily detached, is not the most suitable for school use, and that if photographs are to be used, they must be clear and well defined? GARETH E. JONES Swansea College of Education THE FAMILY HISTORY OF THOMAS JONES THE ARTIST OF PENCERRIG, Radnorshire. By R. C. B. Oliver. Radnorshire Society, County Library, Llandrindod, 1970. Pp. 84. 52p. For a long time Thomas Jones, the late eighteenth-century landscapist, was one of Radnorshire's forgotten worthies, a kind of poor man's Richard Wilson. But since the Walpole Society published his auto- biography or Memoirs in 1951 interest in him has grown, for this was the first autobiography written by an artist from these islands, full of information about how British artists lived and worked in London and Italy in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. At last, in 1970 he had his just reward-a commemorative exhibition of paintings, drawings and engravings held first of all at Marble Hill House in London, and then going the rounds of his native Wales. This interesting and well-written book sets him in his family context, with details of the rise of the Jones family to wealth and influence as Radnorshire gentry up to the early nineteenth century, and then the descent of the estates to related families. After all that has been said about the antipathy of Welsh nonconformity towards the fine arts, it comes as a pleasant surprise to find the artist Thomas Jones sprung from the leaders of Radnor Dissent, the builders of the antique Caebach chapel that still survives at Llandrindod. The author has a good deal to say about Dissent and also about the development of the spa of Llandrindod by the artist's family. Glamorgan readers, however, may regret that there is not more about the connections with the Thomas family of Llanbradach.