Welsh Journals

poets. Chartism provided a release for people's emotional and social frustrations. But it was also a serious political movement, and much of the discussion in this book is about ways to obtain universal suffrage. The sacred month, exclusive dealing, and armed insurrection were debated and partially tried, but the favourite weapons were propaganda and petitioning. Mrs. Thompson reinforces what is known of the antipathy of many Chartist leaders towards violence, but she is clearly intrigued by the riots and drilling. Considerable space is given to the views of Devyr and Napier, and to the reports of spies and prosecution witnesses. Until more research has been completed, the relevance of these extracts-including those on Llanidloes and Newport-will remain uncertain. Herein lies much of the fascination of early working-class history. DAVID J. V. JONES Swansea VICTORIAN SOUTH WALES-ARCHITECTURE, INDUSTRY AND SOCIETY. Seventh Conference Report of the Victorian Society, 1971. Pp. 51 and 15 plates. £ 1.00. The Victorian Society is a body of enthusiasts primarily dedicated to the study and protection of Victorian and Edwardian architecture. But at its seventh annual conference, held at Cardiff in September 1969, it wisely chose to range further afield. A series of lectures explored some of the extraordinary cultural contrasts within Victorian south Wales, the industrial squalor as well as the artistic extravagances. The result is this fascinating and superbly-illustrated booklet which deserves a wide readership from all concerned with the Welsh industrial scene, past and present. (The booklet, incidentally, is obtainable from The Victorian Society, 29 Exhibition Road, London, S.W.7.) Two of the contributions here deal, as could be anticipated, with aspects of art and architecture. Donald Buttress describes the nineteenth-century furnishings of Llandaff cathedral, a notable collection since they included D. G. Rossetti's triptych on 'The Adoration of the Magi', and stained glass from the firm of William Morris (in his pre-Kelmscott and pre-socialist days). Again, J. Mordaunt Cook provides a most informative and colourful account of the curious career of the third marquess of Bute (1848-1900), who combined an historicist devotion to medievalism with a religious passion that bordered on mania. His father, the second marquess, left a legacy of docks and railways. But, as supreme memorials to the third marquess and his association with the architect, William Burgess, there survive the opulent interiors of Cardiff castle and the Gothic fantasies within the 'broad masses' of Castell Coch. In Scotland, the marquess perpetrated even more bizarre experiments. He laid confident hands on the work of Adam, Nash and Barry; in Mount Stuart, the most eccentric creation of