Welsh Journals

medieval and Tudor periods his studies have little to add to what is generally known, but from the eighteenth century his work gathers pace. The core of the book lies in studies of three nineteenth-century clerics of Ystradyfodwg, David Watkin Williams, William Morgan and William Lewis. Between 1853 and 1869 Morgan struggled to find the money to renovate his church and to build schools: these were the minimal response to the early industrial expansion of the Rhondda Fawr, but he was frustrated by lack of resources. When he was appointed the population was less than 4,000 but when he left in 1869 it was about 12,000. His successor held Ystradyfodwg from 1869 until 1917, and he transformed the area, recruiting a staff of energetic curates, building churches and encouraging the creation of new parishes for the Rhondda: Maerdy, Treherbert, Treorchi, Femdale, Tylorstown, Tonypandy and a number of other churches were firmly established, with Ystradyfodwg as a comparatively small and modest parish. Lewis is presented <as a man of considerable vision, somewhat lacking in business acumen and architectural taste. He owed much to generous patrons, and as he grew older his voice became very influential in diocesan affairs. He belongs to the select company of those nineteenth-century clerics who refashioned the church in an industrialised society. In this respect, Dr. Prichard supplements E. T. Davies's work on the industrial valleys of Monmouthshire and R. L. Brown's useful study of Glyncorrwg and the upper Afan valley. In terms of book-production, it must be said that, with far too many misprints, this volume leaves much to be desired. DAVID WALKER Swansea LANCASHIRE, A SOCIAL HISTORY, 1558-1939. By J. K. Walton. Manchester University Press, 1987. Pp. 406. £ 35.00. THE WEST MIDLANDS FROM AD 1000. (A Regional History of England). By M. B. Rowlands. Longman, 1987. Pp. 436. £ 22.50. Whilst regional history is its own justification, when the areas concerned are as crucial as Lancashire and the West Midlands, such studies must make their impact in a better understanding of some of the most significant themes of national history. Dr. Walton, with a single county and rather less than 400 years of history, has the more manageable task, that of writing the history of England's first industrial county. With the rise of Liverpool and Manchester as significant trading centres at an early date, and the cotton industry developing from the early seventeenth century, the increased exploitation of the county's coal measures enabled industry to diversify. At the same time a plurality of religious allegiances also emerged. Dismissive of traditional natural-resource or puritan-ethic explanations as to why industrial change came first to Lancashire, Walton prefers instead to focus on population expansion, social structure, the existing achievements of the economy, a widespread increase of