Welsh Journals

sources. At a price of £ 10 (plus postage and packing), which is not an insignificant figure for a volume of this type and dimension, purchasers have a right to expect more. PETER BARTRIP Northampton Glamorgan SHERIFFS: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON SHERIFFS, 1966-1993, AND LISTS OF SHERIFFS FROM THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY. Edited by Patricia Moore. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, for the Glamorgan County History Trust, 1995. Pp. 1 16. £ 22.50. This book is a companion volume to one published almost thirty years ago, High Sheriffs of the County of Glamorgan, 1541-1966, which Patricia Moore co-edited with George Williams. The earlier volume listed the sheriffs between those dates and provided notes on the landowning families of Glamorgan, from which many sheriffs were drawn over the centuries. The present volume brings the story up to date, giving brief biographies of the sheriffs of Glamorgan from 1966 to 1973 and of sheriffs of the three successor counties from 1974 onwards. It also includes an essay on the shrievalty of Glamorgan and a list of sheriffs from the early twelfth century to the present. The format of this new work is different from the earlier one: the main body of the text consists of an individual biographical section for each sheriff from information provided by the sheriffs themselves, together with a photograph. The biographical details given include background, education and career, as well as general interests. The result is something like a Glamorgan version of Who's Who, with similar pleasure to be derived from dipping into the work to discover people's careers and their hobbies. The format works because the sheriffs themselves are more diverse than in previous generations, united by the fact that they are drawn from amongst the most successful sons and daughters of Glamorgan. For example, the recreations listed by Mrs Kathrin Thomas, sheriff of Mid Glamorgan in 1986, include milking and tractor-driving: the photograph to match depicts Mrs Thomas in front of a five-barred gate with her two dogs. The chronological arrangement of this section means that one tends to browse rather than search through it. If fault is to be found, the photographs are of variable quality a matter over which, one suspects, the author had little control. The introductory essay on the position of the shrievalty is informative, if brief. It charts the decline of the gentry families of Glamorgan and,