Welsh Journals

13-9 in favour of Walpole; in 1780 they were still supporting North 16-11; and the high turn-out in opposition to Pitt after 1784 may have less to do with independence than with the success of several Northites in hanging on in their Welsh fastnesses. 'Detailed studies', Professor Thomas tells us, rather severely, 'destroy simplistic notions of a two-party system, simplistic or otherwise'. He insists that there is little evidence of genuine Welsh public opinion: petitions and protests were stage-managed by the gentry. Though these broad conclusions can hardly be disputed, Thomas seems at times a little dismissive of whatever tender shoots of public opinion can be discerned. Welsh interest in parliamentary reform in the 1780s is waved aside as 'a false dawn' (whatever that means), and there is no discussion of the remarkable increase of publications in Welsh, many of them political pamphlets, not all of which could have been bought by the gentry. Most questionable is the treatment of the Glamorgan by-election of 1789, which receives only one paragraph, but in which, Thomas tells us, there was 'a torrent' of anti-aristocratic propaganda, and a 'successful challenge to the dominant oligarchy'. Thomas warns us that the winning candidate was himself from the gentry, and supported by gentry. There are three objections to this. Any torrent of propaganda of any kind is significant since no one spends money on pamphlets if he can bully. Insincere propaganda can easily make sincere converts, and aristocratic rivalries have often provided liberal and even democratic opportunities. Thirdly, it has long been recognized that Tory dissatisfaction, based on the squeezing-out of the smaller gentry by whig aristocrats, merged withWilkite protest in the 1760s to launch a radical movement. Glamorgan was, of course, very different from the rest of Wales, but Middlesex was different from the rest of England, with similar consequences. This underlines the regret one must feel that Thomas did not continue his survey up to 1832, by which time the outlines of modern Wales were apparent. JOHN CANNON Newcastle uponTyne JOHN CANNON CALVINISTS INCORPORATED: WELSH IMMIGRANTS ON OHIO'S INDUSTRIAL FRONTIER. By Anne Kelly Knowles. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997. Pp. 332. £ 19.95. Those Welsh who from the late eighteenth century onwards crossed the rural frontier as they migrated to the new industrial districts in Wales are a familiar focus of study. In Calvinists Incorporated, Anne Knowles examines a