Welsh Journals

Pierre Nora has suggested that 'Statues or monuments to the dead owe their meaning to their intrinsic existence; even though their location is far from arbitrary, one could justify relocating them without altering their meaning.'17 Analysis of the commemoration process in Wales, however, suggests that location was crucial to the meaning of a memorial. The Welsh National Memorial provides a useful example, for it was the initial sugges- tion that the memorial should be located in Cardiff that prompted intense resentment from other parts of the principality. Early in 1919 Cardiff City Council attempted to organise a conference aimed at the establishment of a Welsh National War Memorial. An invitation to attend the conference was sent to 200 public bodies throughout Wales but local authorities largely ignored the letter. The extant responses are a mixture of indifference, suspi- cion and hostility towards the idea of a national memorial in Cardiff. Many councils simply did not respond. The minutes of Aberystwyth Rural District Council note that the letter had been received and was 'laid on the table' whilst Aberaeron Council resolved 'that no action be taken.'18 Neither Cardigan Corporation nor Cardiganshire County Council recorded even receiving the letter, let alone replying to it. Cardiff City Council accepted defeat and planned to build a memorial purely for Cardiff alone until the intervention of the Western Mail. The proprietors of the newspaper effec- Utilitarian memorials, such as this example in Aberaeron, were popular choices for war memorials, particularly in rural areas.