Welsh Journals

SIR JOHN WILLIAMS, BART., G.C.V.O., M.D., LL.D., D.Sc. (Bom November 6, 1840 died May 24, 1926.) I Among those who were associated with the work of establishing the National Library of Wales two men were outstanding-the late Sir Herbert Lewis and the late Sir John Williams. The former figures as the tireless public advocate of the movement, whilst the latter has an undisputed claim to be regarded as the principal founder of the institution and its most generous benefactor in money and in kind. While the Committee of the Welsh Library' at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, was working assiduously for the establishment of a national library for the Principality, as the Editor of this journal relates in the first chapter of The National Library of Wales A Survey of its History, its Contents, and its Activities (Aber- ystwyth, 1937), and while Sir Herbert Lewis was sparing no effort to ensure its maintenance by persuading Parliament to allot to it a share of the so-called Museum Grants' voted annually to museums, libraries, and cognate institutions, Sir John laboured unceasingly and in various ways to realise his great ambition and his cherished ideal. He was an unfailing source of inspiration and support to the other workers, ­directing operations, addressing public meetings, writing to the press, accompanying deputations, and, of course, rendering the most generous financial assistance. His greatest service of all, however, was the part which he played, and which none but he could play, in ensuring for the projected national library the acquisition of those renowned collections of books and manuscripts and notable literary works without which no library in Wales could rightly claim to be called a national institution. It was fitting, therefore, that when the Library received its Charter in 1907 Sir John Williams should have been nominated as its first President, nor is it surprising that he should have held this office until his death nearly twenty years later. No sooner had the Council taken over the Assembly RoomsTat Aberystwyth as the temporary home of the infant National Library than the President made arrange- ments for the first Librarian-the late Sir John Ballinger-to visit his home, *Plas^Llanstephan, to supervise the removal of his extensive library to Aberystwyth. A few weeks later another of his dreams was fulfilled when, on the death of Mr. W. R. M. Wynne of Peniarth,