Encyclopaedia

The Editors

John Davies
John Davies is a native of the Rhondda.  He was educated in schools in Treorci, Bwlchllan and Tregaron and at University College, Cardiff, and Trinity College, Cambridge.  He taught at the University Colleges of Swansea and Aberystwyth and was for eighteen years the Warden of Neuadd Pantycelyn, Aberystwyth.  His publications include Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute, Hanes Cymru (Penguin, 1992), A History of Wales, Broadcasting and the BBC in Wales, The Making of Wales, The Celts and Cardiff: a Pocket Guide.  He is the consultant editor and a joint editor of The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales.  In 1997, he was the keynote speaker at the inaugural meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Welsh History and Culture.  He has broadcasted extensively, especially on historical subjects.  His wife comes from Blaenau Gwent and they have two daughters and two sons.  He lives in Grangetown, Cardiff, but often commutes to his garden in rural Ceredigion.

Nigel Jenkins
Nigel was born on a farm in Gower and worked as a newspaper reporter in the English Midlands before returning home to work as a freelance writer and lecturer.  His latest book of poems is Hotel Gwales (Gomer, 2006); his book about Welsh missionaries in north–east India, Gwalia in Khasia (Gomer, 1995), won the Wales Book of the Year award in 1996.  His selected essays and articles, Footsore on the Frontier (Gomer Press), was published in 2001.  A new collection of haiku, O For a Gun, is due in June 2007 from Planet Books.  He is currently working on Real Swansea for Seren Books.  He teaches creative writing at the University of Wales Swansea.

Menna Baines
Menna was born in Bangor but spent a great deal of her childhood in Llanerfyl, Montgomeryshire, before moving to Pen-y-groes in Arfon.  Soon after graduating in Welsh and completing an Mphil course at Bangor University, she worked in the journalistic field for some years – as arts sub-editor for Golwg to begin with (1988-91) and then as the editor of Barn (1991-6).  From 1996 she worked independently writing, scripting and editing.  She published two volumes, Pum Awdur Cyfoes: Cyflwyniad i Fyfyrwyr Ail Iaith (1997) and Yng Ngolau’r Lleuad: Ffaith a Dychymyg yng Ngwaith Caradog Prichard (2005), the latter reaching the longlist for Book of the Year 2006. 

Peredur I. Lynch
Professor Peredur I. Lynch is a native of Carrog in the old county of Merionethshire.  After graduating in Welsh at Bangor, he was employed between 1985 and 1990 as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth.  He was then appointed to a lectureship in the Department of Welsh at the University of Wales, Swansea and returned to Bangor as a lecturer in 1995.  He was awarded a Chair in 2005 and served as Head of the Welsh Department between 2003 and 2006.  He is an expert on the Poets of the Welsh Princes and made a major contribution to Cyfres Beirdd y Tywysogion (‘The Poets of the Princes series’) (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991-96), the groundbreaking critical edition of their poetry.  He has published widely on many aspects of Welsh literature over the centuries.