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Leadership, Vision, and the Limits of Power: Lessons from a Community Charity
Between 2008 and 2017, I helped steer Phoenix Community Furniture Scheme through its most turbulent decade, from post-recession ambition to austerity-Between 2008 and 2017, I helped steer Phoenix Community Furniture Scheme through its most turbulent decade – years that took the organisation from post‑recession ambition to austerity‑era survival, and then into a period of renewal…
antonydaviesfrsa
Austerity, bilingualism, change management, Charity leadership, community empowerment, community regeneration, crisis leadership, dignity, ethical leadership, governance, inclusion, institutional memory, leadership, Leadership lessons, Mid Wales, organisational culture, organisational resilience, public service, reflective practice, Rural communities, Rural Wales, Social Enterprise, Third sector, voluntary sector, Wales, Welsh Communities, Welsh language, Welsh policy -
Off the Rails: Why This Book Matters
Off the Rails: The Story of Crewe Steam Train Driver Alfred Jenkins began not as a publishing project but as an act of recovery, an attempt to give structure and permanence to a life that had been lived with discipline, endurance, and quiet dignity, and then almost lost to time. Alfred Jenkins (1882–1956) was my…
antonydaviesfrsa
Biography, books, British railways, British social history, Crewe history, Crewe railway history, Edwardian Britain, Everyday lives, family history, Footplate life, Genealogy, Great Western Railway, Hidden histories, history, Industrial Britain, Interwar Britain, Labour history, Microhistory, Occupational history, Railway history, Railway towns, Railway workers, Railwaymen, Social history, Steam locomotives, Steam railway, travel, Twentieth-century Britain, Victorian industry, working-class history, World War One home front, World War Two home front -
Richard Emmett, and the Value of an Ordinary Life
In the 1880s, a retired soldier sat down to write a short book for his children. He did not imagine an audience beyond his family, nor did he attempt to shape his life into a story of heroism or distinction. He wrote, instead, to explain himself. To account for absence. To leave behind a record…
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A Christmas in the Victorian Welsh Uplands
In the high country of mid and north Wales, where the hills folded into one another like great, weathered blankets and the lanes were little more than tracks worn by generations of hooves and boots, Christmas in the Victorian era arrived quietly. There was no sense of sudden abundance, no dramatic break from the rhythm…
antonydaviesfrsa
19th century Wales, Agrarian Wales, books, Calennig, christmas, Christmas in Wales, Cultural memory, fiction, history, Mari Lwyd, Mid Wales, Nonconformist Wales, North Wales, Noson Gyflaith, Plygain, Rural communities, Rural winter life, Upland farming, Victorian Christmas, Victorian domestic life, Victorian Wales, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Christmas traditions, Welsh countryside, Welsh farmhouse life, Welsh folk traditions, Welsh rural life, Welsh Social History, Welsh uplands, writing -
The Uncrowned Kings: How the Preacher Ruled Victorian Wales
Imagine a Sunday evening in November 1880. Outside, the valley is pitch black, hammered by rain sweeping down from the mountains. But inside the gas-lit chapel, the air is thick with damp wool, peppermint, and anticipation. Five hundred people sit shoulder to shoulder in a silence so taut it hums. They are not waiting for…
antonydaviesfrsa
19th-century-wales, Blue Books, Chapel Revival, Christmas Evans, Coalfield History Wales, Cymraeg, Hwyl, Liberal Wales, Methodist History, Nonconformist Wales, Rural Wales, Slate Quarrying Wales, victorian-wales, Wales Social Change, Welsh Chapels, Welsh Communities, Welsh culture, Welsh heritage, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh Language History, Welsh Literacy, Welsh Nonconformity, Welsh politics, Welsh Preachers, Welsh Pulpit Tradition, Welsh Radicalism, Welsh Religion, Welsh Revivalism, Welsh Social History, Welsh Theology -
Why the English and the Welsh Keep Misunderstanding Each Other — And Why It Still Shapes Modern Britain
We talk endlessly about the politics of the Union, the economics of devolution, and the future of the UK. But beneath all of that lies a quieter, deeper truth: The English and the Welsh speak the same language, but not the same culture.And because no one acknowledges this, we constantly misread each other. These aren’t…
antonydaviesfrsa
behavioural culture, bilingualism, British culture, British identity, communication styles, cross-border relations, cultural differences, cultural literacy, cultural misunderstanding, Devolution, england, English culture, English history, English identity, English values, history, identity politics, inter-cultural communication, language, National identity, national stereotypes, Offa’s Dyke, Politics, social psychology, soft power, UK nations, Wales, Welsh culture, Welsh diaspora, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh values, Welsh vs English, workplace culture, writing -
Why I Left The Range
By Antony David Davies, FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI MIoL When I finally received the documents from my Subject Access Request, this is how The Range described my departure: “Anthony(sp) left our store with immediate effect, with no communication to anybody in store, only texting the store manager, just left his store keys on the manager’s…
antonydaviesfrsa
Antony David Davies, assistant manager experience, British retail, corporate culture, employee wellbeing, ethical workplace, family, fiction, health and safety inspection, integrity at work, leadership failure, leaving The Range, life, management accountability, management dysfunction, mental-health, moral courage, moral leadership, refusing to lie, retail leadership, retail management culture, retail sector, retail whistleblower, SAR disclosure, standing up for integrity, subject access request, The Range, toxic management, toxic workplace, walking out with dignity, whistleblowing, Why I Left The Range, workplace bullying, workplace ethics, workplace truth, writing -
“My Relations Are Part of a Rich Tapestry of Welsh Heritage” — My Feature in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
I’m delighted to share that my family history research has been featured in the latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine. The article, written by Claire Vaughan, explores my decades-long journey tracing my Welsh roots — from hill farmers and Calvinist ministers to a musical icon and a self-taught solicitor — all…
antonydaviesfrsa
ancestry research, Antony David Davies, Arthur Owen Jones, British history, Caeadda, Calvinistic Methodists, Charles Shorto, Christ Church Oxford, Davies family, Edwardian Wales, Elinor Bennett, family, family history, family tree, Genealogy, genealogy research, heritage writing, historical biography, history, Llanwrin, magazine feature, Mid Wales history, Montgomeryshire, Oxford archives, Rural Wales, Shorto family, Shropshire history, travel, Trevor Owen Davies, Victorian Wales, Voices from the Uplands, WDYTYA, Welsh ancestry, Welsh culture, Welsh farming families, Welsh heritage, Welsh identity, Welsh language, Welsh music, Welsh Nonconformity, Who Do You Think You Are magazine -
Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft: The Gentleman Who Inspired a Historian
When I trace the beginnings of my love of history, I always return to one figure — Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft of Stokesay Court, the elderly baronet who, quite unknowingly, set a child on the path to becoming a historian. I met him in the great Shropshire house that dominated my early world. He would summon…
antonydaviesfrsa
20th century biography, AFRHistS, Anglo-Jewish heritage, Antony David Davies, art, biographical writing, books, British biography, British historians, childhood inspiration, Edwardian England, Elizabeth Longford, English country houses, FRSA, Gladstone biographer, historian memoir, historians of character, historical reflection, history, inspiration, intellectual formation, literary biography, Ludlow history, mentorship, moral history, New College Oxford, Onibury Church, rural gentry, Shropshire heritage, Shropshire history, Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft, Stokesay Court, Victorian and Edwardian era, writing -
William Halse Gatty Jones (1825 – 1897): From Gold-Rush Melbourne to the Hills of Merioneth
My first cousin four times removed, William Halse Gatty Jones, lived a life that stretched across two hemispheres and mirrored the restless energy of the nineteenth century. Born in London on 8 March 1825, he began as a City solicitor, made his fortune amid the Australian gold rush, and returned to Wales to become a…
antonydaviesfrsa
Australian legal history, Borthwnog Estate, City of London history, family history, family history blog, Gatty Jones, Genealogy, Glandwr Hall, history, Jones family history, Law Institute of Victoria, Melbourne gold rush, Merionethshire history, nineteenth century Wales, scotland, Skinners Company, Victorian Legislative Assembly, Victorian Wales, Wales, Welsh ancestors, Welsh diaspora, Welsh emigrants Australia, Welsh genealogy, Welsh landed gentry, William Halse Gatty Jones
Antony David Davies FIoL FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI
Welsh history, biography & cultural memory
Welcome
I am Antony David Davies, a Welsh historian, biographer, and cultural commentator. My work explores the overlooked lives and moral worlds of rural Wales — its farming families, Nonconformist chapels, local institutions, and the inherited codes of duty, belief, and respectability that shaped everyday life.
Through books, long-form biography, and public writing, I seek to recover fragile records and silenced voices, and to place them back within their proper historical, cultural, and human contexts. Much of my work is rooted in long-term genealogical and archival research, but it is also shaped by lived experience and a deep personal connection to the landscapes and communities I write about.
I am particularly concerned with how power, memory, and authority operate — within families, churches, charities, workplaces, and civic life — and with what happens when those structures fail the people they are meant to serve. My writing asks not only how the past worked, but what it still demands of us.
This site brings together my books, published articles, and ongoing research, alongside reflections on history, identity, governance, and cultural responsibility in modern Wales.
➡️ Read my published articles
➡️ Explore my books & research
📘 Latest publication
I’m pleased to share my latest book, Voices from the Uplands: The Davies Family and the Soul of Rural Wales, now available on Amazon. With a foreword by Elinor Bennett O.B.E., the book explores the rich cultural, social, and familial heritage of the Davies family of Caeadda, set within the wider story of Montgomeryshire’s upland communities and the disappearing world of rural Welsh life.
Drawing on archival research, oral testimony, and over twenty years of genealogical and historical study, Voices from the Uplands traces how identity, tradition, faith, and landscape shaped generations of families in the Dyfi valley. From Nonconformist chapels to sheep walks and farm kitchens, it offers an intimate portrait of a community whose rhythms and values once defined upland Wales.
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“My Relations Are Part of a Rich Tapestry of Welsh Heritage” — My Feature in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
I’m delighted to share that my family history research has been featured in the latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine. The article, written by Claire Vaughan, explores my decades-long journey tracing my Welsh roots — from hill farmers and Calvinist ministers to a musical icon and a self-taught solicitor — all…
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Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft: The Gentleman Who Inspired a Historian
When I trace the beginnings of my love of history, I always return to one figure — Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft of Stokesay Court, the elderly baronet who, quite unknowingly, set a child on the path to becoming a historian. I met him in the great Shropshire house that dominated my early world. He would summon…
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William Halse Gatty Jones (1825 – 1897): From Gold-Rush Melbourne to the Hills of Merioneth
My first cousin four times removed, William Halse Gatty Jones, lived a life that stretched across two hemispheres and mirrored the restless energy of the nineteenth century. Born in London on 8 March 1825, he began as a City solicitor, made his fortune amid the Australian gold rush, and returned to Wales to become a…
Antony David Davies FIoL FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI 