James Williams ~ Ap Valant

                          (by Dr Wendy Williams published in the Cynon Valley Historical Society Newsletter, Oct 2020)

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While doing some family history research,

I discovered the name and life story of my paternal

great grandfather James Williams Ap Valant.

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The Bard 

I found out that he was a bard and had written

two volumes of Welsh Poetry (1881 and 1885, the latter

was entitled Cyfeillach Awen).  Being Welsh but not Welsh speaking

has made more difficult the task of discovering Ap Valant's

bardic past and contributions.

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At the 1910 Aberaman Eisteddfod Ap Valant won first prize for the best englyn where Keir Hardie MP (one of the founders of the Labour Party and its first Parliamentary Leader) congratulated all the winners.

 

In 1912 he won the "Eisteddfod Cadair Gwent", with the englyn "Deigryn Mam" (Mother’s tear).

He conducted the chairing ceremony in the Cwmdare Eisteddfod in 1915 (Aberdare Leader 1/5/1915) and was widely respected for his writing of his many englyn.

 

Over time, Ap Valant became an Eisteddfod adjudicator and joined the Gorsedd of bards.

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Family / Work

The ‘ardent eisteddfodwr’ Ap Valant was born out of wedlock in Llanafan, Cardiganshire in 1846. His mother Ann Valentine came from a family of lead miners and farm labourers.  James Williams was initially named James Valentine and worked as a young boy for a clergyman on his farm and likely received a boosted education by sitting in on some lessons taught to the clergyman’s children by their governess/tutor. On the 1851 census his name was changed from Valentine to Williams . By 1865 he had moved to South Wales to work as a coal miner.

  

Marriage

Aged 19 he married an older educated woman; a widower with three children: Ann Morgan (1834-1912), my great grandmother. She published her own Welsh poetry under the name of Brynhenydd, named after the farm she lived on as a child in Carmarthenshire.  They initially lived in Aberdare, later moving on to Penrhiwceiber.

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Literature

Ap Valant found early success as a book canvasser so he left the mines. He gave many a poetry recital and lecture at the local literary society meetings around the South Wales Valleys including one on “Influenza” (1901).  

 

War

He was clearly too old to fight in the Boer War or World War One.  He was a strongly religious man and supported ‘the Temperance movement’. Perhaps like some of his strongly religious associates, he too frowned upon the common professional soldiers’ vulgarities and insobriety. Yet I suspect he may have been sympathetic to their patriotism and plight.

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Social Activist 

Ap Valant was described by D. Ben Rees in his book Chapels in the valleys as” a miner and a radical “ wrote a satirical poem in Welsh with the translated title ‘The Sympathy of the rich people of our country towards the poor people of South Wales”. (1878).

  

Psychology 

Moving on from just being a literary man, Ap Valant felt he needed to do more to better understand his fellow man, something his poetry had stimulated him to do. To improve his assessment of thoughts and behaviours of them, he became a Phrenologist. In time he published (1891) a pamphlet in English on the subject, titled “A Phrenological & Physiological Chart”. Of course, we have known for many years that Phrenology is a pseudo-science.

 

Ap Valant however approached phrenology from a psychological analysis (personality/character) point of view, assessed through interview rather than anatomical examination. There is a suggestion (oral history) that he carried out a phrenological assessment of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody the American showman who brought his show to South Wales in 1903.

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Death

Neither the phrenology nor the poetry paid well and sadly, he died in poverty in 1921 in Penrhiwceiber at the age of 75, his wife having died nine years earlier.  

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(Sources: Y Darian 2nd & 23rd August, 1917)

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