The Welsh Nationalist Party, 1925-1945

Examines the nature of the Welsh Nationalist Party from its foundation in 1925 to 1945 – the philosophy and policies it embraced, the methods it used, and its organisational character. The author’s major conclusion is that the ‘party’ was not really a political party as such during the period under study, but a culturally oriented educational and social movement centrally concerned with the affirmation of Welsh identity and the fate of the Welsh language. Despite the exhortations of party president Saunders Lewis, nationalists for the most part remained aloof from political campaigning, and it is suggested that frustration with the movement’s impotence led to the radicalisation of method most dramatically represented by the Burning of the Bombing School in 1936.