1937-1946

Events

• World War II
• David Jones
• Centenary of the Rebecca Riots
• Welsh landscape
• Lady Llanover
• Ballads
  • Ladies Reform Bill
  • Wreck of the Titanic
  • Can newydd yn rhoddi hanes carwriaeth John Jones (A new song giving the story of the love affair of John Jones)
  • Can newydd yn rhoddi hanes ystorom ddychrynllyd (A new song telling the story of a dreadful storm)

Newspapers

• Western Mail March 15 1939: Germany attacks Czechoslovakia
• Western Mail: Medi 2 1939: Evacuees
• Western Mail September 4 1939: War declared
• South Wales Evening Post February 22 1941: Swansea bombed
• Western Mail: May 12 1941: Houses of Parliament bombed
• Western Mail December 8 1941: Pearl Harbour attacks
• South Wales Evening Post March 27 1945: Death of Lloyd George, Allied successes
• Western Mail April 20 1945: Awaiting the end of the war, Mussolini executed
• South Wales Evening News May 8 1945: Germany surrenders
• Western Mail June 6 1945: Occupying Germany
• Western Mail August 7 1945: Atomic bomb

Ballads

The ballad provided an early form of entertainment and news with various ballads on courtships, religion, murders and wars. Early examples were sung in markets and fairs by nomadic travellers such as Richard Williams, ‘Prince of Ballad Singers’. With the growth of newspapers the ballad was gradually superseded as a form of disseminating news in the second half of the 19th century. In 1945 the Library acquired some important additions to its collection of approximately 7,000 Welsh ballads.