Cylchgronau Cymru

THE HISTORY OF PRINTING IN MONTGOMERYSHIRE, 1789-1960 (Continued from Vol. 70, 1982) THE LLANFYLLIN PRINTERS BY J. IORWERTH DAVIES, F.L.A. RICHARD AND JOHN PUGH, 1817-1818 RICHARD PUGH, 1818-1822 JOHN DAVIES JONES, 1843-1850 RICHARD JONES, 1849-1859 SWYDDFA YR ANNIBYNWR, 1857-1864 LEWIS JONES, (Rhuddenfab), 1865-1875 SIMON BRYAN, 1875-1908 J. AND R. A. BRYAN, 1908 R. A. BRYAN, 1908-1949 WILLIAM ROWLANDS, 1950-1957 R. JACKSON AND SON, 1958-1968 REV. O. T. DAVIES, BRYNGLAS PRESS, 1912-1954 Situated in the upper reaches of the River Cain in North Montgomeryshire, Llanfyllin is a small market town, the population of which has never exceeded two thousand people. The town serves a large and predominantly agricultural area of Montgomeryshire and parts of Denbighshire and is within seven miles of the English border, twenty-five miles from Shrewsbury and fourteen miles from Oswestry, both of these towns having been centres of printing since 1695 and 1785 respectively.2 The district around Llanfyllin has an old Welsh literary tradition and it is surprising that printing was not introduced earlier. The close proximity of the two Shropshire towns, where many Welsh books were printed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, probably accounts for this. The most notable of all of the literary associations of the area was the first translation of the Bible into the Welsh language by Bishop William Morgan whilst vicar of the nearby village of Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant, and printed in London in 1588.3 Before the introduction of ballad sheets and newspapers, the traditional method of circulating items of news in this part of Wales was by a practice known as clera, a custom by which a kind of minstrel would visit fairs and other functions in the area to sing carols and songs of his own composition. This tradition was still alive in the Llanfyllin area in the eighteenth century, a known practitioner being Harri Parry (1709-1800) of Craig y Gath, Llanfihangel yng Ngwynfa, a village on the outskirts of the borough.4 Early attempts at conserving the literary heritage of the area included the collecting by Thomas Price, a local antiquary and popish recusant, of Welsh manuscripts, which were eventually deposited in the Vatican Library.5 'Williams, R. A. A history of the parish of Llanfyllin in Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. 3, 1870, p.57. 2Lloyd, L1. C. The booktrade of Shropshire in Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society, vol. 48, 1935- 1936, pp.65-142. 3Rowlands, W. Cambrian bibliography. Llanidloes, John Pryce, 1869. p.41. •Rowlands. H. Adgofion am Llanfyllin, in Cymru, vol. 14, 1898, p.64. Williams, R. op.cit. p.55.