Rocking the Boat: Welsh Women who Championed Equality, 1840-1990. A Talk by Angela V. John

On Wednesday 15th May at 7.30 pm, Angela V. John will be giving a talk on Welsh novelist and translator Menna Gallie (1919–1990).

Menna Humphreys was born in Ystradgynlais, and attended Swansea University, where she met her future husband, the philosopher W. B. Gallie. Together, they were politically active, with a commitment to democratic socialism.

In her later years she lived in Newport, Pembrokeshire and was best known for her novels in the English language, and as the translator of Caradog Prichard’s Un Nos Ola Leuad, under the title Full Moon. She was described as ‘a sort of Welsh Edna O’Brien, (who) writes beady-eyed, bawdy-tongued entertainments calculated to stir recognition in women and discomfiture in men…’

Angela V. John is a Professor of History who sees herself as ‘a biographical historian, writing about the period alongside the person’. She has written  widely on ‘women’s employment in Victorian Britain’ and  ‘gender history and suffrage’. She was also a founder member of the editorial board of the international journal ‘Gender & History’.

Tickets are £5 and refreshments are available.

This talk forms part of the #WOWW project that celebrates the achievements of the Women of West Wales. This is supported by PLANED, Arwain Sir Benfro and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.