FARMER, SOLDIER AND POLITICIAN

Sub-titled 'The Life of Brigadier-General Sir Owen Thomas, MP, Father of the Welsh Army Corps'. Owen Thomas was a farmer and land agent from Llanbadrig, Anglesey, and an enigmatic character throughout his life. Never wishing to break ties with his birthplace, he carved a career for himself as a soldier and agriculture advisor in Africa, and as a pioneer rural Labour Member of Parliament, propelled by a vital and supportive local trade union movement. He is best remembered however as the man responsible for the formation of Lloyd George's Welsh Army Corps, raised in response to Kitchener's appeal for volunteers at the outbreak of the Great War. He persuaded many thousands of his countrymen to join his colours, and when his 'army' marched away from North Wales to face its destiny as the 38th (Welsh) Division, at Mametz Wood on the Somme, he was left behind, a frustrated and deeply hurt man. This biography provides a story full of adventure and promise but which resulted in anguish and pain. Owen Thomas's personal story offers a valuable insight into British colonial expansion in Africa, the response to military recruitment, the first stirrings of a political Labour movement in a rural county and although there is proof that he kept a diary while in East Africa, all his personal papers have been lost and only a handful of private letters have survived. The book is therefore dependent on contemporary newspapers, manuscript sources and official papers. The Welsh author gives due weight to the Anglesey background. 207pp, illus. and maps.