An Anglican Aristocracy

Matthew Cragoe chronicles the changing fortunes of the aristocratic lite in Victorian Wales. He explores their extensive influence on the agricultural, political, and religious life of one county, Carmarthenshire, and the reasons for its decline by 1895. This clear and lively study challenges the widely-held Welsh historiography in which the contribution of the landed classes is marginalized in favour of the success of radical liberalism and nonconformity, and offers a re-evaluation of the social, political, and cultural contributions of the Anglican aristocracy to the making of a Welsh indentity in the nineteenth century.