Fonds GB 0210 DANMAS - Sir Daniel Lleufer Thomas papers

Sir Daniel Lleufer Thomas (1863-1940) was born at Cwm-du near Talley, Carmarthenshire, and was educated at Llandovery College. In 1883, he entered Oxford as a non-collegiate student and was one of the founder members of the University's Dafydd ap Gwilym Society. He obtained an honours degree in Jurisprudence in 1887 and was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in May 1889, holding his first brief at Carmarthen in the following December. He was appointed Stipendiary Magistrate for Pontypridd and the Rhondda in 1909, and Vice Chairman of Glamorgan Quarter Sessions in 1929, holding these offices until 1932-3 when ill-health compelled him to resign. Outside his legal career, Lleufer Thomas was a prominent figure in public life and was associated with Tom Ellis in the foundation of the London Cymru Fydd Society. He was appointed Assistant Commissioner to the Royal Commission of Labour in 1892; Secretary of the Welsh Land Commission from 1893 to 1896; and Chairman of the Welsh Section of the Commission on Industrial Unrest in 1917. He was granted a knighthood in 1931. Sir Lleufer also took an active part in the social and intellectual issues of his day, including the Co-operative Movement, the Workers' Educational Association and Housing and Town Planning, and was one of the founders of the Cardiff Workers' Co-operative Society which built Rhiwbina Garden Village. He was an important figure in the foundation of the National Library of Wales and the National Museum of Wales, and was a member of the Privy Council of the University of Wales, initiating the establishment of a Faculty of Law at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. His literary and historical interests were wide-ranging, and he contributed numerous articles to the Dictionary of National Biography and other publications. Lleufer Thomas received the honorary degree of LLD from the University of Wales in 1927 and was awarded the Cymmrodorion Medal in 1939. He died in August 1940.