Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1978 (Creation)
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
2 cm.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
The Welsh Office development project on the use of the literature of Wales in secondary schools was administrated by the Welsh Academy with funds provided by the Welsh Office. The project's director was Dr Roland Mathias and the members of the project team were Cary Archard, John Davies, Sally Roberts Jones and Dr. R. Brinley Roberts. The progress of the project team were supervised by a steering group which consisted of Ann Sayer, English teacher at Ysgol Gyfun Glantaf; Mr Gerald Morgan, Headmaster of Ysgol Gyfun Penweddig, Aberystwyth; and Arthur Parker of the Welsh Joint Education Committee. Meic Stephens served as chairman of the steering group, the Welsh Office was represented by Sam Adams (SI) and Julian Pritchard, and the Academy by its officer, Ceri George. A report was published in 1986.
Name of creator
Biographical history
Vernon Watkins (1906-1967), poet, was the second of three children of William and Sarah Watkins. He was born in Maesteg, Glamorgan, on 27 June 1906 but grew up in Swansea, Glamorgan, and on the Gower. He attended Repton School, Derbyshire, 1920-1924, then (for one year) studied modern languages at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was briefly a clerk at Lloyds Bank in Cardiff but after a breakdown he returned home to Swansea and moved to the Lloyds Bank branch in St Helens. He served with RAF Police and Intelligence, 1941-1946, but otherwise remained with Lloyds for the remainder of his working life. In 1941 he published his first collection of poems, Ballad of the Mari Lwyd (London, 1941), followed by The Lamp and the Veil (London, 1945), Selected Poems (Norfolk, Conn., 1948), The Lady with the Unicorn (London, 1948), The Death Bell (London, 1954), Cypress and Acacia (London, 1959), Affinities (London, 1962), and Fidelities (London, 1968) which appeared posthumously. As a poet he was scrupulous, working through numerous drafts to reach a final version and often undertaking further revision after publication. In addition to original poetry he translated European verse into English, including Heine's The North Sea (London, 1955), and wrote essays on other poets. He corresponded widely with literary figures and became friends with the likes of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin and, in particular, Dylan Thomas. In 1944 he married Gwendoline (Gwen) Mary Davies (b. 1923), a colleague at RAF Intelligence, and they had five children. Following his retirement in 1966 he lectured at the University College of Swansea. He was then appointed Visiting Professor of Poetry at the University of Washington but died on 8 October 1967, shortly after arriving in Seattle to take up his post. Some of his previously unpublished and uncollected works appeared in Uncollected Poems (London, 1969), Selected Verse Translations, ed. by Ruth Pryor (London, 1977), The Breaking of the Wave (Ipswich, 1979), and Ballad of the Outer Dark, ed. by Ruth Pryor (London, 1979).
Name of creator
Biographical history
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The file contains a typescript and two copies of proofs of the 1978 reprint of Vernon Watkins' The Unity of the Stream, one with handwritten corrections by Gwen Watkins and the other by Roland Mathias.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Preferred citation: EPR3/1