page_title: Cambrian Archaeological Association
section_title: Antecedents and founding years, 1846–1855
hierarchical_section_title: Cambrian Archaeological Association / History / Antecedents and founding years, 1846–1855
caption_attribution_description: English: Tower , Broncoed, near Mold 1846. Soft Ground etching by Harry Longueville Jones. Archaeologia Cambrensis 1846. Vol 1. pg54
context_page_description: The Cambrian Archaeological Association was founded in 1846 to examine, preserve and illustrate the ancient monuments and remains of the history, language, manners, customs, arts and industries of Wales and the Welsh Marches and to educate the public in such matters. The association's activities include sponsoring lectures, field visits, and study tours; as well as publishing its journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis, and monographs. It also provides grants to support research and publications.
context_section_description: The Cambrian Archaeological Society was founded at a time when a sense of Welsh national identity was increasingly asserting itself. It was also at the moment that the dominance of the Antiquarian and Welsh learned societies centred in London were on the wane. There were two earlier learned Welsh Cultural societies in London; the Cymmrodorion founded in 1751 and the Cymreigyddion (who conducted all their business in the Welsh language) founded in 1770.  The Cymmrodorion had ceased to meet in 1843, although it was re-established in 1873, while the Cymreigyddion  disappeared completely in the 1850s. The premier English antiquarian society, the Society of Antiquaries of London, which had received its Royal Charter in 1745, was also in an impoverished state, having virtually bankrupted itself as the result of publishing ventures. In Scotland the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland had been established in Edinburgh in 1780, while in Ireland the Royal Irish Academy, established in 1786, had its own Antiquities Section, and in 1890 the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland had been formed from the Kilkenny Archaeological Society.
   Against this background the British Archaeological Association was founded in 1844, and was followed rapidly by a breakaway group, the Royal Archaeological Institute, which pioneered a model of holding annual meetings or congresses in various parts of the British Isles and producing an annual journal (published in quarterly parts). This was the model adopted by Cambrian Archaeological Association for Wales and the Marches.
  The driving figure in the establishment of the Cambrian Archaeological Association was the Rev. Harry Longueville Jones who was supported by the celticist the Rev John Williams. Rather than form a society directly, Longueville Jones produced a 'manifesto' -On the study and preservation of national antiquities- calling on interested people to join together and form an association. Longueville Jones at this date was living at Beaumaris in Anglesey.  Between 1834 and 1842 he lived in Paris, where he worked for the English language publisher Galignani and edited several editions of Galignani's Paris Guide.  He worked with leading literary figures including William Thackeray. The ideas he put forward owed much to current developments in France, which followed the appointment in 1834 of the French novelist Prosper Mérimée as the first Inspector-General of Monuments Historiques. Longueville was also a talented artist and his work was used to illustrate early volumes of Archaeologia Cambrensis.
caption: Tower, Broncoed, near Mold 1846. Soft Ground etching by Harry Longueville Jones, Archaeologia Cambrensis, vol. 1 (1846), p. 54
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