John S. Ellis – författare

Through a study of an 'invented' royal ceremony held in Wales in 1911 and again in 1969, "Investiture: Royal Ceremony and National Identity in Wales 1911-1969" explores the problematic, contested and changing relationship between nationality, ethnicity and the state in the United Kingdom. What happens to the meaning of the British monarchy when it leaves the English centre and crosses into the Celtic periphery? How does royal ceremony become a vehicle for defining and contesting the relationship between ethnicity, nationality and the state when it takes place amongst a problematic group like the Welsh? How are internal social and cultural divisions within the periphery represented, addressed and reconciled in such ceremonial? How do these relationships and the constellations of identity that they form change over time? This study explores the ethnic margins and imperial dimensions of British national identity through the ceremonies of the Investiture of the Prince of Wales and the public reaction to them. Through the vehicle of ascribing meaning to this royal ceremony, competing parties and social groups defined alternative and often conflicting models of Welshness and its relationship to British national identity, the British state and the British Empire.

Around the turn of the century, Welsh readers thrilled to the heroic stories of Owen Rhoscomyl. Having been a cowboy, frontiersman, soldier and mercenary, Rhoscomyl was as adventurous and exotic as his stories. Roving the wilds of the American West, Patagonia and South Africa before finally settling in Wales, Rhoscomyl was a flawed hero who led a rough life that exacted a personal price in poverty, delinquency and violence. He identified deeply with the Welsh nation as a source of tradition, legitimacy and belonging within a wider imperial world. As a popular commercial writer of historical romance, imperial adventure, popular history and public spectacle, he rejected accusations of national inferiority, effeminacy and defeatism in his depictions of the Welsh as an inherently masculine and martial people, accustomed to the rugged conditions of the frontier, ready to advance the glory of their nation and eager to lead the British imperial enterprise. This literary biography will explore the vaulting ambitions, real achievements, and bitter disappointments of the life, work and milieu of Owen Rhoscomyl.

Around the turn of the century, Welsh readers thrilled to the heroic stories of Owen Rhoscomyl. Having been a cowboy, frontiersman, soldier and mercenary, Rhoscomyl was as adventurous and exotic as his stories. Roving the wilds of the American West, Patagonia and South Africa before finally settling in Wales, Rhoscomyl was a flawed hero who led a rough life that exacted a personal price in poverty, delinquency and violence. He identified deeply with the Welsh nation as a source of tradition, legitimacy and belonging within a wider imperial world. As a popular commercial writer of historical romance, imperial adventure, popular history and public spectacle, he rejected accusations of national inferiority, effeminacy and defeatism in his depictions of the Welsh as an inherently masculine and martial people, accustomed to the rugged conditions of the frontier, ready to advance the glory of their nation and eager to lead the British imperial enterprise. This literary biography will explore the vaulting ambitions, real achievements, and bitter disappointments of the life, work and milieu of Owen Rhoscomyl.