Council for Wales and Monmouthshire

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The Council for Wales and Monmouthshire (

The proposal to set up a Council for Wales and Monmouthshire was announced in the House of Commons on 24 November 1948. Its inaugural meeting was in May 1949, and its first business meeting the following month. Its terms of reference were:

• to meet from time to time and at least quarterly for the interchange of views and information on development and trends in the economic and cultural fields in Wales and Monmouthshire; and
• to ensure the government is adequately informed of the impact of government activities on the general life of the people of Wales and Monmouthshire.^[2]

The council had 27 appointed members. Of these, 12 were nominated by Welsh local authorities; there were also nominees from the

With the failure of unanimous Welsh political opposition to prevent the flooding of Capel Celyn, and subsequent growth in Plaid Cymru influence in the 1950s, the Council for Wales recommended the creation of a Welsh Office and Secretary of State for Wales early in 1957, at time when the governance of Wales on a UK national level was so demonstrably lacking in many people's eyes.^[6] However, council chairman and one time Plaid Cymru critic Huw T. Edwards did not believe the Council went far enough. Edwards and four other members of the Council for Wales resigned in 1958 over what Edwards described as "Whitehallism." Later that year Edwards joined Plaid Cymru. The Council became moribund, but retained a formal status until 1966.^[7]

Responding to the calls of Welsh devolution, by 1964 the Labour Government gave effect to Council for Wales proposals by establishing the post of Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Office (Welsh: Swyddfa Gymreig).

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