Welsh Journals

OBITUARY SIR WYNN P. WHELDON, K.B.E., D.S.O., LL.D. President 1953-60 (i) AN APPRECIATION By Sir JOHN CECIL-WILLIAMS (Honorary Secretary) AFTER twenty-seven years of devoted service to the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, Sir Wynn Wheldon informed the Council of the Society that he was unable to accept nomination for the Presidency for 1961 and the Council accepted his resignation with the deepest regret. His death in November was a sad loss to the Society. He first joined the Society as a young man some ten years before the outbreak of the War of 1914-18 and on his return to London, after a distinguished career in the Army and then as Registrar of the University College of North Wales, he rejoined it. In 1934, in the reconstruction after the death of our revered Honorary Secretary, Sir Vincent Evans, C.H., LL.D., F.S.A., he was elected a member of the Council. To-day only three members of the Council as then constituted remain and only one can claim greater seniority. I was proud and glad to welcome him on that occasion for I knew how great were his gifts and how deep his devotion to Wales. He was able and modest. I remember his telling me casually in the course of conversation that he had at Cambridge been awarded the renowned Whewell Scholarship, subject to proof of age, and he told me of his great disappointment on searching the registers at Maentwrog and finding he was five days too old to receive the award. He never mentioned that again and I never heard it from any other source. I served under him during the war and he was ready always to listen to another point of view, even from a junior officer: but once his orders were given they were final. He was solid and steadfast in every office he held and his judgment of men and movements was unerringly sound. In 1944 he was elected Chairman of the Council, and in 1953 became President of the Society. In both capacities his influence was profound. In order to appreciate the extent and value of his services it is necessary to consider what the Society has in fact achieved during his years of office. In 1934 the Society was inactive and weak in membership and in finance. There was a lot of clearing up to do-some 26,000 overprints of the Society's publications to be dealt with, new