William Glynne-Jones


William Glynne-Jones was a Welsh fiction and children's writer, broadcaster and journalist. His stories were broadcast weekly on BBC Children's Hour.

Early life and career

He was born and brought up in Llanelli and went to Llanelli Boys' County School. His love of literature and his childhood desire to be a writer was fed by the books read in Llanelli library.
Glynne-Jones left school at 15 and began working at Glanmor Foundry at 16 as a steel-foundry moulder. He left the job at 36, on medical grounds. He was a fluent Welsh speaker, but suffered from a cleft palate and hare lip. While his wife and son remained initially in Wales, he went to London to pursue an ambition to earn his living as a freelance writer and novelist.
His stories for children and adults were broadcast weekly on Children's Hour and regularly on the mid-morning story hour by the BBC. His full name of William Glynne-Jones was necessary to distinguish him from other writers with similar names.

Writings and writers

Glynne-Jones wrote with fidelity and feeling about many aspects of life in industrial South Wales in the 1920s, notably the steel foundries and the Llanelli area. He addressed those who lived there and outsiders.
His circle of literary friends, acquaintances, and correspondents included: Glyn Jones, Doris Lessing, W. Somerset Maugham, George Ewart Evans, Gareth Hughes, Gwyn Jones, Gwyn Thomas, Dylan Thomas, Brian Forbes, Emyr Humphreys, Clifford Evans, Emlyn Williams and Richard Burton.

Short stories

  • ''Welsh Stories. He Who had Eaten of the Eagle''

School readers

  • The Golden Boy
  • If Pigs Had Wings
  • The Buccaneers
  • ''Yukon Gold''

Awards and recognition

Glynne-Jones was awarded a £300 "Atlantic Award" for literature by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1946. He received medals from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1970, 1976 and 1979 for contributions to children's literature. He is also represented in the De Grummond Children's Literature Collection. His name appears on the January 1982 National Geographic map of Novelists of the British Isles. He also features in the Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales and Author and Writers Who's Who.
In December 2015, a commemorative panel to Glynne-Jones was placed in the foyer of Llanelli Library, honouring his work as an author.

External sources

  • Llanelli Miscellany 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019