1982 in Wales

Incumbents

• Secretary of State for Wales – Nicholas Edwards
• Archbishop of Wales – Gwilym Williams, Bishop of Bangor (retired)
• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales – Jâms Nicholas

Events

• 2 January – The Welsh Army of Workers claims responsibility for a bomb explosion at the Birmingham headquarters of Severn Trent Water.
• 23 February – Wales was declared a Nuclear Free Zone as Clwyd County Council became the last of eight Welsh local authorities to pass a resolution to that effect.
• May – Swansea City complete their first season in the English Football League First Division with a sixth-place finish.
• 2 June – 100,000 people gather in Pontcanna Fields, Cardiff, to welcome Pope John Paul II on the first-ever papal visit to Wales.
• 8 June – 32 men from the Welsh Guards are killed when the Sir Galahad burns during the Falklands War. The most famous of the survivors is Simon Weston, who is severely burned.
• 16 June – Welsh miners go on strike to support health workers demanding a 12% pay rise.
• 30 August – St David's Hall opens in Cardiff.
• 11 September – 14 skydivers from Wales die when a Chinook helicopter crashes at an airshow in Mannheim in Germany.
• 16 September – At the Gower by-election brought about by the death of Ifor Davies, Gareth Wardell holds the seat for Labour.
• 17 October – First issue of Sulyn, the first Sunday newspaper in the Welsh language.
• 26 November – A plaque is unveiled by the Prince of Wales at the monument erected in memory of those who died in the Gresford Disaster of 1934.
• date unknown
  • The Inmos microprocessor factory in Newport, Wales, designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, is completed.
  • Swansea is given the right to have a Lord Mayor. Councillor Paul Valerio becomes the first incumbent.
  • First students begin courses at the Welsh language study centre at Nant Gwrtheyrn.

Arts and literature

• Roger Rees wins a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
• Alice Thomas Ellis is shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The 27th Kingdom.

Awards

• National Eisteddfod of Wales (held in Swansea)
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Chair - Gerallt Lloyd Owen
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Crown - Eirwyn George
• National Eisteddfod of Wales: Prose Medal - Gwilym M. Jones

New books

• Gwynfor Evans - Bywyd Cymro
• Alun Jones - Pan Ddaw'r Machlud
• R. Merfyn Jones - The North Wales Quarrymen 1874-1922
• Rhiannon Davies Jones - Eryr Pengwern
• Kenneth O. Morgan - Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980
• Wynford Vaughan-Thomas - Princes of Wales

Music

• John Cale - Music For A New Society (album)
• Dafydd Iwan with Ar Log - Rhwng Hwyl a Thaith

Film

• Political Annie’s Off Again, film of a local industrial dispute made by Chapter Video Workshop.

Broadcasting

Welsh-language television

• Cefn Gwlad
• Joni Jones
• Noson Lawen appears for the first time.
• S4C starts broadcasting on 1 November

English-language television

• The Citadel (BBC), filmed in Tredegar.

Sport

• BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year – Steve Barry
• Boxing
  • 14 September – Kelvin Smart becomes British flyweight champion after beating fellow Welsh fighter Dave George.
• Darts – Ann-Marie Davies wins the Women's World Masters Championship.
• Snooker
  • 13 January – Terry Griffiths wins the Lada Classic.
  • 4 December – Terry Griffiths wins the UK Snooker Championship, to complete his career Triple Crown (snooker).
  • Terry Parsons wins the World Amateur Championship.

Births

• 9 January – Catherine Middleton, future Princess of Wales (in England)
• 14 January – Joe Dunthorne, novelist and poet
• 1 February – Gavin Henson, rugby player
• 4 February – Kevin Gall, footballer
• 2 May – Timothy Benjamin, athlete
• 12 May – David Thaxton, actor and singer
• 21 June – Prince William, first child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (in London)
• 29 August – Mike Phillips, rugby player
• 2 September – Matthew Rees, footballer
• 29 November – Imogen Thomas, model
• 25 December – Rob Edwards, footballer

Deaths

• 5 January – Jeanetta Thomas, UK's oldest person and oldest Welsh-born woman of all time, 112
• 11 January – Ronald Lewis, actor, 53{{cite news|title='Ruined' actor found dead|newspaper=The Journal
• 5 February – Ronald Welch, historical novelist, 72
• 8 February – Cedric Morris, artist, 92
• 6 May – Jennie Eirian Davies, politician and magazine editor
• 19 May – Elwyn Jones, television writer, 58
• 31 May – Eryl Davies, educationist, 59
• 6 June – Ifor Davies, politician, 71
• 10 July
  • Gwilym Jenkins (in Lancaster), statistician and systems engineer, 49
  • Gwilym Ellis Lane Owen, philosopher, 60
• 17 July – Bob John, footballer, 83
• 16 August – Sydney Hinam, Wales international rugby player, 83
• 18 October – Idwal Jones, politician, 82
• 19 October – Iorwerth Peate, social anthropologist and poet, founder of St Fagans National Museum of History, 81
• 4 November – Talfryn Thomas, character actor, 60
• 16 November – Ivor Jones, rugby union international, 80
• 19 November – Herbie Evans, footballer, 88
• 4 December – Ivor Williams, portrait painter, 74

References

References

1. Stephen Bates. (19 March 2018). "Lord Crickhowell obituary".
2. Gerald Parsons. (20 June 2013). "The Growth of Religious Diversity - Vol 2: Britain From 1945 Volume 2: Controversies". Routledge.
3. [[Meic Stephens. (17 October 2013). "James Nicholas: Poet, teacher and Archdruid of Wales". [[The Independent]].
4. "Those were the days". [[Express & Star]].
5. (29 March 2022). "Exhibition to mark 40 years since the Nuclear Free Wales Declaration Visits Wrexham". Wrexham.com.
6. "Swansea City AFC History".
7. (23 March 2012). "Disaster for British at Bluff Cove". BBC News.
8. (16 June 2008). "1982: Welsh miners back health workers". [[BBC News]].
9. Moore, Sarah. "Swansea skydivers remembered 30 years after Mannheim crash". BBC News.
10. (18 January 2011). "Centres and Peripheries: Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Journalism in the Twenty-First Century". Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
11. Stanley Williamson. (1999). "Gresford: The Anatomy of a Disaster". Liverpool University Press.
12. (15 July 2008). "Key convention members".
13. "BBC Wales Sport Personality winners".
14. (3 February 2010). "Profile: Terry Griffiths". [[Eurosport]].
15. (7 January 1982). "Oldest woman dies aged 112". [[The Guardian]].
16. Pamela Dear. (1 January 2000). "Contemporary authors: New revision series". Gale / Cengage Learning.
17. "Morris, Sir Cedric Lockwood, ninth baronet".
18. Meic Stephens. (April 1986). "The Oxford companion to the literature of Wales". Oxford University Press.
19. John Graham Jones. (31 July 2008). "Davies, Ivor (1910-1982), Labour politician".
20. John Graham Jones. (30 July 2008). "Jones, James Idwal (1900-1982), headteacher and Labour politician".
21. (1982). "Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru". University of Wales Press.