Description
A Brief History of Henry Hughes
The following history was written by Meryl Darkins, for whom Welsh is her first language. She also transcribed, interpreted and analysed Henry Hughes’ original Welsh manuscript in readiness for the publication of this book.
Editorial printed in BGHF Journal – Issue 6, 2009
The extract below details the collaboration which took place between Wales and the USA before this edition of The Henry Hughes Story was published.
The Heritage Forum’s publication of “The Henry Hughes Story” reveals how easily this important story might have been lost.
“Henry Hughes” first came to light some sixty five years ago as a typed-copy headed “The Autobiography of Henry Hughes”, telling of how this individual, born at Tredegar in 1833, emigrated to the USA and eventually became a pioneer settler on its Minnesota western frontier. It was unclear where the document originated but the story of how it was found proved fascinating.
In 1947, Henry’s son Albert Barnes Hughes, an attorney at the “Hughes & Hughes” law firm of Worthington, Minnesota, had spent a holiday at his sister’s California home where amongst their dead father’s affects was a small notebook, hand-written, in Welsh that had often come near to being thrown away as valueless. But Albert, who could read Welsh, soon realised the document’s significance and, returning to Worthington, translated his father’s words into English and produced several copies for the US family and relatives in Wales. One of the most interesting and important social records to come out of this area, it told how Henry Hughes had witnessed the 1839 Chartist march, worked underground as a child, survived the 1839 cholera epidemic and become a devout member of Ebenezer Church, Scwrfa. Other than my radio play based on the tale, there the matter rested until, in August 2008, forum member Jeff Darkins was shown one of the original 1947 Worthington copies by Mrs. Mary Bayley of Blackwood. As a result Blaenau Gwent Heritage Forum decided this important work should made widely-available to the public.
But obtaining copyright permission was a problem. This work had been written fifty years earlier in another country, and to print without permission might have led to serious legal consequences. Tracking down any US family members proved an interesting task in its own right. It turned out that “Hughes & Hughes” law firm was no longer listed on the Worthington, Minnesota town’s web-site, having closed sometime during the previous half- century. An e-mail sent to that town’s Chamber of Commerce brought the response that, since this was such an interesting subject, the office would provide what help it could. Two days later Laurence Hughes, a retired attorney, had been traced, suggested as one who might possibly have some connection with the family?
Another long explanation of the project was then e-mailed across the Atlantic, but no reply was received for more than four weeks. Perhaps this was not the contact we sought, or just did not wish to have anything to do with such an idea? Dealing with a US attorney meant nothing could be printed without permission and so our Henry Hughes project seemed to have reached a dead end. Thus the same e-mail was sent one more time in the belief that any response would help clarify matters. Amazingly, within a day or two Larry Hughes, grandson of Henry, responded having only that day checked his former e-mail address. Now at last the project was getting somewhere.
Larry Hughes fully supported our intentions and promised to do anything he could to help. His brother Tom was the family historian and, contacted by e-mail, proved fully supportive of project and, after seeing the outline draft, granted the Heritage Forum full legal copyright. Incidentally Thomas Hughes had been a Rhodes Scholar who had, during his time at Oxford in the 1950’s, visited Tredegar on several occasions researching his family. Tom and Larry’s assistance, together with that of their sister Zylpha Hughes Pederson, proved invaluable in adding a great deal to what Henry himself had written. The book’s English version has now been published and another in Welsh is to be launched at the 2010 Ebbw Vale National Eisteddfod.
Perseverance combined with a great deal of luck, and help provided by Worthington’s Chamber of Commerce, brought “The Henry Hughes Story” to fruition. So-nearly lost forever, its survival through so remarkable a sequence of events made it seem almost meant to be!
Peter Morgan Jones
