William Glynne-Jones


William Glynne-Jones was an Anglo-Welsh novelist, short story writer, broadcaster and journalist.

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 worked between the ages of 16 and 36 as a steel-foundry moulder at Glanmor Foundry. He would then type his writings in the evening. He was a fluent Welsh speaker, but suffered from a cleft palate and hare lip. He was released from the foundry on medical grounds in 1943. 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 similarly-named Anglo- Welsh writers of the time.

Writings

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 in particular, to those who lived there as well as to 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.

Novels

Short stories

William Glynne-Jones was awarded a £300 Rockefeller Foundation Atlantic Award for literature 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 for William Glynne-Jones was placed in the main foyer of Llanelli Library in honour of his work as an author.

External sources