First name/s: Ifor
Last name: Davies
Known names / nicknames:
Date of birth: 09/06/1910
Year of birth: 1910
Life before Ruskin
Date and place of birth: Gowerton, South Wales
Family: son of Jeffrey and Elizabeth Jane Davies. Jeffrey Davies was a lay preacher in the Welsh Independent Church, and secretary of the chapel Tabernacl, Gowerton.
Education: Gowerton Grammar School and Swansea Technical College (evening classes).
Work: Davies appears to have gone to Ruskin as a young student, shortly after his time at Swansea Technical College.
Politics/Trade union activity: Joined the Labour Party in 1928, aged 18.
Trade Union membership (at time of entry to Ruskin) ~ other Trade Union
Life at Ruskin
Dates at Ruskin: not known, but probably late 1920s, early 1930s.
Source of funding: according to the journal ‘Wales’ No 45, October 1959, Davies had a ‘scholarship’ to study at Ruskin. Source not known.
Campaigns/political activity: not known
Subjects studied at Ruskin: Oxford Diploma in Economics, Politics, Philosophy (according to ‘Wales’ op cit.
Dissertation: not known
Qualification: Diploma, as above.
Life after Ruskin
Education: not known
Work: According to John Graham Jones, in ‘Welsh Biography Online’ Davies ‘earned his living as an accountant with I. Rowland Jones Ltd., 1931—39, as a personnel officer with ICI, 1942—47, the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Labour, 1947—48, and later with the Aluminium Wire & Cable Co., 1948—59. He was also an official at the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Labour, 1947—49.’ In 1959, he was elected as Labour MP for Gower, a constituency he represented until his death in 1982.
Politics/trade union activity: 1935 – President of West Wales Federation of Labour League of Youth. 1948 – Secretary and then Parliamentary Agent of the Gower Constituency Labour Party. Also a member of the Co—operative Party, the Fabian Society, the South Wales Executive of the WEA, 1950—60, Swansea Borough Council and Glamorgan County Council, 1958—61.
Member of APEX trade union and of the Institute of Personnel management.
Member of the Council of the University College of Swansea from 1961, Chairman in 1969.
Secretary of Tabernacl Welsh Independent Church, Gowerton for many years between 1950 and 1980.
In Parliament, a person of influence. Lord Commissioner of the Treasury and government whip, 1964—66. Under—secretary of State at the Welsh Office, April 1966—October 1969. Chairman of the Welsh Grand Committee. Chairman of the Welsh Labour group, 1960—66, and chairman of the Welsh Parliamentary Party, 1970—71.
Davies voted in favour of entry to the EEC in 1971, defying the Labour whip, and campaigned against proposals for Welsh devolution in 1978.
Family: married (1950) Doreen Griffiths. Two children, Wyn and Janet.
Place & date of death: 6th June 1982
Date of death: 06/06/1982
Year of death: 1982
Achievements / Publications
Described as a ‘fluent and effective public speaker in both Welsh and English’.
His involvements – in education, religion, industrial policy, the Labour Party – spanned the whole range of interests associated with the twentieth century labour movement in Wales.
Material in archives or already published articles
Gwasanaeth Archifau Gorllewin Morgannwg (West Glamorgan Archive Services) Records of Tabernacl Welsh Independent Church, Gowerton.
www.archiveswales.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?inst_id=34?&coll_id=76719&expand=&L=1
Image
Notes on Image/s
Comment of contributor/s and sources
See the entry on Wales Biography Online (John Graham Jones) http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s6-DAVI-IFO-1910.html
Also John Henry Davies, History of Pontardawe (1967).
Author/s
Ken Jones