In the early days of the Cambrian Archaeological Association the position of the President of the Society went to a member the landed gentry or aristocracy in Wales or the Welsh Marches, as well as to Welsh Bishops and senior figure in the Anglican Church. The first President was Sir Stephen Glynne, the brother in law of William Gladstone, a passionate Ecclesiologist, who was a guiding figure of the Association for many years.
The main intention of the Presidency, was, and still to some extent is, to provide an entree for visits and the organization of the Summer General Meeting. It is normal for the Presidency to be held for one years, but on some occasions it has been held for longer.
Nearly all the early Presidents, who were not clerics in the Anglican Church, had been Members of Parliament at sometime. It is very clear that the Summer Meetings were used as a forum (outside the formal events), for the discussion of matters not directly associated with Archaeology or Welsh history. Most notably a number of the Presidents were members of the Canterbury Society, an association for the colonisation of the South Island of New Zealand. Also many were directly involved in the Railway Companies which were opening up Wales at the time, most notably Earl Vane Tempest, later Lord Londonderry of Machynlleth, President in 1866, who was the Chairman of the Cambrian Railways. This does not imply that the majority of the Presidents were uninterested in Archaeology. The Earl of Dunraven of Dunraven Castle in Glamorgan, President in 1849 and 1869, while not involved in Welsh Archaeology, was a leading Irish intellectual and Celtic scholar, as well as a supporter of Catholic Emancipation. Many of the other Presidents who were MPs were leading Antiquaries, particularly Octavius Morgan and Stanley Leighton - the latter was the founding figure of SPAB. Equally most of the Bishops and churchmen, who were presidents, were leading academics. The scholarly Rev Basil Jones, the second secretary of the Association, later became the President in 1878, after his elevation to the Bishopric of St David’s.
A change starts to appear in 1881, when Professor Charles Cardale Babington’ a botanist and archaeologist at Cambridge University, became President. Babington was also Chairman of the General Committee of Association for many years. Babington was followed in 1891 by the noted celticist Prof John Rhys of Oxford, the Assyriologist Rev Prof A H Sayce, also of Oxford. In 1895 and 1896 the renowned legal historian and Lord Chancellor, Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury served twice as president. The archaeologist and geologist Professor Sir William Boyd Dawkins, who was President for six years and successfully steered the Association through the years of the Ist World War.
After the Ist World War further changes in the Presidency are apparent. Leading archaeologists (Sir) Mortimer Wheeler (1930) and (Sir)Cyril Fox 1933); architects: Harold Hughes (1930) and W D Caroe (1936); historians and celticists Sir John Edward Lloyd(1937) and Prof R A S Macalister (1932 and 1934), were amongst the Presidents. Since the 2nd World War the Presidents have been a mixture of leading academics, professional architects and archaeologists, the occasional Anglican cleric, and local historians, such as J D K Lloyd of Montgomery, the editor of Archaeologia Cambrensis for many years. While women such as Angharad Llwyd had been allowed to join the Cambrians in their own right, early in the Association’s history, it was not until 1988 that Francis Lynch became first female President. Since then there have been three further women Presidents.
Sir John Edward Lloyd “Introduction” (A History of the Cambrian Archaeological Association) in “A Hundred Years of Welsh Archaeology” Archaeologia Cambrensis Centenary Volume, Gloucester 1946.
D Moore "Cambrian Meetings 1847-1997: A Society's Contribution in a Changing Archaeological Scene" Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol 147, 1-54.
Archdeacon Roberts “The Past History of the Association” Archaeologia Cambrensis 1935
Annual General Meetings /Summer Conferences and Presidents of the Cambrian Archaeological Association[edit]
