The publication in 2000 of the three-volume Cambridge Urban History of Britain presented British urban historians with an ideal opportunity to take stock of the current state of research in their discipline. For Welsh urban historians it raised a number of particularly thorny issues. Whilst it contained some important chapters focused exclusively on the history of Welsh towns, it also identified Wales as one of the most under-researched areas of urban Britain. This special issue, dedicated specifically to Welsh urban history, has been conceived in part as a response to that finding. It also represents the collective efforts of scholars, new and established, whose research on urban Wales was presented at a conference on ‘Understanding Urban Wales’ at the University of Wales Swansea in September 2003. The event demonstrated the existence of a healthy ‘critical mass’ of scholarship, at both postgraduate and postdoctoral level, on Welsh towns and their development.
This article provides a case study of the role of an urban institution in enhancing town status and identity in the first half of the nineteenth century. During this period, Swansea's scientific institution played a key part in establishing the reputation of the town both within Wales and beyond, as an important commercial and cultural centre, rivalling Bristol's well-established sphere of influence in south Wales by the middle of the nineteenth century. The Swansea example demonstrates that, even in a relatively small town, a successful urban institution could help enhance urban status and extend regional influence. This is of particular significance in the Welsh context given the smaller demographic size of the principal Welsh towns compared to those in England and Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century. In focusing on the role of an urban institution it also highlights an important area of common experience between Welsh patterns of urbanization and those elsewhere in Britain, where civic and cultural institutions were also to the fore in promoting urban identity.
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