The geographical location of the county of Anglesey and its historical reputation as ‘the mother of Wales’ has meant that it has never lacked local patriots. When Henry Rowlands published Mona Antiqua Restaurata, a rather bizarre homage to druidism, in 1723, he had little difficulty in drumming up several hundred subscribers. Since its inception the Anglesey Antiquarian Society and Field Club has promoted local studies with considerable vigour and one of its most notable initiatives is ‘Studies in Anglesey History’, a series launched in 1966 and which, with this volume by William P. Griffith, has now reached its eleventh monograph. Fittingly, the author is a native of Holyhead and during his academic career at Bangor he has actively supported attempts by the Society to bring into the public domain studies which illustrate the rich variety of material that has made the island such an attractive prospect for archaeologists, antiquarians and historians.

Dr Griffith is best known for his thoroughly researched work on Renaissance learning and education in early modern Wales, but over the years he has moved forward into the modern period and developed an expertise in the history of public administration and in the impact of devolution on Wales. His latest work focuses on the magistracy and county government of Anglesey from the late Georgian period to the outbreak of the First World War. Dr Griffith has painstakingly trawled through the available sources in preparing this substantial and well-documented study, and he buttresses his conclusions with an array of statistical tables, maps and photographs. Neatly dividing his material into three sections and nineteen chapters, he offers a densely written account of the slow but remorseless march towards democratisation within the county. Having toyed briefly with theoretical considerations, he places his eggs firmly in an empirical basket as he seeks to explain how a powerful county oligarchy was undermined by new and clamorous sectional interests headed by the Liberals, whose commitment to the reform of county government and democracy in general transformed the nature of both local and national politics, even though they sometimes sparked expectations which could not be fulfilled. Although one might have liked more sprightly and arresting depictions of the major luminaries, the author identifies emerging elites and accounts for their assertiveness. Following the decline of the copper industry, Anglesey became heavily dependent on its agrarian economy and this clearly bore heavily on the nature of county administration as well as on the quality of the leadership of its representatives and bureaucrats. As the details mount, Dr Griffith also maintains the flow of the narrative by keeping an eye open for parallels and contrasts in other Welsh counties and beyond, and also by offering fleeting glimpses of joyless Tory grandees and agents who vainly sought to stem the tide of reform. There is valuable food for thought in this solid and noteworthy study, not least for readers outside Anglesey and Wales.