This article is about the particular significance of the year 1896 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

• Prince of Wales The Prince Albert Edward, son of Queen Victoria
• Princess of Wales Alexandra of Denmark
• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales Hwfa M n

Events

• 28 January In an underground explosion at Tylorstown Colliery, Rhondda, 57 miners are killed.^[1]
• February Construction of the Snowdon Mountain Railway is completed.
• 27 March Colonel Sir Francis Marindin makes an unofficial inspection of the Snowdon Mountain Railway line on behalf of the Board of Trade. This includes a demonstration of the automatic brakes.
• 6 April The Snowdon Mountain Railway commences public operation. On the first trip down the mountain, locomotive No.1 "Ladas" with two carriages loses the rack and is derailed. A passenger dies after jumping from the carriage.^[2] The second train down collides with the wreckage of the first; services are suspended for a year.^[3]
• June The Prince and Princess of Wales visit Aberystwyth, where the prince is installed as chancellor of the University of Wales and the princess opens the new pier pavilion.
• 24 September William Frost flies his Frost Airship Glider for the only time.
• 30 September August 1897 Lock-out of slate workers at Penrhyn Quarry.^[4]
• Creation of the Roman Catholic diocese of Cardiff.
• Opening of Shotton steelworks.
• Opening of the first indoor swimming pool in Wales, at Cardiff.
• Bangor pier built and opened by George Douglas-Pennant, 2nd Baron Penrhyn
• Opening of the Pierhead Building at Cardiff by the Bute Dock Company (now an information centre for the Welsh Assembly).

Arts and literature

Awards

National Eisteddfod of Wales held at Llandudno

• Chair Ben Davies
• Crown withheld

New books

• Owen Morgan Edwards Cartrefi Cymru
• Bertrand Russell German Social Democracy

Music

• Nicholas Bennett Alawon fy Ngwlad
• David Jenkins Four Welsh Airs

Film

• 5 May Birt Acres' The Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race (1895) becomes the first film in the UK to be commercially screened outside London when it is shown at Cardiff Town Hall.^[5]
• The first Royal news film ever shot in Britain shows the Prince and Princess of Wales visiting an exhibition in Cardiff.

Sport

• Football The Welsh Cup is won by Bangor for the second time in its 17-year history.

Births

• 18 January Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne, agriculturist (died 1982)
• 7 March Charlie Pugh, Wales national rugby player (died 1951)
• 21 March Dai Edwards, Wales dual-code rugby international (died 1960)
• 1 May Hubert William Lewis, VC recipient (died 1977)
• 6 May Wilfred Hodder, Wales international rugby player (died 1957)
• 7 May Edgar Morgan, dual-code rugby international (died 1983)
• 13 August Walter Price, footballer
• 1 September Steve Morris, Wales national rugby player (died 1965)
• 11 September John Morris, Baron Morris of Borth-y-Gest, judge (died 1979)
• 15 September Owen Temple-Morris, politician (died 1985)

Deaths

• 17 January Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover, patron of the arts, 93
• 26 February Octavius Vaughan Morgan, politician, 58
• 5 April John Rogers Thomas, Welsh-descended American songwriter and composer, 66
• 10 April John Evans Jones, Governor of Nevada, 55
• 1 August William Robert Grove, lawyer, judge and scientist, 85
• 27 October Richard Davies, businessman, ship-owner and politician, 77
• 30 December Evan Herber Evans, Nonconformist leader, 60

References