How the latest march for an independent Wales sparked the rediscovery of a lost connection

Martin Shipton

Two of the organisers of the latest march for an independent Wales have discovered a century-old family connection they didn’t know existed.

The ninth March for Independence will take place in Barry on Saturday April 26, with thousands of people from all over Wales expected to descend on the largest town in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Jointly organised by the groups YesCymru and AUOBCymru, the march will begin at 1pm from King Square, following a 1.2-mile route through the town centre. Those joining the march will walk along Barry’s main shopping street Holton Road, where event organisers Hedd Gwynfor and Mark Hooper found a shared heritage that dates back more than 100 years.

Gwynfor Evans

Hedd is the grandson of Gwynfor Evans, who in 1966 became Plaid Cymru’s first MP, in the famous Carmarthen by-election. Gwynfor’s father – and Hedd ‘s great grandfather – Dan Evans founded a department store on Holton Road in the early 20th century.

It turns out that Mark’s great-grandfather, William Hedley Hooper, previously owned the same building, running an ironmongery business in it before selling it to Dan Evans.

Mark Hooper, a Plaid Cymru councillor in the Vale of Glamorgan, said: “I never knew my great grandfather, William Hedley Hooper, but he and his wife, Elizabeth Morgan – who led the 1920 Gorsedd procession on a white horse – were part of Barry’s initial spurt to growth in the early years of the last century. They helped shape the town’s business and cultural identity, and that’s a legacy I hope to continue.

‘As a Plaid Cymru councillor in the town, the connection to Gwynfor Evans – Plaid’s first MP and Dan Evans’ son – is also not lost on me. It’s certainly a small world sometimes!”

Legacy

Hedd Gwynfor said: “I’ve been involved in every March for Independence since the first one took place in Cardiff in 2019, and I’m proud to be part of the ninth. It’s especially meaningful to bring the campaign for Welsh independence to Barry, a place with a legacy rooted in the national movement.”

A photograph of Dan Evans and William Hooper from 1905 outside the Holton Road shop still survives. Today, the same building is home to Eto, an independent business run by fellow organiser Stuart Burnell, who is also helping to coordinate the march.

Barry’s place in Welsh political history stretches back even further. In the 1890s, the town played a key role in the Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) movement, which called for Welsh self-government. The first Welsh branch was formed in Cadoxton’s Bethel Chapel in 1892, and Cymru Fydd members won seats in Barry’s first council elections two years later.

Gareth Jones

Barry was also the home town of journalist Gareth Jones, who exposed the man-made famine known as the Holodomor, which killed an estimated four million people in Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s.

A lasting tribute to Gwynfor Evans, who died in 2005 at the age of 92, can also be found in the town at Barry Library, where a bronze bust was unveiled five years after his death to honour his legacy as a statesman and campaigner.

His threat to undertake a hunger strike against the Thatcher government’s decision to renege on the promise to launch a Welsh language TV channel is widely believed to have led to the creation of S4C. In his last interview, during his final illness, Evans denounced the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was launched on the mistaken grounds that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The day of the march will also feature a rally with speeches and live music at King Square, with Mark Hooper serving as MC, and a large Indy Market in the town’s Central Park. On the evening before the march, a public event on the economics of independence will take place at the Park Hotel.