Dr. Mary Oldham is an Historian and Librarian with a particular interest in the role of Welsh landed estates and their proprietors in society over the past four or five centuries, especially the part they have played in the social, economic and political evolution of communities. Her doctorate was awarded in February 2024 for her thesis entitled ‘Proprietors, people, transition and change on a Welsh estate: Gregynog Hall, Montgomeryshire, 1750–1900’.
Mary was born and grew up in Nottinghamshire, but has been based in Mid Wales since the late 1960s, when she qualified as a Chartered Librarian in Aberystwyth. She subsequently worked as the Schools Librarian for the County Library service, first in Montgomeryshire and then in Denbighshire. After a spell in London studying at the London School of Economics and working for British Steel, Mary returned to Mid Wales permanently in 1981.
It was during her time as Schools Librarian for Montgomeryshire that Mary first got to know Gregynog Hall. In 1987, she took a part-time post as Administrator at Gwasg Gregynog, following which she was asked to take on some work in the Gregynog Library, which led to her permanent appointment as Librarian. Through her tireless work and her naturally conscientious and inquisitive nature, Mary quickly became an incredible repository of knowledge on the history of Gregynog.
In her role as Librarian, Mary began to feel that an academically respectable history of the Gregynog estate was needed, to examine Gregynog’s place as a landed estate in the economic and social history of Wales, and to help sustain its place and identity in the twenty-first century. Gregynog is known primarily as the home of Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, two hugely important philanthropic art collectors who bought the Hall in 1920 and turned it into the cultural centre of Mid-Wales. However, Mary felt that the popular narrative of Gregynog was unduly dominated by the twentieth-century image constructed by the Davies sisters, and was determined to reveal the earlier, largely untold, history of the estate. This led Mary to ISWE, where she commenced her doctoral research in 2018, which was undertaken on a part-time basis alongside her continued role as Librarian.
Dr. Oldham’s thesis looks at 150 years of transition and change on the Gregynog estate, from the period of its ownership by the last of the Blayneys, ancestral owners of the plas, through various shifts in its proprietorship and management until the early-twentieth century and its acquisition by the Davieses of Llandinam, but with a constant focus on its interconnections with community and place. It explores a plethora of themes through the prism of Gregynog, such as its role in local and national Liberal politics in the nineteenth century; the evolution of its Welsh borderlands cultural identity; and its effect on the surrounding landscape. The thesis was co-surpervised by Dr. Lowri Ann Rees and Dr. Shaun Evans and examined by Prof. Annie Tindley (Newcastle University) and Dr. Mari Wiliam. You can read more about the completion of the project in our blog post.
Since completing her doctorate in 2024, Mary thesis has been accepted for publication and she is currently in the process of adapting it. She is already a published author of several children’s books and novels for young people, which have appeared in print in the UK, USA and Germany.
Dr. Oldham has been a member of the since moving back to Wales in the 1980s, and currently serves as Excursions and Programme Secretary.
