Sir Gwilym Rowlands (2 December 1878 – 16 January 1949) was a Welsh Conservative Party politician. Rowlands was the son of Rowland Rowlands, who was manager of the Penygraig

Colliery Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

Company in the

Rhondda Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley ( cy, Cwm Rhondda ), is a former coal mining, coalmining area in South Wales, historically in the county of Glamorgan. It takes its name from the River Rhondda, and embraces two valleys – the larger Rhondda Fa ...

. He was educated at

Penygraig Penygraig is a village and community in the Rhondda Valley in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. As a community Penygraig contains the neighbouring districts of Dinas, Edmondstown, Penrhiwfer and Williamstown. Penygraig is within ...

Board School and Health School, and became a member of Rhondda Urban District Council from 1913 to 1919 and from 1922 to 1929. He first stood for election to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

as a

Coalition Conservative The Coalition Coupon was a letter sent to parliamentary candidates at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, endorsing them as official representatives of the Coalition Government. The 1918 election took place in the heady atmosphere of victory ...

candidate at a by-election in 1920 in the Labour Party-held constituency of Rhondda West, but lost by a wide margin. Despite being an official

candidate, Rowlands described himself as "Labour in the Conservative interest", having been nominated by the local Conservative workingmen's clubs. (He was president of Dunraven Conservative Club in Penygraig and Vice-President of Ton-Pentre Conservative Club in Ystrad). He stood again in Rhondda West at the 1922 general election, losing by a wider margin. Rowlands was unsuccessful again at Caerphilly in

1923 Events January–February * January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory). * January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, t ...

and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China holds ...

, and at Pontypool 1929, but finally won a seat at the 1935 general election in

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

. He stood down from

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

at the

1945 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1945. Africa * 1945 South-West African legislative election Asia * 1945 Indian general election Australia * 1945 Fremantle by-election Europe * 1945 Albanian parliamentary election * 1945 Bulgarian ...

References

External links

* 1878 births 1949 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for Welsh constituencies UK MPs 1935–1945 People from Rhondda Knights Bachelor Commanders of the Order of the British Empire {{Wales-Conservative-UK-MP-stub