Books & Research
I am an independent social historian and biographer concerned particularly with Wales, overlooked lives, family and community, and the ways institutions, authority and social expectations shaped ordinary experience. My books are rooted in archival research, genealogy, family papers, newspapers, oral testimony and close knowledge of the communities and landscapes I write about.
The six Major Works below best represent the mature direction of my historical research. The wider bibliography shows how that work developed from detailed genealogical reconstruction into social history, institutional biography, occupational history, edited primary sources and studies of authority, memory and public life.
Quick Book Links
For readers looking for a starting point, these are the principal historical works, biographies and research routes. Direct purchase links are retained alongside the dedicated book pages.
Core Historical Works
Biography & Edited Sources
Foundational & Governance
Development of the Research
Several of my later biographies and social histories grew from genealogical and archival studies begun more than a decade earlier. The early volumes were written primarily to reconstruct families and preserve local evidence; returning to those archives with a wider body of research allowed the later books to move towards broader questions of class, authority, institutions, memory and social change. The foundational studies are therefore retained below as part of the research record, while the Major Works represent the mature direction of the work.
Major Works
These six books best represent the mature direction of my work as an independent historian: social and institutional histories, biographies and edited primary-source work built from long-term research, close engagement with primary evidence and an interest in how family, place, authority, memory and social change interact.
Voices from the Uplands: The Davies Family and the Soul of Rural Wales
A major study of family, community and rural Welsh life.
Centred on the Davies family of Caeadda, Llanwrin, and the wider upland communities of Montgomeryshire, this book brings together more than two decades of archival and genealogical research, oral testimony and close engagement with the landscape. It examines farming, kinship, Nonconformity, education, migration, cultural memory and the resilience of rural society across successive generations. The volume includes a Foreword by Elinor Bennett, placing the family history within its wider cultural and personal context.
- Author: Antony David Davies
- Foreword by: Elinor Bennett
- Published: December 2025, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
- Formats: Kindle, paperback and hardcover
- Kindle ASIN: B0G12JVF27
- Paperback ASIN: B0G14RM9FQ
- Hardcover ASIN: B0G14VPWS4
The House of Allcroft: Power, Paternalism, and Decline at Stokesay Court
A study of landed influence, country-house society and the decline of inherited authority.
Tracing the Allcroft family from provincial commerce to landed influence, the book examines Victorian respectability, inheritance, household authority, paternalism, philanthropy and decline. Drawing upon documentary evidence, public records, family history and personal memory, it places Stokesay Court within the broader history of the English country house and the weakening of inherited social structures during the twentieth century.
- Author: Antony David Davies
- Published: July 2026, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
- Formats: Kindle and paperback
- Paperback ISBN: 9798181008908
- Kindle ASIN: B0H4S8YLQ5
Murder in the Marches: A Chronicle of Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire, and Radnorshire 1805–1910
A social and legal history of violence, justice and community in the Welsh Marches.
Across Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire and Radnorshire between 1805 and 1910, the book reconstructs killings, suspicious deaths and criminal cases from inquests, assize reporting and contemporary newspapers. Rather than treating them as sensational true crime, it uses each case to explore class, gender, shame, policing, forensic uncertainty and the operation of law in rural communities.
- Author: Antony David Davies
- Published: 2026, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
- Formats: Kindle and paperback
- Kindle ASIN: B0GJTGQ4N3
- Paperback ASIN: B0GJZSV5RN
William Jones of Glandwr Hall (2026)
A professional and institutional biography of a Welsh-born London solicitor, examining law, civic authority, social mobility and the making of Victorian legitimacy.
Arthur Owen Jones (2026)
A biography of the Nottinghamshire cricketer and England captain, using sport to explore class, leadership, illness, amateurism and Edwardian reputation.
A Small History of My Life to My Children (2026)
An edited and contextualised nineteenth-century working man’s memoir, preserving Richard Emmett’s first-person account of military service, family life, mobility and survival.
Welsh Rural and Social History
Murder in the Marches (2026)
A social and legal history of homicide and serious violence in Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire and Radnorshire between 1805 and 1910.
From Fields to Railways (2025)
The movement of a working-class family from rural communities into the railway towns of industrial Britain, examining migration, employment and identity.
Biography and Working Lives
Arthur Owen Jones (2026)
A biography of the Nottinghamshire cricketer and England captain, exploring amateur sport, class, leadership, illness and Edwardian reputation.
William Jones of Glandwr Hall (2026)
A study of a Welsh-born London solicitor whose life illuminates professional authority, public service, landownership and Victorian social mobility.
Off the Rails (2026)
The working life of Crewe steam locomotive driver Alfred Jenkins, set within the culture, skills and identities of Britain’s railway communities.
A Small History of My Life to My Children (2026)
An edited and contextualised Victorian soldier’s memoir, preserving a rare first-person account of service, family responsibility and social mobility.
Duty and Dignity (2025)
A biography of George Roberts Shorto, Crimean War veteran, solicitor and Town Clerk of Exeter, examining civic duty and Victorian respectability.
Faith, Service, and Respectability (2025)
A three-century study of the Shorto family, tracing religion, education, public service, professional identity and social mobility.
Foundational and Genealogical Studies
Old Llyfnant Valley Farming Families (2015)
A large genealogical and local-history reconstruction preserving the documentary foundation for later work on the Llyfnant Valley, Glandwr and Caeadda.
The Davies Caeadda Family (2014)
The original family history from which much of the later Caeadda and upland research developed.
The Allcroft Family: From Worcester to Stokesay (2016)
The earlier genealogical and social study that provided the documentary base later revisited and substantially reinterpreted in The House of Allcroft.
The Shorto Family of Exeter (2015)
An extensive family history preserving the genealogical and civic material later developed in the Shorto biographies.
Leadership, Governance and Public Life
This is a secondary strand of my publishing, informed by professional experience and by a wider interest in institutional culture, public trust and civic responsibility.
The Toxic Workplace (2025)
An examination of exclusion, informal power, inconsistent leadership and organisational dysfunction in the workplace.
The Trust Trap (2025)
A study of accountability, institutional complacency, organisational memory and the conditions under which public trust is weakened.
A Guide to the Senedd (2025 edition)
A guide to Welsh devolution written before the 2026 Senedd reforms. It describes the electoral arrangements then in force and should now be read in that historical context.
2025 edition · Superseded by the 2026 electoral reforms
An Independent Publishing Approach
I publish much of my work independently by deliberate choice. Many of my subjects are highly specialised, rooted in particular families, communities and archival collections. Independent publication allows me to preserve the depth of documentation these subjects require, retain control over interpretation and presentation, and keep the resulting research available to specialist readers without reducing it to meet the commercial expectations of a general publishing market.
This approach is particularly valuable in genealogy and local history, where a work may serve a relatively specialised readership while remaining of lasting importance to families, archives and communities. I regard each book not merely as a publication, but as a durable record that can be consulted, preserved and developed by future researchers.
Research and Heritage Advocacy
My research is closely connected with the preservation of vulnerable sources relating to Welsh rural and community history, including Nonconformist chapel records, burial registers, family papers, photographs and local archives. The recovery of individual lives is inseparable from the survival of the records through which those lives can still be understood.
Further Reading
For an account of how I use archival records, genealogy, newspapers and oral testimony, see Research Methods.
For essays and externally published work, visit Published Writing. For research, media and heritage enquiries, please use the Contact page.