Grace Gwyneddon Davies

Grace Gwyneddon Davies (born Grace Elizabeth Roberts; 26 November 1878 – 17 October 1944) was a British singer and Welsh folk-song collector.

Life and work

Davies was born in Anfield, Liverpool on 26 November 1878. Her parents Anne and Lewis Roberts lived in Liverpool but both had Welsh heritage. She developed her musical ability at the Royal Academy of Music gaining qualifications on the piano. She was a singing student of the leading singer Charles Santley. After a year in Paris and more training in Italy she became a professional.

She was a soloist at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Caernarfon in 1906. She also attended a meeting of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion in the County Hall, where she sang an arrangement by Arthur Somervell of the Welsh tune, 'Knot y Coed'. At that eisteddfod she met a number of leading North Welsh people, including her future husband, Robert Gwyneddon Davies.

Publications Grace Gwyneddon Davies, Folk Songs of Anglesey (Caernarfon, 1914) Robert Gwyneddon Davies, 'The Collecting of Anglesey Folk Songs', Anglesey Antiquarian and Field Club: Transactions, Vol. 1923 (Llangefni, 1923), 95 Grace Gwyneddon Davies, A Second Collection of Folk Songs from Anglesey (Wrexham, 1924) Second collection of Welsh folk-songs (1934) collected by Lady Herbert Lewis, accompaniments by Morfydd Owen and Grace Gwyneddon Davies Wyn Thomas, Graianfryn Mistress and native music in Wales (Aberystwyth, 1999)