Owen John Thomas

Owen John Thomas (3 October 1939 – 14 May 2024) was a Welsh Plaid Cymru politician who was a Member of the Welsh Assembly (AM) for the South Wales Central region from 1999 to 2007.

Early life and education Owen John Thomas was born in Albany Road, Cardiff, where his father, John Owen Thomas, had a pharmacy. This formed part of his chapter in the book , published in 1998, and its English-language version.

Thomas was deputy head teacher of Gladstone Primary School (Cardiff's Welsh-language night club), whose president he was from 1983 to 1989. He learned Welsh in his late twenties and played a key role in promoting Welsh-medium education in the city, naming several of the schools with historic Cardiff Welsh names.

Political career From 1999 to 2007 Thomas was a member of the National Assembly for Wales, representing the South Wales Central region for Plaid Cymru. Despite his strong convictions that Plaid Cymru had made a mistake in losing Wigley as party leader, Thomas remained loyal to the party whip and its new leader Ieuan Wyn Jones. Thomas faced a strong challenge for the 2003 regional seat selection, but comfortably won the membership vote.

A strong supporter of the Welsh language and the teaching of Welsh history, he wrote in the Western Mail that "The language is a national asset and its revitalisation can play a central part in the larger process of nation building and economic and social regeneration". He also complained that Welsh children are taught "the history of England, not the history of Britain".

His achievements as an AM included an unsuccessful campaign to have Saint David's Day recognised as a bank holiday, his role in the creation of the Wales Millennium Centre, and his campaigns for the Allied Steel and Wire pension fund and to bring brachytherapy, a cancer treatment, to Wales.

Thomas was the Plaid Cymru candidate for the Cathays ward in the May 2008 Cardiff local elections, increasing the vote and receiving the highest vote that Plaid Cymru has achieved in that ward. He also ran for that ward in the 1983 local election.

Later life Following retirement at the age of 67, Thomas remained active within Plaid Cymru, serving as the party's chair in Cardiff Central and in Cardiff. He was the longest-serving trustee of Tŷ'r Cymry, a house given to the Welsh speakers of Cardiff in 1936.

In November 2020 his book The Welsh Language in Cardiff: A History of Survival was published by Y Lolfa. The book is an attack on the myth that Cardiff has been an English-speaking town since the Anglo-Norman conquest of Cardiff in 1100, emphasising instead that a very significant element of its population have been Welsh-speaking throughout history.

Personal life Thomas was married to Siân Wyn Evans, a former headteacher of Ysgol Glan Morfa, Splott, from 1985. The couple had twin sons. Thomas had three sons and a daughter from a previous marriage.He has 12 grandchildren Owen,Bethan,Rhys,Megan,Daniel,Dylan, Mari,Teifion,Esther,Greta,Steffan and Elin. He had lived there from 2019, having first been diagnosed with the illness in 2013.

Thomas died in Cardiff on 14 May 2024, at the age of 84.