It was Professor Emeritus David Williams, at the time Sir John Williams Professor of Welsh History at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, who first proposed to the History and Law Committee of the Board of Celtic Studies that a calendar of the returns made in Wales to the Religious Census of 1851 should be prepared and published under their auspices.

Preface.

The system of reference is that adopted in the original returns (PRO. HO. 129/26-28) and in the Population Tables of the Census of 1851.

The arrangement of the calendar.

Only once in modern times has there been an official and comprehensive count of the accommodation available for, and the actual attendance at, religious worship in Great Britain.

Introduction.