1869 in Wales

Incumbents

• Prince of Wales – Albert Edward
• Princess of Wales – Alexandra

  Events

• January
• *Henry Austin Bruce becomes MP for Renfrewshire.
• *Timothy Richards Lewis goes to India to study cholera.
• 1 May – The Western Mail is published for the first time.
• 19 May – Two days after John Young, the English manager of the Leeswood Green colliery, announces a pay cut, he is attacked by some of his workers.
• 2 June – Seven men are tried at Mold for attacking John Young. A riot breaks out as those convicted are being transported to the railway station; soldiers fire on the crowd, killing four people.
• 10 June – Three people are killed in a train derailment at Maesycwmmer in Glamorgan.
• 1 September – The Dyserth branch line is opened for goods traffic.
• 30 October – The first edition of the Welsh-language periodical, Y Goleuad, is published.
• Anti-Irish riots at Pontlottyn in the Rhymney Valley result in one death.
• Landore steelworks at Swansea established by Carl Wilhelm Siemens.
• John Hughes of Merthyr Tydfil buys land near the Sea of Azov, where he develops an ironworks and founds the city of Yuzovka.
• Joseph Leycester Lyne acquires land at Capel-y-ffin and begins construction of an Anglican Benedictine community, Llanthony Abbey.
• Construction of the fort at St Catherine's Island, off Tenby.
• Prehistoric burial remains are discovered at Parc le Breos on the Gower Peninsula.
• John Owen of Tyn-llwyn is evicted from his farm for voting Tory.

  Arts and literature

Awards

• The first official National Eisteddfod of Wales takes place at Holywell.

  New books

• J. H. Clark – History of Monmouthshire
• John Hugh Evans – Pryddest Goffa i Thomas Aubrey
• Jane Hughes – Galargan am y diweddar Barch. Henry Rees, Liverpool
• David Watkin Jones – Yr Ysgol Farddol
• Nathaniel Jones – Elias y Thesbiad
• John Petherick – Travels in Central Africa and Explorations of the Western Nile Tributaries
• William Rowlands – Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry
• Jane Williams – A History of Wales derived from Authentic Sources
• Robert Williams – Y Geninen

  Music

• Owen Jones – Hymnau Hen a Diweddar

  Sport

• Football – Ruabon footballers set up a club at Plas Madoc.
• Mountaineering – Emmeline Lewis Lloyd attempts an ascent of the Matterhorn.

  Births

• 11 January – Ralph Sweet-Escott, English born, Wales rugby international
• 9 April – John Hugh Edwards, politician
• 19 May – John Henry Williams, Welsh politician
• 20 May – Robert Griffith Berry, minister and writer
• 30 May – Thomas Rees, theologian
• 12 August – Fred Parfitt, Wales international rugby player
• 6 September – Walford Davies, composer
• 24 September – Maud Cunnington, archaeologist
• 29 October – Bill Morris, Wales international rugby player
• 9 November – Osbert Fynes-Clinton, dialectologist
• 12 November – Arthur Leonard Leach, geologist and archaeologist
• 15 November – Percy Bennett, Wales international rugby player
• 20 November – Herbert Tudor Buckland, architect working in Birmingham
• 26 November – Princess Maud of Wales, queen consort of Norway

  Deaths

• 18 February – Henry Rees, Calvinistic Methodist minister, 71
• 23 March – William Williams, poet, 68
• 31 March – David Rees, Nonconformist leader and author, 67
• 16 April – James Davies, poet, 68
• 12 May – Thomas Walter Price, journalist and poet, 39
• 1 July – David Jones, banker and politician, 58
• 14 July – Lloyd Kenyon, 3rd Baron Kenyon, 64
• October – John Jones, poet, 59
• 9 November – Harriet Windsor-Clive, 13th Baroness Windsor, philanthropist,
• 15 December – David Williams, politician, 70
• 17 December – Sarah Jacob, "the fasting girl", 12