Catherine Margretta Thomas was a Welsh folk dancer and is known for recording the Nantgarw tradition of Welsh dance.
Catherine Margaretta Thomas was born in 1880 [1] : 31 in the village of Nantgarw. Her parents were Daniel and Hannah Davies. [2] Catherine was an active participant of the chapel's cultural activities, and was said to have been an exceptional athlete. Her daughter Ceinwen Thomas would recall that even in her 30s, her mother was made to start foot races up to 50 paces behind the other competitors, and still "she always won". [3] It is at these chapel events that the young Catherine enjoyed watching the local dances [3] as they were performed in an open space below Twyn Chapel in Caerphilly [1] : 32 and at Nantgarw and Y Groes Wen. [3] With dancing also being a feature of the Noson ddifyr held at Catherine's home and the homes of friends and neighbours. [3]
Due to the hostility of the local churches to folk dancing,[ citation needed ] Catherine Margretta Thomas' own mother was not keen on her daughter going to see these dances, but Catherine was able to convince her father to take her along to witness the displays. The rise of Nonconformism in Wales meant that by the time Catherine Margretta Thomas was in her teens folk dancing had practically been eradicated in Nantgarw. [3]
Dancing had died hard if inconsistently [3] by 1911 when Catherine Margretta Thomas' daughter, Ceinwen Thomas (later Dr. Ceinwen Thomas [4] ), was born. But the influence of Nonconformism waned and by the time Ceinwen Thomas was attending school she was discussing the tradition of dancing in Nantgarw with her mother. [3] After Ceinwen Thomas had left college she met Walter Dowding of the Welsh National Folk Dance Society. She told him about her mother's recollections of folk dancing in Nantgarw. He put her in touch with Doris Freeman. Together Catherine Margretta Thomas, Ceinwen Thomas and Doris Freeman worked to notate the dance steps from the traditional dances that Catherine Margretta Thomas could remember. [3] These notes were then passed on to the Welsh National Folk Dance Society by Ceinwen Thomas. [5] A complete set of the dance notation for Y Gaseg Eira was published, alongside the tune Ymdeithgan Gwŷr Penllyn (March of the Men of Penllyn), in the 1959/60 Welsh Folk Dance Magazine.
Catherine had been reluctant for her daughter to make a written record of the dances based on her own recollection as by that time, she only remembered snippets and believed that she was probably remembering them imperfectly or in the wrong order. [3] The BBC Welsh Affairs Editor Vaughan Roderick wrote in a blog in 2009 that he doubted the history of these dances. [6] He questioned why only Margretta Thomas had any recollection of these dances being performed. He wrote that his great grandfather had been a minister in Nantgarw in the 1880s but had not seen these dances. He linked it to a romantic nationalist desire to create a longstanding tradition in Wales even if one had not existed in reality.