Susannah Berrington Gruffydd Richards

While an accomplished harpist in her own right, Lady Llanover (1802 – 1896) employed a professional Harpist at her estate throughout her long life. The first such harpist, John Wood Jones was followed in the role by his student, Thomas Gruffydd of Llangynidr who in turn, was followed by his daughter, on his passing in 1887.^[2]

While her partially blind father, Thomas Gruffydd, is said to have trained eighteen harpists as part of the cultural revival instigated by Lady Llanover, Gruffydd Richards was also paid a monthly salary as a harp teacher and continued to be employed by the family after Lady Llanover's death.^[3]

Gruffydd Richards would go on to be recognised as the "chief harpist of Gwent". By teaching the Llanover dances to local villagers and school children as late as 1918, she was responsible for their continuation as a living tradition into the twentieth century.^[4]

Her continuation of the dances her father had composed and the traditions revived at Llanover House during her youth was invaluable to the renaissance of Welsh dance and Welsh culture in the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, as Gruffydd-Richards was an important source of Welsh music and dances, she was responsible for their being distributed to publishers and academics. Hugh Mellor's 1935 book, Welsh Folk Dance, was primarily based on information he had obtained from Mrs Gruffydd Richards in 1926. The version of Rhif Wyth published by Ann Griffiths was from a manuscript Gruffydd Richards had gifted to a resident of Llanover decades earlier.^[5][6]