Gwynedd Archaeological Trust - Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Gwynedd

David Elis-Williams (Chair)

David was appointed Chair of Trustees at the AGM in September 2019. He also chairs the Trust’s Finance Sub-Committee.

David attended Jesus College, Oxford where he studied Physics then a Master’s in Applied Statistics. He later joined Gwynedd County Council and qualified as a Chartered Public Finance Accountant. In 1995 he was appointed Director of Finance of the Isle of Anglesey Council where he remained until his retirement in 2012.

He was a trustee of Addysg Oedolion Cymru / Adult Learning Wales and has served on the Audit Committee of the Royal Statistical Society.

Since his retirement David has interested himself in various aspects of history and archaeology, attending archaeology lectures given by GAT and Bangor University and has also been a regular volunteer on GAT digs. He has given talks to local societies and published articles relating to local history.

David has lived for most of his life in Bangor and is a Welsh speaker.

Fiona Gale

Fiona was appointed a trustee at the AGM in September 2018. Prior to her recent retirement she worked as a County Archaeologist in Denbighshire.

Fiona gained a first degree in Archaeology and Geography from Southampton University and in 2000 gained an MA in Archaeology and Heritage from Leicester University.

Fiona is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA) and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeology (ACIfA).

Fiona has worked in Archaeology for 40 years and in a curatorial and heritage management context in Wales for 20 years and has a broad knowledge of Archaeology and the natural environment as well as working within a protected landscape.

Frances Lynch Llewellyn

Frances was one of the founding Trustees of Gwynedd Archaeological Trust (and the Clwyd Powys Trust) in 1975. She resigned in 1983 but returned in 1988 as a member of the Management Committee. She became Chair of the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust in 1991 and retired from that position in 2017 and has recently become a Trustee of GAT.

She came to Bangor in 1964 from Liverpool University and was appointed to the staff of the History Department at Bangor University in 1966. She taught prehistory and techniques of archaeological fieldwork there until her retirement in 2000.

She has excavated in Ireland (notably in the 1960s at Newgrange) and Britain and taken part in surveys in Portugal but most of her work has been done in Wales and has been on burial monuments of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Her largest project was the excavations in the Brenig Valley in 1973 and 1974, the last big public-funded project before the advent of the Trust System in Wales.

She has sat on the National Trust Archaeology Committee and the Committee for Wales, was an Appointed Member on the Snowdonia National Park Committee 1991-8 and Secretary of the Welsh CBA 1971-81 and a member of the Ancient Monuments Board 1987-2000. She has also been a member of several local history societies and is currently Chair of the Anglesey Antiquarians and Secretary of the Friends of Storiel (previously Bangor Museum).

John Ratcliffe

John became a trustee in September 2020.

John graduated in Botany and Geography at Durham in 1974 where he was introduced to landscape history and ecology and the dark art of pollen analysis and completed an MSc in Environmental Resources at Salford in 1976 with a study of wetland vegetation in NE Wales. From 1974 – 77 he was an ecologist for Clwyd County Council, then joined the Nature Conservancy Council, the Countryside Council for Wales and now Natural Resources Wales first as a surveyor and district officer then team leader for protected areas in North West Wales. After initial focus on peatlands and then coastal systems he has recently taken special responsibility for Welsh mountain habitats. From 1983-86 he worked for the World Wildlife Fund Indonesia Programme in West Papua (from where he acquired an interesting collection of modern stone axes) and in 1994 for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Pacific Region in Sulawesi. He is a Chartered Environmentalist and member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. John was introduced to archaeology by his son (who, unnervingly, also learnt pollen analysis in the same Durham laboratory, now occupied by the Archaeology Department, 45 years later) and is now resigned to being taken around earthworks and made to appreciate strangely shaped rocks. He does however retain a keen interest in understanding past landscapes, and their human occupants, as the key to their present and future ecosystems.

Dr Frances Ann Richardson

Frances was appointed as a trustee of Gwynedd Archaeological Trust in December 2016.

Frances is a part-time tutor in local and social history at the University of Oxford. She is also active in Gwynedd local history research as a member of the Friends of St Julitta's, Capel Curig, who put on exhibitions and publish booklets about various aspects of local history and landscape. She has a detailed knowledge of Human Resources and pension issues from her previous roles as Head of Reward for Oxfam, and as a trustee of The Pensions Trust.

Dr David M Roberts

David became a trustee in March 2019 and also serves as a member on the Trust’s Finance Sub-Committee.

Prior to his retirement in 2014 he was a member of staff at Bangor University for over 35 years. David served as University Registrar for a period of 15 years and previously as Academic Registrar. As University Registrar he was responsible for governance and management processes, legal and administrative matters, and organisational and strategic development.

David is a historian by background and wrote a history of the University (Bangor University 1884 – 2009) which was published in 2009 to mark the University’s 125th anniversary.

He has previously served on the governing body of Coleg Llandrillo and as Vice-Chair of Careers Wales. He has also been a Trustee of the Amlwch Industrial Heritage Trust, of Gwasanaeth Cerdd Ysgolion [Gwynedd a Môn], and is Chair of the Trustees of Ensemble Cymru.

Dr Gary Robinson

Gary was appointed as a trustee of Gwynedd Archaeological Trust in September 2018. He is a senior lecturer in archaeology at Bangor University where he has worked since 2015.

He completed his PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (PhD 2006), where his interest in British prehistory was first encouraged. His doctoral thesis explored the prehistoric archaeology of the Isles of Scilly. Gary’s main research interest is the prehistoric archaeology of maritime and coastal communities in western Britain and Ireland.

More recently he has become interested in archaeological approaches to the contemporary world and how such approaches may challenge traditional narratives of the past. Gary is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquities of London and Treasurer of the Council for British Archaeology, Wales.