Background
Hywel Francis attended Whitchurch Grammar School and Llangatwg Secondary School. He studied at the University of Wales, Swansea, where he earned a doctorate in history. Francis continued to work at the University of Wales as a Professor in Adult Continuing Education prior to being elected in 2001. At the University of Wales, he founded the South Wales Miners' Library. He also was the chair of the Wales Congress in Support of Mining Communities. Hywel Francis is a speaker of the Welsh language.
Francis has been a member of the Gorsedd since 1986. He has been made Vice-President of Carers UK and Honorary Parliamentary Patron of the adult learners' body, NIACE. He is a Trustee of the Paul Robeson Wales Trust, and the Bevan Foundation, which he founded. He is President of the South Wales Miners' Museum. He authored Miners Against Fascism: Wales and the Spanish Civil War in 1984 and Wales: A Learning Country in 1999.
Hywel is the son of Dai Francis, who led the South Wales NUM during the industrial unrest of the 1970s. Like his father, Hywel was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
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