Rachel’s Dairy founder honoured with purple plaque

An “organic pioneer” has become the eighth woman in Wales to be honoured with a purple plaque.

She was credited for helping to bring organic farming into the mainstream.

It was unveiled by Elin Jones MS and Anne Evans – a close friend of Mrs Williams’ and the person who nominated her for a purple plaque.

Her daughters, Rachel Rowlands and Elizabeth Jeffreys, said it was a “very emotional day” and that they were “so very, very proud” of their mother’s achievement which was “so richly deserved”.

“It’s very timely. A lot of what she was concerned about, we are suffering the consequences today here in Wales – in fact, throughout the world,” said Ms Jeffreys.

Mrs Williams joins women from all walks of life in receiving the honour, including war reporter Martha Gellhorn.

Born in 1911, Mrs Williams dedicated her life to the land and fulfilled her childhood ambition to be a farmer.

She believed passionately in the power of nature and the need to look at the complete food chain to improve human health.

As a young woman she farmed with her mother, then with her husband and then with her daughter and son-in-law, leading to the formation of Rachel’s Dairy, Wales’ first organic dairy brand.

In 1952, she became one of the earliest members of the Soil Association (SA). Her farm, Brynllys, became Britain’s first certified organic dairy farm.

She also contributed to the Bryn Gwyn project in South Wales, which used organic methods to restore grassland after open cast coal mining.

In the mid-70s, Mrs Williams was instrumental in setting up the West Wales Soil Association, hugely influential in organic development in the UK.

Renowned as a pioneer in the organic movement, her support and nurturing of young incomers to west Wales in the 1970s was credited with helping to establish organic farming as mainstream in the area.