Herbert M. (Herbert Millingchamp) Vaughan

Born in Penmorfa, Cardiganshire, in 1870, Herbert Millingchamp Vaughan was a Welsh author, historian, and bibliographer. He was educated at Clifton College and Keble College, Oxford, and had the financial freedom to devote much of his life to reading, research, and writing.

From 1899 to 1910 he lived largely in Italy, especially around Naples and Florence, an experience that shaped some of his best-known historical and topographical writing. He also traveled in Australia in 1912–1913 and turned that journey into a book. Alongside travel writing, he wrote biography and history, including work on the last of the Royal Stuarts and on the Medici popes.

Vaughan was also closely connected with Welsh literary and cultural life. He served as High Sheriff of Cardiganshire in 1916 and gave long service to the National Library of Wales. He died in 1948, leaving behind a body of work that joins careful scholarship with an obvious delight in places, people, and the past.