This lively contribution to a major reassessment of nineteenth-century Wales challenges the widely-held Welsh historiography in which the contribution of the landed classes is marginalized in favour of the success of radical liberalism and nonconformity. This account of nineteenth-century Carmarthenshire emphasizes the social and political dominance of the Anglican and landowning nobility and gentry for much of the period. Matthew Cragoe explores the nature and public roles of a governing elite, arguing that their influence was not simply a function of their members' wealth or their control of local government and the administration of the law, but had a vital ideological dimension in the aristocracy's paternalistic ethic, which found powerful and practical expression in the 'moral economy' of the landed estate.