1878 in Wales

Centuries:	17th; 18th; 19th; 20th; 21st;
Decades:	1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s;
See also:	List of years in Wales; Timeline of Welsh history 1878 in The United Kingdom Scotland Elsewhere

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1878 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

March — The 'basic' process, enabling the use of phosphoric iron ore in steelmaking, developed at the failing Blaenavon Ironworks by Percy Gilchrist and Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, is first made public.^[1]
12 April — The Swansea Improvements and Tramway Company begins to operate horse trams.
11 September — In a mining accident at the Prince of Wales Colliery, Abercarn, 268 men are killed.
Founding of Dr Williams' School for Girls at Dolgellau.
Opening of Marine Drive around the Great Orme at Llandudno.
A passenger ferry service is established between Bangor and Porthaethwy on the Menai Strait.
Industrialist John Corbett buys Ynysymaengwyn.
The prison system in Wales is nationalised and brought under centralised government control.^[2]
Nanteos Cup first exhibited.

Football — The Welsh Cup competition takes place for the first time, and is won by Wrexham.

4 January — Augustus John, painter (died 1961)
30 January — Reg Skrimshire, Wales and British Lions rugby union player (died 1963)
24 February — Lou Phillips, Wales international rugby player (killed in action 1916)
3 March — Edward Thomas, poet (died 1917)
12 March — Mary Sophia Allen, women's rights activist (died 1964)
15 March — Thomas Richards, historian and librarian (died 1962)
21 March — Edwin Thomas Maynard, Wales international rugby player (died 1961)
16 April — Owen Thomas Jones, geologist (died 1967)
26 May — Abel J. Jones, writer (died 1949)
5 June — Billy O'Neill, Wales national rugby player (died 1955)
8 June — Evan Roberts, religious revivalist (died 1951)
20 June — Seymour J. Farmer, politician in Canada (died 1951)
28 June — Evan Roberts, preacher (died 1951)
1 July — Billy Trew, rugby player and Welsh Triple Crown winning captain (died 1926)
27 August — Edgar Rees Jones, lawyer and politician (died 1962)
28 October — Charles Benjamin Redrup, aeronautical engineer (died 1961)
8 November — Dorothea Bate, palaeontologist (died 1951)
31 December — Caradoc Evans, writer (died 1945)
date unknown — Richard Hughes Williams (Dic Tryfan), Welsh language short story writer (died 1919)

^ Davies, William Llewelyn (2009). "Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist". Welsh Biography Online. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
^ Davies, John; Jenkins, Nigel (2008). The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-1953-6.