Granted a Sir John Williams studentship to study Welsh literature, he gained an MA in 1937 with research on pagan survivals in early Celtic Christianity.
[1] In 1938 the College's Principal, Ifor Evans, suggested to Rees that he carry out a study of a rural Welsh-speaking community.
[4] The motives are not entirely clear, but one suspects that an attempt was being made to record the dying Welsh culture before it succumbed to encroaching English influences.
The original intention was to do a series of such studies of selected communities in various parts of Wales, but, as in Ireland, war intervened and the project was only continued some years later.
[5] Rees's own study of Llanfihangel yng Ngwynfa was published in 1950 as Life in a Welsh Countryside.
[8] From 1949 to 1958 Rees edited the journal of the Guild of Graduates of the University of Wales, Yr Einion/The Welsh Anvil.
In February 1966 Rees became editor of the Welsh-language literary magazine Barn, using his editorship to articulate the Welsh nationalist cause.