The founders of Cymru Fydd were influenced by William Ewart Gladstone, who himself lived in Hawarden, Wales, and the nationalist movement in Ireland, although the movement also drew upon other ideas, including a sense of imperial mission as preached by John Ruskin and a programme of social and political reform promoted by Robert Owen, Arnold Toynbee and the Fabian Society.
[3] This was therefore in stark contrast to Irish Nationalism, under Charles Stewart Parnell and others, which sought separation from British political structures.
The movement resembled the cultural nationalism found in parts of continental Europe, and heavily influenced by members of the intelligentsia such as O. M. Edwards and J. E.
[5] The movement lost some of its impetus following the withdrawal of T. E. Ellis to join the Government in 1892, after which the leadership of Cymru Fydd was taken over by David Lloyd George and Herbert Lewis (MP for Flint Boroughs).
After Robert Bird, a senior Cardiff alderman, declared his determination to resist "the domination of Welsh ideas", the merger proposal was defeated.