← 1888 1887 1886 1885 1884 1889 in Wales → 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
See also:	List of years in Wales Timeline of Welsh history 1889 in The United Kingdom Scotland Elsewhere

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1889 to Wales and its people.

• Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales – Clwydfardd^[1]

• Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey – Richard Davies^[2]
• Lord Lieutenant of Brecknockshire – Joseph Bailey, 1st Baron Glanusk^[3]
• Lord Lieutenant of Caernarvonshire – John Ernest Greaves^[4]
• Lord Lieutenant of Cardiganshire – Herbert Davies-Evans^[5]
• Lord Lieutenant of Carmarthenshire – John Campbell, 2nd Earl Cawdor^[6]
• Lord Lieutenant of Denbighshire – William Cornwallis-West^[7]
• Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire – Hugh Robert Hughes^[8]
• Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan – Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot^[9]
• Lord Lieutenant of Merionethshire – Robert Davies Pryce^[10]
• Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire – Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort^[11]
• Lord Lieutenant of Montgomeryshire – Edward Herbert, 3rd Earl of Powis^[12]
• Lord Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire – William Edwardes, 4th Baron Kensington^[13]
• Lord Lieutenant of Radnorshire – Arthur Walsh, 2nd Baron Ormathwaite^[14]

• Bishop of Bangor – James Colquhoun Campbell^[15]
• Bishop of Llandaff – Richard Lewis^[16]
• Bishop of St Asaph – Joshua Hughes (until 21 January)^[17] Alfred George Edwards (from 25 March)^[18]
• Bishop of St Davids – Basil Jones^[19]

• January – First Glamorgan County Council elections are held.^[20]
• 8 February – Nine people drown in a ferry accident at Pembroke Dock.
• 14 February – The first edition of the North Wales Weekly News is published (under the title Weekly News and Visitors’ Chronicle for Colwyn Bay, Colwyn, Llandrillo, Conway, Deganway and Neighbourhood).^[21]
• 13 March – Twenty miners are killed in an accident at the Brynmally Colliery, Wrexham.
• 1 April – New elected county councils in England and Wales created by the Local Government Act 1888, take up their powers.^[22][23][24] That for Radnorshire meets in Presteigne.
• June – A lion escapes from a travelling menagerie at Llandrindod Wells.^[25]
• 18 July – Opening of the first dock basin at Barry.
• 3 August – Opening of Hawarden Bridge.
• 12 August – The passing of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act marks the beginning of secondary education in Wales.
• 15 August – Three men are killed in a mining accident at Wenvoe Quarry, Glamorgan.^[26]
• 26 August – Act of incorporation of the Barry Railway Company#Vale of Glamorgan Railway.
• Approximate date – The Showmen's Guild of Great Britain is co-founded in Salford as the United Kingdom Van Dwellers Protection Association by Jacob Studt and other active Welsh cinema pioneers.

National Eisteddfod of Wales – held at Brecon

• Chair – Evan Rees, "Y Beibl Cymraeg"^[27]
• Crown – Howell Elvet Lewis

• Owen Morgan Edwards – O'r Bala i Geneva

• Sir Henry Walford Davies – The Future, for chorus and orchestra

• Cricket – Glamorgan County Cricket Club plays its first match, against Warwickshire at Cardiff Arms Park.
• Rugby union – Bedwas RFC, Blackwood RFC and Llantwit Major RFC are formed.

• 12 January – John Bryn Edwards, ironmaster and philanthropist (died 1922)
• 22 January – John Emlyn-Jones, politician (died 1952)^[28]
• 28 January – Phil Waller, Wales and British Lions rugby player (died 1917)^[29]
• 31 January – Jack Evans, footballer (died 1971)
• 1 February – John Lewis, philosopher (died 1976)
• 10 February – Howard Spring, novelist (died 1965)^[30]
• 28 February – George Jeffreys, Pentecostalist (died 1962)
• 5 May – Stanley Winmill, Wales international rugby union player (died 1940)
• 24 June – Harry Symonds, cricketer (died 1945)
• 17 July – Aled Owen Roberts, politician (died 1949)
• 5 August – William Davies Thomas, academic (died 1954)
• 10 August – Irene Steer, swimmer (died 1977)^[31]
• 21 August – Henry Lewis, Professor at Swansea University (died 1968)^[32]
• 23 October – William Havard, Bishop of St Davids and international rugby player (died 1956)^[33]
• 11 December – Cedric Morris, artist (died 1982)

• 21 January – Joshua Hughes, Bishop of St Asaph, 81^[17]
• 27 March – John Bright, Radical politician associated with Llandudno, 77^[34]
• 10 April – Kilsby Jones, nonconformist minister, writer and lecturer, 76^[35]
• 27 May – George Owen Rees, Welsh-Italian doctor, 75
• 8 June – Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anglo-Welsh poet, 44 (in Ireland)
• 17 June – John Hughes, industrialist, 73 (in St Petersburg)^[36]
• 26 June – Walter Rice Howell Powell, landowner and politician, 69
• 28 September – Samuel Goldsworthy, Wales international rugby player, 34
• 15 October – Sir Daniel Gooch, railway engineer and politician, 73^[37]
• 29 October – Godfrey Darbishire, Wales rugby international player, 36
• 14 November – James Stephens, stonemason, Chartist, and later Australian trade unionist, 68
• 18 November – Charles Easton Spooner, railway pioneer, 71^[38]
• date unknown – G. Phillips Bevan, statistician, geographer and author, 59/60^[39]
• probable – Richard Williams Morgan, clergyman and poet

• 1889 in Ireland