BARRY, urban district, Glamorganshire, Wales, 8 m. S.W. from Cardiff on the Bristol Channel. The population in 1931 was 38,916. A small brook named Barri runs here into the sea, whence the place was formerly known in Welsh as Aber-Barri; but the name of both the river and the island is supposed to be derived from Baruch, a Welsh saint of the 7th century, who had a cell on the island. His chapel, which still existed in Leland's time, was a place of pilgrimage in the middle ages. One of the followers of Fitzhamon, about the end of the r 1 th century, built a castle at Barry, of which only a gateway remains.
Barry comprises the ecclesiastical parishes of Barry, Cadoxton, Merthyr-Dovan, and a portion of Sully in which is included Barry Island (194 ac.), now, however, artificially joined to the main land. The total population of this area in 1881 was only about sou, that of Barry village alone being only 85. The enormous increase in the population of nearly 40,00o in 4o years was entirely brought about by coal exporting during the last quarter of the 1 gth century. The great demand for steam coal at that time gave opportunities for a number of colliery owners to secure an alternative port to Cardiff, with an independent railway to it from the coal-fields. After failing in 1883, they obtained parlia mentary powers for this purpose in 1884, and the first sod of the new dock at Barry was cut in November of that year. The docks are 114 ac. in extent, and have accommodation for the largest vessels afloat. Further docks were built in 1889 and 1898.
As a great coal-exporting town it had railway connexions with the Rhondda valley by the Barry railway, with Aberdare and Merthyr by the junction of the Barry and Taff Vale at Treforest, and with the Great Western Railway main line at St. Fagans. There are also connexions with the Rhymney, Brecon and Merthyr, and Vale of Glamorgan railways and the London, Mid land and Scottish. All the smaller lines are now incorporated with the Great Western Railway. After 1918, in particular, Barry, together with "Barry Island," became a favourite resort for the mining valleys—a development which has increased with modern motor transport. There is a women's training college which draws most of its students from the industrial valleys. Barry is included in the Llandaff and Barry Parliamentary division of Glamor ganshire.