Welsh Journals

the progress of British schools. For a long time, more money went to overseas missions than towards local schooling. When British schools did appear they were, except in the teaching of religion, no different from the National schools in their curriculum, and as the author stresses, both systems locally, together with the later Board schools, enforced English as the exclusive medium of instruction. The decade before 1870 and thereafter saw the nonconformists, es- pecially the Methodists, controlling elementary education. While the Church struggled on independently, nonconformists gave much support initially to the Board school system until the implications of high rates were realised by the payers, particularly the farmers. Mr. Pretty carefully examines this middle-class control over the school boards, and shows how undistinguished boards were in improving the schools and their curricula. As with the voluntary schools, education was being provided for a largely poor and apathetic rural community, whose indifference was illustrated in the continually high pupil absenteeism. Dominated by the wealthier farmers and the bourgeoisie, the politics of elementary education in the county changed little before 1900. The brief tentative intrusion of the rural labourer during the 1890s, influenced by J. O. Thomas, 'Ap Ffarmwr', is well depicted. Essentially, however, the nonconformist middle class predominated, as was shown in the reaction against the Education Act of 1902. It is ironical that many of those prominent in the public debate were most closely involved with private education, in acquiring or promoting refinement and higher learning at various academies and 'grammar' schools. The nonconformist ministry gained an invaluable source of income, and, given the social mobility of the time and the greater affluence in the county, some parents increasingly wanted an education for their children equivalent to their status and prospects. Typical, too, were the efforts, more middle-class than sectarian, to gain control of the select Anglican grammar school at Beaumaris, which succeeded in 1889 when secondary education in Anglesey was reorganised to provide the education desired to fulfil those social aspirations. This detailed local study of educational provision and educational leadership gives us several new insights which form a valuable contrast to the often over-generalized impression of nineteenth-century Welsh education. The volume maintains the high standard set in this series on Anglesey history. W. GRIFFITH Bangor HUGH OWEN, 1804-1881. By B. L. Davies. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1977. Pp. 98. £ 1.00. During a lifetime largely devoted to promoting education in Wales, Hugh Owen received scant regard from his fellow-countrymen, and sub- sequently there has been a marked absence in Wales of recognition, esteem and affection. Yet Hugh Owen undoubtedly did a great deal for Welsh education, and Dr. Davies sets out his achievements very clearly in this bilingual booklet.