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local nonconformists of adjusting his findings to favour the Anglican church and its schools. Kynnersley was an uncharismatic twenty-nine-year-old Cheshire Anglican, who knew nothing of elementary education, but whose family connections had led to his being appointed inspector of returns, in compensation for two previous career failures, the first as 'a briefless barrister of somewhat less than two years standing' (his own words), the second as a get-rich-quick Australian gold prospector.4 His accusers were ultra-sensitive Welsh nonconformists, resentful (since the brad of 1847) of young Anglicans inquiring into Welsh education. Undoubtedly Kynnersley was himself to blame for the ill will he aroused, ignorant as he was of Welsh culture and insensitive to nonconformists' feelings. What could they feel but humiliation and anger when he told the managers of the Garth British and St. Paul's Wesleyan schools at Bangor that there was no point in his discussing the local situation with them, because he had already made up his mind about it at a meeting with Church authorities!5 Not surprisingly, a political storm broke about him; he became the subject of protest throughout Wales, and also of a parliamentary deputation to W. E. Forster, vice-president of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education.6 Tactless and supercilious though he might have been, there is no hard evidence that Kynnersley deliberately distorted his returns, and even his severest critics eventually conceded that 'when all comes to all the charge is probably groundless'.7 Kynnersley was astonished by the force of the reaction he aroused, and after a time conducted himself with such studied neutrality that the Llandwrog school board (with its nonconformist majority) actually thanked him for being 'candid, upright and kind'.8 Despite his initial indiscretions, the Education Department also accepted his findings as accurately reflecting the existing situation; in fact, he was thought to have done so well that he was soon promoted to be a full H.M.I. Doubtless it was no disadvantage once again that his father knew the Sandford cousins- Francis, Permanent Secretary to the Department, and Henry, a long-standing H.M.I.9 In retrospect, although Kynnersley had a tendency to magnify 4 E. M. Sneyd Kynnersley: H.M.I. Some passages in the life of one ofH.M. Inspectors of Schools (1913), pp. 2-4. 5 The North Wales Chronicle, 7 September 1871. 6 See many references in the Welsh press, especially Yr Herald Cymraeg, 8 December 1871; 15 December 1871; the North Wales Press, 6 December 1871. See also the Authorised Report of the General Conference (of nonconformists) at Manchester (January 1872). 7 The Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 23 September 1871. 8 Ibid., 7 October 1871. 9 Kynnersley, op. cit., pp. 2-4. 58-61.