Welsh Journals

ALFRED THOMAS'S NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS (WALES) BILLS OF 1891-92 THE last two decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a quite remarkable growth of Welsh national sentiment. Initially, this re-awakened national consciousness was primarily confined to cultural, religious and educational activities, but it soon gave rise to specific demands for separate political or administrative recognition. Thus, campaigns for disestablishment of the church, land reform, the development of a national system of education, and temperance legislation led to a growing feeling that specifically Welsh issues and problems were being given inadequate attention at Westminster and Whitehall, and that efforts should be directed towards the setting up of an organ of government which would enable the voice of Wales to be heard in the formulation of policies relating to Wales. The Cymru Fydd movement, established in 1886 as a cultural and educational body, rapidly became avowedly political in its activities and aspirations. Two years later its manifesto proclaimed that the primary aim and purpose of the society was 'to facilitate the attainment of a National Legislature for Wales with full control over all purely Welsh business' and the founding of a 'Welsh Executive' which was to be responsible to both Welsh and Imperial parliaments. I This view that Wales possessed separate, quasi-national claims to the attention of parliament remained quite unfamiliar until the 1880s. When, in 1879, Sir Henry Hussey Vivian, Liberal M.P. for Swansea District, moved a resolution calling for government aid for Welsh higher education, his plea was greeted with some surprise.2 'It was very rare', remarked Gladstone, 'for the people of Wales or their Representatives to urge any local claims whatever upon the attention of the Government or of Parliament.'3 Thus, the warmth of support for Vivian's motion and for his assertions of Welsh nationality was most unexpected. Yet from 1886 to 1895 Welsh issues were more frequently discussed in parliament than ever before or since: resolutions for Welsh disestablishment were moved in 1886, 1889, 1891 and 1892; a Welsh Intermediate Education Act was passed in 1889; renewed attempts were made to tackle the land question and the problem of tithes-an area where religious and agrarian grievances merged-leading to efforts directed towards the passage of a Welsh land act and the securing of a measure of Quoted in E. L. Chappell, Wake up, Walesl: a survey of Welsh Home Rule activities (London, 1943), p. 22. 2 Pari. Deb., 3rd ser., Vol. 247, 1141ff. 3 Ibid., cols. 1157ff.