Welsh Journals

'ORGANISE THE TRAINING OF WELSH TEACHERS AND LIBERALISE THEIR EDUCATION': TOM ELLIS AND THE REFORM OF TEACHING ON 6 MAY 1999, the first elections to the new Welsh Assembly were rightly highlighted as a major event in the political history of Wales. Historians are also aware that 5 April 1999 marked the centenary of the death of Wales's so-called 'lost leader', 'the Parnell of Wales'. Thomas Edward Ellis had been Liberal Member of Parliament for Merioneth since 1886, Liberal Chief Whip since 1894 and leader of Cymru Fydd. His untimely death at forty years of age was widely mourned. A century later, his career remains of considerable significance in a rapidly changing Wales. Eulogies in 1899, and by historians subsequently, have focused on the political significance of a brilliant but brief parliamentary career. The Times referred to 'an earnest and devoted champion of Wales. 3 Others mourned the loss of a 'Welsh nationalist statesman', the advocate of Welsh home rule and a national parliament for Wales.4 In general, Tom Ellis has had a good, though not uncritical, press. Accept- ing office in Gladstone's fourth government in 1892 led to allegations that his 'grasping Saxon gold' adversely affected the cause of Wales. 1 Anon., Er Cof: Thomas Edward Ellis (Bala, 1899). 2 See N. Masterman The Forerunner (Uandybie, 1972); T. I. Ellis, Thomas Edward Ellis Cofiant (2 vols., Liverpool, 1944-8); Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980 (Oxford and Cardiff, 1981); idem, 'Tom Ellis versus Lloyd George: the fractured consciousness of fin-de-siecle Wales', in Modern Wales: Politics, Places and People (Cardiff, 1995), pp. 360-79. 3 The Times, 6 April 1899: obituary. 4 E.g., J. Arthur Price, 'Thomas Edward Ellis MP', in J. V. Morgan (ed.), Welsh Political and Religious Leaders in the Victorian Era (London, 1908), pp. 373-405; K. I. Jones (ed.), Sir Herbert Lewis (1858-1923) (Cardiff, 1958); Frank P. Jones, 'Tom Ellis 1859-99', Transactions of the Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion, 1960, pp. 53-64; D. R. Hughes, 'O'r Bala i Dde Arnica: taith wleidyddol Tom Ellis', YTraethodydd CLE, 643 (Tachwedd 1997), 209-22.