Welsh Journals

group was chosen. The Welsh gifts went to men in Bala, Bangor, Amlwch, Lwortyd, Brecon, Treduston, Lanedy, Glyntawry and Alltwen. Because of the volume of work imposed upon the treasurer by Fuller's generosity it was decided in 1800 to appoint a layman, Thomas Conder, as secretary with a salary of £ 30 p.a. MR SMITH The Revd. John Pye Smith, commonly referred to as Mr Smith in the early days, was appointed theological tutor of Homerton Academy in 1806. He had come there as assistant in 1800, upon Edward Williams's recommendation he had been one of his students at Rotherham. He was to remain there until shortly before his death, aged seventy-seven years, in 1851. He was also the pastor of Old Gravel Pit Chapel, which contributed to the Fund, and therefore he had a seat on the Board and indeed, often took the chair. He was at the same time employer and employee. The Board was not mean: it gave him a starting stipend of £ 250 p.a. His first years at Homerton were stressful. Due to the war food prices were rising sharply and the institution found itself in debt again and again. One year he was out of pocket by £ 40. The Board kept on paying off debts and raising grants to students. There was illness among the students and two deaths. It was a time when London's lack of a sewage system was beginning to cause some alarm. Worse still, he had to overcome a long history of unrest and indiscipline: students stayed out late, did not regularly come to family prayers, often failed to turn up at the beginning of term and often left abruptly without completing the course, not to mention prevarication and rudeness on the part of a few. The situation was so bad that Smith resigned after two years and was only persuaded to continue when the Board and KHS agreed to assist him with monthly "house committee" meetings to set things straight. Strangely, it was about the time of the Battle of Waterloo that the peace was at last won at Homerton. Pye Smith believed in moving with the times. In 1824 Homerton became a college. In 1833 viva voce examinations of individuals in private began. Board members were engaged in these. In the 1840s he and Samuel Morley, the hosiery magnate, began to negotiate the amalgamation of Homerton and Highbury Colleges, with the blessing and help of CFB, KHS and Coward Trust, who contributed liberally to the erection of New College, which cost £ 15,000, at Swiss Cottage. It was opened only months before Pye Smith's death. In the field of scholarship he was a prolific writer. His two-volume work, The Relation between the Holy Scripture and Some Parts ofGeological Science, published a generation before Darwin's theory, was highly controversial and Joseph Fletcher of Stepney gave notice at the Board on 5 February 1838 of a motion for the next meeting criticising Pye Smith for causing "deep and painful anxiety to many Friends and Supporters of the Board" by his opinions "regarding the