Welsh Journals

REVIEWS A HISTORY OF SAINT DAVID'S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LAMPETER, VOLUME ONE to 1898, by D. T. W. Price. University of Wales Press, Cardiff 1977. x + 222 pp. illus., £ 8.00. Over seventy years ago, the Reverend George Eyre Evans expressed the hope that a history of Saint David's College, Lampeter, would appear "soon". It is gratifying to note that at last the first volume has been published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the College in 1827. The name of Bishop Thomas Burgess is generally associated with the establishment of this College. He was concerned about the education of the young men from the Diocese who intended entering the Ministry of the Church of England, and immedi- ately on becoming Bishop of Saint David's in 1803, he embarked on a scheme to found a college. The choice of location is interesting. Llanddewi Brefi, in view of its historical association, was considered since "the village was precisely the right place for it is healthy and sufficiently secluded from the world to preserve the students from its distractions and evils". But in 1820, John Scandrett Harford and his two brothers, presented Castle Field, Lampeter, to Bishop Burgess as a site for the College and it was accepted. So the College would be built "in a very small town, where the dogs barked at any stranger who walked down the single street". The early years of the College flourished and suffered alternatively following the interaction between the successive bishops of Saint David's-three in all-and the five Principals who served between 1827 and 1897. Perhaps the most colourful characters were the protagonists in the least happy part of the history of the College, namely Bishop Connop Thirlwall and the Reverend Rowland Williams, who was Vice-Principal between 1850 and 1862. Of him it is said that "he may not have been particularly original or gifted as a writer, but he was single-minded in his desire to explore fully the new science of biblical criticism and to reconcile Christian belief with developments in science". It was Williams who apologised soon after his appointment "for the lack of sporting facilities" at the College, although students, had been advised to spend time in "healthful exercise, rather than in clownish lounging about the shops and market places". The College buildings were designed by C. R. Cockerell, and Appendix I of this volume deals exclusively with this aspect, whilst Appendix IV contains the annual admissions during the first seventy years as well as details of the home-counties of the men admitted (at ten yearly intervals) and the father's occupation. Not only has the author recounted the development of the College from its early days-the building, the staff, its finances, its curriculum, etc., but, at the same time, he has considered the history of the College in the context of the wider history of Wales. The abortive attempts to incorporate the College in an University of Wales was bedevilled by denominational problems, and the Venerable W. Basil Jones, Archdeacon of York, who was to become Bishop of Saint David's in 1874, was the main protagonist against a University of Wales. He was of the opinion that the answer for Saint David's College, Lampeter, was to seek closer association with Oxford and Cambridge. One of the most distinguished professors at Lampeter between 1881 and 1890 was Thomas Frederick Tout, who was at the start of a brilliant academic career. He was Professor of English and later of History. On leaving Lampeter, he became professor of History at Manchester "and founder of perhaps the most important school of historical studies in early-twentieth-century Britain". For eight years from