Welsh Journals

CEREDIGION CYLCHGRAWN CYMDEITHAS HYNAFIAETHWYR CEREDIGION JOURNAL OF THE CEREDIGION ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY CYFROL (VOLUME) IX 1983 RHIFYN (NUMBER) 4 THE DISENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD: INNOVATION, CRISIS AND CHANGE IN CARDIGANSHIRE c. 1880-1910* I originally undertook to address the Society on aspects of religion and recreation in Cardiganshire in the late nineteenth century, and I proposed as a title Fighting Parsons'. Then where are they? Not in the audience I hope, for the species certainly exists. According to the Cambrian News of 5 May 1899, in an editorial dedicated to the proposit- ion that' outdoor sports draw together in one compact bond all classes of the community, high and low, rich and poor', it was a Shropshire minister of religion who went into a newspaper office on the day of a celebrated prize-fight with the anxious inquiry, Can you tell me which of those wretched men has won?'1 I should explain that the turbulent priests of my original title were those fifteen representative of the Lampeter College rugby team whose brawling ordinands were once memorably headlined in the Carmarthen Journal as Fighting Parsons'. Taking them as my point of departure I had a good idea, or so I thought, of the direction I would be following. I would set out with the Reverend Rowland Williams, who arrived in Lampeter in 1850 to take up his dual positions of Professor of Hebrew and Vice-Principal. This was one of those periods when the College was better known for its vices than its principals, and it was to redress the situation that Rowland Williams issued his brisk reforming directive that whatever time a student may require for relaxation should be spent in healthful exercise rather than clownish lounging about shops or market place °. *Read to the Society on May 7th 1983. The assembled members were under the impression, which I had fostered, that the subject of my address would be Fighting Parsons religion and recreation in late nineteenth century Ceredigion Hence my introductory remarks.