Welsh Journals

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Other Directories such as Johns's Newport Directory and Kelly's showed unanimity in favour of Monmouthshire in England but not without a similar ambiguity. For example Johns's 1887 edition declared that Monmouthshire was a 'maritime English county on the confines of South Wales, in the Province of Canterbury, and Diocese of Llandaff.'58 Worrall's Directory of South Wales for 1875 was whimsical enough to include Newport while omitting every other Monmouthshire town. The frequency with which Directories were published must have given tremendous impetus to the notion that Monmouthshire was English. While Trade Directories were generally saying 'Monmouthshire is in England but. the Reports of the Register General's Office were equally uncertain in going for Wales. The 1851 Census carried a Report and Tables on Education in England and Wales. Division eleven in the Report is headed 'Monmouthshire and Wales' but it is sub-divided into Monmouthshire, South Wales and North Wales. Moreover the table of 'Day and Sunday Schools and Scholars in all the Municipal Boroughs' included just two Monmouthshire boroughs (Monmouth and Newport) and placed them under England.59 The 1861 Census Report repeated the tripartite split of division eleven into Monmouthshire, South Wales and North Wales. This was the usual sub-division in the Office's decennial Reports. The profusion of such important-if confusing-pronouncements upon Monmouthshire's status at this time must have triggered debate within the county. The correspondence of the Rolls Family indicates that the gentry of Monmouthshire were certainly much exercised by the question. John Rolls, having made extensive researches into the subject, was honest enough to admit that 'the case is by no means an easy one and I own I am rather shaken in my opinion.160 This after he had earlier been 'so positive that Monmouthshire could not now be called in South Wales.' His correspondent on this occasion, H. Martyn Kennard of Crumlin Hall, expressed similar self-doubt to J. E. W. Rolls: I have read up all I could find.. and I find there really is no Wales at all-it is simply historical .I have not at all formed my opinion yet. as far as I have gone I agree with you we may be Welshmen after all.61 But there must have been a strong tide of opinion in favour of Monmouthshire-in-England at the time. In 1871 it provoked the Pontypool Free Press to publish its counterblast, 'in consequence of the prevalence of a vulgar error of recent date that Monmouthshire is not in Wales.'62 It dismissed as absurd the idea that Monmouthshire was 'out of South Wales' merely because the 'English judges circuit' extended into the county. Moreover, it argued, 'Wales was never divided into counties by its native sovereign princes, but by its Norman and Anglo-Norman kings.' Finally it cited the deed of Sir Leoline Jenkins's execution with Jesus College,