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THE
JUBILEE
OF
THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES,
ABERYSTWYTH
1872-1922
From the WESTERN MAIL, July, 1922.
IN writing the history of University education in Wales and of the pioneer University College it is customary to begin with the dreams of Owen Glyndwr, and to linger with the projects of Richard Baxter, the divine, John Lewis, the squire of Glasgrug, and Dr. John Ellis, the rector of Dolgellau. These men in the seventeenth century discussed Aberystwyth as a college site, and appealed in vain to rich & childless Welshmen to provide the funds. I will leap the intervening centuries, and come at once to the middle of the nineteenth century.
One
of the rare practical results of St. David’s Day festivities occurred at a
celebration in 1852, when a group of Welsh Churchmen in the West Riding of
Yorkshire decided to petition Parliament in favour of setting up in the
Principality “a University founded on broad and liberal principles,” with
the object of raising the moral and intellectual character of the people, “be
they Churchmen or Dissenters.” A
year later a Glasgow student - B.T. Williams, afterwards Q.C. and M.P. - who, 1
am glad to say, li
This meeting, at which Lewis Edwards, Henry Rees, and “S.R.,” among others, were present, “marks the real beginning of the movement for the foundation of the University of Wales.” The Crimean War interrupted the project, and Hugh Owen’s energies were diverted to the founding at Bangor of the North Wales Training College for elementary teachers.
The
project was, however, revived in 1862 by articles in the “Cambria Daily
Leader.” An executive committee was set up in London, with Osborne Morgan and
Hugh Owen as hon. secretaries, William Williams, M.P., and Morgan Lloyd as
treasurers, and Dr. Nicholas, the author of the articles in the “Leader,” as
secretary tothe committee.
These pioneers had a federal University in mind, and one of their first efforts
was an attempt to negotiate the inclusion of St. David’s College, Lampeter, in
their scheme. It was contemplated from the start that the University Senate
should have power to afliliate any Welsh college of the requisite University
standard, and some imagined that the denominational colleges would migrate and
plant themselves physically on the hills around Aberystwyth.
It
is not easy to-day to realize the obstacles which confronted the pioneers of
popular education in Wales. There was not only the division between Church and
Chapel, but the Nonconformists themselves were divided between those prepared to
welcome State aid and those who denounced all State aid of education as poison.
There were, further, those who, while friendly to the University as the goal,
believed that the more immediate need was non-theological colleges of an
advanced type, free to send their students for degrees to London University. Dr.
Lewis Edwards was of this view, and his article in the “Traethodydd” (1865)
is illuminating. Throughout he lays stress on the quality of the work to be done
rather than on the number of students, and shows the superiority of the tutorial
over the lecturing system. Students went to lectures “as to some huge
depot,” expecting knowledge to be poured out on their heads without any effort
on their part - a criticism which is still not without point.
The
collection of funds quietly proceeded: a free site was offered to the committee
for a college in Bangor, and Dr. Nicholl Came offered St. Donat’s Castle as a
temporary home for a South Wales college and six acres of land near Llantwit
Major, where many centuries ago “all the arts known in Britain” had beeii
taught. In the meantime an adventurous railway contractor had erected a huge
railway hotel on the sea front at Aberystwyth, another at Borth, and another at
Aberdovey, and had then become a bankrupt. Largely by the aid of David Davies of
Landinam, the Aberystwyth hotel was bought for £10,000 in 1867 for the purpose
of a college, and it is interesting to observe that the other two hotels have in
their time been used as educational centres. Thus the question of the site was
settled.
By
June, 1872, a fund of £2,000 a year for the payment of professors’ salaries
had been guaranteed, and in July it was announced that the Rev. Thomas Charles
Edwards had been selected as first principal of the University College of Wales
- as it was now called. On October 9, 1872, the college was opened with 25
students. No applicant was refused. By the end of the first session 40 more had
been enrolled. Marchant Williams came in the second term from Bangor Normal
College with a great reputation, for he had passed his “first B.A., “as the
London Intermediate used to be called. Names of other early students are well
known: 0. M. Edwards, T. E. Ellis, S. T. Evans, Ellis Jones Griffith,
David Samuel, Owen Evans, J. E. Lloyd, T. F. Roberts, H. H. Humphreys, and
David Adams, who has just died. The principal & two professors, both
clergymen, shared the whole realm of knowledge between them. It was, as Dr.
Mortimer Angus once said, the day of small beginnings and great debts. There
were prize-givings and recitations, and years later Principal Edwards confessed
to granting a holiday to celebrate someone’s achievement in passing London
Matriculation.
To the personality and career of the principal I shall devote a separate article. The teaching staff quickly increased, Mr. Mortimer Angus joining in 1873, carrying “with grace the weight of an eminent name.” Dr. Joseph Parry’s brief tenure of the Chair of Music dated from the opening of the third session. Tanymarian and Miss Megan Watts were examiners in music, and under them David Jenkins got a “first,” in later years to become himself a professor at the college.
In 1874, or thereabouts, arrangements were made for the students to reside in the college, and there are endless tales of the joys & exploits of that golden age. There were morning prayers in the college library, at which the Presbyterian principal used the Book of Common Prayer and Hymns Ancient and Modern. The champions of the faith saw in this an attempt to proselytize and “Romanize” the students, and the service had to be stopped in response to the clamour outside.
There lies before me an appeal to Mr. Gladstone to help higher education in Wales published in 1881 by the Rev. Edward Davies, Rhymney, at whose feet I was instructed in my youth. It is a passionate plea for intermediate and university education, with impressive proofs of the Government’s neglect of Wales. But on the introduction of prayers and hymns he is uncompromising. “It will be totally inconsistent with the Bible for one farthing of public money to be devoted to the completion of the college building at Aberystwyth so long as a book of prayers & hymns is used in the college as a religious service on the part of masters and students together.” Readers of “Clych Adgof’ will remember 0. M. Edwards’ amusing description of the moral peril to which he was exposed when he found that in the room immediately beneath his lodged a student of Socinian views. The air was full of these sectarian fears for the safety of the students’ orthodoxy.
In 1872 Hugh Owen abandoned his post at the Local Government Board, and devoted himself without salary to the service of the college, and especially to the raising of funds by means of a remarkable public effort. He addressed meetings innumerable all over the land. The churches were induced to set aside a special Sunday to collect for the college. There were house-to-house collections, and it was estimated that over a hundred thousand had given sums under half-a-crown. In all this he was backed by the brilliant weekly articles of “Y Gohebydd” in the “Baner,” and by its proprietor, Thomas Gee.
In 1875 permanent legal form was given to the executive committee in the shape of a Declaration of Trust. Trustees, Court of Governors, and a College Council were appointed, with Lord Aberdare as first president, and Mr. David Davies, M. P., as treasurer. The treasurer gave the college a great deal more than large sums of money in its early and critical period; he gave it his powerful will, his courage and large ideas. At the breakfast on the opening of the college he had pleaded for an endowment fund of £50,000. Despite superhuman efforts, development was seriously arrested for lack of means, and there were repeated and fruitless journeys to Whitehall. The college cost £5,000 a year to run; £10,000 was wanted to complete the college building; £30,000 had already been collected in Wales: Scotland and Ireland were receiving £50,000 a year in grants for higher education; Wales got nothing—all these cogent arguments were pressed on the Lord President of the Council by Lord Aberdare, Henry Richards, Osborne Morgan, and others on June 1 5th ,1875, but in vain. Other deputations met with the same fate. In 1877 the department of music was closed and other commitments were reduced. In i88o the students numbered only 57, and a general sense of disappointment was reflected in the Departmental inquiry appointed in that year.
The
report of the Departmental Committee which was published in 1881 declared that
Aberystwyth had failed to attract students in sufficient numbers to entitle it
to be regarded as a successful institution. The report proceeded (fortunately,
as events proved) to threaten the very existence of the college by recommending
the establishment of two Welsh University Colleges in all, one for the South at
Cardiff or Swansea, and a second for the North at Aberystwyth, or
elsewhere in North Wales.
In January, 1883, a conference of some 350 representatives of North Wales met at Chester, and it appointed a committee to fix a site for the college within the six northern counties, thus excluding Aberystwyth. A dozen towns competed for the honour. Ultimately, the question was referred to arbitration, and Bangor was chosen. Henry Jones, then a lecturer at Aberystwyth, was asked by Mr. William Rathbone to draw up a draft charter for the new institution. Meanwhile, the friends of Aberystwyth were far from idle. David Davies among old, and Stuart Rendel among new friends rallied to its financial support, and in 1884 the college was promised a temporary Government grant of £2,500 per annum, while Cardiff & Bangor received £4,000 apiece. Hardly had this insecure foothold been reached when, in July, 1885, a great portion of the college buildings was destroyed by fire, and three men lost their lives in attempts to save the treasures of the museum and library.
This disaster made an instant appeal to the hearts of the public. Stuart Rendel doubled his contribution, Henry Richard sent £200, so did Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. Letters poured in bidding the authorities to stand East. Archdeacon Griffiths wrote, “I met a farmer in the Vale of Aeron the other day, who said, ‘I have never given a shilling towards the college, but now I will give 1/- to make up the loss. The fire has destroyed the college, but it has also destroyed a large amount of prejudice that existed in the minds of many against it.”
“Y Coleg a’r dan” was recited in hundreds of Penny Readings. The Principal, David Davies. and Humphreys Owen were the chief members of a committee appointed to make plans for the future. The cost of restoring the damaged building was estimated at £25,670 while a new building on a new site would cost just double that figure. David Davies undertook to add £20 to every £100 collected by the country. The Treasury relented and increased the grant to Aberystwyth to £4,000, and four years later Aberystwyth was also put on a level with the two other colleges by the grant of a Royal Charter. There is no doubt whatever that the long struggle to support the college in the face of one calamity after another had the result of entrenching it very deeply in the affections of the Welsh people. In 1890 the principal visited the United States and raised over £1,000 for the equipment of the college library from American Welshmen.
In 1891 Thomas Charles Edwards succeeded his father as principal of Bala Theological College. The name of 0. M. Edwards occurred to many as a likely successor, but he, advised by Jowett and others, decided to remain in Oxford. Professor Mortimer Angus, Thomas Darlington, H.M.I., Dr. R. J. Lloyd, of Liverpool, and T. F. Roberts, then professor of Greek at Cardiff, formed the “short list.” Angus was favoured by the college staff. Darlington knew no Welsh, but was reported to have offered to learn the language in three weeks. He certainly did learn to write and speak it with ease. Lloyd, first holder of the newly-constituted London D. Lit. degree, had been acting as professor of English in the interregnum between the resignation of Macallum and the arrival of Dr. Hereford Roberts. the son of a Towyn policeman, and an old student. “an able and a good man,” was appointed.
At this juncture the students numbered about 200. The chief increase which followed occurred in the number of women students, especially after the founding of Alexandra Hall in 1896, under the sagacious direction of Miss Carpenter. The day training department for elementary teachers, an agricultural department, the schools of law and music, the beginnings of the tutorial class movement, the erection of science buildings, including the “Edward Davies Chemical Laboratories” - aft date from Principal Roberts’ regime, and they coincide with immense labours on his part in connection with the Intermediate Act of 1 889, and with what the historians have called The Second University Movement.” which led to the establishment of the University in 1894.
The federal scheme evolved was one which taxed the, endurance of’ the principals of the three colleges to the utmost, especially in the periods when they filled the office of Vice-Chancellor. Long railway journeys to London, innumerable conferences at Shrewsbury and elsewhere, a heavy correspondence, often written by hand, were a constant drain on their energies. One often wished they had known better how to delegate minor duties to others, and thereby allowed the nation to share more liberally in their rich mental endowment.
One of the red letter days at Aberystwyth was that on which the Prince of’ Wales (afterwards King Edward VII.) was installed as Chancellor of the new University in 18%. It was a brilliant ceremony, and the Prince and Mr. Gladstone were given a notable reception. One blot marred the picture. There were honorary degrees for Mr. Gladstone, Lord Herschell, Lord Spencer and the Princess of Wales, - there was nothing for the man who, by his exertions, had “saved the college,” Thomas Charles Edwards. But it came two years later, just two years before his death.
In 1911 the National I Library was opened at Aberystwyth. Principal Roberts died in August. 1919, and was succeeded by J. U. Davies, M. A., also a former student of the college, and for many years its indefatigable registrar. t Under his direction the college has continued to make wide progress, the students at the opening of last session numbering over 1,000 about one-third of whom are drawn from Glamorgan and Monmouth. There are thus at the college more students to-day than were enrolled throughout the first principal’s twenty years. The total teaching staff numbers nearly 100.
The shadow of the Great War fell upon this college, as upon all others, and took its toll of promising youth. Over 800 students joined the Services, and 100 laid down their lives. “Mewn anghof ni chant fod.” Their sacrifice is being commemorated by a Students’ Union, for the purchase and upkeep of which the Old Students’ Association is aiming to raise £10,000, of which about one-half has been secured.
Looking back over the story we have thus rapidly sketched one is struck with the comparative neglect of those very subjects in which a Welsh college might have been expected to specialize: the Welsh language, agriculture, music, and extra-mural adult education. Thanks mainly to what the “Gohebydd” used to call “hen hosan fawr Llandinam” and to Sir Lawrence Phillips, it is in these four directions that the greatest expansion has taken place in the last half- dozen years. The pioneer efforts of Silvan Evans, Sir Edward Anwyl, Joseph Parry, and David Jenkins are being developed beyond the most sanguine hopes of their day. Great ingenuity has been shown in tackling the problem of accommodation, and a map of Aberystwyth shows college properties dotted all over the town.
It is a heartening story of aspiration and achievement, and we do well to rejoice. 1 have mentioned only the more conspicuous helpers “who have left a name behind, that their praise might be reported.” I have said nothing of the more humble, but not less faithful workers, like Penllyn Jones and Williams, the librarians, Mortimer Green, the registrar, “Jones the Porter,” and the other janitors to whom generations of students are indebted. “And some there be which have no memorial, who are perished, as though they had never been.” All old students who remain will to-day unite in praying:—
Vivat, crescat, floreat in eternum.