History of education in Wales (1870–1939)

The history of education in Wales from 1870 to 1939 covers the various types of education available in Wales from the Elementary Education Act 1870 until the Second World War. Compulsory primary education was established early in the period; access to secondary and higher education was significantly expanded.

A system of compulsory, free education for children aged five to twelve years was gradually established from 1870 to 1899. Access to secondary education was expanded following the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889. The range of the curriculum and variety of teaching methods expanded overtime. Some efforts were made to add more of a Welsh emphasis into teaching; this included a limited introduction of the Welsh language into lessons. The minimum school-leaving age was increased to 14 in 1918. In the interwar period, some children transferred to secondary school at the age of around 11; but most remained at elementary school until the end of their schooling. The University College of Wales was founded in 1872; it was followed by several other university colleges and the University of Wales was founded in 1893.

Schooling

Late Victorian elementary education

School originally opened as Albany Road Board School in Cardiff in 1886

Class photo at Tywyn Boys School by John Thomas (1890)

Class photo at Aberdyfi girls' school by John Thomas (c.1885)

Recreation of a Victorian-era classroom at the Carmarthenshire County Museum

Neuaddlwyd School near Ffos-y-ffin, Cardiganshire (c. 1880)

According to historian T. B. Stephens the Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 75) began the transition to compulsory education and a school system run directly by the state. However he describes it as a compromise which only started that process. It required school boards run by locally elected officials to be established in areas where there were "insufficient places in efficient voluntary schools" to run additional schools. The boards were allowed but not required to make education compulsory. A power that was extended to other districts in 1876. Compulsory education was introduced for 5- to 10-year-olds across England and Wales by the Elementary Education Act 1880 (43 & 44 Vict. c. 23). 10- to 13-year-olds could leave school once they had reached a certain level of academic performance. Attendance was made free in 1891, the minimum school leaving age was increased to 11 in 1893 and 12 in 1899. Compulsory education was also extended to deaf and blind children in 1893.

Some school boards were very active in expanding school provision. Many new schools were built by the boards over the thirty years after their introduction; the overall number of schools more than doubled. The boards also took over a large number of works and non-conformist schools. In 1900 1,709 schools in Wales were receiving public funds of which 893 were board schools, 687 were Anglican schools and 51 were Nonconformist schools. 65% of school places were at board schools which were concentrated to a large extent in urbanised areas. Rural school boards also contributed to the expansion of education. Although certain rural school boards were described as being of low standard; sectarian and inactive. At the time of the 1870 Education Act, many school buildings were of poor quality, lacking proper facilities and healthy conditions. The Education department pushed for improvements. Some boards with fewer resources employed local builders to design their new schools but most recruited professional architects. The appearance of schools was a point of pride for boards and varied by locality.

The elementary education system in Wales during this period closely resembled that of England. Both in what it taught and how it was administered. However, Welsh schools were often particularly enthusiastic about music, largely singing. The payment-by-results scheme encouraged an emphasis on rote learning and teaching to the test. Although the curriculum steadily expanded with payments available to schools for results in history, geography, science, domestic science, metalwork and woodwork. Topics such as needlework and cookery were added to the curriculum for girls. The perceived purpose of education for working-class girls was to prepare them to become domestic servants and later housewives; when it was hoped they would become a moral influence on their husbands.

While the schools provided a basic education for almost all children they were not without their limitations. Classes were large, varied in age, ability and pupils were often from impoverished households. Resources of all kinds were lacking. Discipline was difficult to maintain and the cane often made use of. The newspapers frequently featured stories about teachers whose punishments were so severe that they ended up on trial for assault. Poor attendance was also a problem. Various factors contributed to this including outbreaks of childhood diseases, indifferent parents, child labour and, initially, fees that were difficult for many households to pay. The overall level of attendance in Wales was 75.6% in 1899. An agent of Lord Powis told a parliamentary enquiry in 1902 that he believed between 40% and 50% of children in the Welshpool area were out of school at harvest time, magistrates were reluctant to convict and even local education officials in mid-Wales put their children to work.

A number of early cottage home schemes were established in South Wales in the 1870s. These were orphanages which provided alternative accommodation for destitute children who would otherwise be in the Workhouse. They were designed to resemble villages with various amenities including a school. Over subsequent years, they became widespread across Wales and England — many continued to exist for much of the 20th century. A similar institution which existed in this time period was Clio, a training ship docked in the Menai Strait, which was designed to prepare adolescent boys from various backgrounds to become sailors.

Aberdare Committee, intermediate schools and evening classes

The Aberdare Committee of 1881 emphasised the need for improved secondary education, especially for girls. The committee envisaged a four-tier system of secondary education. The social elite would continue to attend English public schools. The upper end of the middle classes would attend "first grade" intermediate schools which would continue until the age of 18 or 19 and prepare the most able for Oxbridge. Lower middle-class children (a new group to receive secondary education) along with the most gifted and determined working-class children would attend "second grade" intermediate schools which would take them up to the age of 16. Fees would therefore be kept relatively low for this group and some scholarships provided. Below them would be the "higher grade" or higher elementary schools. These were encouraged by the committee in industrial areas and established by school boards in 1880s. The witnesses spoken to by the committee were mainly middle class, the handful of working-class witnesses spoken to also expressed a strong desire for education but it was hard for middle-class people to imagine that many working-class children would be interested. The committee led to the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 40) predating similar legislation in England by thirteen years.

Class photo at an intermediate school in St Davids by John Thomas (1899)

Girls Intermediate School, Aberdare (1913)

By around 1900 there were 7,000 children in the intermediate schools including almost as many girls as boys. A plurality of the schools were single-sex, a large number catered for both sexes in a segregated manner while a small number were mixed. While the schools had been intended primarily for the middle classes in some areas as many as a third of pupils were of working-class backgrounds. For a long time the main curriculum of a majority of intermediate schools was English, Latin, mathematics, history, geography and French. They were also required to teach singing and marshal-style exercises. The practical and scientific side of the curriculum, though encouraged by the authorities, was largely neglected by schools. Most of the headmasters adopted an ethos for the schools resembling English public schools including uniforms, sport on Saturdays, prefects and school clubs. A degree of overlap developed between the age groups catered for by these schools and elementary schools. The House of Commons was told in 1904 that 91 of 95 intermediate schools were classified as good or excellent. The Central Welsh Board was established in 1896 to inspect the Intermediate schools but they were also visited by inspectors from other government bodies. Commenting on the legacy of the intermediate schools historians Gareth Elwyn Jones and Gordon Wynne Roderick wrote that, on the eve of World War I, young people in Wales were more likely to enter secondary school or university than anywhere else in Western Europe other than Scotland.

Meanwhile the period saw a growth in evening classes teaching vocational subjects. While their progress had previously been slow and varied by the end of the 19th century these classes were becoming increasingly well regarded. Though they reached a lower proportion of the population than in England, Scotland or Ireland.

Edwardian era

See also: Edwardian era

The payment-by-results system ended in the middle of the 1890s. A feeling had developed in the education department that the inspectorate needed to return to its original role as a supportive advisor for schools rather than punitively judging their results. Historian Russell Grigg writes that it took "time, commitment and training" for teachers to adjust to the new system but that by the 1900s there was evidence of them moving away from rote learning to a wider curriculum and more varied teaching methods including "field visits, local study, school museums and the creation of school gardens". Class sizes remained large, instruction was focused on the three Rs and the cane was frequently used. Elementary schools were widely understood to be mainly institutions providing a fairly low level of education to those destined for lives of manual labour. Guidance for elementary schools in 1904 commented that they provided "training in followership rather than leadership training, suited to the working classes". These attitudes reflected traditional fears about the working classes being educated beyond their position in the world, along with prejudices that they had little capacity to benefit from education.

Changes in the 1900s included the end of the pupil-teacher system in which teenagers had been put to work from the age of 13 as trainee teachers; and the creation of local education authorities. The Education Act 1902 (2 Edw. 7 c. 42), which established the local education authorities, was deeply opposed by the nonconformists because it restructured school financing in a way that meant ratepayers would be paying directly for the upkeep of Anglican and Roman Catholic schools. In the heightened religious atmosphere of the 1904 to 1905 Christian revival, this led to a political crisis in Wales, with most local authorities refusing to apply the law. There was a prolonged struggle between the local authorities and the central government, which had a disruptive effect on schooling. It ultimately concluded after the election in 1906 of a government that was more popular in Wales.

In 1907 the Welsh department was established within the Board of Education. The department was headed by Owen Edwards, who supported introducing a curriculum more specific to Wales, and had some success in implementing it. His main impact was on Welsh language teaching, which is discussed elsewhere in this article. He also pushed for more teaching of Welsh history, geography and culture but Ann Keane gives little evidence of how much impact that had. The 1902 Act allowed local authorities to create municipal secondary schools outside the network of intermediate schools created after the 1889 Act. This was encouraged by the Welsh department as a way to undermine the Central Welsh Board. From the point of view of the local authorities, it was a simpler way of establishing secondary schools than the system established by the 1889 Act. Edwards disliked the secondary schools' focus on rote learning, exams and lack of lessons in practical skills relevant to the local economy, though he was fighting against the grain of public opinion at the time. The growing numbers of working-class parents making sacrifices to get their children a secondary education wanted them to escape dangerous manual labour, not to be trained for it.

Schoolchildren in Bleddfa by Percy Benzie Abury (1911)

Between 1906 and 1910, the government passed various legislation intended to improve the welfare of schoolchildren, at a time when disease was a serious threat to children. Free school milk was offered, local authorities were given the option to provide free school meals, a medical department was set up in the Board of Education, and local authorities were required to appoint school medical officers as well as conducting physical examinations of pupils. Maude Morgan Thomas, a Welsh immigrant to the United States, wrote a biography intended for American children about her early years in Pontypool during the Edwardian era. In the chapter on her schooling, she describes lessons in art, Welsh medieval history, needlework (for girls), domestic science (for older girls), optional piano lessons and frequent corporal punishment. She comments on her experience:

School days in Wales were rather more uncomfortable than happy for me. There were always so many rattan canes lashing about, so much writing and arithmetic. Copy books had to be neatly filled with carefully written words, evenly spaced and shaded properly on each down stroke. One blot or one imperfect letter would bring the rattan cane stinging down on laboring knuckles... As I look back now, kindergarten days were very pleasant. Welsh children usually began school at a very early age, many of them as young as three years. So school days were play days for the beginners.

First World War and interwar years

See also: History of the United Kingdom during the First World War and Interwar Britain

The First World War had a fairly limited immediate impact on education in Wales. Some school buildings were requisitioned for military use and a shortage of male teachers had a particular effect on secondary schools. A suspension of new school buildings led to an increase in class sizes, especially in secondary schools, where enrolment increased sharply in the later war years. The inspectorate believed that pupils had been unsettled by the war, but this was not reflected in exam results. The school inspectorate also underwent an erosion of its staff. The war coincided with the introduction of compulsory education for disabled children. The conflict did have a significant effect on the future of education, as it led to discussion of the effect of rival powers' education systems on their war efforts. In 1917 the Lewis Report by the Board of Education was released, resulting in the Education Act 1918 (8 & 9 Geo. 5. c. 39) being passed. The Act increased the minimum school leaving age to fourteen. Other provisions included some financial changes which benefited the education system, and the creation of central schools. These schools were a new form of quasi-secondary school similar to the higher-grade schools of the late 19th century. Parents and some politicians were sceptical of them, seeing them as a poor substitute for other forms of education after elementary school. The Act also included various other proposals for reforming the education system which were not implemented.

Boys of Newtown Church School after a rummage sale photographed by Geoff Charles (1939)

Around the time of WWI the subjects listed on inspection reports as being taught at elementary schools included "English, Arithmetic, history and geography, music and drawing". Practical subjects might also be included, such as "needlework, laundry, handicraft, hygiene and school gardens". While academic orthodoxy around teaching methods, especially for younger children, was changing by the interwar period, this had little practical effect on schools. The primary focus of education in Wales remained on pupils memorising information. Teaching practices did gradually improve during the first half of the 20th century and the curriculum became broader in subjects such as history, geography and nature studies, especially in larger elementary schools. Lessons in speaking became more common, and school trips were encouraged. Government funding cuts during the Great Depression were difficult for schools. While participation was starting to decline, chapels remained a significant source of informal religious and cultural education in both English and Welsh.

Demand for secondary education continued to increase in the post-World War I period, and opportunities grew due to a fall in birth rates, even as the financial situation got worse. By 1931 19% of elementary school pupils in Wales transitioned to secondary school at the age of about 11 years old, a significantly higher proportion than in England, while the rest remained at elementary school until the age of fourteen. However high rates of early dropout from secondary school, which had already been a problem, continued in the difficult economic environment of the 1920s and especially the 1930s. Even though increasing numbers of secondary school places were now free, the additional costs of keeping a child in school as well as the loss of their potential wages meant that there was a strong temptation to leave at the age of fourteen. Very long travel times added to the appeal of this option. For instance, in 1922 it was reported that pupils in Barmouth County School's journey back and forth to school began at 5 am and ended at 7 pm. Various proposals were made throughout the interwar period for all children to transition from elementary school to secondary school at 11 or 12 years old. The idea of possibly raising the school leaving age was also suggested. However, none of these plans came to fruition, so the school system of 1939 was very similar in structure to its counterpart at the start of the 20th century.

Growing acceptance of the Welsh language

Reflecting an intensified sense of Welsh identity, attitudes among the authorities relating to the use of Welsh in schools began to soften towards the end of the 19th century. This was despite Wales increasingly becoming a predominantly English-speaking society, for reasons largely unrelated to education. The guidance given to elementary schools was changed in the 1880s to allow Welsh to be taught. Welsh became a grant-earning subject under the payment-by-results scheme during the last few years of its existence, and a small fund was established to allow elementary schools to teach the subject in the 1890s. Some school boards did try to introduce the subject but it was entirely optional. Any such lessons used English as the medium of instruction and including some Welsh in the curriculum was seen primarily as a way of making it easier for Welsh-speaking children to English . In 1899 to 1900 only 0.8 percent of pupils were taught Welsh as a subject. From 1907 to 1920 educationalist Owen Edwards was in charge of the newly created Welsh Department of the Board of Education. He was in favour of increased use of Welsh in schools, primarily in predominantly Welsh-speaking areas. Since the end of payment by results Edwards had little power to make schools do anything, but there was a gradual, patchy increase in the use of Welsh in the years after his appointment.

The 1927 government report Welsh in Education and Life found that Welsh was, in Welsh-speaking areas, the main language of instruction in infant schools and was often taught as a subject up to the age of 11. It was sometimes also taught as a second language in elementary schools in English-speaking areas. Meanwhile, the report also noted that the number of intermediate schools offering Welsh as a subject increased from 31 out of 79 in 1897 to 96 out of 116 in 1925. Around 40% of pupils in intermediate schools took exams in Welsh, in comparison to 67% in French; and Welsh would not have been a language of instruction. French was assessed as a second language while Welsh was assessed as a first language, which meant that French was an easier option for many students.

Even with some increase in the use of Welsh at schools, censuses suggest that Welsh speakers had become a minority in Wales at the start of the 20th century and continued to shrink as a proportion of the population. There was little prospect of a significant increase in the status of the Welsh language in the education system during the interwar period. The priority of Welsh-speaking parents was ensuring their children gained fluency in English to give them the best chance of gaining employment in a worsening economy. The youth organisation Urdd Gobaith Cymru (Welsh League of Hope) was established in 1922 to develop an affection for the Welsh language and aspects of Welsh culture in young people. After five years the organisation had 5,000 members. In 1971 a Welsh individual living in Leicester wrote in a letter to a local newspaper that they could remember being caned for speaking Welsh at school playtime as a child in around 1940.

Higher education

Early university colleges

In 1853 Benjamin Thomas Williams wrote a pamphlet called The Desirableness of a University of Wales which argued for the creation of a non-sectarian university. In 1854 a group of Welshmen of high status gathered to discuss the idea of a university organised on the model of the University of Ireland. In 1857 a scheme was established to create a university in Wales which quickly broke down. Afterwards there was little progress due to the need for government funding at a time when the government was focused on paying for the Crimean War. By 1867 only £5,000 had been raised. The Castle Hotel, Aberystwyth was bought that year for fundraising efforts. Hugh Owen, a retired civil servant, dedicated himself to fundraising. He quickly collected £7,000 mainly in small donations from ordinary people across Wales. By 1874 the debt on the buildings had been repaid.

Illustration of the University College of Wales next to a parish church (1868)

In 1872 the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth was opened. The students, who were mainly aged 14 to 25, were often ill-prepared for university. This was especially true of those studying science. Historians Gareth Elwyn Jones and Gordon Wynne Roderick argued that this reflected the mediocre nature of secondary education in Wales at the time. Some older men also came to study, these were frequently farmers who studied agriculture. Women were initially allowed to study music at the college. A situation which caused much annoyance among male academics and ended in 1878.

In 1880 the Aberdare Committee recommended the creation of two university colleges in North and South Wales funded by the government. This led to the creation of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff and University College in North Wales, Bangor in 1883. The original university college gained its own grant in 1886. Initially the colleges were affiliated with the University of London. In 1893 the University of Wales was established as an overarching university for the colleges with the power to issue degrees. By 1900 the colleges were teaching a wide range of subjects relating to the arts and sciences. However they remained heavily reliant on the state and had less success with developing a technological curriculum.

The colleges of the University of Wales physically expanded in the early 20th century. While two of the colleges developed courses in agriculture funded by the state, the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire had less success developing technical subjects. Historians Gareth Elwyn Jones and Gordon Wynne Roderick wrote that this was due to scepticism towards formal education on the part of industrialists, a level of snobbishness towards vocational training among academics and a lack of financial support from the government. By 1908 there were more female students than male in Aberystwyth. The women were kept separate from the men and chaperoned. Universities were disrupted by World War I with many students volunteering. The University College of Swansea was founded in 1920 and gained a reputation for science and technology. In 1922 the Welsh National School of Medicine was founded. The University of Wales Press and Board of Celtic Studies were founded in 1922, expanding the publishing of research. While the colleges had working-class students, the economic conditions of the time prevented many of even the most academic young people from attending. In the 1938/39 academic year there were 663 students in Aberystwyth, 485 in Bangor, 970 in Cardiff, 488 in Swansea and 173 in the medical school. More than 90% had been born in Wales.

Political education

Photograph of Wern Fawr, Harlech which appeared in a 1910 design annual. The house was later adapted into the Coleg Harlech.

There were also other means of gaining access to higher education in the early 20th century connected to left-wing politics. The Workers' Educational Association set up classes intended to encourage discussion of the social problems of the time. It was fairly moderate in its outlook aiming to develop a sense of democratic citizenship in its students and arguing for a reconciliation between the interests of capital and labour. This lack of radicalism was off-putting for much of the working classes but by 1924 the association had 4,000 students in 200 classes. The Coleg Harlech was established with similar aims by Thomas Jones (see above) in 1927. Beginning in 1906 the South Wales' Miners Federation established a scholarship to Ruskin College. These students were known for their left-wing militancy contributing to the Ruskin College strike in 1909. The union then contributed to the Central Labour College which existed sporadically for the next twenty years and inculcated Marxist ideas in coal-mining areas. Its classes were initially far more popular than the Workers Educational Association. An intense rivalry developed between the two organisations in the interwar years when the Workers Educational Association gained government funding and increased its appeal to trade unionists.

Bibliography

• Higginbotham, Peter (2014). The Workhouse Encyclopedia (2nd ed.). The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-5671-0.
• Jones, Gareth Elwyn; Roderick, Gordon Wynne (2003). History of Education in Wales. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0708318089.
• Keane, Ann; Egen, David; Grigg, Russell; Roy, James; Morgen, Alun; Norris, Barry; Williams, Sian Rhiannon (2022). Watchdogs or Visionaries? Perspectives on the history of the education inspectorate in Wales. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-1786839404.
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• May, Trevor (1994). The Victorian Schoolroom. Great Britain: Shire Publications.
• Morgan Thomas, Maude (1936). "IV. School Days". When I Was A Girl In Wales (PDF). LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD CO.
• Stephens, T.B (1998). Education in Britain, 1750—1914. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-60512-7.