Welsh Not

Elementary Education and the Anglicisation of Nineteenth-Century Wales

Martin Johnes

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781837721801
• eBook ISBN:
  9781837721825
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

The Welsh Not was a wooden token given to children caught speaking Welsh in nineteenth-century schools. It was often accompanied by corporal punishment, and is widely thought to have been responsible for the decline of the Welsh language. Despite having an iconic status in popular understandings of Wales's history, there has never before been a study of where, when and why the Welsh Not was used. This book is an account of the different ways children were punished for speaking Welsh in nineteenth-century schools and the consequences of this for children, communities and the linguistic future of Wales. It shows how the exclusion of Welsh was not only traumatic for pupils but also hindered them in learning English – the very opposite of what it was meant to achieve. Gradually, Welsh came to be used increasingly in Victorian schools, making them more humane places but also more effective mechanisms in the anglicisation of Wales.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• List of Illustrations
• List of tables
• 1 The Welsh Not in History and Memory
• 2 The Age of the Welsh Not: Language and Punishment before 1862
• 3 Learning without Understanding: The Problems of Education before 1862
• 4 The Welsh Not’s Afterlife: Punishing Welsh-Speaking after the 1862 Revised Code
• 5 The Employment of Welsh in Schools after the 1862 Revised Code
• 6 Enemies of the Welsh Language? Her Majesty’s Inspectors and the British State
• 7 Victims and Rebels: Children and the Welsh Not
• 8 Parental and Community Attitudes towards Education and the Welsh Language
• 9 Education and the Anglicisation of Wales
• Picuture Section
• Notes
• Bibliography