View digital versions of the Blue Books of This report's comments on the state of the education system in Wales caused a furore in the country. As a result .
Table of contents
From the s to the late s Wales had appeared to be the centre of major discontentment. In the s there had been serious disturbances in Tredegar and Merthyr while in Ceridigion there had been a virtual war over the issue of land enclosures. From to the mid s the the Rebecca Riots caused mayhem across mid and south Wales while in the Chartist march on Newport provoked huge worry and concerns in government circles. Clearly Wales needed to be looked at in some detail and to English officials and civil servants it seemed highly likely that, in the far west, sedition was being planned - in the Welsh language.
There is no doubt that education for poor children in Wales was inadequate - it was also inadequate in England! There was desperate requirement for quality education for all, education that would, the government felt - long before the commissioners reported back - be predominantly in the English language. And central to this was the need to provide trained teachers.
- The Treacherous Blue Books Of 1847;
- BBC navigation.
- The Fire Next Time: My Dungeon Shook; Down at the Cross (Penguin Modern Classics);
- Navigation menu.
- Cookies on the BBC website;
- Social unrest in Wales.
The trouble came when the extra clause was slipped into the terms of reference, to look at the morals and behaviour of the Welsh people. Quite why this was inserted is not clear - certainly it could have little impact on the educational element of the report who could and would educate their charges efficiently.
Since the predominance of Welsh was one of the main reasons for the report it would have been reasonable to expect the commissioners appointed to oversee the inspections to have a knowledge of the Welsh tongue. Commissioners Lingen, Simons and Vaughan Johnson spoke no Welsh, were not even educationalists and, importantly, had no experience of the type of fervent non-conformity to be found in Wales.
A number of assistant commissioners were appointed and, by and large, these were the men who toured the schools, towns and villages.
The Blue Books
The questions they asked, the passages of literature usually the Bible they required children to read and the problems that were meant to worked out in the head of each child were framed in English - many of the school teachers had difficulty understanding them, let alone their pupils. While the non-conformist Sunday Schools - where education was offered in Welsh - were, in the main, praised in the report, the ordinary day schools were certainly not.
- The Kingdom of Absurdities: A Novel;
- Deek Dietrich Legendary Bounty Hunter: Eight Short Stories.
- The Language of the Blue Books.
- Leistungsentgelt nach TVÖD erfolgreich einführen: Zielvereinbarung und systematische Leistungsbewert;
- The Blue Books of 1847.
- LA MUJER DEL CESAR (Spanish Edition).
- The Language of the Blue Books: Wales and Colonial Prejudice, Roberts.
It was hardly surprising when pupils were expected to work out subtraction problems such as "Take from ," in their heads, with an answer expected within a few seconds. Vaughan Johnson were appointed to undertake the inquiry.
Treachery of the Blue Books
The three commissioners visited every part of Wales collecting evidence and statistics. The work was completed by 3 April , and Lingen presented his report to the Government on 1 July of that year in three large volumes.
It is impossible to overemphasise the importance of this report for social historians of mid nineteenth century Wales, because of the wealth of information contained in it on not only the appalling state of the education system in the country, but also on everyday life and work in both the industrialised and rural areas.
It also contains direct comment on the religious and moral standing of the people of Wales. But the report caused a furore and a great deal of agitation in Wales because of the arrogant remarks of the three non-Welsh speaking Anglican commissioners regarding the Welsh language, Nonconformity and the morals of the Welsh people in general. Morgan referred to the significance of the report and its consequence as ' the Glencoe and the Amritsar of Welsh history'.
One of the inevitable results of the report was its effect on the nation's mind and psyche. It was at this time that ordinary Welsh people began to believe that they could only improve themselves socially through education and the ability to speak and communicate in English.
The Language of the Blue Books | UWP
It was Samuel Smiles' philosophy that held sway education and the knowledge of English would allow the lowliest among the Welsh to improve their lot and make something of their lives. As a result of the 'Treachery of the Blue Books' the Welsh people began to harbour a complex about their image in the face of the world, and the influence of the Report has not completely waned even to this day.
Website Catalogue Website Blog. The National Library of Wales. The commissioners visited every part of Wales during , collecting evidence and statistics. However, they spoke no Welsh and relied on information from witnesses, many of them Anglican clergymen at a time when Wales was a stronghold of nonconformism.
Bookmark this page:
The work was completed by 3 April , and Lingen presented his report to the Government on 1 July of that year in three large blue-covered volumes " blue books " being a widely used term for all kinds of parliamentary reports. The report was detailed. It concluded that schools in Wales were extremely inadequate, often with teachers speaking only English and using only English textbooks in areas where the children spoke only Welsh, and that Welsh-speakers had to rely on the Nonconformist Sunday Schools to acquire literacy.
But it also concluded that the Welsh were ignorant, lazy and immoral, and that among the causes of this were the use of the Welsh language and nonconformity. This resulted in a furious reaction in Wales, led by the bard Robert Jones Derfel. Derfel's book-length response, Brad y llyfrau gleision , was published in by I.
Clarke in Ruthin ; it had no immediate political consequences, but was instrumental in the birth of the modern Welsh self-government movement.