Welsh Not

Recreation of an old school classroom at the West Wales Museum of Childhood, Llangeler, with a Welsh Not, threaded on white string, on the right-hand side of the desk

The Welsh Not (also historically named Welsh knot, Welsh note, Welsh lump, Welsh stick or cwstom) was an item used by schools in Wales, in the 18th and 19th centuries, to force children to speak English, by stigmatising and punishing those who were heard speaking Welsh.

Device and method[]

The Welsh Not was also known as the "Welsh knot",^[2] "Welsh note",^[3] "Welsh lump",^[4] "Welsh stick", "Welsh lead" (if a lump of lead was used) or the "cwstom".^[5] Typically the Not was a piece of wood, slate, a ruler or a stick, often inscribed with the letters "WN" and threaded onto a loop of string.^[5]

Professor of History at Swansea University Martin Johnes argues that the purpose of the Welsh Not was to teach English^{[6]: 100, 102} and there was no desire to kill off the Welsh language.^{[6]: 100, 102}

The method of its use was that it would be hung around the neck of the most recent child heard speaking Welsh in the class that day. Each day, was given to the first pupil heard speaking Welsh,^[7] and as the day progressed, it was successively passed to the next heard speaking it. The child left with the 'Not' at the end of the day was liable to some form of penalty. The nature of that penalty varies from one account to another; it might detention, the writing out of lines, or corporal punishment (some reports suggest the punishment was administered at the end of the week, or at the end of each lesson).^{[7][8][9][6]: 94}

Background[]

Under Henry VIII the Act of Union 1536 brought the whole of Wales under the authority of the English Crown and Welsh speakers were required to know and use English when holding public office;^[11] for example, all courts in Wales were to be conducted in the English language, not Welsh.^[12] The majority of the population would have found themselves adrift amid a legal and economic system whose language and focus were unfamiliar to them. Welsh law was abolished and English was established as the sole language of legal proceedings.^[13]: 121 Compared to other countries in Europe, according to academic and writer Simon Brooks,^[14] "the Welsh-language community was so bereft of rights that it was used by politicians in central Europe as an example of linguistic subjugation."^[15]: 76

In 1546, Brecon man John Prys had published the first Welsh-language book (Welsh: Yny lhyvyr hwnn, "In This Book"), a book containing prayers, which, as the Pope disapproved of it, endeared it to the Crown.^[6]: 69 The result of the 1567 order by the Crown that a Welsh translation of the New Testament be used in every parish church in Wales (to ensure uniformity of worship in the kingdom) was that Welsh would remain the language of religion.^[6]: 70

This switch to English inevitably resulted in significant inconvenience to those who could not speak English.^[6]: 69 It would also have led to the realisation that to get anywhere in a society dominated by England and the English, the ability to speak English would be a key skill.^[6]: 69

Johnes writes that as the Act granted the Welsh equality with the English in law, that the result was "the language actually regained ground in Welsh towns and rural anglicised areas such as the lowlands of Gwent and Glamorgan" and that thus "Welsh remained the language of the land and the people".^[6]: 69 Furthermore, Johnes writes that the religious turmoil at the time persuaded the state to support, rather than try to extinguish, the Welsh language.^[6]: 69 Martyn Ford (For Wales, See England: Language, Nationhood and Identity) agrees that the teaching of English to Welsh children between 1847 and 1891 was a failure, and that 'if the British state had set out to destroy Welsh and assimilate Welsh speakers as part of of a colonising imperialism, then it was a huge failure.'^[16]: 17

Purpose[]

The purpose of the Welsh not was to stop children from speaking Welsh, as described by David Williams writing on the IWA website: "teachers would try and kill off the language by hanging a piece of wood around the neck of pupils who spoke Welsh"^[17] however Professor of History at Swansea University Martin Johnes argues that the purpose of the Welsh Not was to teach English^{[6]: 100, 102} and there was no desire to kill off the Welsh language.^{[6]: 100, 102}

The technique of humiliating and punishing children was also used in Brittany, Gascony and in Ireland and other countries, as punishment for speaking the local language, and operated in British colonies as a tool of empire as late as the 1950s in contexts such as Kenya.^[18]

Contemporary reports of use[]

1798: the antiquary Richard Warner heard of the use of a "Welsh lump" in Flintshire in 1798, well before the enactment of the Education Act 1870.^[20][5] There is strong evidence of pre-1870 use in Carmarthen, Ceredigion and Meirionnydd, but it was not government policy.^[7] Given that schooling was voluntary then, use of the Welsh Not had the indirect approval of parents.^[7]

1843: Anglican clergyman from Pembrokeshire Rev R. Bowen Jones giving evidence to the Inquiry for South Wales in 1843 “The school master in my parish, for instance, amongst the common Welsh people has a little toy on a little bit of wood, and on the wood is written “Welsh not” that is to say they must not speak Welsh; it is a mark, and they pass this mark one to another. The rule of the school is that there is no Welsh to be spoken in the school; if anybody speaks a word of Welsh he is to have the Welsh mark, which he is to carry about his neck, or to hold it in his hand. There is the greatest anxiety to catch one another speaking Welsh, and there is a cry out immediately, “Welsh not”.” November 1843. Inquiry for South Wales.^[21]

1847: Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, 1847. “My attention was attracted to a piece of wood, suspended by a string round a boy's neck, and on the wood were the words “Welsh stick”.This I was told was a stigma for speaking Welsh. But in fact his only alternative was to speak Welsh or to say nothing. He did not understand English, and there is no systematic exercise in interpretation. The Welsh stick, or Welsh, as it's sometimes called, is given too any pupil who is overheard speaking Welsh, and may be transferred by him to any schoolfellow whom he hears committing a similar offence. It is thus passed from one another until the close of the week, when the pupil in who's possession the Welsh is found is punished by flogging. Among other injurious effects, this custom has been found to lead children to visit stealthily the houses of their schoolfellows for the purposes of detecting those who speak Welsh to their parents, and transferring to them the punishment due to themselves” ^[10]: 452

1870: The Llansantffraid Board School log book, 8 February 1870, "Endeavoured to compel the children to converse in English by means of a piece of wood. Offenders to be shut in after school hours."^[22]

The use of the Welsh Not appears to have decreased with the introduction of compulsory education in the later decades of the 19th century. After the school boards were absorbed by the county councils following the Local Government Act 1888, instruction in Welsh became the norm in primary schools in Welsh-speaking areas. However, incidents of the Welsh Not were still reported.^[23]

Reactions and impact[]

By the end of the second half of the 19th century and the majority of people in Wales continued to speak Welsh only; Cardiff, the industrial Valleys and the coalfields of the North-east were bilingual.^[15]: 2 The teaching of English in Welsh schools was demanded by the Welsh public and parents who saw it as the language of economic advancement.^{[24]: 453, 457}

According to the Encyclopaedia of Wales, some Welsh people have described the use of the Welsh Not 'as an instrument of cultural genocide',^[5] others welcomed the use of it because they believed that it was a method which helped children learn English.^[5]

In November 2009, Adam Price, an MP in Westminster at the time, said, 'The Welsh Not was the model for the corporal punishment of indigenous culture throughout the (British) Empire'.^[25] Indirectly, the WN is an early example of the effects of teacher's performance related pay (payments by exam results), as Welsh didn't form part of the curriculum, the use of Welsh was actively discouraged by the teachers.^[25]

The use of the Welsh Not created a stigma in using the Welsh Language. However work from groups such as the Welsh Language Society after the passing of the Education Act 1870 tried to fight for the right to speak Welsh and learn through the medium of Welsh in schools, and to advocate bilingualism in classrooms. Although their campaigning resulted in the encouragement of teaching Welsh History and Geography within schools, the Education system continued to become further dominated by the English system.^[26]

In his book For Wales, See England: Language, Nationhood, and Identity, Ford discusses the paucity of evidence that the 'Not' existed, and concludes that "the ‘Welsh Not’ has served as a useful means of propaganda for a mixed bag of anti-imperialists, left-wing historians, and misguided nationalists". He also states: "It has been seen by several historians as an attempt by the English elite to eradicate Welsh" and assimilate the people of Wales into the British Empire (page 17).^[16]

Welsh historian John Davies says in his book A History of Wales (1993) that "it is unlikely that the use of the 'Welsh Note' is was as widespread as the mythology of the twentieth century maintains".^[23]: 455

The 1847 'Blue Book' reports[]

The Welsh Not had virtually ceased being used by the time of the "Treachery of the Blue Books" in 1847.^[5][16]

Of the 1,656 schools in Wales surveyed in the Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales 1847, the language of instruction for 1,321 was English only, for 325 it was English and Welsh, for 2 it was Welsh only and for 8 unknown.^{[10]: 93, 245, 380, 427} There is some doubt that one of the two Welsh only schools was in fact a Welsh only school.^[24]: 436

Virtually all of the schools surveyed taught English and 80% used English for all of their lessons.^[10] Some schools banned the use of Welsh in the classroom and playground in an attempt to force children to use and become proficient in English. The teaching of Welsh was generally left to Sunday schools.^[24]: 442

The inquiry found that the quality of schools in Wales was poor (in common with the equivalent findings for England).^{[24]: 438, 440}) They suffered from inadequate buildings, untrained teachers and an almost complete lack of suitable books. Many children did not go to school at all and those that did were often absent for long periods. The inquiry found that many schools were attempting to teach English without translating from Welsh and as a result the children did not know the meaning of the words they were learning. They also came across one school using a Welsh Not. The inquiry condemned its use as educational nonsense and something that would teach children to be dishonest.^[24]

The inquiry's report was controversial because of the comments it made about Welsh society and the Welsh language and became known as the "Treachery of the Blue Books". However, its support for the teaching of English in Wales received general support from the Welsh public and parents.^[24]

Reference to the WN at Westminster and the Lords[]

Susan Elan Jones, Member of Parliament for Clwyd South, said in her maiden speech in 2010 that, even after the use of the Not had ceased, punishment for speaking Welsh persisted in some schools in her constituency until "as recently as the 1930s and 1940s".^[27][28]

On 26 May 1993 Mr. Michael Fabricant, Conservative MP for Mid-Staffordshire, said, during the Welsh Language Bill at the Lords, 'Even during the last century, speaking Welsh in schools was an offence for which a pupil could be beaten.'^[29]

On 15 June 1967 Lord Maelor commented: 'Those were the days of the Welsh Not, when any child would be punished if one of the teachers heard him say a word of Welsh either in the school or in the playground. This was the official attitude, and it is remarkable that the language has survived in the face of such repression.'^[30]

Parallels in other countries and cultures[]

Examples include:

• Basque Country – "Those caught speaking Basque were handed over a stick. He in turn had to pass it over to any other who spoke Basque, and the one who happened to be in its possession at the end of the week went through punishment."an interview with a Basque speaker^[31][32]

• Brittany – corporal punishment in schools: 'Teachers used ridicule and humiliation and corporal punishment to convince little children that they should not use Breton at school or anywhere near the schoolyard.'^[5][33]

• Canada – children were beaten with the maide-crochaidh ("hanging stick") if caught speaking Canadian Gaelic.^[34][35]
• France – Vergonha: French suppression of regional languages, and specifically le symbole in French schools.^[36][37]

• Ireland – a 'tally stick' was notched with a 'tick' for each word of Irish that a child uttered during the school day, and they received a corresponding punishment at the end of the day for same."^[38]

• Japan – the Dialect card Hōgenfuda (方言札, "dialect card"), used to suppress the Ryukyuan languages and dialects of the Tōhoku region in Japan.^[39][40]

• Kenya – a system similar to that used in Ireland was used, with the device being a button rather than a stick.^[41]

• Scotland – maide-crochaidh ("hanging stick") placed round the child's neck, if heard speaking Gaelic. In the 1850's at Camaghouran, "any boy or girl caught speaking Gaelic during school hours was punished by having a human skull suspended round the head for the rest of the day.”^[41] Children speaking Gaelic were often "belted and faced further corporal punishment if they did not give up the names of classmates they had been talking to.”^[42]

• Wales - schools in Wales using a "traffic light" system on children caught speaking English and not Welsh; they are given a red warning for the first incidence, an amber for the second, and a green for the third - which results in them being sent to see the head.^[9]

See also[]

• Language policy

References[]

External links[]

• Photographs of actual Welsh Not arteffacts at the National Museum of Wales
• Owen Morgan Edwards describes his experience of the Welsh Not in school in Llanuwchllyn in his book Clych Atgof.