Welsh Not: Elementary Education and the Anglicisation of Wales

(Paperback)

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Description

TheWelshNotwas a wooden token given to children caught speakingWelshin nineteenth-century schools. It was often accompanied by corporal punishment and is widely thought to have been responsible for the decline of theWelshlanguage. Despite having an iconic status in popular understandings of Wales' history, there has never before been a study of where, when and why theWelshNotwas used. This book is an account of the different ways children were punished for speakingWelshin nineteenth-century schools and the consequences of this for children, communities and the linguistic future of Wales. It shows how the exclusion ofWelshwasnotonly traumatic for pupils but also hindered them in learning English, the very thing it was meant to achieve. Gradually,Welshcame to be used more and more in Victorian schools, making them more humane places but also more effective mechanisms in the anglicisation of Wales.

Author Bio

Martin Johnes is professor of modern history at Swansea University in the UK and one of Wales' best-known historians. He is the author of a series of books on Welsh history, including Wales: England's Colony, which was turned into a television series by the BBC.