The Welsh Not was a token used by teachers at some schools in Wales, mainly in the 19th century, to discourage children from speaking Welsh at school, by marking out those who were heard speaking the language. There is evidence of the punishment's use from the end of 18th to the start of the 20th century, but it was most common in the early- to mid- 19th century. Accounts suggest that its form and the nature of its use could vary from place to place, but the most common form was a piece of wood suspended on a string that was put around the child's neck. Terms used historically include Welsh not, Welsh note, Welsh lump, Welsh stick, cwstom, Welsh Mark, and Welsh Ticket.
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
During the 19th century the primary function of day schools in Wales was the teaching of English.[2]:437 The teaching of English in Welsh schools was generally supported by the Welsh public and parents who saw it as the language of economic advancement.[2]:453,457Some schools practised what is now commonly called total immersion language teaching[2]:438 and banned the use of Welsh in the school and playground to force children to use and become proficient in English. Some of these schools punished children caught speaking Welsh with the Welsh Not. The Welsh Not was brought about by teachers and school organisations, such as the National Society for Promoting Religious Education, rather than government policy, and its use came about via convention rather than law.[3] Parents were generally supportive of physical punishment in schools[4] and appear to have been accepting of the Welsh Not.[5]
The Welsh Not came in several forms and with different names (Welsh not,[6] Welsh note,[7] Welsh lump,[8] Welsh stick, Welsh lead, cwstom,[9] Welsh Mark,[10]:24 Welsh Ticket[10]:24) and was used in different ways. It was a token typically made of wood often inscribed with the letters 'WN' which might be worn around the neck.[9] Typically, following the start of some prescribed period of time, a lesson, the school day or the school week, it was given to the first child heard speaking Welsh[11] and would then be successively passed on to the next child heard speaking it. At the end of the period, the child with the token or all children who had held the token, might be punished. The nature of that punishment varies from one account to another; it might have been detention, the writing out of lines, or corporal punishment.[11][12][13][14]:94[15]
History
"Among other injurious effects, this custom has been found to lead children to visit stealthily the houses of their school-fellows for the purpose of detecting those who speak Welsh to their parents, and transferring to them the punishment due to themselves."
Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, 1847.[16]:452
Martin Johnes, a historian who has studied the Welsh Not, wrote that the practice may have originated in early modern grammar schools which aimed to teach Latin.[17] The first evidence of practices resembling the Welsh Not dates from around the 1790s; for instance, Rev Richard Warner wrote about schools in Flintshire "to give the children a perfect knowledge of the English tongue ... [the teachers force] the children to converse in it ... if ... one of them be detected in speaking a Welsh word, he is immediately degraded with the Welsh lump".[18] Accounts of the Welsh Not most frequently relate to the early- to mid-19th century.[19] Johnes believes it was probably widespread but not universal in the first half of the 19th century. There are records of it being used almost everywhere in Wales; but it was less common in Monmouthshire and Glamorgan where English was more established.[20] Accounts of children being beaten for speaking Welsh became less common after 1850; the penalty was increasingly likely to be non-physical where the Welsh Not was still used.[21]
Efforts by teachers to prohibit the speaking of Welsh in schools became gradually less common in the late 19th century.[22] The punishments used where prohibitions were in force were increasingly likely to be non-physical and less embarrassing for the children (e.g additional schoolwork).[23] However, some corporal punishment for speaking Welsh at school did continue.[24] Prohibitions on Welsh were most common in rural, heavily Welsh-speaking areas where teaching English was difficult.[25] Some use of the Welsh Not continued throughout the late-19th century.[26] In the late-19th century, the use and teaching of Welsh in schools began to receive moderate government support.[27] A few people, who grew up at the beginning of the 20th century, recalled in interviews that they saw or knew of the Welsh Not being used when they were children. However, there is no written evidence of the practice being used after 1900.[28]
Under Henry VIII the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 simplified the administration and the law in Wales. English law and norms of administration were to be used, replacing the complex mixture of regional Welsh laws and administration.[14]:66 Public officials had to be able to speak English[14]:66 and English was to be used in the law courts. These two language provisions probably made little difference[14]:68 since English had already replaced French as the language of administration and law in Wales in the late 14th century.[31] In practice this meant that courts had to employ translators between Welsh and English.[32]:587 The courts were 'very popular' with the working class possibly because they knew the jury would understand Welsh and the translation was only for the benefit of the lawyers and judges.[32]:589 The use of English in the law courts inevitably resulted in significant inconvenience to those who could not speak English.[14]: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.[14]:69
Martin Johnes, a professor of history at Swansea University, 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".[14]:69 Furthermore, Johnes writes that the religious turmoil at the time persuaded the state to support, rather than try to extinguish, the Welsh language.[14]:69 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.[14]: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.[14]:70 Davies says that as the (Tudor) government were to promote Welsh for worship, they had more sympathy for Welsh, than for Irish in Ireland, French in Calais, and than the government of Scotland had for Gaelic of the Highlands. The Tudors themselves were of partly Welsh origin.[33]:235
[Question] "as far as your experience goes, there is a general desire for education, and the parents are desirous that their children should learn the English language?" [Reply] "Beyond anything."
Anglican clergyman from Pembrokeshire giving evidence to the Inquiry for South Wales in 1843[34]
In the first half of the 19th century, the only areas of Wales where English was widely spoken were places close to the Anglo-Welsh border, the Gower Peninsula and southern Pembrokeshire. However, the language was becoming more widespread in the industrialising areas due to migration.[35] Welsh speakers were keen for their children to learn English; knowing the language was felt to be a route to social mobility, made life more convenient and was a status symbol.[36] Contemporaries often said that parents wanted schools to be conducted in English. For instance, the Rev Bowen Jones of Narberth told an inquiry following the Rebecca Riots that a school conducted in Welsh in his area was unsuccessful; while, in schools where "the schoolmaster has to teach them English, and to talk English in the school, there is no room in the school-room to admit all that come".[37] The upper- and middle-classes in Wales, who generally spoke English, were also eager for the masses to learn the language. They believed it would contribute to Wales's economic development and that tenants or employees who could speak English would be easier to manage.[38]
The three-part Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, often referred to as the "Treason of the Blue Books" in Wales; published by the British Government in 1847, caused uproar in Wales for disparaging the Welsh; being particularly scathing in its view of nonconformity, the Welsh language, and Welsh morality.[9]:2 The report was critical of schools that tried to exclude Welsh, seeing it as an ineffective way of teaching English,[39] and described the Welsh Not negatively.[40] The inquiry did not lead to any governmental action and the hostile reaction was mainly aimed at the comments about Welsh morality.[14]:96
Reactions and impact
Y Welsh Note (The Welsh Note), engraving published in a Welsh language youth magazine Trysorfa y Plant (A children's treasury) (1879)
Adults who experienced the Welsh Not as children recalled it with differing emotions, including anger,[41] indifference[42] and humour.[43] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries several accounts were published of this method of discipline, which described it as having been used at an unclear point in the relatively recent past.[44] Some writers in this period saw the Welsh Not as something imposed on Wales by England with the aim of destroying Welsh language; others disagreed, often seeing it as a result of Welsh people's desire to learn English.[45] The best-selling novel How Green Was My Valley (1939) by Richard Llewellyn includes an emotive description of the practice, which Johnes considers one of the most influential depictions of the punishment:[46]
"About her neck a piece of new cord, and from the cord, a board that hung to her shins and cut her as she walked. Chalked on the board … I must not speak Welsh in school … And the board dragged her down, for she was small, an infant, and the card rasped the flesh of her neck, and there were marks upon her shins where the edge of the board had cut. Loud she cried … and in her eyes the big tears of a child who is hurt, and has shame, and is frightened."
The punishment continues to be well known in Wales.[47] The Welsh Not has often been discussed in the media usually with an emphasis on its cruelty.[48] It has also featured in school teaching materials[49] and been linked to political debates.[50] It is sometimes incorrectly portrayed as a policy introduced by the British government.[51]
According to the Encyclopaedia of Wales, "Welsh patriots view the Welsh Not(e) as an instrument of cultural genocide",[9] but "it was welcomed by some parents as a way of ensuring that their children made daily use of English".[9]
The use of the Welsh Not created a stigma in using the Welsh language. However, work from groups such as the Society for the Utilisation of the Welsh Language (of 1885) 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.[52]
In 2012, Conservative MP David T. C. Davies stated that the British Government had not been responsible for suppressing the Welsh language in the 19th century, saying that the practice took place before government involvement in the education system began with the Education Act 1870, and that "the teachers who imposed the Welsh Not were Welsh and its imposition would have been done with the agreement of parents".[53]
The first academic study of the Welsh Not was completed by Martin Johnes in 2024.[54] He states that some government officials did want Welsh to cease to exist but the government never introduced policies to that end and believed that some use of Welsh was necessary in schools to effectively teach English.[55] He comments that the state had limited influence over the school system in the 19th century and it did not prohibit the use of Welsh in schools.[56] Johnes argued that there is little evidence to suggest that the Welsh Not caused the decline of Welsh. A large majority of children were not attending day school when it was most common and schools that attempted to completely exclude Welsh tended to be ineffective at teaching English.[57]
Cultural interaction
In 2024 the 1923 Welsh Women's Peace message was translated into the Okinawan language from the perspective of the similarities between the Okinawandialect cards and the Welsh Not.[58]The Asahi Shimbun claimed that the reconstruction of the Okinawan language is similar to the reconstruction of the Welsh language.[59] Japanese musicians also created a short film, inspired by the similarities between the history of Okinawan dialect tags and the Welsh Not.[60]
↑ The paragraph reads "The phrase – Welsh Note – might be unfamiliar to all the children of Wales. We have not seen nor heard so much as its name for many years. But forty and fifty years ago, the children of the day schools of Wales knew well what the Welsh Note was. It drew more reproaches and tears than can be described in words to many men who are still alive and well."
↑ Gibson, Ian (1978). The English vice: Beating, sex, and shame in Victorian England and after. London: Duckworth. ISBN0-7156-1264-6.
↑ O'Neill, Pamela (2013). "The Status of the Welsh Language in Medieval Wales". The Land Beneath the Sea. University of Sydney Celtic Studies Foundation. pp.59–74.
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