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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 children those who were heard speaking Welsh.

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.

The teaching of English in Welsh schools was demanded by the Welsh public and parents who saw it as the language of economic advancement.

The device

"The speaking of Welsh in school was strictly forbidden; any boy or girl guilty of the offence was given the Welsh Not, which he or she handed on to the next offender, the unfortunate one who held the Welsh Not at the end of the school session becoming the scapegoat who bore the punishment for the sins of all.

Mother, being a lively child, was in frequent possession of the Welsh Not, but was never allowed to pay the penalty; a chivalrous boy cousin always asked for it in Welsh and took the punishment himself."

The Welsh Not was also known as the "Welsh knot", "Welsh note", "Welsh lump", "Welsh stick", "Welsh lead" (if a lump of lead was used) or the "cwstom". Typically the Not was a piece of wood, slate, a ruler or a stick, often inscribed with the letters "WN", used in schools in Wales to attempt to promote the use of the English language. Its purpose was to 'force Welsh children to speak English at school'. This was given to the first pupil to be heard speaking Welsh. When another child was heard using Welsh, the Not was taken from its current holder and given to the latest offender. Whoever was in possession of the Not was encouraged to pass it on to any of their Welsh-speaking classmates by informing the teacher that they had caught someone else speaking Welsh. The pupil in possession at the end of the day was subjected to corporal punishment or other penalty (some reports suggest the punishment was administered at the end of the week, or at the end of each lesson).

Contemporary reports of use

"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."

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. There is strong evidence of pre-1870 use in Carmarthen, Ceredigion and Meirionnydd, but it was not government policy. Given that schooling was voluntary then, use of the Welsh Not had the indirect approval of parents.

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.

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”

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."

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.

Reactions and impact

Some Welsh people have described the use of the Welsh Not as a 'weapon to create cultural genocide' others welcomed the method in children learning English.

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'. 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.

John Winterson Richards wrote on the website of the ''Institute of Welsh Affairs'': "... the ‘Welsh Not’ did not come from oppressors in London but from educators in Wales who, rightly or wrongly, believed honestly and sincerely that the children in their charge would fare better in life if they mastered English."

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.

"The teacher had told me silently not to speak a word of Welsh ... When I did speak, in my strong Welsh , everyone laughed, and I was given a cord, and a heavy chunk of wood. I didn't know what on earth it was, I had seen a similar ticket around a dog's neck to stop it chasing sheep. That wooden token went for my neck hundreds of times after that...

It went as follows, - when a child was heard saying a word in Welsh, I was to report it to the teacher, then the piece of wood was put around the neck of the speaker; and would stay around their neck until the child heard someone else speak Welsh, when it was transferred to that poor child..."

Liz Lee Reynolds argues in an article in the Morning Star that "There is some evidence of corporal punishment for Welsh-speakers with the 'Welsh Not' being enforced in schools at least in parts of the country".

In his book ''For Wales, See England: Language, Nationhood, and Identity'', Ford concludes that "Ultimately, one is forced to conclude 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.

The 1847 'Blue Book' reports

The Welsh Not was already in use in 1847, before the Treachery of the Blue Books.

"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?" "Beyond anything."

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. There is some doubt that one of the two Welsh only schools was in fact a Welsh only school.

So virtually all of the schools surveyed taught English and 80% of them did not just teach English but also used English for all of their lessons. 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.

"Cannot get the children from the habit of talking in Welsh; the school as a whole is backward in English."

The teaching of Welsh was left to Sunday schools.

The inquiry found that the quality of schools in Wales was poor. (In common with England.) 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.

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 was met with general agreement by the Welsh public and parents.

Similar devices

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• In Ireland the ‘tally stick’ brought in by teachers, brought in from outside and who had no knowledge of Irish whatsoever. "A ‘tick’ was notched on the stick for every word of Irish that they uttered during the school day, and they received a corresponding punishment at the end of the day for same."
• In Kenya the device passed around the children was a button.
• In Scotland the maide-crochaidh ("hanging stick") placed round the child's neck, if caught 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.” 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.”
• In Canada, children were beaten with the maide-crochaidh ("hanging stick") if caught speaking Canadian Gaelic.

• In Brittany, France, there was 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.'
• Vergonha, the French suppression of regional languages, and specifically le symbole in French schools.
• Basque language, Interview with a Basque speaker: '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.'
• Dialect card Hōgenfuda (方言札, "dialect card"), suppression of Ryukyuan languages and dialects of the Tōhoku region in Japan.

See also

• Language policy

References

1. ^ "Welsh and 19th century education". Wales History. BBC. Archived from the original on 28 April 2014. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
2. Simkin, John (January 2020). "Act of Union". spartacus-educational.com. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
3. ^ Jones, Gareth Elwyn (2000). "15 The Welsh Language and the Blue Books of 1847". In Jenkins, Geraint H. (ed.). The Welsh Language and Its Social Domains. University of Wales Press. pp. 431–457. ISBN 978-0708316047.
4. Lewis, Mrs. Hugh (May 1931). "School Days Fifty Years Ago". The Welsh Outlook. Vol. 18, no. 5. pp. 123–125.
5. Breverton, T. (2009). Wales A Historical Companion. United Kingdom: Amberley Publishing.
6. Edwards., Thornton B. "The Welsh Not: A Comparative Analysis" (PDF). Carn (Winter 1995/1995). Ireland: Celtic League: 10.
7. Williams, Peter N. (2003). Presenting Wales from a to Y - The People, the Places, the Traditions: An Alphabetical Guide to a Nation's Heritage. p. 275.
8. ^ Davies, John (2008). Davies, John; Baines, Menna; Jenkins, Nigel; Lynch, Peredur I. (eds.). The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. p. 942. ISBN 9780708319536.
9. ^ Davies, John (2008). Gwyddoniadur Cymru. University of Wales Press. p. 954. ISBN 978-0-7083-1954-3.
10. "English Education in Wales". The Atlas. 22 January 1848. p. 6.
11. ^ Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales. London: William Clowes and Sons. 1847.
12. Warner, Richard (1800). Second Walk Through Wales (2nd ed.). R. Cruttwell. p. 262. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
13. ^ Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry for South Wales. London: William Clowes and Sons. 1844. p. 102.
14. ^ "Welsh Not". Ceredigion Museum: The Museum Collection. Ceredigion County Council. Retrieved 20 August 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
15. John Davies, A History of Wales, Penguin, 1994, ISBN 0-14-014581-8, p 455
16. ^ Price, Adam (16 July 2014). "Wales, the first and final colony - by Adam Price MP". Wales Online. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
17. Winterson Richards, John (5 December 2015). "Wales: History, Myth and Empire". IWA. Institute of Welsh Affairs. Retrieved 11 September 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
18. Khleif, Bud B. (1976). "Cultural Regeneration and the School: An Anthropological Study of Welsh-Medium Schools in Wales". International Review of Education. 22 (2): 177–192. ISSN 0020-8566.
19. Reynolds, Liz Lee. "The overlooked history of Wales". Morning Star. Retrieved 11 September 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
20. Irish Identity. Irish Identity http://www.irishidentity.com/extras/heritage/stories/language.htm. Retrieved 11 September 2021. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
21. O'Sullivan, Jonathan. "Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla cliste - Broken Irish is better than clever English". Eel & Otter. Eel & Otter. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
22. ^ "On Gaelic, Language and Identity". Bella Caledonia. Bella Caledonia. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
23. McIntyre, Emmett. "Reversal in the Decline of Scots Gaelic - An Historical View". transceltic.com. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
24. Kennedy, Michael (2002). "Gaelic Economic-impact Study" (PDF). Nova Scotia Museum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 August 2006. Retrieved 30 August 2006.
25. McInerny, Tim; O'Leary, Naomi (14 June 2017). "The Irish Language". The Irish Passport (Podcast) (3 ed.). SoundCloud. Event occurs at 35:30. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
26. Kuter,, Lois. Breton – an endangered language of Europe. U.S. Branch of the International Committee for the Defense of the Breton Language (U.S. ICDBL) http://www.breizh.net/icdbl/saozg/Endangered.pdf. Retrieved 11 September 2021. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
27. See Jose Carlos Herreras, Actas XVI Congreso AIH. José Carlos HERRERAS. Políticas de normalización lingüística en la España democrática", 2007, p. 2. Reproduced in https://cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/aih/pdf/16/aih_16_2_021.pdf
28. "DIONISIO AMUNDARAIN, A COLOSSUS OF BASQUE ACTIVISM: "MUNILLA'S DESIGNATION [AS A BISHOP] WAS A MOVE UNDERTAKEN BY ROUCO VARELA TO GIVE BASQUE CHURCH A SPANISH CHARACTER"". Naziogintza. NAZIOGINTZA. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
29. Mary Goebel Noguchi; Sandra Fotos (2001). Studies in Japanese Bilingualism. Multilingual Matters. pp. 72–. ISBN 978-1-85359-490-8. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
30. Elise K. Tipton (2 October 1997). Society and the State in Interwar Japan. Psychology Press. pp. 204–. ISBN 978-0-415-15069-9. Retrieved 9 June 2012.

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.

• Linguistic rights
• Linguistic discrimination
• History of the Welsh language
• Welsh language
• Corporal punishments
• School punishments
• History of Wales