Welsh Not

Effects

The effect of "The Not" was to stigmatise the use of the Welsh language among children, and engender the idea that English, as the preferable medium of instruction, was the language of moral progress and opportunity.

Although this was never official government policy, the practice and wider social changes of the nineteenth century saw many Welsh speakers come to view the speaking of Welsh as a disadvantage.^[2]

Origin

The use of "The Not" was recorded as early as the 18th century, and there is strong evidence of numerous incidents in both Anglican and Nonconformist schools throughout Carmarthen, Ceredigion and Meirionnydd, it was commonly known as the 'cwstom', the 'Welsh stick' or the 'Welsh lead' (if a lump of lead was used).^[4]

Widespread Use and Cultural Impact

The most frequent use of the Welsh Not in schools appears to be in the first decades following the publication of the government's Reports of the commissioners of enquiry into the state of education in Wales in 1847.

The reports noted that schools in Wales were inadequate, with English monoglot teachers and English textbooks in use in areas where the children spoke only Welsh. It concluded that the Welsh as a race were "ignorant", "lazy" and "immoral", and that one of the main causes of this was the continuing use of the "evil" Welsh language.^[6]

The Reports had great influence in Wales, becoming known as Brad y Llyfrau Gleision (the Treachery of the Blue Books) among Welsh speakers, and supporting the removal of Welsh as a moral endeavour. In linking the Welsh language with low educational standards and poor morality, the report also highlighted the effective use of the "Welsh Not" and, while it did not officially endorse it's use, it popularised the method as an effective tool for educators throughout Wales.^[7]

Later Use

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.^[9]

Owen Morgan Edwards describes his experience of the Welsh Not in school in Llanuwchllyn in his book Clych Atgof.

Susan Jones, Member of Parliament for Clwyd South, claimed in 2010 that the use of the Welsh Not, including caning as the punishment, persisted in some schools in her constituency until "as recently as the 1930s and 1940s".^[10] A woman in a village in Wrexham Maelor stated that the Welsh Not was in use in her school in the 1940s. In 2018 Gwyn James, then living in another Wrexham Maelor village, and a monoglot Welsh speaker as a child, was reported to have had the board placed around his neck in school in the 1930s for not using English in the classroom.