On my mind

AS the genealogist said about researching one’s past: ‘In the end it’s all relative’ and usually ‘chasing your own tale’. Industrial heritage also can excite and inform, but also discourage and demoralise. As they used to say in China: ‘When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter’.

Thankfully there are still a few monkeys around who play about with the branches of heritage. The Heritage Fund recently awarded grants to groups in Llanelli and Burry Port to explore industrial heritage. One feature is the role of the owners of copperworks in providing education for the children of their workers and others.

Although their main concern was to make money, most did show, pre-Blue Books, concern about the alarming educational deprivation.

Most works schools in South Wales were established in the first half of the 19th Century by the owners of the copper smelting works.

The largest and most successful were built by the Vivians and the Nevills. The Vivian family’s Hafod copperworks schools in Swansea were regarded as outstanding examples of their type, based on child-centred Pestalozzian principles – head, hands and heart.

In Llanelli the Nevills’ school was financed by workers’ stoppages and school pence, as was Mason and Elkington’s school in Pembrey. Regarded as one of the best in Wales, the Llanelli curriculum included, in addition to the 3Rs, scientific and technical subjects with a variety of evening classes. In Pembrey the school, which still stands in its original buildings, focused on the ‘3 Rs’ as well as scripture, history, geography, vocal music and mapping.

However, the motive was always ambiguous. Although a literate and numerate workforce was to be desired, early education in Wales was essentially about social control, deference and acceptance of one’s station in life.

Thankfully, now it’s different. Or is it?