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‘North Wales and his wife will be there’ The Beginning, 1884–1892

‘I consider the act of those quarrymen of Penrhyn. It is a noble thing for men sitting round this table to give their hundreds and their thousands; but for a poor man to give his £1 or his £5 out of his daily earnings means to deny himself something. That is real sacrifice.’¹

A. J. Mundella’s remark at the opening of the University College of North Wales in 1884 encapsulated both the romance and the struggle which characterized the University College’s origins. Mundella, Vice-President of the Board of Education in Gladstone’s government, made a stirring speech, frequently punctuated with applause, and 18 October 1884 was a day of jubilation in Bangor. A mighty campaign had triumphed. Yet the University College had had a difficult and contentious birth.

The drive for university education in Wales had always been inextricably bound up with campaigns for Welsh nationhood. Indeed, had Owain Glyndŵr’s uprising triumphed in the early fifteenth century, his visionary plan for higher education – one university in north Wales and one in the south – might have seen a university established in Bangor before St Andrews (1412), Glasgow (1451) or Trinity College, Dublin (1591). As it was, higher education in Wales languished well behind Scotland and Ireland as well as England. Scotland had four universities by 1600 – over two centuries later Wales still had none. However, as national sentiment in Wales stirred in the mid-nineteenth century, so too a new movement to establish a Welsh university began to gain ground. Pamphlets appeared, papers were presented at conferences, and Welshmen, particularly in London, began to campaign. The University College of Wales in Aberystwyth emerged almost by accident in 1872 when the Castle Hotel in the town became available, but it laboured somewhat without government funding and was ‘the Ishmael of Colleges’ according to one observer.² Higher education remained pitifully inadequate as Wales entered the last quarter of the century.

Welsh members of parliament stepped up pressure, and in July 1879 a debate in the House of Commons on the subject drew a favourable intervention from Gladstone. A year later, when Gladstone was elected Prime Minister for the second time, he established a ‘departmental committee’ to investigate higher and intermediate education in Wales. It was chaired by Lord Aberdare, a former Liberal Home Secretary and, at that time, President of the Aberystwyth University College. Other members included Henry Richard MP (a Vice-President at Aberystwyth), Lewis Morris (Honorary Secretary at Aberystwyth) and John Rhŷs of Oxford (an Aberystwyth governor). The odds seemed strikingly in favour of bolstering the advance of the college at Aberystwyth. But it was not to be.

The Aberdare Report, which appeared in August 1881, was a hugely significant report for higher education in Wales. Its central theme was not unfamiliar: it recommended simply that there should be one university college in north Wales and one in south Wales. However, the report then made a momentous observation: the college at Aberystwyth ‘whether retained on its present site or removed to Caernarvon [sic] or Bangor’³ must be accepted as the north Wales college.

For Aberystwyth, those 12 words seemed to sound the death knell. They cast doubt on its continuation, and threw open other possibilities. Within months, a campaign in favour of Bangor had begun. In early 1883, a government grant of £4,000 per annum was promised to both the new colleges in Wales. Bitterness, wrangling and confusion lay ahead, however. The central question was the location of the college in north Wales, if it was not to be Aberystwyth. At a meeting at Lord Aberdare’s London home, it was agreed to convene a conference on this matter at Chester in January 1883. Not surprisingly, Aberystwyth fought a valiant, eleventh-hour battle for survival at Chester, but influential north Walians closed ranks and outnumbered the Aberystwyth sympathizers. Harsh words were spoken and an amendment in favour of Aberystwyth fell – but, that aside, the Chester conference resolved little. A site committee was then appointed, comprising various official representatives of north Wales, and led by the Earl of Powis.

The site committee did not come up with the answer either, but in May 1883 they recommended that the issue be referred to three arbitrators: Lord Carlingford, A. J. Mundella (the government minister) and Lord Bramwell (a retired judge). This was a shrewd move, for the three commanded respect. They had already performed the same task in south Wales, choosing Cardiff in March 1883. The decision in the north, however, was to be somewhat more problematic. Whilst the north Walians at the Chester conference had been clear that they wanted a university college unambiguously in north Wales, they were not united as to the precise location. Caernarfon and Bangor may have been mentioned in the Aberdare Report, but other contenders appeared in 1883. Indeed, at the start of the arbitration process, 13 towns staked their claims to be the site of the university college in north Wales.

The arbitrators moved quickly to shortlist six towns – Bangor, Caernarfon, Conwy, Denbigh, Rhyl and Wrexham. Rhyl had assembled an intriguing case based, it seemed, on the climate there and ‘a supply of free ozone’.⁴ Denbigh had the radical Nonconformist editor, Thomas Gee (of Y Faner) in its corner. Wrexham was the largest town in north Wales, and was near to an industrial and coal-mining area, though it was also close to English urban and rural areas. Caernarfon, often considered at that time the capital of north Wales, had benefited from the expanding slate industry. Bangor, which exported slate from Port Penhryn, had been massively transformed by the advent of the railways in the mid-nineteenth century. Houses and hotels had been built, and importantly, Coleg Normal, a college founded principally to train teachers, had existed there since 1858.

The vision that inspired the leaders of the movement for a university college in north Wales was matched by the grit and self-lessness of the quarrymen, farmers and others in the region who gave money (the so-called ‘pennies of the poor’) towards the cost of founding the institution. The Chester conference had resolved to raise funds for the north Wales college – wherever it was sited – and a number of prominent individuals present in Chester, including the Duke of Westminster and William Rathbone MP, pledged £1,000 each. The Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarrymen also took up the cause with enthusiasm, holding lunchtime meetings to pledge money. At one meeting, in April 1883, 42 quarrymen immediately promised £86 to the north Wales college: ‘Dyna engraifft o’r teimlad sydd yn meddianu Chwarelwyr Bethesda ar y mater,’ wrote the secretary of the quarry-men’s committee. (‘This is an example of the extent of the feeling in the minds of the Bethesda Quarrymen’).⁵ Many workers contributed a fixed sum out of their earnings, and ultimately the quarrymen raised over £1,250. Before the end of 1884, £37,000 had been raised in total from around 8,000 subscribers, and all but a tiny fraction gave less than £100. This is all now part of the great romantic story of the establishment of the university college in Bangor, and it should not be downplayed: there is no doubt that the idealism and strength of this local show of support helped to sway the arbitrators.

Nevertheless, there seemed almost as many arguments against Bangor as there were for. There were examples of poor health and social conditions (an outbreak of typhoid in 1882 did not help), and there were strong religious and political antagonisms in the city. That Bangor was held by many to be firmly Conservative and Anglican – through the influence of Lord Penrhyn and the presence of the cathedral – did not sit easily with some of the Liberal Nonconformist champions of university education in Wales. One writer to a newspaper recalled the poet Caledfryn’s description of Bangor as a ‘nest of bats and owls’.⁶

On 24 August 1883, the arbitrators announced their decision: Bangor was the selected site for the north Wales university college, and the decision was unanimous. They gave no reasons for this outcome and would accept no appeals. Joy was unconfined in Bangor. Last-minute protests from Aberystwyth were declared invalid, and some of the bitterness of the campaign remained for many years. Happily, of course, Aberystwyth also survived, helped by a government decision that it should receive the same grant as Bangor and Cardiff.

Establishing a university college is no trivial matter, and once the decision had been made the pace of activity quickened. A charter and constitution for the university college were drawn up and approved by the Privy Council in October 1883. Following Cardiff’s lead, women were to be welcomed into full membership of the college and, significantly, the college was to be independent of any religious influence or control. Students would work for degrees of the University of London, as did students of many new university colleges in the nineteenth century.

The Earl of Powis, because of his position as president of the north Wales site committee took a leading role in the preparatory work, along with William Rathbone, the former Liverpool politician and businessman who had been elected MP for Caernarfonshire in 1880; the dean of Bangor and Thomas Gee were also active. Another important part was played by Henry Jones, then an outstanding young philosophy lecturer in Aberystwyth. Jones, the son of a Denbighshire shoemaker, had left school at the age of 12 to become an apprentice shoemaker himself. But after winning a scholarship to Coleg Normal in Bangor at the age of 18, he was to train as a teacher, become a Calvinistic Methodist minister and study philosophy at Glasgow. In 1882, to the fury of Aberystwyth, he became secretary of the north Wales site committee, and he clearly had input into the drafting of the political and religious aspects of the Charter.

There were few surprises in the election of the principal lay officers of the university college: the Earl of Powis became President, and the Vice-Presidents were George Osborne Morgan and Richard Davies, Liberal MPs for Denbighshire and Anglesey respectively. John Roberts, MP for Flint Boroughs, was Honorary Treasurer. In fact, for all the concern that the new college would be in thrall to Conservative opinion, to some extent almost the opposite was the case. Rathbone, fellow Liberal MP Stuart Rendel and Thomas Gee were all members of the University College Council. The first meeting of the Council took place on a Saturday, 8 March 1884, at the Queen’s Head Café in Bangor: Colonel W. E. Sackville West, appointed to the Council by Oxford University, was elected Chairman, with Rathbone as Vice-Chairman.

The first university post to be filled was that of Registrar. W. Cadwaladr Davies, born and educated at elementary school in Bangor, had worked in the office of the North Wales Chronicle before becoming editor of Cronicl Cymru. A forceful advocate for higher education, he worked with the educationalist Hugh Owen in London in the 1870s, and after returning to Bangor in 1876 he played an active role in the administrative work for the new college and with the raising of funds. Intelligent and resourceful, his appointment was almost inevitable; he was later described as ‘pre-eminently the man to help forward the new institution’.⁷

The appointment of the Principal, however, was a much different matter. The Principal was also to be the holder of one of six Chairs to be filled, and there were 21 applications for the post. The Council met on 14 May 1884, again at the Queen’s Head Café, and interviewed six candidates. Three young men were regarded as particularly serious contenders: William Edwards, a native of Denbigh who had three Firsts from Oxford, a Fellowship from Jesus College and had been HM Inspector of Schools in Wales; Henry Jones, aged 32, already well known in Welsh educational circles and arguably the ‘people’s choice’; finally there was Harry Rudolf Reichel, the youngest of the three and the unlikeliest candidate. Born in Belfast, the son of the bishop of Meath and of German extraction, Reichel had pursued a brilliant academic career at Balliol College, Oxford, with four firsts and a Fellowship of All Souls by the age of 24. A glittering academic career undoubtedly lay ahead, possibly in Oxford. The appointment of a Welsh principal might have been expected in Bangor, perhaps considered inevitable. But there was no unanimity over the choice of a Welsh candidate. Each candidate was put to the vote, and with one dissentient – Thomas Gee – Harry Reichel was appointed the first Principal of the University College of North Wales at the age of 27.

In May 1884 the Council also appointed five professors. Reichel himself was to hold the Chairs of English and History. Henry Jones took his defeat with equanimity and became Professor of Logic, Philosophy and Political Economy. W. Rhys Roberts (Greek), George Ballard Mathews (Mathematics), Andrew Gray (Physics) and James Johnston Dobbie (Chemistry) were also appointed to Chairs. It was, without question, an exceptionally gifted group of scholars. Jones became an internationally renowned philosopher and was knighted. Ballard Mathews, Gray and Dobbie all became Fellows of the Royal Society. Curiously, there was no Welsh department or Chair: a dearth of candidates was essentially the problem. A Welsh and Classical lectureship was considered in 1884,⁸ but the new College Senate could not recommend an appointment, and had to wait for John Morris-Jones’s arrival from Oxford five years later. As well as the Chairs, lectureships in Latin, modern languages and Biology were established.

At first, it had seemed that there was no available building in Bangor to house the new university college. However, in April 1884, it transpired that the Penrhyn Arms Hotel could be leased from the Penrhyn Estate for around £200 per annum. Built as a coaching inn in the eighteenth century, overlooking the harbour, it had seen better days. Yet with some adaptation and renovation it was to be a valuable first home. The kitchen and scullery of the hotel became the library; science buildings were subsequently added and one of the stables became a ‘smoking room’.

So on 18 October 1884, to an immense fanfare in the city, and with the motto ‘Knowledge is Power’ emblazoned over its entrance, the University College of North Wales opened. Flags appeared in windows, and an enormous procession – including several thousand quarrymen – to the University College building took place. The Royal Penrhyn Band marched, and local councils, schools, and various trades (printers, millers, bakers, for example) were all represented. It was ‘one of the most brilliant spectacles ever witnessed in this part of the Principality’,⁹ and was followed by a lunch (at which Mundella and others spoke) and a concert in the evening. As one political observer correctly predicted months before ‘North Wales and his wife will be there.’¹⁰

Once opened, with 58 students enrolled, there was no question of complacency setting in. The foundations were there to be built upon. J. J. Dobbie, a considerable scientist who delivered much-admired lectures, was instrumental in shaping the science programme in the University College to meet the needs of the economy of north Wales. In particular, he played a leading role in founding in 1888, and securing a government grant for, an Agriculture Department, and an imaginative scheme for delivering agricultural classes in various north Wales towns. Dobbie also had a keen interest in geology, but another much-favoured project – a school of mining and quarrying – was never to be realized. In January 1889, John Morris-Jones was appointed as a lecturer in Welsh, establishing the subject in Bangor and beginning an illustrious career during which he was to exert a profound influence over Welsh cultural and literary life. In 1890, prompted by Andrew Gray, who had studied physics and applied electricity and worked with Lord Kelvin at Glasgow, an electrical engineering department within Physics was established. A lecture-ship was added, too, in zoology, and student numbers had by this time reached a hundred.

It was not all plain sailing, however. As the University College’s first decade proceeded, there were demanding financial hurdles to surmount. The government grant of £4,000 remained unchanged, and additional funds had to be sought. But rural north and mid-Wales at this time was experiencing recession, and public donations began to dry up. In 1888, as a special Council committee was reviewing the financial position, Bangor’s professors anticipated one of its recommendations by agreeing to accept reduced payments. This allowed staff other than the professors to receive some increase. The Council accepted the offer, commending the professors’ ‘public spirit and self-sacrifice’.¹¹ Some external help was also forthcoming. In 1890, Henry Tate generously donated £1,000 to a scholarship fund. Even more dramatically, in June of that year came news of the largest legacy the University College had so far received, from a Dr Evan Thomas of Manchester, and amounting eventually to £47,000. The ‘Manchester bequest’, as it became known, eased the financial difficulties and numerous developments (including that in electrical engineering) began to proceed.

Tensions – between Anglicans and Nonconformists, between Liberals and Tories, between Bangor and Aberystwyth – were never far from the surface in these early years. In 1889, the Council, led by Principal Reichel, objected to Aberystwyth’s continuing use of the title ‘The University College of Wales’, and wrote to Aberystwyth on the matter, although nothing came of this.¹² Some of Bangor’s leading figures were also changing. Henry Jones moved to pastures new at Glasgow in 1891. Ballard Mathews tendered his resignation, though he was persuaded to withdraw it. The University College’s first indefatigable President, the Earl of Powis, died in 1891, and was succeeded by William Rathbone. In December that year, too, the Registrar, Cadwaladr Davies, resigned. He had encountered ‘periods of stress and trial’ in the post, and his health had been affected, but as the Council recorded he had been ‘of the greatest possible service’ to the new College.¹³ In 1892, he was succeeded by John Edward Lloyd, who moved from Aberystwyth and became Registrar as well as lecturer in Welsh history.

Just as the challenges caused by these events were subsiding, the University College became engulfed in scandal. At its heart were various assertions by the head of the College’s women’s hostel (the ‘Lady Principal’ as she was known) regarding the conduct of a 26-year-old female student, Violet Osborn. Frances Hughes, the Lady Principal, had firm, strait-laced views regarding the behaviour of women students, and she ran an uncompromising regime in the hostel. During the late summer of 1892, she expressed concerns over Violet Osborn’s conduct which were variously reported as accusations that the student was ‘untruthful’, was of ‘an impure mind’ and had engaged in ‘indecorous behaviour towards men’.¹⁴ Frances Hughes made a statement to this effect to the Board of Directors of the hostel – of which Principal Reichel and E. V. Arnold, Professor of Latin, were members. On 5 November, a small committee of the Board heard what was termed a ‘rebutting statement’ by Miss Osborn. Reichel and Arnold were convinced that the student’s behaviour was not in question, and made a joint statement to this effect on 10 November. Frances Hughes did not agree. The Hostel Board decided to take no action.

The accusations, however, were regarded as extremely serious by supporters of Violet Osborn, some of whom were prominent in the community. On 10 November, two such individuals, Dr Griffith Evans, a well-known bacteriologist, and Henry Lewis, later Mayor of Bangor and a significant local figure, demanded a full investigation. The Senate agreed, and a protracted and tangled enquiry took place between 14 and 29 November 1892. It quickly became uncomfortable for Reichel and E. V. Arnold, because as members of the Hostel Board they would need to be questioned as witnesses. Reichel vacated the chair of the Senate after five meetings, and Arnold also had to withdraw. Arnold had crossed swords before with Frances Hughes, and it transpired that at some stage he had offered Violet Osborn financial assistance with her studies. A third professor was then drawn into the web. E. Keri Evans, the young Professor of Philosophy who had succeeded Henry Jones the previous year, became implicated in the charges against Miss Osborn. After a reference was made to an incident, Evans was forced to subject himself to stern questioning by his remaining seven colleagues on the Senate. In his statement, Keri Evans recounted how on one occasion Violet Osborn had remained behind at the end of a lecture, and that as she was about to leave ‘some papers which I had in my hand come into contact with her face’. Evans thought it ‘absurdly trivial and – prudish imaginings apart – devoid of all meaning’.¹⁵

The Senate interviewed around a dozen witnesses, and considered many letters and statements. Violet Osborn herself gave a mature and articulate performance (‘The whole affair has interfered with my studies,’ she stated, ‘and I cannot say whether I shall attend the Honours Examination …’).¹⁶ Various individuals gave powerful testimony on her behalf. The formidable Frances Hughes, however, declined to give evidence or to back up her charges. On 29 November, the Senate ended its enquiry with the judgement that there was ‘no foundation whatever for any of the charges against Miss Osborn’.¹⁷

The matter was not laid to rest. It sparked agitation within the Council, not helped by the fact that the outcome of the Senate enquiry unfolded in the pages of the North Wales Observer before a report had been submitted to the Council – which raised the hackles of some members. Various motions and amendments were put, and eventually, in December 1892, a motion expressing satisfaction with the outcome of the Senate enquiry was passed by 13 votes to 8. Turmoil continued and a petition from eminent ‘friends of Miss Osborn’ asked the Council to ‘neutralize’ the effect of the charges against the student. The ‘friends’ included an MP, two Oxbridge professors, a vicar and a Congregational minister. In February 1893, the Council then passed another motion (by 13 votes to 9) asking Frances Hughes to withdraw the charges against Violet Osborn; failure to do so would lead to the removal of Miss Hughes’s name from the register of lodging-house keepers.¹⁹ It cannot have been a surprise to the Council that Frances Hughes refused to withdraw the charges, and the licence granted to the women’s hostel was revoked. The Council took steps to reorganize residential arrangements for women, and a new ‘Lady Superintendent’ was appointed in 1893.

The reverberations from this crisis were felt far beyond Bangor. The press, in particular, had a field day. Frances Hughes sued the Daily Dispatch for libel following a scathing commentary on her supervision of the hostel, and she received £300 in damages. Her brother, the prominent Wesleyan minister Hugh Price Hughes, published some tart remarks in The Times about the ‘unmarried young men’ who ran the University College (seven of the 11 Professors were unmarried).²⁰ The matter was referred to in both Houses of Parliament, with Lloyd George intervening at one point. In October 1893, six members of the University College’s Council resigned including the Chair, Vice-Chair and the Duke of Westminster, a Vice-President. Rathbone continued to work loyally within the Council, but his relations with Reichel were undoubtedly strained.

By modern standards, it was a storm in a teacup. But the University College was still in its infancy, and the affair unquestionably dented its reputation. The Frances Hughes libel case proved an embarrassment for Reichel and his colleagues with the judge and a barrister scoffing publicly at the learned professors. The local press felt it had all been a ‘grievous blow’ to the College.²¹ It reflected certain attitudes to the education of women. There was a significant rift with aristocratic supporters of the College. It took a personal toll, too, on the leading players. The ‘unmarried men’ jibe may have hit home: at the end of 1893, Reichel announced his marriage to Charlotte Mary Pilkington, an old friend. He felt the strain of the difficult circumstances which had arisen, and in June 1894 he relinquished the Chair of English. All in all, the episode brought few triumphs. Frances Hughes lost her position, departed and married an Anglican clergyman. E. Keri Evans was perhaps the most harshly affected. Aged 32 at the time of the crisis, he had committed no great offence, and he was to secure damages and an apology following legal action against a newspaper. But it was no surprise that in 1895 he decided that his ‘life-work lay elsewhere’ and he resigned.²² Although his health gave way, he later became a Congregational minister, was deeply moved by the religious revival of 1904, and became a biographer and gifted translator of hymns. E. V. Arnold, Professor of Latin, and a member of both the Senate and Council when the controversy erupted, also found that his life changed significantly: he married Violet Osborn.

During the tempestuous months of 1892 and 1893, the movement to create a federal university in Wales was reaching fruition. The idea had been gathering momentum, particularly following a conference in 1888 organized by the Cymmrodorion Society in London, which resolved to apply for a university charter. Bangor was the smallest of the new university colleges, but its representatives were prominent in the University of Wales campaign. Reichel himself was an active proponent of a federal organization, spurred on, doubtless, by his friendship with the Cardiff Principal Viriamu Jones. In Reichel’s view, the University of London had been an ‘academic midwife’ to the Welsh colleges, but there comes a time when a midwife’s work is complete.²³ In 1891 a charter committee was set up, with six representatives from Bangor taking part. Exactly one year later, Bangor’s Council formally agreed that the petition for the charter be submitted. The charter application did not have a particularly smooth ride through Parliament, but eventually it received the royal assent in November 1893. Bangor, Aberystwyth and Cardiff united as founding colleges of the new federal University of Wales – a shining manifestation, it seemed, of Welsh nationhood.

1. Foundation Day, 18 October 1884, at the Penrhyn Arms

2. The first Senate, with Reichel in the centre (seated)

3. Sir Harry Reichel, Principal, 1884–1927

4. W. Cadwaladr Davies, the first Registrar

5. Earl of Powis, the first President

6. William Rathbone, President, 1892–1900

7. A student production of Twelfth Night on St David’s Day, 1903

8. Certain goings-on attract light-hearted banter in the press

9. King Edward VII lays the foundation stone for the Main Building in July 1907

10. The bilingual foundation stone, in Welsh and Latin

11. The opening of the Main Building, 1911; Lord Kenyon opens proceedings, with King George V seated on the stage

12. John Morris-Jones (left) and David Lloyd George outside Prichard-Jones Hall after the opening of the Main Building