Description
[004684] [Jones, Griffith] Welch Piety: Or , a Collection of the Several Accounts of the Circulating Welch Charity Schools, from Their First Rise, in the Year 1737, to Michaelmas, 1753. In Several Letters to a Friend. London: J. Oliver, First Thus? 8vo. Hardback. Good+. Two volumes, n.d. c.1753? – Volume One – Welsh Piety: or the Needful Charity of Promoting the Salvation of the Poor, [6], iii-iv, 40, 33-40, 49-68pp; A Further Account of the Progress of the Circulating Welsh Charity-Schools [3]-iv, 29pp, [3]; An Address to the Charitable and Well-Disposed in Behalf of the Poor, [2], 16pp; Welch Piety Continued … 1740-1741, [4], 107pp, [1]; Welch Piety Continued … 1741-1742, [4], 23pp, [1]; Welch Piety Continued … 1742-1743, [4], iii-vi, 31pp, [1]; Welch Piety Continued … 1743-1744, [2], iii-iv, 43pp, [1]; Welch Piety Continued … 1744-1745, [2], 30pp; A Letter to a Clergyman [1745], [4], 88pp; and Volume Two – Welch Piety Continued … 1745-1746, [6], v-viii, 39pp, [1]; Welch Piety … 1746-1747, [4], 76pp; Welch Piety Continued … 1747-1748, [2], iii-iv, 24pp; Welch Piety Continued … 1748-1749, [2], iii-iv, 52pp; Welch Piety … 1749-1750, [2], iii-iv, 99pp, [1]; Welch Piety … 1750-1751, [2], 3-60pp; Welch Piety … 1751-1752, [2], 68pp. A total of sixteen items, bound in full contemporary calf, later rebacked, raised bands, spines in six panels, title label to second panel
Minor wear to extremities, some light browning to edges internally, a couple of small nicks, but generally fairly clean. Sometime in the library of William Price of Lampeter, with his name to head of titles and an ink stamp to foot
The author was Griffith Jones, “[known as Griffith Jones Llanddowror] (bap. 1684, d. 1761), a Church of England clergyman and educational reformer … His circulating schools, which were held in parish churches, farmhouses, cottages, and barns throughout Wales, were funded by well-disposed philanthropists such as Sir John Philipps and Madam Bridget Bevan and staffed by an army of part-time schoolmasters (mostly clergymen). The scheme proved flexible, economical, and efficient, and it was a matter of considerable pride to Jones that bright pupils were able to become fluent Welsh readers within a six-week period of tuition, and that even illiterate septuagenarians were able to acquire rudimentary reading skills within three months. As each annual report, issued under the title The Welch Piety, made plain, throughout Wales parish churches and farmhouses echoed to the sounds of adult and infant voices chanting the alphabet aloud, spelling words, and repeating the catechism. For the first time in the history of Wales, large numbers of farmers, craftsmen, and labourers, together with their sons and daughters, were given the opportunity to learn to read. Some degree of rote learning was inevitable, but the key to the success of the schools was the use of the Welsh language as the principal medium of instruction. His ‘little nurseries’ strengthened and enriched the powerful revival which was sweeping through the church and also enhanced the prestige value of Welsh as a spoken and written language. Many farmhouses where schools were held were also Methodist seminaries, and the cause of revivalism prospered as increasing numbers learned to read. Most important of all, the scheme helped to create a literate peasantry. By the time of Jones’s death in 1761 he had established around 3325 schools in nearly 1600 different locations in Wales. For a private enterprise, run on a shoestring, this was an extraordinary achievement. Hundreds of letters sent to Llanddowror by grateful clergymen and gentry testified to the beneficial effects of regular schooling … there is a strong case for claiming that he was the greatest Welshman of the eighteenth century” (ODNB)
