No . 132
The Trusty Servant
Y Cysylltiad Cymraeg ( the Welsh Connection )
Tim Giddings explores the story of a latter-day William of Wykeham in a remote corner of Wales – and rehabilitates an unfairly traduced Welsh don :
Thomas Burgess was born in Odiham and came to Winchester in 1768 , where ‘ he passed through the dangerous ordeal of a public school … uncontaminated ’, according to his biographer , before progressing to Corpus Christi , Oxford . In 1803 the Prime Minister Henry Addington , who had been his contemporary at Winchester and Oxford , appointed him Bishop of St David ’ s , although he had only been to Wales once . Yet it was an inspired choice : Burgess was a rare dutiful bishop for his times , realising that the established church needed to reform if it was to withstand the threat of nonconformity . In many ways he was a latter-day William of Wykeham , focused on putting a competent cleric in every parish . He refused to appoint anybody who could not speak Welsh , and indeed went some way towards learning it himself , without becoming fluent – anyone who has struggled with the rules of the soft mutation will sympathise . He patronised Welsh cultural activities , presiding at the eisteddfod at Carmarthen , 1819 , which was the first to feature the Gorsedd of the Bards and the ceremony of
Bishop Burgess chairing the poetry winner . In 1825 he was translated to Salisbury , where his tomb can be seen just round the corner from George Moberly ’ s .
In the 18 th century , most clergy in the diocese of St David ’ s were nongraduates , educated at specialist grammar schools licensed by the bishop . These were capable of ‘ providing a classical education to match the basic university standard , and a theological education which overreached it ’ ( Slinn , Education of the Anglican Clergy , 9 ) – Oxbridge being at least as concerned with making them gentlemen capable of holding their own in local elite society . Burgess reformed this system , bringing it more closely under episcopal control and increasing the requirement from three years of study to seven .
Of these schools the most significant was at Lampeter . With Burgess ’ s encouragement it had been founded in 1805 by the local vicar , Revd Eliezer Williams . It got off to a humble start , sited in his dilapidated glebe house , but soon developed a reputation for the quality of its tuition . When Eliezer Williams died in 1820 , Burgess appointed as his successor Revd John Williams ( no relation ) – a name of great ignominy in Winchester College ’ s annals .
Having distinguished himself at Balliol – one of the few Oxford colleges using competitive entry examinations – Williams had been appointed as Headmaster Henry Gabell ’ s Commoner Tutor in 1814 . He was a ground-breaker - the ‘ first who had the honour of teaching in that School , without having been educated in it ’. Indeed , he had been educated in another grammar school in the St David ’ s diocese , this one run by his clergyman father in Ystrad Meurig .
Yet his reputation in Winchester ’ s histories is execrable . AF Leach calls him ‘ obnoxious ’ and ‘ spying ’; HC Adams sums him up as ‘ a first-rate scholar , but a man of vulgar mind , and given to coarse language ’. Neither deigns even to mention his name . The blame for the 1818 rebellion , in which nearly all of the approximately 200 Collegemen and Commoners barricaded themselves into Chamber Court and took paving stones up to the roofs to use as missiles , was pinned firmly on him . The Scrutiny by the Warden and Posers of New College was held two months after events . They took testimony only from the Collegemen , and did not even hear Williams . Their conclusion : the root of the rebellion was Williams ’ s ‘ harsh conduct and irritating language too frequently used towards the senior scholars in censuring their written exercises ’ and that he had prevented them ‘ from exercising their superintendence over the younger part of the Society in the manner which is statutable and had been customary .’
What was the reality behind Williams ’ s ‘ offences ’? An example of this ‘ spying ’ and interference appears in the diary of a pupil . Williams had dared to report to the Headmaster a Commoner Prefect for beating a Junior senseless , such that the surgeon had to be summoned . The Prefect , following his expulsion , confronted Williams and accused him of betrayal . Williams had kindled further anger among the pupils by patrolling the chambers at night to enforce some order – a statutory duty but one firmly in abeyance .
And he clearly pushed his pupils hard up to books , pulling no punches . The word most commonly used in the testimonies assembled for a later job ( discussed below ) is ‘ strict ’. His
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