No . 132 The Trusty Servant
‘ coarseness ’ seemed to consist of giving ‘ gross and vulgar nicknames ’ to slack pupils and making rough jokes at their expense , according to the Warden of New College . Gabell wrote that he had been used to ‘ underbred pupils ’ and did not make ‘ sufficient allowance ’ for the difference when dealing with gentlemanly Wykehamists . One former pupil gives an example of the latter : ‘ Quo plus lacrimabis , eo minus minges ’ ( The more you weep , the less you ’ ll pee ). Toilet humour in Latin correlative clauses – hardly Gordon Ramsay levels of profanity . When the roughly-handled gentlemen got their chance for revenge , they took it .
Thus Williams was an aspirant reformer , but one without the necessary power or diplomatic niceties to take the pupils with him . An article on the rebellion by JEB Shepard ( Coll , 61-66 ) concludes : ‘ We must call him a failure , but not a tyrant .’ It would take the High Victorian muscle of Ridding half a century later – crucially wielded by an Old Wykehamist – to drag Winchester out of its Georgian torpor . As another school historian , Budge Firth , wrote , ‘ There are limits to what Winchester will take from a non-Wykehamist .’ A pedantic grammar-school Welshman four years into his first junior teaching post had little chance of success .
So Williams was dismissed from Winchester . He spent 18 months at Hyde Abbey School before being summoned to Lampeter by Burgess in 1820 . There he was to rebuild his reputation . A friend from Balliol recommended Williams and his school to Sir Walter Scott , who sent his son Charles there for preparation for Oxford . Scott described Williams in his journal as ‘ the best schoolmaster in Europe ’ and their conversations about Welsh history inspired Scott to write The Betrothed ; Williams was later to preside at Scott ’ s funeral . Such patronage led to a string
of eminent Scots dispatching their sons to west Wales .
Meanwhile Bishop Burgess felt that his mission to raise the educational standards of the Welsh clergy needed to go further . In 1822 he founded St David ’ s College in Lampeter . Aspirant clerics could now gain a university education without travelling to Oxford or Cambridge . John Williams had hoped to be appointed its first principal , but had fallen out with Burgess over the nature of the college . It officially opened on St David ’ s Day 1827 with 26 students . It is thus the thirdoldest higher-education institute in England and Wales , leaving Durham , University College London and King ’ s College London to scrap for third-place in England alone . By the time the college opened , Burgess had moved to Salisbury , but he continued to support his foundation from afar , and left it his library upon his death . His successor as Bishop of St David ’ s , John Banks Jenkinson , ruled that only students of that college could be ordained in his diocese .
St David ’ s College , Lampeter
By the time St David ’ s College opened , John Williams had also left Wales . When Sir Walter Scott became involved in the plan to found Edinburgh Academy , he was quick to persuade the other directors to appoint Williams as its first Rector in 1824 . The memory of the Winchester debacle worried the committee ,
John Williams as Rector of Edinburgh Academy
but Gabell , Warden Huntingford and many former pupils wrote testimonials exonerating his conduct , a tacit admission that he had been treated unfairly . He was appointed and remained in post until 1847 ( apart from a short absence when he was engaged as Latin Professor at London University , only to withdraw before taking it up when it became apparent that a passionate churchman and secular foundation would not mix ). One of his pupils in Edinburgh was Archibald Tait , later Archbishop of Canterbury . After leaving Edinburgh , Williams was appointed in 1848 as the first principal of Llandovery College , 15 miles from Lampeter and intended to foster Welsh studies more effectively than Lampeter , which he criticised for this neglect . He retired in 1853 and when he died in 1858 he was hailed as one of the great educators of his era . While his nickname at Winchester had been ‘ Puffer ’, in Edinburgh it was ‘ Punch ’, and he was featured in Crombie ’ s cast of ‘ Modern Athenians ’ of 19 th -century Edinburgh . So let us say here that we misjudged John Williams in 1818 . Mae ’ n ddrwg ’ da ni , Siôn – Sorry , John .
Readers interested in exploring the 1818 Rebellion in greater detail may obtain a scan of the article by Dr Jonathan Shepard ( Coll , 61-66 ) by emailing trustyservant @ wincoll . ac . uk .
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