In a message dated 31/01/2004 20:20:34 GMT Standard Time,
janewright(a)europe.com writes:
My grandfather and his siblings lived at Tyddyn Mawr farm up on
the Cader Road and I am intrigued by how these children from a hill farm
were so well educated in 1860/70's. I believe they were educated at the Old
Grammar School, Dolgellau but have never been able to find out anything
about despite asking at the record office. Could it have been where that
sign is?
If your grandfather and his family attended the Grammar School in Dolgellau
in the 1860 & 1870s it would have been in the building where the sign is. The
"new" grammar school for boys, which is now the local comprehensive school was
built about 1890 (I can't find the precise date at the moment, although I know
that I have it somewhere).
If your grandfather's family attended in the late 60's and early 70's they
were in luck. From 1864-1867 the school was in a particularly low state with
only two pupils, little or no supervision of the school was carried out by the
trustees, the more elementary British and National Schools provided a higher
standard of education than the supposedly senior Grammar School, and the whole
institution was subject of a damning report by the Schools Enquiry Commission.
The trustees did take the criticism in the report seriously they got rid of
the headmaster and appointed Daniel Lewis Lloyd to the headship. He held the
post until 1872, D. L. Lloyd was a very much respected educator in Victorian
Wales, after his period in Dolgellau he became head of Friars School Bangor and
then Christ Collage Brecon, before being elevated to the Bishopric of Bangor.
As might be expected he transformed the Grammar school and turned it into an
institution of some note which even managed to send some scholars on to Oxford.
Your family may have been in the school at the time of Dr. Lloyd's headship,
even if they went there a few years later they would still have benefited from
his reforms.
All the best
Alwyn