The Welsh Not was a token used by teachers at some schools in Wales, mainly in the 19th century, to discourage children from speaking Welsh, by marking out those who were heard speaking the language. It could be followed by an additional discipline, sometimes involving corporal punishment. There is evidence of the Welsh Not's use from the end of 18th to the start of the 20th century, but it was most common in the early- to mid-19th century. There was a widespread belief in Wales in the 19th century that it was beneficial for children to learn English. The token known as the Welsh Not was not part of any government policy, but was seen by teachers as a way to encourage children to learn English. Over time, however, excluding Welsh began to be viewed as an ineffective way of teaching English. By the end of the 19th century schools were encouraged to use some Welsh in lessons though many schools in Welsh-speaking areas remained predominantly English-language, but some teachers continued to discourage the use of Welsh. Accounts suggest that the form and use of the Welsh Not varied from place to place, but it was most commonly a piece of wood. It was sometimes hung on a string around the child's neck. Numerous names were used in contemporary sources; the Welsh Not became the most common name in the 20th century. The token remains prominent in Welsh collective memory.
Terminology
The Welsh Not came in several forms and was used in differing ways. It was also known by other names, including Welsh not, Welsh note, Welsh lump, Welsh stick, Welsh lead, cwstom, Welsh Mark, and Welsh Ticket. The name Welsh Note was more common in the 19th century than Welsh Not. Martin Johnes, an historian who has studied the subject, suggests that the latter term may have originated from Welsh speakers struggling to pronounce the English word "note", since many Welsh people at the time had little knowledge of that language; this may have contributed to the punishment being seen as an outside imposition. Welsh Not became the main term used in the 20th century.
Overview
During the 19th century, a primary function of day schools in Wales was the teaching of English. The teaching of English in Welsh schools was generally supported by the Welsh public and parents who saw it as the language of economic advancement. Some schools practised what is now commonly called total immersion English language teaching and banned the use of Welsh in the school and playground to force children to use and become proficient in English. Some schools punished children caught speaking Welsh with the Welsh Not. This was a token typically made of wood often inscribed with the letters 'WN' or a similar phrase. It might be worn around the neck or carried. Typically, following the start of some prescribed period of time, a lesson, the school day or the school week, it was given to the first child heard speaking Welsh and would then be successively passed on to the next child heard speaking it. At the end of the period, the child with the token or all children who had held the token, might be punished. The nature of that punishment varies from one account to another; it might have been detention, the writing out of lines, or corporal punishment. An article published in 1900 in Perl y Plant (Children's Pearl), a Welsh language youth magazine, gave the following description of the Welsh Not's use at a school in Carmarthenshire during the 1860s:
Behind the door, hanging on a nail, was a small board, the breadth of a hand, and written on it was 'Welsh not' ... if a word of Welsh was spoken (which was done often) the Welsh not was thrown around the offender’s neck at once, and he would have to carry it to his great shame. But if he heard anyone else speaking Welsh he had the right to transfer it to the new offender. At the end of the day, the one with the Welsh not went to the teacher’s desk to receive his punishment before the whole school, and the punishment was the rod four times on the offender’s two hands. Some teachers viewed the use of the device as a "mode of instruction", forcing children to practise English. It may be compared with the approach to language teaching in some other Western European countries, whereby children were discouraged from using minority languages. For example, children who spoke Irish, Scottish Gaelic and various minority languages in France at school were sometimes punished through public identification. A story published in 1832, in the youth edition of the annual Forget-Me-Not, discussed a French-language school for English girls at the start of the century. It described pupils being given "an oval piece of wood, with "ENGLISH", in large capitals, engraved on its front, suspended by a riband from the neck" as a punishment for speaking that language. The Welsh Not was also intended to force children to help with enforcing discipline by making them identify those who spoke Welsh. This was also a way of keeping solely Welsh-speaking children quiet; enforcing silence was considered important for managing a school. The Welsh Not was not a government policy. Some of the local committees and School Boards that administered non-private schools instructed teachers to refrain from using Welsh but most did not. The Welsh Not was a practice introduced by individual teachers mostly on their own initiative. According to Johnes, parents were generally supportive of physical punishment in schools and appear to have been accepting of the Welsh Not.
History
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