The Museum of Welsh Life, including the Maestir School, 2004

Museum of Welsh Life, St. Fagans
Maestir School. In use from 1880 to 1916; re-erected at the museum in 1984.

The school was originally the St Mary's Board School at Maestir, Lampeter, Cardiganshire. It was a small rural school typical of the period when elementary education became compulsory for all children in England and Wales. Maestir School was in use from 1880 until 1916. Pupils were taught by a teacher (right), sometimes assisted by a pupil-teacher or a sewing mistress.

The speaking of Welsh was often banned in an effort to improve the children's examination performance in English, even though they spoke only Welsh at home. In 1847, in what became known as the "Treachery of the Blue Books", a Royal Commission reported that:

The Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. Because of their language the mass of the Welsh people are inferior to the English in every branch of practical knowledge and skill ... Equally in his new or old home his language keeps him under the hatches being one in which he can neither acquire nor communicate the necessary information. It is the language of old fashioned agriculture, of theology and of simple rustic life, while all the world about him is English ... He is left to live in an underworld of his own and the march of society goes completely over his head.

Source: Report of the Royal Commission of 1847 (Part II page 66)

At the time, the resulting anger in Wales centred on the attack on the moral life of the inhabitants, but the attack on the Welsh language was equally important, having long term repercussions. When a system of elementary education was developed (Education Act of 1870) the Welsh language was totally ignored.

The number of pupils at Maestir School varied from 47 when it opened, to about 20 in the 1890s. The ages of the pupils ranged from five to fourteen, all of whom were taught in the single classroom.

Text from: myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wfha2000/walespic/050123-3.htm