Welsh Journals

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one a little of the television programme 'Cathy Come Home'. Yet the editor reminds us of the existence of Flintshire vestry records, which record the collecting of moneys for the poor and the disbursement of those moneys. In a sense, it is a pity that resources do not permit the editing and printing of Flintshire poor law vestry records, which exist for several parishes, and which would show us the other side of local administration, that is, how people were cared for by their own locality. Very few Welsh Quarter Sessions records have so far been edited and published, and the only volume which parallels this one on Flintshire in its period is that of Merioneth Quarter Sessions Records edited by the late Keith Williams-Jones. This, then, is a most useful addition to our knowledge of eighteenth-century admin- istration and social life. The volume contains excellent appendices of lists of justices, of hundreds and parishes with all their sub-divisions, lists of bridges (of which Flintshire had about fifty and which were a very heavy burden on the county), and a long and detailed index, which will all be of enormous help to the local historian. It may not be possible to edit and publish all the Sessions records, but this excellent volume whets the appetite for editions of such records or at least some parish vestries, and, if possible, some more Quarter Sessions Rolls of the end of the century when we could see the process of industrialization in action in Flintshire. Swansea PRYS MORGAN J. GWYNN WILLIAMS, The University College of North Wales: Foundations 1884- 1927 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1985, pp. xvii + 499). £ 12.50. This formidable volume has been published to celebrate the centenary of the opening of the University College of North Wales. And a splendid book it is. The story began with the aspirations of Welsh people in the age of Victoria for a better and more accessible system of education. These aspirations were illuminated by a growing sense of nationality. To be a nation was to possess the symbols of nationhood and amongst these a university was felt to be one of the most signifi- cant. Of course, a university could not be built in a day. It was not until 1893 that Wales got its national university. But the preparations for it had been in process for many years. Preliminary discussions extended over a long period it would not be an exaggeration, as Professor Gwynn Williams shows, to say that they started with Owain Glyn Dwr. But from the eighteen-sixties onwards various schemes were pondered in trying to decide what kind of university structure would best meet the needs of Wales. And not least there was the worrying question where the money was to be found for such an ambitious enterprise. At last, a real start was made with the opening of the University College at Aberystwyth in October 1872.