Sarah Jane Rees was also called Cranogwen. National Library of Wales
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A statue has been unveiled within the small seaside village of Llangrannog in Ceredigion, to honour a pioneer within the improvement of gender equality in Wales. It pays tribute to Cranogwen, the bardic identify of Sarah Jane Rees (1839-1916).
Sarah was a sea-captain’s daughter, who adopted numerous careers, as a sailor, instructor, poet, lecturer, journal editor, preacher and temperance motion chief.
She rose to sudden fame in September 1865, when she received a National Eisteddfod prize for which essentially the most highly-esteemed Welsh language bards of the age, Islwyn and Ceiriog, had additionally competed. The viewers’s shock was immense: nobody had anticipated a girl to emerge as winner, understandably sufficient as most of Ceredigion’s girls had been nonetheless illiterate at the moment, signing their marriage certificates with a cross.
But effectively earlier than 1865 her life had already adopted totally different paths from these anticipated of ladies in her period. Sarah was born in Dolgoy-fach, a cottage excessive up on the hillside above Llangrannog’s shore. As quickly as she was in her teenagers, she was required to start out contributing to the household’s revenue: the selection was home service or needlework. She was apprenticed to a needlewoman within the close by city of Cardigan, however returned residence after a number of months saying her utter distaste for that work.
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Instead she persuaded her father to take her on board his two-masted ketch, the Betsy, as a crew member. So began her three yr stint as a sailor, at the moment an uncommon occupation for a girl. But with that have, she was enabled in 1860, at 21 years of age, to take up the schoolteacher’s publish at Llangrannog, educating younger sailors in addition to the native youngsters.
Her triumph on the nationwide stage modified her prospects: it made her an on the spot movie star. The complete of Wales needed to see and listen to the younger lady who had crushed Islwyn and Ceiriog at their very own sport.
The mid-Nineteenth century was the age of the general public lecture, notably among the many Welsh Nonconformists. If a chapel managed to safe the providers of a well-liked lecturer, they might make a considerable revenue from the ticket value, a sum typically a lot wanted to repay chapel constructing money owed. Cranogwen, as she grew to become recognized, was persuaded, towards her preliminary inclination as a result of it meant giving up her hard-won educating publish, to turn out to be a public lecturer.
The statue of Cranogwen stands within the village of Llangrannog yn Ceredigion.
Molyneux Associates, Author offered
She began on her lecture excursions within the winter of 1865. In packed chapels up and down the nation she addressed congregations who had by no means beforehand seen a girl within the pulpit or the deacons’ pew. Between 1869 and 1871, she visited the United States and lectured to each emigrant Welsh-speaking settlement throughout the continent, from New York to San Francisco.
Unfortunately, Cranogwen by no means printed her lectures, however in response to the various descriptions of them within the up to date press, they centered on the necessity for all these amongst her viewers who aspired to dwell totally to recognise their very own skills, to domesticate them via buying schooling, after which to place them to work for the good thing about their communities. Only thus may they hope to seek out true happiness and fulfilment. And this message was for women as a lot as boys, for ladies in addition to males.
It was a message she went on to repeat in her new position, after her return to Wales, as the primary Welsh lady to turn out to be a journal editor. In every of her careers Cranogwen challenged her period’s slender conception of gender roles which confined girls to the home sphere. Her major purpose was all the time to take different girls along with her, “out of their caves”, as she places it, and into the general public world as writers, audio system and leaders.
She thought of the patriarchal system’s refusal to permit girls entry to skilled roles a lamentable waste of feminine abilities and skills. As editor of Y Frythones journal, she disseminated these concepts broadly, notably in her responses to readers’ queries in her Questions and Answers column.
“Gender distinction”, she says, “is nothing”. She noticed the gender system of her mid-Victorian period as a man-made fabrication, which had no grounding in any actual distinction between the 2 classes male/feminine by way of their mental, cultural {and professional} potential.
Her affect was profound. Sir O. M. Edwards, a number one determine in Welsh fin-de-siècle tradition, mentioned of her in 1916:
“Cranogwen had a mission and a noble purpose. And she succeeded. No lady in our historical past to this point has completed as a lot to extend the mental confidence, the self-respect and the usefulness of the ladies of Wales as Cranogwen.”
It is certainly becoming {that a} statue be raised in her honour. It is a part of a wider marketing campaign – Monumental Welsh Women – devoted to marking the contribution of ladies to the historical past of Wales. The statue, by sculptor Sebastien Boyesen, stands within the village through which Cranogwen lived all through her life, first along with her dad and mom and subsequently, after their demise, along with her companion Jane Thomas.
Jane Aaron doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.
