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Home » Education » Schools » Charity schools

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  • Bridget Bevan or Madam Bevan (1698-1779) was an important force for education in Wales. She was the daughter of John Vaughan of Derllys, who was a philanthropist and patron of the S.P.C.K. (the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge). A deeply pious woman, her life's work began in 1731, when she helped her friend, Griffith Jones, a famous preacher and reformer, to set up an experimental school in Llanddowror, Carmarthenshire. This was the first of the Circulating Welsh Charity Schools. Much of Madam Bevan's considerable wealth poured into these free schools, which moved from village to village and accepted adults as well as children. The Circulating Schools taught through the medium of Welsh. Madam Bevan took over the managing of the schools on the death of Griffith Jones in 1761. Her independence of thought and action were highly unusual in eighteenth century Wales. She is shown in this portrait holding a prayer book opened on Psalm 73. This portrait was painted by John Lewis, who worked as an itinerant portrait painter in England, Wales and Ireland. Other members of the Vaughan Family sat for the artist at this time. The family portraits remained in Derwydd until they were sold and dispersed at the sale of the house contents of 1998. Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 124.5cm x 99cm.
Portrait of Madam Bevan by John Lewis, 1745 (oils)
  • Photographed by John Thomas.
Madam Bevan's school, Newport, Pembrokeshire, c. 1885
Rules for the regulation of a Charity School established in the parish of Monmouth, 1805 [page 1, image 1 of 3]
  • Diary for the period 9-16 August 1747. On 13 August, William visited the 'itinerant charity school that is kept at this time in Caban house' where the children are taught to read Welsh. The school was one of the 'circulating schools' of the type first established by Griffith Jones, Llanddowror, in 1731. William notes that the school is 'chiefly supported by South Wales Gentlemen & Englishmen. The clergy are generally all against these itinerant Schools & do all they can to depreciate them, calling them the nurseries of the Methodists, but they keep their ground in severall parts of the Countrey in spite of all the resistance they give them'.
Diary of William Bulkeley, Brynddu, Llanfechell, vol. 3, 1747-60 [p. 39, image 2 of 8]
  • Section on 'The First Day Schools in Wales'.
'Historical notes of the Counties of Glamorgan, Carmarthen & Cardigan', by John Rowlands, 1866, page 62 [image 25 of 34]