Myvanwy & Olwen

Working with some old editions of the Caernarfon & Denbigh Herald recently I came across an interesting tale from Llanberis. Far better for me to include it in its entirety here:

CDH 30/1/1891

Town and Country Notes

"A charming story reaches me, says a correspondent, from the neighbourhood of Llanberis. It was told in the vernacular, and I faithfully render it in the best English I can command. "If, on leaving Llanberis along the road towards Carnarvon, you looked carefully at the stones in the walls on both sides of the road you would see till lately scratched on them here and there certain monosyllables such as Tad, Mam, Taid, Nain, Ci, Bach, Llyn, Mawr, and the like; they had been there for many years. They were the reading lessons of two little girls named Myvanwy and Olwen who came to spend a part of the summer with their grandparents at Llanberis. Their father and mother used to take the two little maids out for "walks" on that road, and the words were scratched by their father on the stones, which in that neighbourhood are, as everybody knows, of a slaty nature, easy to write on. When they came to a word there was competition between Myvanwy and Olwen who should spell and read it first. Thus two important things were very pleasantly combined - taking the fresh air and learning to read their mother tongue - and in those days they knew no English (or French). People about used to wonder why their father did not teach them it at home, and they came to the conclusion that he wished to show his contempt for schools and schoolrooms, because he was condemned to pass most of the year in the town as a Government Inspector. Be that as it may, the Hedge School undoubtedly pleased Myvanwy and Olwen much better then than sitting down to a book at home. Alas, many changes have taken place since then, and their taid and nain are gone. But Myvanwy and Olwen are still competing, and although it was Myvanwy that got the French medal at the Mansion House, I am not sure but that it is Olwen that oftenest heads the French class at the Oxford High School."

A little research revealed that the girls were in fact Myfanwy and Olwen Rhys, and their father none other than famed Welsh scholar Sir John Rhys. John Rhys was born on the 21^st of June, 1840, at Aberceiro, Cwmrheidol, Cardiganshire, the son of Hugh Rhys, a farmer. He married Elizabeth Hughes-Davies of Llanberis on the 6^th of August, 1872 at the Parish Church Llanberis. The couple had three daughters, all born in Rhyl, where their father was Inspector of Schools for Flint and Denbigh. – Gwladus, who was born in 1873; Myfanwy, born 1874; and Olwen who was born in 1876. Sadly Gwladus died at Llanberis in 1874.

John Rhys was an authority of the early history of the Celts in Britain and wrote a number of books on the subject, some of which were: Celtic Britain (1882); Celtic Heathendom (1886); Studies in the Arthurian Legend (1891); Studies in Early Irish History (1893); Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx (1901).

This classical background clearly provided the girls with a thirst for knowledge and both Myfanwy and Olwen received a first rate education at Oxford. At the time of the 1911 census both sisters were living at home with their parents at The Lodgings, Jesus College, Oxford. Myfanwy was described as a ‘Researcher in History,’ while Olwen was performing housekeeping duties for their parents. Elizabeth (or Elspeth as she was known) died in 1911, while Sir John Rhys himself passed away in 1915.

Neither sister ever married. Myfanwy, of the Ivy House Hotel, Marlborough, Wiltshire, passed away at the age of 71 on the 28^th of November, 1945 at 95, Southmoor Road, Oxford. Olwen died on the 10^th of April, 1953 at 3, Brading Avenue, Southsea, aged 77.