pp xviii331 June 1998 paperback ISBN 0-7083-1486-4
` . . . Dr Grigg has brought to light a great deal of significant material about Trinity, and all the historians of education in Wales must be indebted to him.' (Welsh History Review)
`The author has succeeded admirably in meeting these various demands . . . the whole narrative is based on an extremely comprehensive range of sources, primary and secondary, national and local, but he has avoided too academic a treatment in which the life is squeezed out of the institution. Dr Grigg has also included sufficient detail about personalities and controversies, the academic and social life specific to the college, to evoke hosts of memories.' (Welsh Journal of Education)
Trinity College, founded 150 years ago, is the oldest surviving teacher training college in Wales. It was established by the Anglican Church in 1848 in an attempt to remedy the inadequate state of educational provision in the Principality and its students have shaped generations of pupils in the schools of England and Wales.
There have been many changes in the Welsh educational scene during the century and a half of the college's existence - the building of a network of elementary Church and state schools by the 1870s, the establishment of the first Welsh university college in 1872; the growth of secondary school provision from the 1890s, increased educational opportunities for the working classes since the 1944 Education Act and the expansion of higher education from the 1960s - and in all these developments the quality and quantity of teachers has been of crucial importance.
Perceived originally as a means of alleviating both ignorance and social unrest among the working classes, Trinity College has risen to the challenges posed by change. It has diversified in its provision of higher education while retaining its historic function as a teacher training institution and has, during the last quarter of a century, experienced remarkable growth.
This comprehensive and lavishly illustrated history provides an important case study of the development of teacher training in Wales.
‘Dr Russell Grigg’s History of Trinity College Carmarthen 1848-1998, with its cast of clerics, principals, tutors, students, inspectors, boys and girls, is full of information fascinating to someone like myself with a long and satisfying life at the chalk face. As an account of the second oldest (after Lampeter) centre of higher education in Wales, the book is in many ways a history of education here.’ (Raymond Garlick Planet)
Author: Russell Grigg is Lecturer in History at Trinity College, Carmarthen. He is the author of articles and teaching materials in the field of education.