§ MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH (Anglesey)I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that the managers, of the Holyhead National School habitually bring pressure to bear upon all their teachers to attend Church of England services and to be confirmed, and that out of nine Nonconformists employed at the school seven have been obliged to comply with these demands, although the parents are Nonconformists, and that this is the only school available for a Nonconformist district; and whether, seeing that repeated applications by the Holyhead School Board to be allowed to build a school have been refused, and that the National school is generally overcrowded, he will state what steps the Board of Education will take in this matter.
§ SIR J. GORSTThe statement in the first paragraph of the question is positively denied by the managers of the Holyhead National School. They state that "church attendance is not made a condition of apprenticeship; some of the 435 pupil teachers attend church, some do not. One or two pupil teachers have been just admitted who are Nonconformists and wish to remain such; another who has just left after securing a Queen's Scholarship is still a Nonconformist….. Nellie Roberts is free to continue apprenticeship."
§ MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to the fact that repeated demands have been made by the Education Department upon the managers of the Holyhead National School that they should sign the memorandum of agreement of Nellie Roberts, a pupil teacher at the infants' department of that school, but that, although she has been a recognised pupil teacher for over three years, these demands have not yet been complied with; and what reasons are assigned by the managers for their noncompliance.
§ SIR J. GORSTI have inquired both in the Department and at the Holyhead National School, and find that no such repeated demands have ever been made. Nellie Roberts had been a pupil teacher for two, not for over three, years.
§ MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that, on the 11th of April last, the Rev. Canon Thomas, one of the managers of the Holyhead National School, called Nellie Roberts and another pupil teacher before him, in the presence of the head teachers, and after inquiring of each if they were willing to attend the services of the Church of England and to assist in the Sunday school, and being answered by the first negatively, and by the second affirmatively, that he proceeded to sign the memorandum of agreement of the latter and informed Nellie Roberts that he would leave her agreement unsigned for a time so as to give her an opportunity of deciding whether she would comply with his demands that she should renounce her Nonconformity; and will he cause inquiry to be made in this case.
§ SIR J. GORSTI have made inquiries into this matter. The conversation alleged in the question to have taken place is declared by Canon Thomas to be incorrectly reported.