Bangor University 1884-2009. David Roberts

14 and 29 November 1892. It quickly became uncomfortable for Reichel and E. V. Arnold, because as members of the Hostel Board they would need to be questioned as witnesses. Reichel vacated the chair of the Senate after five meetings, and Arnold also had to withdraw. Arnold had crossed swords before with Frances Hughes, and it transpired that at some stage he had offered Violet Osborn financial assistance with her studies. A third professor was then drawn into the web. E. Keri Evans, the young Professor of Philosophy who had succeeded Henry Jones the previous year, became implicated in the charges against Miss Osborn. After a reference was made to an incident, Evans was forced to subject himself to stern questioning by his remaining seven colleagues on the Senate. In his statement, Keri Evans recounted how on one occasion Violet Osborn had remained behind at the end of a lecture, and that as she was about to leave ‘some papers which I had in my hand come into contact with her face’. Evans thought it ‘absurdly trivial and – prudish imaginings apart – devoid of all meaning’.¹⁵

      The Senate interviewed around a dozen witnesses, and considered many letters and statements. Violet Osborn herself gave a mature and articulate performance (‘The whole affair has interfered with my studies,’ she stated, ‘and I cannot say whether I shall attend the Honours Examination …’).¹⁶ Various individuals gave powerful testimony on her behalf. The formidable Frances Hughes, however, declined to give evidence or to back up her charges. On 29 November, the Senate ended its enquiry with the judgement that there was ‘no foundation whatever for any of the charges against Miss Osborn’.¹⁷

      The matter was not laid to rest. It sparked agitation within the Council, not helped by the fact that the outcome of the Senate enquiry unfolded in the pages of the North Wales Observer before a report had been submitted to the Council – which raised the hackles of some members. Various motions and amendments were put, and eventually, in December 1892, a motion expressing satisfaction with the outcome of the Senate enquiry was passed by 13 votes to 8. Turmoil continued and a petition from eminent ‘friends of Miss Osborn’ asked the Council to ‘neutralize’ the effect of the charges against the student. The ‘friends’ included an MP, two Oxbridge professors, a vicar and a Congregational minister. In February 1893, the Council then passed another motion (by 13 votes to 9) asking Frances Hughes to withdraw the charges against Violet Osborn; failure to do so would lead to the removal of Miss Hughes’s name from the register of lodging-house keepers.¹⁹ It cannot have been a surprise to the Council that Frances Hughes refused to withdraw the charges, and the licence granted to the women’s hostel was revoked. The Council took steps to reorganize residential arrangements for women, and a new ‘Lady Superintendent’ was appointed in 1893.

      The reverberations from this crisis were felt far beyond Bangor. The press, in particular, had a field day. Frances Hughes sued the Daily Dispatch for libel following a scathing commentary on her supervision of the hostel, and she received £300 in damages. Her brother, the prominent Wesleyan minister Hugh Price Hughes, published some tart remarks in The Times about the ‘unmarried young men’ who ran the University College (seven of the 11 Professors were unmarried).²⁰ The matter was referred to in both Houses of Parliament, with Lloyd George intervening at one point. In October 1893, six members of the University College’s Council resigned including the Chair, Vice-Chair and the Duke of Westminster, a Vice-President. Rathbone continued to work loyally within the Council, but his relations with Reichel were undoubtedly strained.

      By modern standards, it was a storm in a teacup. But the University College was still in its infancy, and the affair unquestionably dented its reputation. The Frances Hughes libel case proved an embarrassment for Reichel and his colleagues with the judge and a barrister scoffing publicly at the learned professors. The local press felt it had all been a ‘grievous blow’ to the College.²¹ It reflected certain attitudes to the education of women. There was a significant rift with aristocratic supporters of the College. It took a personal toll, too, on the leading players. The ‘unmarried men’ jibe may have hit home: at the end of 1893, Reichel announced his marriage to Charlotte Mary Pilkington, an old friend. He felt the strain of the difficult circumstances which had arisen, and in June 1894 he relinquished the Chair of English. All in all, the episode brought few triumphs. Frances Hughes lost her position, departed and married an Anglican clergyman. E. Keri Evans was perhaps the most harshly affected. Aged 32 at the time of the crisis, he had committed no great offence, and he was to secure damages and an apology following legal action against a newspaper. But it was no surprise that in 1895 he decided that his ‘life-work lay elsewhere’ and he resigned.²² Although his health gave way, he later became a Congregational minister, was deeply moved by the religious revival of 1904, and became a biographer and gifted translator of hymns. E. V. Arnold, Professor of Latin, and a member of both the Senate and Council when the controversy erupted, also found that his life changed significantly: he married Violet Osborn.

      During the tempestuous months of 1892 and 1893, the movement to create a federal university in Wales was reaching fruition. The idea had been gathering momentum, particularly following a conference in 1888 organized by the Cymmrodorion Society in London, which resolved to apply for a university charter. Bangor was the smallest of the new university colleges, but its representatives were prominent in the University of Wales campaign. Reichel himself was an active proponent of a federal organization, spurred on, doubtless, by his friendship with the Cardiff Principal Viriamu Jones. In Reichel’s view, the University of London had been an ‘academic midwife’ to the Welsh colleges, but there comes a time when a midwife’s work is complete.²³ In 1891 a charter committee was set up, with six representatives from Bangor taking part. Exactly one year later, Bangor’s Council formally agreed that the petition for the charter be submitted. The charter application did not have a particularly smooth ride through Parliament, but eventually it received the royal assent in November 1893. Bangor, Aberystwyth and Cardiff united as founding colleges of the new federal University of Wales – a shining manifestation, it seemed, of Welsh nationhood.

1. Foundation Day, 18 October 1884, at the Penrhyn Arms

2. The first Senate, with Reichel in the centre (seated)

3. Sir Harry Reichel, Principal, 1884–1927

4. W. Cadwaladr Davies, the first Registrar

5. Earl of Powis, the first President

6. William Rathbone, President, 1892–1900

7. A student production of Twelfth Night on St David’s Day, 1903

8. Certain goings-on attract light-hearted banter in the press