Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/423

Owen and Foreign School Society, and in 1856 helped to establish a normal college for teachers which was opened at Bangor in 1858. He also took an active part in establishing a similar institution at Swansea for the training of schoolmistresses. Many years afterwards, in the autumn of 1879, he prepared a scheme for connecting elementary schools with higher grade schools by means of scholarships, and this resulted in the foundation of the North Wales Scholarship Association, which, until the recent establishment of intermediate schools and the consequent dissolution of the society in 1894, filled an important gap in the educational system of North Wales.

The great work of the later half of Owen's life was the organisation of higher education in Wales, and it is to him, above all others, that the University College of Wales at Aberystwith owes its existence. The idea was first mooted by him at a private meeting held in London in April 1854, when he was appointed one of a committee of three to prepare a ‘Proposal to establish Queen's Colleges’ in Wales similar to those in Ireland (the proposal and outlines of constitution are printed in the ‘Report of the Committee on Welsh Education, 1881,’ Appendix, Nos. 1, 2); but owing to the government being preoccupied by the Crimean war and other matters, very little progress was made until September 1863, when it was discussed by Owen, Thomas Nicholas [q. v.], and others at a sectional meeting of the Eisteddfod at Swansea. A few months later a London committee was formed, of which Owen became one of the honorary secretaries. Owing to the scant support afforded it by the landowning class and the church party generally, only about 12,000l. had been collected at the opening of the college in October 1872, and a debt of over 7,000l. had been incurred. Resigning his position at the local government board so as to devote his whole time to the cause of Welsh education, Owen, who from 1871 to 1877 was honorary secretary of the institution, organised, at the suggestion of a Welsh journalist, John Griffith, better known as Y Gohebydd, a house-to-house canvass of Wales, and addressed meetings in all parts of the country, resulting in the payment of the debt and in the collection of about 9,000l. for a sustentation fund, as well as in the creation of a strong public opinion in favour of higher education. Without government aid the college would, however, have collapsed. On Owen's initiative, a departmental committee was appointed on 25 Aug. 1880, with Lord Aberdare as chairman, to inquire ‘into the condition of intermediate and higher education in Wales and Monmouthshire.’ Subsequently, on 27 Jan. 1881, he laid before the committee a complete scheme for secondary education in Wales, which has since his death been carried into effect, with only a few modifications, by means of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889. His other educational aims have also been fulfilled by the establishment of two other university colleges in Wales, in addition to that at Aberystwith, which has been placed on a permanent footing; while all three in 1894 became constituents of a university for Wales incorporated by royal charter. ‘He may almost be said,’ according to Mr. Lewis Morris, ‘to have created, or at any rate to have discovered, the thirst for education which now plays a great part in the present of Wales, and will play a greater part still in its future.’

Owen was the chief instrument in bringing about a reform in the Eisteddfod, thereby renewing its usefulness and reviving the national interest in it. As the outcome of a scheme submitted by him at the Aberdare meeting in 1861, there were established, in connection with the usual competitive assemblies, sectional meetings for the consideration of papers dealing with Welsh movements. In 1866 he invited Matthew Arnold, who spoke of him as an ‘old acquaintance,’ to read a paper at the Eisteddfod held that year at Chester. Arnold sent him a sympathetic reply, but declined the invitation (, On the Study of Celtic Literature, Introduction, pp. v–xiv). At the Carnarvon meeting in 1880 Owen himself read a paper advocating a scheme for placing the control of the Eisteddfod in the hands of a permanent body, since called the National Eisteddfod Association, acting in conjunction with ‘Yr Orsedd,’ or congress of bards (see First Report of Eisteddfod Association, October 1881). With John Griffith (Y Gohebydd) Owen was also the means of reviving in November 1873 the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, extinct since 1843.

Throughout his life he was also closely identified with philanthropic work. With Griffith Davies [q. v.] and other members of the Welsh methodist chapel at Jewin Crescent, to which he then belonged, he founded in 1837 a Welsh provident society, and continued to take an active part in its management until 1862; and in July 1873 he was the chief means of establishing the London Welsh Charitable Aid Society. He was for twenty-three years honorary secretary, and subsequently vice-president, of the London Fever Hospital. He was also one of the vice-presidents of the National Thrift