Aberystwyth Pacifists ~ Part Two

 Thomas Herbert Parry Williams (1887 – 1975)

 

T.H. Parry-Williams inspecting his beloved pear tree at his home ‘Wern’ on North Road, Aberystwyth. Photo: Julian Sheppard - creative commons license from National Library Wales

 

Also an ardent conscientious objector, Thomas Herbert Parry-Williams was equally horrified by war and prominent in promoting an alternative vision of war in his poetry and essays. His post-WWI poems reflect the anguish of this time, many of them dealing with issues of mental health.  This became the focus of an award winning biography about the bard, called “The Price of Conscience: TH Parry Williams and the Shadow of the Great War” by Dr Bleddyn Owen Huws. It is published locally by Y Lolfa.

T.H Parry Williams had gained exemption from WWI by the skin of his teeth at age 28.. The Pwllheli tribunal was well publicised around Aberystwyth leading to verbal attacks on his character and general ostracisation by the town and his academic peers.  After WWI, he was so incensed at not being offered the post of Professor of Welsh at Aberystwyth (which had been vacant since 1914) that he enrolled in a science course and won a scholarship to study medicine at Bart’s in London – which he would have done had he not been awarded the Welsh Chair in 1920. He held this post until 1952.

Like T. Gwynn Jones, his fellow lecturer in Welsh, Parry-Williams was reviled for being a conscientious objector – an experience which profoundly coloured his life. This did not stop him publishing poems in the pacifist journal Y Deyrnas (The Kingdom) started by Thomas Rees in October 1916, as well as in the provocative student magazine Y Wawr (The Dawn), which was closed down by Aberystywth’s college authorities in 1918. 

 

Cover of Y Wawr with T.H. Parry-Williams poem ‘Y Frân, yr Eos a’r Niwl’ (The Crow, the Nightingale & the Mist) and a portrait of the Y Wawr committee members after they had resigned in 1918, with Parry-Williams back row left. Source: Aberystwyth University Archives

Parry-Williams’s poem 'To a Dog'  was published in the college’s main English language publication of the time: The Dragon (Y Ddraig). In it he writes about being shunned by his peers and his resulting need to isolate from them – preferring to spend his time with dogs. This follows from an earlier poem ‘Christmas 1916’  in which he decries the British public for their nerve in singing about peace through carols, while “baying for war for so long”: 

 

A mischievous spirit, in madcap mood,
Frolicked today through the neighbourhood.
As he neared my door, on the Morn of the Birth
I could hear his chuckling and sniggering mirth.
He spat his sarcasm through the hole, -
‘On earth, Peace!’ and away he stole.

The influence of Y Deyrnas was felt throughout the pacifist community, and in the three years of its publication, conscientious objectors were able to express their point of view in safety; being subscribers or published also helped convince military tribunals of their right to exemption from conscription, by proving their belief was genuine. 

Y Wawr was stopped after the Secretary of State for the Home Department was asked by a member of the commons about the subversive nature of the magazine using the Welsh language “to debauch the loyalty of the students and to impede the prosecution of the War...”

The Dragon has been recently revived by the students of the Welsh Studies department at Aberystwyth University, now called Y Ddraig, but its original English-language form was always deemed the most innocuous of the three publications making it a perfect platform for Parry-Williams’ more subtle approach to expressing his belief in pacifism. At one time the magazine was edited by Waldo Williams – although Parry-Williams and Waldo were in separate departments and of different generations, one can assume there was some cross-over and a meeting of minds.

The years between 1935 and 1947 were fruitful for Parry-Williams; he made a significant scholarly contribution, which earned him two honorary doctorates. He published three books of poems and essays in 1935, 1937 and 1944, as well as various translations.

When ‘Olion- Ysgrifau a Rhigymau’ was announced in the Western Mail on 29 June 1935, the reviewer – who went by the pen name Mynach Du or Black Monk – devoted a section to the poet’s desire for unity: “In the poetry there is also the same...sorrowful consciousness as is experienced with the loss of loved ones. Also, the same fascination with the duality of things and the desire for unity and oneness.”

In 1942, the Liverpool Post's announcement was completely different. WWII was underway and the Welsh Book Club provided a moment of calm embedded in a snapshot of the reality as it was taking place on 31 August by focusing on Parry-Williams’ other major stylistic focus – the evocative nature of the mountains, particularly Snowdon. 

 

Lyndhurst on North Road, T.H.Parry-Williams’ home in 1939 Photo: R. Bertz

 

 

 

I looked at the 1939 Register through Find my Past. It shows Thomas H Parry-Williams living at ‘Lyndhurst’ on North Road, Aberystwyth, with a widowed housekeeper named Esther Morgan. She is listed as the main householder, suggesting Parry-Williams, whose occupation is recorded as “University professor (Welsh)”, was a lodger of Mrs Morgan. According to his biographer, Dr Huws, Parry-Williams was still courting a medical doctor from Trawsfynydd at this time.

In 1942, Parry-Williams married one of his former students, Emiah (Amy) J. Thomas in Haverfordwest and they moved into a house just down the way from ‘Lyndhurst’, also on North Road, called ‘Wern’. Amy’s special interest in Welsh folk traditions was a perfect fit with her husband’s poetry, expressed in song and her own writings. She was also an active broadcaster and one of the early directors for HTV, a Welsh TV company. It is my belief that she provided the balance Parry-Williams required to keep going in a disintegrating world. 

Emiah (Amy) Parry-Williams and her husband Thomas in their back garden on North Road with a pet tortoise. Photo: Julian Sheppard - creative commons license from National Library Wales

During WWII, Parry-Williams was a member of the Red Cross ambulance, and in doing the classes and working with the Red Cross, he not only fulfilled his need to help others during a time of great helplessness (as well as the government’s expectations of conscientious objectors during this war), but also his interest in medical work – left incomplete after his brief time at Bart’s.

Apparently, his interest was strong enough that he used to watch operations in the Aberystwyth Infirmary (just up the hill from both his addresses on North Road) during the '30s and '40s. Perhaps this is where Parry-Williams realised that something broken cannot mend as it was originally.

Parry-Williams’ book of essays ‘O’r Pedwar Gwynt’ (From the Four Winds), published in 1944, has sparked a philosophical newspaper of the same name. One of the articles published in this Welsh language paper compares the freedom experienced when smashing crockery (Opa! as the Greeks say) with the irresponsibility of destruction on a global scale, like war. The author, Sioned Rowlands – a Parry-Williams scholar married to a Greek – finds this freedom hard to reconcile and aligns with the worry Parry-Williams suffered in relation to war which breaks countries and communities apart.  

She uses a quote from his writing: “... something that can never be fully integrated or made as before...a different thrill – a short burst of hopelessness – will be experienced when looking at the disaster [aftermath]... [but] mixed with that is a sense of irresponsibility, which is always pleasurable because man is free ...” While destruction is kept at arm’s length, a collective breath can be held, and there is “hope to wake up alive again”. She ends with Parry-Williams’ request for a breath of the East Wind  “to live for a time, and a life: the same love, the same fear, the same death...”

His love of medicine, and its attempt to make things whole again, or at least to functionally repair them, is possibly explained in this request. But better far, to avoid the breakage in the first place, which encapsulates the point of his being a conscientious objector.

Parry-Williams continued to adjudicate the poetry classes in the Eisteddfodau held during WWII. He is affectionately (or perhaps disrespectfully) referred to as Tom Parry in the award ceremony listing!

Perhaps because of his recent marriage to Amy, Parry-Williams also took to the radio – his programmes were publicised in both Welsh and English language newspapers from 1945 onwards, where he was part of “Munudau gyda’r Beirdd”, a sequence of interviews with prominent poets. This would have provided another platform for him to express, in the most subtle of ways, his ardent desire for unity and the absence of war.

As a musician, I find it interesting that the first post-war mention of Parry-Williams in the local news comes with a performance of Gounod’s opera ‘Faust’ at the King’s Hall, Aberystwyth on 11 March 1946. This is the first Welsh language production of the opera, with a translation provided by Parry-Williams, which he would have been working on during the latter part of WWII. The synopsis, in a nutshell, is the story of an aging scholar (Faust) who has given up on hope and faith and begs infernal guidance, therefore learning the hard lesson of the consequences of his actions when he enters into a contract with Mephistopheles – giving over his soul to Hell.

In Parry-Williams eyes, war was hell and the ultimate consequence of actions and decisions made without proper foresight. Easy for us to look back on, as we do in history classes, with 20/20 hindsight, but are we on this cusp once again?

Much of Parry-Williams’ public recognition came after the second world war. Ironically, his knighthood, awarded 15 July 1958, is listed under the heading of Military Record. The snapshot biography describes him as “Welsh poet; twice achieved the “double” of Chair and Crown at the National Eisteddfod; Professor of Welsh at University College of Wales 1920-1952 and then Emeritus.”

What it could not include at the time was his honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Wales in 1960, or his honorary fellowship as alumnus of Jesus College, Oxford which was awarded in 1968. He died in Aberystwyth in 1975, at ‘Wern’, his home on North Road, with its view over the rooftops to the castle, war memorial, the college where he worked for so long, and the sea, after living a very full, but slightly introverted life, never wavering from his opinion that war is wrong. 

T.H. Parry-Williams’ home on North Road. Photo: R. Bertz

 

Blog by Rasma Bertz

 

Additional sources: 

 DAVIES, N. (2019). Conscientious Objectors (part 2) [Online]. Aberystwyth: Aberystwyth at War 1914-1919. Available: https://aberystwyth-at-war.blogspot.com/2019/03/in-early-1916-act-of-parliament-knownas.html [Accessed 11 March 2022].

GOLWYG CYF. (2021). Gwobr arbennig i gofiant T H Parry-Williams [Online]. Aberystwyth: Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru, . Available: https://golwg.360.cymru/celfyddydau/llen/555857-gwobr-arbennig-gofiant-parry-williams [Accessed 7 September 2021].

HANSARD — UK PARLIAMENT. (1918). Defense of the Realm Regulations — Aberystwyth College Magazine [Online]. London: House of Commons. Available: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1918/jan/24/aberystwyth-college-magazine [Accessed 11 March 2022].

NATIONAL ARCHIVES. (2022). Conscientious Objectors Research Guide [Online]. London: National Archives. Available: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/conscientious-objectors/ [Accessed 15/11/2021].

PARRY, C. (2022). Britain, Knights of the Realm & Commonwealth Index: Thomas Herbert Parry-Williams in 1958 [Online]. Find my Past. Available: https://www.findmypast.com/transcript?id=GBOR/KNIGHTS/REALM/024504 [Accessed 11 March 2022].

PRICE, A. (2014). Dictionary of Welsh Biography: PARRY-WILLIAMS, Sir Thomas Herbert (1887-1975), author and scholar. [Online]. National Library of Wales. Available: https://biography.wales/article/s10-PARR-HER-1887#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=21&manifest=https%3A%2F%2Fdamsssl.llgc.org.uk%2Fiiif%2F2.0%2F4633672%2Fmanifest.json&xywh=27%2C602%2C4041%2C3487 [Accessed 7 September 2021].

PRIFYSGOL ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY. (n.d.). Y Wawr [Online]. Aberystwyth. Available: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/is/library-services/collections/special-collections/ww1/wawr/ [Accessed 11 March 2022].

ROWLANDS, S. P. (2018). ‘Un Serch sydd, un ofn, un angau’. O’r Pedwar Gwynt [Online]. Available at: https://pedwargwynt.cymru/dadansoddi/y-cofnod1 [Accessed 30 November 2018].

STAFF REPORTER. (n.d.). Darlithydd yn datgelu carwriaeth T H Parry-Williams â meddyg teulu Trawsfynydd. golwg360 [Online]. Available at: https://golwg.360.cymru/newyddion/cymru/532096-datgelu-carwriaeth-parry-williams-meddyg-teulu.