Sarah Jane Rees
{{Short description|Welsh teacher, poet and temperance campaigner, 1839–1916}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2015}}
{{Infobox person
|honorific_prefix =
|name = Sarah Jane Rees
|honorific_suffix =
|image = Sarah Jane Rees (Crangowen, 1839-1916) NLW3362516.jpg
|alt =
|caption = Rees, about 1875
|birth_name =
|birth_date = {{birth date|1839|1|9|df=yes}}
|birth_place = Llangrannog, Wales
|death_date = {{death date and age|1916|6|27|1839|1|9|df=y}}
|death_place = Cilfynydd, Wales
|burial_place = St Crannogs, Cilfynydd
|burial_coordinates =
|occupation = {{Hlist |Teacher |poet |magazine editor |temperance activist}}
|years_active =
|era = Victorian era, Edwardian era
|employer =
|organizations = {{Hlist |South Wales Women's Temperance Union (UDMD) |Cymdeithas Merched y De}}
}}
Sarah Jane Rees (9 January 1839 – 27 June 1916), also known by the bardic name "Cranogwen", was a Welsh teacher, poet, editor, master mariner and temperance campaigner.{{Cite DWB |id=s-REES-JAN-1839 |year=1959|title=Rees, Sarah Jane |access-date=31 January 2016}} She had two romantic friendships with women, first with 'Phania' Fanny Rees, until her death from tuberculosis, then with Jane Thomas, for most of the rest of Rees's life.
Early life
Sarah Jane Rees was born at Llangrannog in Cardiganshire, the daughter of mariner John Rees. She received early education at the village school.{{Cite web |url=http://newspapers.library.wales/view/3413322/3413327/44/Cranogwen |title=Noted Welshwoman: Death of Cranogwen |accessdate=1 January 2016 |date=30 June 1916 |publisher=The Cambrian News}} A precocious child, she insisted she must accompany her father to sea rather than do sewing and cooking chores at home, which she hated.John (1991), p. 80. However, this was not so unusual: many wives and daughters accompanied men in local ships, trading up and down the coasts on family business.Norena 'Cranogwen' Shopland, Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales Seren Books (2017).
Rees was initially educated locally by an old schoolmaster called Hugh Davies, who taught her Latin and astronomy. She later attended school in Cardigan and New Quay, and for a time studied at a navigation school in London, where she gained her master's certificate, a qualification allowing her to command a ship in any part of the world.Deirdre Beddoe: "Rees, Sarah Jane..." ODNB [https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/48648 Retrieved 9 January 2019.]
In 1859 Sarah Jane set up her own navigation school in her home village of Llangrannog.Shopland, 2017.
Career
In 1865, competing at Aberystwyth against men such as William Thomas (Islwyn) and John Ceiriog Hughes (Ceiriog), she won her first major Eisteddfod prize, for "Y Fodrwy Briodasol (The Wedding Ring)", in the Song category. A book of poems, Caniadau Cranogwen, followed this in 1870.{{Cite web |last=Carradice |first=Phil |date=25 April 2013 |title=Sarah Jane Rees, Schoolteacher and Poet |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/posts/Sarah-Jane-Rees-schoolteacher-and-poet |publisher=BBC Wales |accessdate=31 January 2016}}
Rees went on a tour of Wales in 1866–1867, giving lectures with a charge of 6d for a ticket. The profits from the sales to large audiences paid off debts for several chapels. The audience in the Brynhyfryd Chapel in Swansea numbered nearly 1,000 people.{{Cite web |title=Touring with Cranogwen |url=https://museum.wales/blog/2488/Touring-with-Cranogwen/ |access-date=2023-02-24 |website=Museum Wales |language=en}} She was both a lecturer and a religious preacher.https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004550/19160706/095/0005 - Welsh Gazette, Thursday 06 July 1916
She gave a lecture entitled Yr Ieuengctyd a Diwylliant eu Meddyliau (transl.The young, and the culture of their minds) at the Independent Chapel, Bridgend (Brynmenyn) on 2 January 1867, and an admission ticket from the event is preserved in the collections of Amgueddfa Cymru, National Museum Wales. Contemporary reports in the Welsh-language newspapers indicated that her lecture was very well received and as her tour progressed she shared the stage with local dignitaries.{{Cite web |title=Admission ticket |url=https://museum.wales/collections/online/object/3378d6b8-f73b-3ebb-8c85-f8d8181458e0/Admission-ticket/?field0=string&value0=cranogwen&field1=with_images&value1=1&index=0 |access-date=2022-04-14 |website=National Museum Wales |language=en}}
While teaching navigation and other subjects, she also became editor of the Welsh-language women's periodical Y Frythones (1878–1889), a "platform for Welsh bluestockings and proto-suffragettes".{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sriBkaHhpREC&q=Cranogwen&pg=PA220 |first=Geraint H. |last=Jenkins |title=A Concise History of Wales |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |page=220 |isbn=9780521823678}}"[https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&dq=Cranogwen&pg=PA1787 Welsh Women Writers (1700–2000)], in John T. Koch, ed., Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO 2006): 1787. It had a problem page and also campaigned for girls' education. This periodical also provided the first opportunities for publication of work by significant authors including Mary Oliver Jones and Ellen Hughes.{{cite book |last1=Aaron |first1=Jane |title=Nineteenth-Century Women's Writing in Wales: Nation, Gender, Identity |date=2010 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-0-7083-2287-1 |page=134 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h0iuBwAAQBAJ&dq=mary+oliver+jones+y+frythones+welsh&pg=PA133}} In 1869–1870, she toured the United States, addressing mainly Welsh emigrant communities as far west as California.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Md09AQAAIAAJ |first=David |last=Hughes |title=Welsh People in California, 1849–1906 |publisher=R & E Research Associates |year=1969 |page=119}} She was one of the founders of the South Wales Women's Temperance Union (Undeb Dirwestol Merched y De, U.D.M.D.) in 1901, and by her death in 1916 there were 140 branches throughout South Wales.[https://books.google.com/books?id=uI62AAAAIAAJ Deirdre Beddoe, Out of the Shadows: A History of Women in Twentieth-Century Wales] University of Wales Press, 2000, p. 38.
Personal life
Rees had two significant same-sex relationships, previously described as romantic friendships.{{Cite book |last=Davies |first=Russell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tIBnAAAAMAAJ |title=Hope and Heartbreak: A Social History of Wales, 1776–1871 |publisher=University of Wales Press |year=2005 |isbn=9780708319338 |location=Cardiff |page=320}} Her first was with Fanny Rees (1853-1874), a milliner's daughter from Troedyraur, near Llangrannog. Rees called Fanny “Phania” but she contracted tuberculosis and returned to Wales around 1874 to die. She moved into Rees' home rather than that of her family, and died in her arms, aged only 21.{{cite web|url=https://museum.wales/blog/2488/Touring-with-Cranogwen/|title=Touring with Cranogwen|author=Norena Shopland|date=21 February 2023|website=National Museum Wales|access-date=15 February 2024}} Rees was so affected that for 12 years she was unable to put flowers on Fanny's grave. She commemorated Fanny in one of her best-known poems, Fy Ffrind (My Friend).Norena Shopland, 2017.
Her second relationship, with Jane Thomas (1850-?), lasted for most of her life. Open about this unconventional arrangement, Rees still remained a committed Methodist and toured giving lectures on education, temperance and other subjects.
In the last twenty years of her life, she created and devoted a great deal of effort towards the 'Cymdeithas Merched y De' (Women's society of the South), a movement which supported sobriety.https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004550/19160706/095/0005 - Welsh Gazette, Thursday 06 July 1916
Rees died on 27 June 1916 at Cilfynydd[http://cymru1914.org/en/view/newspaper/3690052/4 Obituary, Cymru 1914, 30 June 1916]. Accessed 16 September 2014. and was buried in St Crannogs churchyard, where her grave was marked by a large elaborate obelisk.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Np_H_j3hXUEC&q=Cranogwen&pg=PA30 |first=David |last=Barnes |title=The Companion Guide to Wales |publisher=Companion Guides |year=2005 |page=30 |isbn=9781900639439}}{{Cite web |publisher=Ceredigion County Council |url=http://www.ceredigion.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=8864 |title=Image of the Cranogwen Memorial at Llangrannog churchyard |accessdate=31 January 2016}}
Legacy
File:Fishery Patrol Vessel - Cranogwen.jpg
A shelter for homeless women and girls, Lletty Cranogwen was founded in the Rhondda valley in 1922 by the South Wales Women's Temperance Union and named to mark Rees's work to improve Welsh women's lives.Rhondda Cynon Taf Libraries Digital Archive, "[http://archive.rhondda-cynon-taf.gov.uk/treorchy/index.php?a=advanced&s=item&key=XYToxOntzOjEyOiJQSE9UT0dSQVBIRVIiO3M6NzoiVW5rbm93biI7fQ==&pg=5510 Mrs M Griffiths JP, opening 'Lletty Cranogwen', 144 Kenry Street, Tonypandy, 21st June 1922"] (photograph).
There is a fisheries patrol vessel used by the Welsh Government based in Milford Haven that has been named after Cranogwen.[https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2020-12/atisn14432doc1.pdf At sea resources] Welsh Government, 2020
In 2019 Rees was among five women shortlisted as the subject for an artwork to be installed in Cardiff.{{Cite news |last1=Hitt |first1=Carolyn |title=Hidden Heroine: Could Cranogwen win statue? |work=BBC News |date=9 January 2019 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46508397 |accessdate=10 January 2019}} In December 2021 Sebastien Boyesen was commissioned to create a figurative sculpture of Cranogwen in Llangrannog, the third commissioned by the Monumental Welsh Women statue campaign.{{Cite web|title=Sculptor Sebastien Boyesen to create statue of legendary Cranogwen|url=https://www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/news/19754380.sculptor-sebastien-boyesen-create-statue-legendary-cranogwen/|access-date=2021-12-01|website=Tivyside Advertiser|language=en}}{{Cite web|date=2021-12-01|title=Sculptor chosen to create Cranogwen statue in Llangrannog|url=https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2021-12-01/sculptor-sebastien-boyesen-chosen-to-create-cranogwen-statue-in-llangrannog|access-date=2021-12-01|website=ITV News|language=en}} The statue was unveiled in a ceremony commemorating her life on 10 June 2023.{{Cite web |title=Unveiling – Cranogwen |url=https://cranogwen.org/unveiling |access-date=2023-05-01 |language=en-US}}{{cite web|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65867326|title=Swashbuckling poet Cranogwen is third woman in Wales to get statue|publisher=BBC Wales|date=10 June 2023|access-date=11 June 2023}} A theatre show about Cranogwen toured Wales in late 2022 to publicise the statue, involving Mewn Cymeriad Theatre Company, Monumental Welsh Women and other organisations.[https://www.wales247.co.uk/new-theatre-production-to-showcase-the-history-of-monumental-welsh-women Wales 247 website, New theatre production to showcase the history of monumental Welsh women, article dated September 5, 2022]{{cite web |title=Cranogwen |url=https://www.mewncymeriad.cymru/en/copy-of-cranogwen |website=Mewn Cymeriad |access-date=12 January 2025}}
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{Cite book |editor1-last=John |editor1-first=Angela V. |title=Our Mothers' Land, Chapters in Welsh Women's History 1830–1939 |year=1991 |publisher=University of Wales Press |location=Cardiff |isbn=0-7083-1129-6}}
- {{Cite book |last=Shopland |first=Norena |year=2017 |title=Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales |publisher=Seren Books |location=Bridgend |isbn=978-1781724101}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rees, Sarah Jane (Cranogwen)}}
Category:19th-century Welsh poets
Category:19th-century Welsh women writers
Category:20th-century Welsh women educators
Category:20th-century Welsh educators
Category:Welsh women activists
Category:British temperance activists
Category:Welsh magazine editors