| Description | We have here Warren's correspondence with Lord Uxbridge in 1790 concerning the Free Grammar School at Bangor and the building of a new church at Amlwch, in which both parties give vent to some plain speaking. It was the Bishop's refractoriness i nthe matter of Amlwch chiech that finished him in the eyes of the Pagets and the Parys Mine Co. The latter it appears had promised 3600 towards the cost of erecting a new church on condition that the balance of the money should be raised through taxation and voluntary subscriptions. Warren was long moving in the matter, and when he did it was stubbornly to contend that the Company had promised to bear the whole cost. By doing so he brought out against him a practised controversialist in the person of Thomas Williams of Llanidan, the "Copper King", whom one authority seeks to identify with "Shon Gwialan" himself.
In the case of Bangor Free School, the charge which Lord Uxbridge makes against Warren - that of violating the founder's intentions by the introduction of boarding fees and other innovations - is repeated at length in the Shon Gwialan letter (see pp 28-30). It is a charge, however, that the school's official historians do not uphold : on the contrary, "the school owen much to the Bishop. He was undoubtegly the chief mover in bringing about the erection of the new school buildings, and in providing the funds... He collected a large protion of the funds and lent his own money to make up the deficiency". (Barber and Lewis : "History of Friars School", pp 57-58)
In 1779 the Bishop was again in trouble, this time for having instinuated in a letter to Holland Griffith of Garreglwyd that the gentlemen of Anglesey were guilty of disseminating French principles, and were lukewarm in their support of the proposed Military Association for the defence of the island. despite his too wordy "explanations" to Griffith, he received the sharp and unanimous censure of the County meeting held at Gwyndy on June 19th. |
| AdminHistory | These papers have a close and important bearing on the virulent attack on Bishop John Warren of Bangor which found eloquent expresssion in the celebrated "Shon Gwialan Letter" (letter to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Warren on his conduct as Bishop of Bangor by Shon Gwialan), an anonymous pamphlet published in 1796. In no uncertain terms this pamphlet charges Warren with mal-administration and oppression, with being anti-Welsh, with nepotism, immorality, and with riot and assault within the precincts of the Cathedral. On this last-named charge, he was in fact brought to trial at Shrewsbury Assizes in July 1796, but was acquitted by the Jury although the Judge has summed up against him. It was his misfortune to antagonise some of the principal gentry and men of consequence in Anglesey and Caernarfonshire and particularly in Anglesey. |