Reminiscing at Pembroke Town Hall

Happy New Year everybody! If you can, join us at Pembroke Town Hall tomorrow, January 10, for a New Year's get together and coffee morning 10 am to 12.30 pm. The theme is 'Schooldays Past' - if you have any photos, particularly of old East End and Monkton Schools, please bring them with you for scanning. We need your memories, photos and hopefully artefacts for a new exhibition in the museum.

In November, we published Margaret Thomas's memories of Monkton School in the 1940s - can anyone supply us with memories of East End School? We actually have very little on the East End, far more about Monkton!

John Stanley Rowlands

This week's article is about a well-known local personality and headmaster of Monkton School, written by his granddaughter Jackie Crossman:

"John Stanley Stuart Rowlands was born in 1890 in one of the cottages at Grove Bridge, Pembroke, the family later moving to Norgan's Terrace. He was the second child of John and Elizabeth (Bessie) Rowlands. His older sister, Lillian, had been born in 1887. John Rowlands senior worked in the dockyard as a chargeman shipwright and Bessie was a dressmaker. She ran her own business from home, employing several seamstresses.

John senior was an ambitious man who became quite prominent politically in the local area. He was an agent for the Liberal Party, supporting Lloyd George's son who was the MP for Pembroke. He was also a magistrate and served on the local Education Committee, becoming a Borough Councillor in 1921 and Mayor in 1927-28.

Pupil Teacher

As a boy, Stanley attended Monkton School and then the Coronation and County schools in Pembroke Dock before becoming a pupil teacher at Monkton between the years 1908-1913, still living at home at no. 15, Norgan's Terrace with his sister and parents. In 1913, he went to complete his teaching qualification at Trinity College, Carmarthen, to achieve full teaching status. Whilst there, war broke out and in 1914, Stanley enlisted and joined the 51st Provisional Battalion Territorial Force and trained for some time at Scoveston.

The Great War

In November 1915, Private 4270 Company J.S.S.Rowlands was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd/4th Welsh Battalion and was in charge of a telephone system, which was quite a new gadget for the army in those days. From 1915-1916, he trained signallers and in July1916 was posted to France attached to the 8th London Post Office Rifles where he found himself on Hill 60, Ypres. This coincided with the period when the Australians were mining the hill, famously recorded in the novel and film, 'Birdsong'. In November 1916, he was blown up by an overhead shell suffering wounds and shellshock. He was evacuated via Boulogne to Brighton where he was admitted to the 3rd General A.I.F. Kitchener Hospital on November 24.

Following this, his wounds rendered him unfit for front line service so he was appointed to the Signals Staff at the Army Signals School in Dunstable, where he lectured, amongst other things, on the Fuller phone system, until the end of the war. In 1919, he was recalled to the South Wales School of Signalling at Penally and put in charge of the visual and signal defence of West Wales from St. Anne's in Pembrokeshire in the north of the county, and eastwards to Barry Island in Glamorganshire. At this time, he was Captain Adjutant until he was demobilised in September 1919.

Headmaster of Monkton Junior School

In 1920, he took up a teaching appointment in Herne Bay in Kent, but his health collapsed and he and his family returned to Pembrokeshire until he was well enough to work again. After spells as headteacher at Marloes and later at Stackpole, he became the headmaster of Monkton Junior School in 1925 where he stayed until his retirement in 1955. Famously known as 'Stanner' by his pupils at Monkton, there are many stories about his time there, not least the fact that several of them were regularly despatched to replenish his stock of cigarettes from Humber's shop at the bottom of Bridgend Terrace. He was, as a previous account tells, not averse to wielding the cane when required; something that was acceptable at the time, and which many pupils endured as just part of school life.

Family Life

In 1915, Stanley married Amy Irene (Rene) Davies, of Pembroke Dock. She was from a large family of brothers and sisters. Her brother, George Price Davies, who had been a teacher at the Coronation School in Pembroke Dock, was killed a short while before the end of the first world war and is remembered on the Pembroke Dock War Memorial. Her sister Rose's husband, George Evans, of Bosherston, was on the Tipperary which was sunk. He is remembered by a window in Bosherston Church, given in his memory by his daughter, Louisa. Very few families were untouched by the losses of the war.

Stanley and Rene had three daughters; Lillian Elizabeth (Betty), Dorothy Irene (Dolly) and Winifred Victoria (Peggy). They lived at 9 Norgan's Terrace and attended Monkton School (at the bottom of the road). During WW2, Stanley played his part as the Head of Air Raid Precautions in Pembroke with Peggy often in tow taking messages here and there on her bicycle.

Stanley and Rene were regular worshippers at Monkton Priory Church and Stanley served as a lay preacher, often taking services there or at Hundleton Church when needed. Saturday afternoons were often spent in the parlour preparing sermons for delivery the following day and he usually made sure that his favourite hymn, 'He who would valiant be,' was to be sung either in church or school assemblies. He was also the vicar's warden and church secretary for many years. He passed away in 1965 and Rene in 1966, but is still remembered by many of his former pupils in Monkton."

Contact

If you have any stories, photographs or feedback for this column, please contact me, Linda Asman, on 01646 622428, email [email protected]">[email protected] and visit our website http://www.pembrokeandmonkonhistory.org.uk">www.pembrokeandmonkonhistory.org.uk

January events

Friday, January 23, 7.30 pm, at Monkton Priory Church Hall we have a quiz night and social - £4 includes buffet. Bring your own bottle if you wish.

You may also be interested in a West Wales Maritime Heritage Society talk on Thursday, January 15, by Shirley and Peter Billing 'Passport to Adventure', Neyland Yacht Club, 7.30 pm. Any queries, David James 01646 683764.