Cranogwen

Sailor and Poet

A Cardiganshire Girl Makes A Career

Sarah Rees (or Cranogwen, as she is usually called) was born in 1839 into a rustic and poor society. Her father, John Rees, was a mariner, and her family lived in the picturesque hamlet of Llangrannog, in Cardiganshire, inhabiting an old thatched cottage.

Llangrannog is still isolated, twelve miles from the nearest railway station. In early Victorian days access to it was mostly by sea, since the precipitous lane which has to be climbed to reach the coast road was almost impassable in winter time.  The hamlet was inhabited chiefly by sailors, and  was so insignificant that even the post passed it by. Frances Rees, for instance, would receive word that her husband had left a letter, and would send her eldest boy, dressed in his best clothes, to fetch it from the little barber's  on the quayside  at Cardigan - a walk of twenty four miles there and back, unless he took old cliff paths, which slightly shortened it.

Sarah was the youngest of the family and the only girl. She had a happy childhood climbing the rocks, playing on the little strand, and scrambling in and out of the boats anchored near the jetty. Strong and merry, she roamed the moorlands, climbing trees and tearing her clothes to shreds. Since money was so scarce, she began her education in the old Welsh way, on Sundays, in the gallery of a little chapel, where she was taught to read in Welsh and repeat verses and hymns. When she went to school, it was to a poor barn, furnished with benches against the wall and a few old desks.

But she was avid for scholarship, and soon learned English, and read all the books the old schoolmaster possessed. After this she would plead with her father to bring her a new geography or arithmetic book when he took the boat into a port large enough to have shops. He was no niggard and did his best, once delighting her with a gift of an English-Welsh dictionary. But, alas, when she was only thirteen it was decided that she must go to Cardigan and learn to be a dressmaker. Sarah shed secret tears, but she obediently departed to a small seamstress in a side street.

However, it was soon discovered that, whatever else she could do, she was incapable of work with a needle. She came home again, and next day announced her intension of going  to sea with her father, a resolution from which neither her mother's fears nor the ridicule of neighbours could move her. Captain Rees stood by her, and took her with him on his next voyage in their little sailing vessel.

Their voyages were not long. Sometimes they got as far as Brittany or Holland; but usually they carried  cargoes from port to port, going around to Swansea with lead, to Llanelli with copper or up to Liverpool with slates, and bringing back cattle food or provisions.

Lecturing and Preaching

After Sarah had two years at sea, the two boys began to support themselves, and the captain was determined that his daughter should have her wish and continue with learning. So, to the shock of the hamlet, she returned to school at fifteen years of age, not back to the old barn but to a better school at New Quay where she could study navigation. Two years later she was sent to a new school in Cardigan, and after went to a girl's boarding school at Liverpool. Finally, at her own request, she went to London to study for a captain's certificate, so qualifying herself to sail a vessel to any port of the world.

She was now a fine handsome woman, twenty-one years old, with a very deep voice, well suited to be a disciplinarian, but instead of returning to sea she decided to become a teacher. It was an innovation to appoint a women as head in the little schools of rural Wales, but she was chosen for her village, where, as well as instructing children, she taught young men the art of navigation, with such success that in the later half of the nineteenth century "Cranogwen's captains," as they were called, were to be found commanding vessels all over the world.

She had other interests. When the National Eisteddfod of Wales was held at Aberystwyth near by, she wrote a lyric poem and sent it in for the competition. She was totally unknown as a writer but she surpassed the best national bards and was awarded the prize. Her poem was not very good and the standard was low that year, but  her bardic name Cranogwen, resounded through the land.

She had began to give public lectures, and, as soon as she was able, she took ship for America and journeyed from east to west, lecturing to the Welsh in their many communities. Her travels, which lasted a year, widened her knowledge, and when she returned lecturing led to preaching, which she did so well that a clergyman, hearing her, said: "There is a model for us men."

Next, a new project attracted her. The women of Wales had need of culture. She would produce a magazine for them. She brought out the first number of "Y Frythones" (Britioness) in 1879, not only editing her paper, but writing a good deal herself, answering questions about love and matrimony quite in the modern style, but eschewing fashions as unworthy of attention. But the women of Wales were impecunious and ignorant, so  that, after three annual volumes had appeared, she had to give up the paper.

Her home during these busy years was a farm above the cliffs near Llangrannog, which her father took when he retired from the sea. She went only on one more voyage, for, as she grew older, she preached with more and more success, and became interested in the problems of the industrial towns of South Wales. Indeed, it is for her work for moral welfare and the spread of temperance that she will be honoured in Wales and the Welsh Communities of America this year.

extract from : The Birmingham Post, Saturday, April 22, 1939