Preece Family Tree

Editorial Notes.

Treherbert has lost two of its oldest and most valuable public servants by the death of Mr. W. Jeffreys and Mr. M. O. Jones. The formers, who passed away a few weeks ago, had served a long service as Treherbert's local representative on the Board of Guardians; he had given really the most valuable years of his life to carry out the merciful ministrations in the province of the Poor Law. He was transparently honest in all public work, and as a Guardian always discharged his representative duties with singular disinterestness, and with a judicious decision between the "giving" and the "getting" members of the community.

His term of office represented many transitions in the public conception of the duties of a Poor Law Guardian. He came into the representative duty when its administration was viewed, more or less, as a "necessary evil," and a grudging doling of relief to the necessitous was painfully permeating the entire atmosphere of the Guardians. The wage-earning standard then was much lower than now, and the amount of relife was correspondingly assessed on a more poverty scale. Indeed, the entire governing spirit was one animated with a sense that Poor Law was organised coercive benevolence, and when Guardians could exercise the function with the minimum extraction from the rates, they were accounted genius men in administration. As we have indicated, such was the apprenticeship of the older Guardians. The transitions which have gone on to the culmination illustrated in the institutions on Penrhys Mountain side, and the comfort ruling there for the "old folks," if it has been gradual, has, nevertheless, been most remarkable. Mr. Jeffreys had gone through all these periods of change, and his deep sympathetic nature was elastic enough to respond by its natural sympathy and temperament to the broader and more humane views. Mr. Jeffreys, though always careful about public burdens, with him, nevertheless, the money problem was never allowed to depresse the human duty of sympathy. Treherbert recognised his services with advancing years, and recorded its appreciation in the last election in a very emphatic and pronounced manner. Truly, he typified a good life, honest in public, straight in business, and affectionate in the home and the community, and his reward is as certain as the good example of his public and private life is generally assured.

With the passing away of the last Mr. M. O. Jones, not only Treherbert has been left with a vacant chair which in the school and locality cannot be adequately filled, but a national personality has gone who had played his part with eminent distinction in the wider fields of the Eisteddfod, Music and Literature. He had succeeded to touch public life in a greater variety of ways than falls ot most men, and certainly most of his fellow-teachers. Primarily, Treherbert had from him his best, and that in his life work as the educator of the young; and history will tell that in this part he worked with remarkable diligence, constancy and success. He began very young, coming from Borough Road College when just over his minority, and was privileged to remain harnessed to his work to the utmost ripeness and mellowness of experience. He was long the doyen of the Rhondda teachers, and a worthy father he remained professionally during those years. As a teacher he was punctuality and regularity incarnate, and religiously and scrupulously exact in the conduct of those small details which mean so much to a successful school regime, and which always makes for its smooth administrative working. In the forty years of public service as a public teacher, he developed the most generous ideals what a schoolmaster in his relation to the young should be. He had no narrow views of his responsibility to the young enstrusted to his care. He fully realised that his teachership involved more than mere mechanical and technical details of books, and that he had to fill the hearts of his pupils with noble aspirations of conduct and character, before the utility and purpose of the school could bring about its expectant realisations. This consciousness was most obviously reflected in the lift of Mr. M. O. Jones. Judging his school life by the standard of men and women making for the duties of life, the Trehebert School, under Mr. M. O. Jones, has had a very honourable record. The old pupils are the "world over," doing good and great work, reflecting the successful careers the splendid lead and guidance received at their Rhondda Alma Mater. Our departed friend had seen many changes in the government of the schools. Under the local managers he was all in all to them. His concerts were the adjustment of school finances, and in that free atmosphere Mr. M. O. Jones developed a professional independence of character which reamined with him through life. Withal, in the change to the regime of a Local Authority, our friend was loyalty itself to "rules and regulations," though in himself little needing them. The Local Education Authority always thought kindly and respectfully of his long service. It appointed him its representative on the Court of the South Wales University College, and gave him what latitude he wished to follow the calls of his country. Mr. M. O. Jones has left imperishable marks on the history of Treherbert. For forty years he was its moving spirit. The first to initiate and foremost to act for its welfare and local social aspirations. A great man has passed away; the sower has left, but the harvest of good men will remain to fructify still greater returns for "Cyrmu Lân," the land he loved so well.

Treherbert's Loss.

The lamented death of Mr. M. O. Jones follows hard upon the demise of Mr. Wm. Jeffreys, a photo of whom we give below. "M. O." and Mr. Jeffreys were connected with the public life of the district for nearly half-a-century, and their disinterested services to the community can hardly be gauged. Mr. Jones - if we may be allowed to say so - shined in the more classic department of life's duties, but those of Mr. Jeffreys, although not less valuable, were mainly in the interest of the poor and needy of the district. For this reason, the loss to Treherbert has been a double-barrelled one, and it is seldom that a community loses in such a short space of time the valuable advice and the sterling services of two men who had filled such a large place in its history. References to both gentlemen will be found in our leading article.