GWILYM WILLIAMS
MEMORIAL PRIZE
A PRIZE in memory of the late Mr. Gwilym Williams, the school’s headmaster from 1970 until his sudden and untimely death this year is being launched by Aberdare Boys’ Grammar School Past Students’ Association.
This was announced at this year’s annual dinner of the Association at Plasdraw by geography and geology master Mr. Tom Evans.
“This is the 16th annual dinner of the Past Students’ Association” Mr. Evans added. “I think I am right in saying that the last 15 were attended by the late Mr. Gwilym Williams, and since his appointment as Headmaster in 1970 it was he who as the Association’s President, responded to the toast to the school.
“He never missed these functions, most of all I think, because they helped him to keep contact with past students whether he had taught them or not.”
Mr. Evans added: “Much has already been said of Mr. Williams elsewhere and it is very difficult for me to speak objectively of one whom I had known for 28 years and who was a good friend and loyal colleague.
“In his successive capacities as chemistry master, deputy headmaster and headmaster, he served the school faithfully and well. Some of you will know better than I of his excellence in his own field of learning and of the meticulous standards he set himself and expected from those he taught, and all of us.
“During his head-mastership he involved himself in many activities, some of which were completely new ventures—such as Interact, which sought to link the school more closely with the town of Aberdare, which he helped to form, and more recently the Parents’ Association.
“Other organisations to which he belonged, reflected the breadth of his belief and interests. His chapel which he served as elder and secretary, the Mountain Ash and District Choral Society and the Cynon Valley History Society.”
Mr. Tom Evans went on to say that as a member of the National Union of Teachers, Mr. Gwilym Williams was active at national as well as local level and was Past President of the Aberdare Association. In his younger days he was a keen sportsman and he always retained his interest in athletics and rugby.
“Gwilym was indeed a whole man—a good man—but he wasn’t the least but stuffy. He loved and seldom missed the staff gatherings which from time to time were held at various venues in the town. Here he relaxed completely without any stimulus other than the company of friends.
Mr. Evans added that Gwilym Williams was the seventh headmaster in the school’s eighty years of existence. From his predecessors he had inherited a great and distinguished tradition. This tradition he had not only maintained but had considerably enhanced.
“In the past” Mr. Evans continued “the Past Students’ Association has been instrumental in establishing Trust Funds for Memorial Prizes in honour of former members of the staff—the Aubrey Roberts prize, the Brinley Reynolds Prize and the Louis M. Thomas English prize. I would like to suggest that we again take an initiative in launching such a fund to establish a Chemistry prize in memory of the late Mr. Gwilym Williams.
After Mr. Evans had concluded his speech, everyone responded to Mr. Tom Evans’s invitation “to stand in silence for a few moments in memory of a great gentleman—the school’s late headmaster, Mr. Gwilym Williams.”
•Donations can either be sent (or given personally) to Mr. Tom Evans at the Boys’ Grammar School, Cwmdare Road, Trecynon, Aberdare, or to Mr. Glyn Griffiths, Aberdare Leader Office, 19 Commercial Street, Aberdare.