Pioneering sex education in Wales

Norena Shopland

Just over two years ago, the Welsh Government introduced mandatory Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) as part of the new school curriculum (building on the former Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) from 1976).

What is little known, is that sex education in Welsh schools began in 1927.

From the late 19th-early 20th centuries, aided by a sensationalist media, attitudes towards sex as a threat to society were causing anxiety. Parents were worrying how to advise children on sexual matters.

There was little information for them; most knowledge was informal through family, friends, religious leaders, advisory publications, and newspaper columns/letters. To combat this, the Sex Education in Schools and Youth Organisations pamphlet published official guidelines in 1943, a first in British sex education.

However, thirteen years before, two individuals were becoming pioneers.

Cardiffian Muriel L.G.H. Pout (full surname Pettman-Pout, 1907-2001) and Kent born Theodore Frederick Tucker (1899-1974) were secretaries of the Welsh National Council of the Alliance of Honour, a social purity organisation based at 35 Windsor Place, Cardiff; although Muriel was confined to the ‘women’s section.’

Free lectures

The two had been providing free lectures for schools and young people’s organisations on safe and healthy sex, mostly based on the teachings of Christianity, but had become alarmed by the deplorable lack of knowledge among parents and teachers.

Due to constant requests of ‘what can we tell our children,’ they decided to trial a scheme with the Pontypridd Education Committee in May 1927 for school girls. They held further meetings under the auspices of the Rhondda Education Committee.

Headteachers then sent out questionnaires to parents, and of the 1,392 replies, 87% were happy for their children to have this education. Feedback forms to 110 teachers, showed 98% were satisfied with the lessons and that the children were perfectly at ease.

On 9 September 1932, the Western Mail reported, under the unfortunate headline, ‘Group Sex-Education in Schools,’ that 5,000 children aged 13+ in Cardiff, Pontypridd, and the Rhondda Valley had received instruction by Muriel and Theodore. In 1933, Cardiff Local Education Authority also arranged for classes to be given to students.

Following this overwhelming support, Muriel went to the Alliance of Honour London conference, but just the women’s section, in February 1933 telling the audience, ‘I find so many people have a fear that if any form of sex education is given to their children it will cause them either to be embarrassed or to react by giggling.’

In a letter to the Western Mail, she stressed their pioneering work, and ‘among the first local education authorities to face the question of sex education were those of Cardiff and other areas in South Wales.’

A report on their work was due to be delivered in August 1933 at the Alliance of Honour annual conference, but Theodore was ill and so Muriel delivered it alone, before all members.

Daunting

How daunting must this have been, a woman discussing a taboo subject before such a large audience.

She told them that 610 classes had been held, which now included Denbighshire and Ebbw Vale, and they taught over 10,000 children, and others in training colleges, and health centres.

Numerous parents were now writing to them, or getting their children to ask their teachers, for lessons to be given at their child’s school.

To cater for this demand, Muriel and Theodore put their methodology in a book, Sex Education in Schools. An experiment in elementary instruction (1933), one of the first of its kind.

Muriel and Theodore were devout Christians, and the Alliance of Honour was closely aligned to Biblical teachings and morals, so they were not going to highlight any diverse sexuality. They state from the outset that ‘readers will not find the treatment of abnormal or pathological states discussed.’

The followed a year they published, Awkward questions of childhood: a practical handbook on sex education for parents and teachers (1934) which includes a chapter on ‘Can a man change into a woman, or a woman into a man,’ for which the resounding answer was ‘no,’ before outlining their reasons.

Muriel and Theodore co-authored two more books, Growing and growing up: a book for girls (1935) which Muriel illustrated; and How you grow: a book for boys (1935).

Theodore authored a further thee on his own, but Muriel wrote nothing else.

World War II

Following this success, Muriel and Theordore were invited to schools in England and would probably have received acknowledgement for their work, but the outbreak of World War II in 1939 stopped everything.

After the war, both seemed to move in different directions. Theodore spent less time in Wales, and became Chief Executive of the Bernardo Homes, retiring in 1964 and dying in Kent in 1967.

Muriel continued mainly in church and local work, moving to Monmouthshire sometime in the 1950s and dying in Cornwall in 2001, aged 94.

If anyone knows more about Muriel, I’d love to hear from them.