This comment from CAE touches not only on the schooling/compulsion issue but blames 'strange singers' at the competition for lower attendance. Probably at the local Calvinistic Methodist chapel. I'm intrigued, I wonder what was considered strange in 1851 ....... maybe an early form of Christian Rock which really arrived some 150 years later. * Llanfairfechan Parish Church "The only weekly instruction given in the Parish is under the Superintendance of the Established Church. Children of all denominations are admitted and no objection has been made by any to the course of instruction. The children are not compelled to attend at Church but do so voluntarily in considerable numbers. On the thirty-first of March there were strange singers invited to one of the Dissenting chapels which attracted many of the usual attendants at the Church which made the congregation less than average" James V Vincent, Rector Gareth Genuki Wales http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/ Help Page http://home.clara.net/tirbach/hicks.html Cwmgors/Waun http://www.tytwp.plus.com/Waun/Waun.html