BADDY, THOMAS (died 1729), Independent minister and author

The date of his birth is unknown. He would seem to have been a Wrexham man; the Presbyterian Fund Board, when making him a grant in 1690, describes him as 'Mr. Tho. Baddie of Wrexham' (Nicholson and Axon, The Older Nonconformity in Kendal, 579); and he had a brother, Owen Baddy, who was a schoolmaster at Wrexham (Palmer, The Older Nonconformity of Wrexham, 69 n.); the name is said to be a colloquial form of 'Madog.' Baddy entered Frankland's Academy at Rathmell, Yorkshire, on 25 November 1689, and from 1691 to 1693 was a scholar of the Common Fund Board (Nicholson and Axon, The Older Non-conformity in Kendal, and Gordon, Freedom after Ejection, 204).

In 1693, he was placed in charge of the Independent congregation at Denbigh, newly re-established by a visit (1690) of James Owen; he remained there till his death in June 1729, also ministering to the congregations of Wrexham and of Bala during pastoral vacancies at either place. He married Anne, daughter of Robert Salusbury of Galltfaenan (Palmer, The Older Nonconformity of Wrexham); their daughter married a prosperous Denbigh tradesman called Pugh, on whose land Swan Lane chapel was built in 1742. Baddy's congregation of sixty was (according to John Evans's statistics of 1715) composed of people in very good circumstances; and tradition describes Baddy himself as being fashionably dressed and well mounted.

He was a diligent translator of theological works (list in Ashton, Hanes llenyddiaeth Gymreig o 1651 O.C. hyd 1850, 167-77, and Williams, Llyfryddiaeth Sir Ddinbych, part 3). His original compositions, a metrical version of the Song of Solomon (1725), and some hymns appended to Pasc y Christion (1703), deserve mention, in spite of their literary defects, as the earliest known attempts at hymnody among Welsh Dissenters.

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Sources

• Thomas Rees, History of Protestant Nonconformity in Wales from its rise in 1633 to the present time (London 1883)
• and other sources noted above

Further Reading

• T. Morgan, Enwogion Cymreig 1700-1900 (1907), p.17
• Wikipedia Article: Thomas Baddy

Works

• William Dyer, Thomas Baddy (tr.), Thomas Lewis (tr.), Cyfoeth i'r Cymru. Neu Dryssor y ffyddloniaid (Caer 1714)

Additional Links

• VIAF: 306130677
• Wikidata: Q13131846

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/