DAVIES, WILLIAM (1805 - 1859), Independent minister and schoolmaster

Born 20 March 1805 at Pant-ysgyfarnog in Llan-y-crwys, Carmarthenshire, was educated first at Castell Hywel and then (after keeping school for six months at Ffald-y-brenin in his native parish) at Carmarthen Academy (1826-30), where he showed considerable linguistic and mathematical ability. He ministered for a few years (seemingly not too successfully) in Cornwall, being ordained (1832) at Helford and living at Truro; but ill health compelled him to return home in 1834. In 1835 he became tutor to the children of a land surveyor named Davies, at ' Froodvale ' (in Welsh, Ffrwd-y-fâl) in Llansawel, who built him a school-house which became quite famous as the seat of a preparatory school for aspirants to the ministry; the school elicited one of the very few laudatory reports of the royal commission of 1846 (Report, i, 227). Davies also preached in the chapels of the district, and from 1841 to 1856 was pastor of a small congregation founded in 1840 by an uncle of his at Parc-y-rhos in Pencarreg parish. He was an unattractive preacher, and was suspected (incorrectly) of Unitarianism, partly because of the aridly academic nature of his discourses but more because he was persona grata among the Unitarians and acted annually as examiner at Carmarthen Academy; his fairly copious writing all appeared in orthodox Independent periodicals. But he was undoubtedly a most capable teacher, and his scholarship was sound; he received in 1842 a complimentary Ph.D. degree from Germany - the university is not specified, but the fact is attested by one who had seen the diploma. At the end of 1854 he removed from Ffrwd-y-fâl to Troed-y-rhiw (Allt-Walis), again combining a family tutorship with a private school; but in 1856 he was appointed Hebrew and mathematical tutor at Carmarthen Academy. He died at Carmarthen, 11 December 1859; he was buried in the graveyard of Elim Independent chapel, Ffynnon-ddrain. His not immodest judgement upon himself was that 'his only eminence consisted in his tact as a teacher.'

Author

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

Sources

• Autobiographical fragment printed by G. Eyre Evans in no. 31 of his Antiquarian Notes (London 1898-1906)
• Hanes Eglwysi Annibynnol Cymru, iv, 95-6 (inexact)
• Geirlyfr Bywgraffiadol o Enwogion Cymru (1870) (with amusing reminiscences)

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20734587

Published date: 1959

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