THOMAS, WILLIAM (1727 - 1795), schoolmaster and diarist

Born 29 July 1727, son (it seems) of a William Thomas of St. Fagans, Glamorganshire. He was probably the 'William Thomas, Charity-school Master' who wrote a manuscript of hymns and other matter, now in the C.M. Archives kept at N.L.W., and who is said to have kept school at one time at Llandybïe, Carmarthenshire - he is known to have kept schools in various south-eastern parishes of Glamorgan in the second half of the 18th century; he was commonly known as ' William Thomas, scholar,' and some regarded him as a soothsayer; he was also ' clerk to the Commissioners of Taxes in Dinas Powis hundred, and a surveyor of land.' He and his wife Ann lived at Roughbrook, Michaelston-super-Ely, Glamorganshire. He died 11 July 1795, and was buried in his son William's grave in Michaelston churchyard.

For very many years Thomas kept a diary, which was seen by John Rowland (Giraldus, 1833 - 1891), and quoted by him in his Caer-marthenshire Monumental Inscriptions - p. xxiii of that work shows that the diary was begun in 1750. The diary, or part of it was, in 1888, in the possession of a Dr. Lewis of the vale of Glamorgan, and in that year considerable excerpts of it, covering the years 1762-94, were made by David Jones (1834 - 1890) of Wallington - they are now in the Cardiff City library (Crd. 4.877). As far as they go, they show that Thomas's diary was a detailed and important chronicle of events in Glamorgan at a very interesting period, and the loss of the original diary must be a subject of great regret.

Author

• Reverend Gomer Morgan Roberts, (1904 - 1993)

Sources

• Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd, xxxiii, 54, xxxiv, 45, xxxv, 36
• G. J. Williams, Traddodiad Llenyddol Morgannwg (1948), 236
• other sources cited above, and information from Mr. T. J. Hopkins of the Cardiff City Library

Additional Links

• VIAF: 12413604
• Wikidata: Q20748909

Published date: 1959

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