EVANS-WILLIAMS, LAURA (1883 - 1944), singer

Eldest daughter of John and Ellen Evans, born at Bryn Meirion, Henllan, Denbighshire, 7 September 1883. She was educated at Howell's School, Denbigh, and at the Royal Academy of Music, London. She began her career as a contralto, winning prizes at several eisteddfodau; at the Academy she studied under Edward Iles who developed her voice as a lyric soprano. She became widely known as a concert and oratorio singer; she was also a pleasing interpreter of operatic arias and particularly of Welsh songs, including folk-songs. During World War I she toured extensively with Clara Butt. At the 1917 national eisteddfod at Birkenhead she had been invited to sing the Chairing Song, and when it was announced that the winner of the chair (Ellis H. Evans, ' Hedd Wyn ', had been killed in battle, she sang ' I Blas Gogerddan ', which was particularly appropriate. Sixteen years later, at the Wrexham national eisteddfod, she sang the Chairing Song again, and received the unusual distinction of an encore. She was the first of all Welsh artists to broadcast from Savoy Hill. She visited the United States of America on a concert tour in 1926, and returned to Wales from London in 1940 to live at Colwyn Bay, where she taught singing till her death there on 5 October, 1944. She was buried at Henllan. She had married, in 1905, R.T. Williams, and she was survived by a daughter and a son.

Author

• Thomas Iorwerth Ellis, (1899 - 1970)

Sources

• Liverpool Post and Mercury, 14 August 1933
• North Wales Weekly News, 26 October 1937
• Denbigh Free Press, 14 October 1944
• information from her daughter, Mrs. Castle, Sutton Coldfield
• personal knowledge

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: Laura Evans-Williams

Additional Links

• NLW Archives: T. I. Ellis and Mari Ellis Papers: I27: Correspondence and papers concerning Laura Evans-Williams (1883-1944)
• Wikidata: Q20746780

Published date: 2001

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