Daniel Lleufer Thomas

“ EVANS, JOHN, 'Eglwysbach' (1840–1897) , Welsh Wesleyan divine, was the eldest son of David and Margaret Evans of Tydu, a small farm in the parish of Eglwysbach, Denbighshire, where he was born on 28 Sept. 1840. The name of his native parish became associated with him throughout his lifetime, and was the name by which he was always popularly known among Welshmen. ”

“ Jones's closest friends during his undergraduate days included (Sir) George F. Bowen, H. J. Coleridge, E. A. Freeman, and W. Gifford Palgrave, all Trinity scholars, and his former schoolfellow, James Riddell, scholar of Balliol. They had a literary and philosophical society of their own called 'Hermes,' in which Jones took a prominent part; he was also a member and for a time secretary of the Oxford Architectural Society. At Queen's College commenced his close intimacy with William Thomson (afterwards archbishop of York) , who like himself was an old Shrewsbury boy. ”

“ In 1876 he removed to Bangor to take charge of the English church at Menai Bridge. Repeated efforts had been made to induce him to undertake educational work at one of the connexional colleges, notably in 1861, when he was offered a tutorship at Trevecca, and in 1873 when invited to succeed Dr. John Parry at Bala. Eventually, in 1888, he accepted the principalship of Trevecca, but his tenure of the post lasted only three years, for he died on 26 Sept. 1891, at his house at Bangor, and was buried on the 30th at the cemetery, Aberystwyth. ”

“ David's remote cathedral, on which he also wrote some 'very pretty verses,' among the best of his few poetical effusions; he had encouraged Oxford men to go thither to read during the long vacations, and in 1846 one of these reading parties started the movement for the restoration of the cathedral by raising at Oxford a fund for restoring the rood-screen. ”

“ Few employers of labour have ever studied the social well-being of their workers so earnestly as Clark. At his own expense he provided a hospital for the Dowlais workmen, while the Dowlais schools, the largest in the kingdom, owed their success almost entirely to his direction. He was an early supporter of the volunteer movement, and himself raised a battalion in the Dowlais district. ”

“ Throughout his life he took an active part in civic work; he was elected on the first school board at Carnarvon, and on the first county council. He declined, however, to stand as liberal candidate for Carnarvon boroughs in April 1890. In 1895 he was placed on the commission of the peace for Carnarvonshire, an honour never previously conferred (it is believed) on a Welsh dissenting minister. ”

“ A more detailed account, which he subsequently wrote, of the geology and archæology of the country traversed by the railway, was published, with numerous illustrations, as 'The History and Description of the Great Western Railway' (London, 1846, fol.) ; but the only name attached to it was that of the artist, John C. Bourne. About 1843 Clark went to India, where he was employed by the government to report on the sewerage of the native town at Bombay, and afterwards upon the extension of the salt works of the district. ”

“ Thomson, when appointed bishop of Gloucester in 1861, made Jones his examining chaplain, and, when translated to York in 1863, presented him to the Grindal prebend in York Minster and the perpetual curacy of Haxby, substituting for the latter in 1865 the vicarage of Bishopthorpe, where the episcopal palace is situated. ”

“ He was ordained to the pastorate of Libanus Church, Morriston, on 26 June 1862, and almost immediately he stepped into the first rank of the pulpit orators of Wales. After three years at Morriston (during which time a debt of 2,000l. was paid off the chapel) he removed in the autumn of 1865 to Carnarvon to undertake the charge of a comparatively weak church, Salem, formed two or three years previously, and still burdened with a heavy debt. ”

“ Davies is to be distinguished from a namesake, David Christopher Davies (1827-1885) , a native of Oswestry, who, though humbly born and self-educated, attained some distinction as a mining engineer and geologist, and was the author of the following among other works: 1. 'Christ for all Ages, and other Lay Sermons,' preached on the North Wales Border, London, 1871. 2. ”

“ The consequent expansion of the industry, and the difficulty of procuring an adequate supply of suitable ores at home, led Clark, in conjunction with the Consett Iron Company and Messrs. Krupp of Essen, to acquire an extensive tract of iron-ore deposits near Bilbao in Spain. To render the works independent of the vicissitudes of the coal trade he also purchased large coal areas, undeveloped for the most part, in Glamorganshire. To save the inland transport he finally procured the establishment, in 1888-91, of furnaces and mills in connection with Dowlais, on the seaboard at Cardiff. ”

“ Both she and a family of six children survive him. He is commemorated at Pontypridd by a memorial chapel, erected by public subscriptions drawn from all parts of Wales.
'Eglwysbach' takes rank among the greatest of Welsh pulpit orators, and was probably the most eloquent that Wesleyan methodism has hitherto produced in Wales. While in Liverpool he was often styled 'the Welsh Spurgeon,' but in manner he bore a greater resemblance to Punshon. ”

“ On his return to Strath Clyde about 570, Kentigern, who 'bore ever a special affection' for Asaph, appointed him his successor. It is surmised that it was in Asaph's time that the monastery was elevated into a cathedral foundation, and that, though Kentigern was the founder of the monastery, Asaph was in fact the first bishop of the see. The name of Kentigern does not seem to have ever been associated with the nomenclature of either cathedral or diocese, which, though originally known by the Welsh name of Llanelwy, has since about 1100 also borne the English name St. ”

“ On account of the climate he declined an offer of the chief engineership of the new line and returned to England. In consequence of an article on sanitary reform which he contributed to the 'Westminster Review,' he was appointed a superintending inspector under the Public Health Act, 1848, and reported on the sanitary condition of a large number of towns and districts, in many of which local boards were formed through his instrumentality (see his numerous Reports to the board published in 1849-51) . ”

“ David's by Connop Thirlwall [q. v.] in 1874, Disraeli chose Jones as Thirlwall's successor. Apart from his distinction as a scholar, and his exceptional experience of organisation and administration in church work, he had the special qualification of possessing intimate associations with the diocese, and of being a Welshman who spoke Welsh (though in a stiff, bookish manner) , and who had made no mean contributions to Welsh antiquarian research. His interest in ecclesiastical architecture had led him, while still an undergraduate, repeatedly to visit St. ”

“ Owen, in his primary 'Charge,' 1900, p. 26) . This was partly due to the fact that in his time the diocese reaped the benefit of reforms initiated by Burgess and Thirlwall, the latter of whom had devoted himself to church building and restoration, the augmentation of benefices (thereby greatly reducing non-residence) , and the reform or establishment of educational institutions. All this work Bishop Jones continued and extended. ”

“ During his earlier sojourns in Liverpool and London he strove hard to make up for the loss of a collegiate training by attending evening classes, and he thus became an associate of King's College, London. In 1884 he was elected a member of the legal hundred of the Wesleyan conference, and in 1895 became chairman of the South Wales district. ”

“ Powerful though his influence was, especially in the direction of reconciling the teachings of science and philosophy with Christian principles, it would have been far greater but for his shyness of disposition, for throughout his life he was more of a student than a man of affairs. This perhaps accounts for the fact that some of his best work was prepared for the press not by himself but by friends or old pupils, in some cases from shorthand notes taken at his lectures.
The following were his chief contributions to Welsh theological literature: 1. ”

“ In the diocesan conference which he established in 1881, administrative as distinct from deliberative functions obtained prominence from the outset, so that by 1897 as many as twenty-one diocesan committees, boards, and societies submitted reports to the conference. ”

“ Iolo MSS. 102, 106) into Benuchel ('of the high head') , thus confounding Asaph's father with a Glamorgan chieftain of the name of Sawyl Benuchel, who is described in the Welsh triads as one of 'the three overbearing ones of Britain' (see remarks of Mr. Egerton Phillimore in Bye-Gones, 2nd ser. i. 482-5) . The genealogies also represent Asaph as nephew of Dunawd, founder of Bangor Iscoed, and cousin of Deiniol, first bishop of Bangor in Carnarvonshire (cf. Baring-Gould, Lives of Saints, App. vol. 136) . ”

“ His mother, Gwenassed, was granddaughter of Cunedda Wledig, being the daughter of Rhun 'Hael' (or the generous) of Reinuc (Cambro-Brit. SS. 266) or, as he is elsewhere called, Rhufawn of Rhyfoniog (Iolo MS. 522) , which was the name of the cantrev in which St. ”