DAVIES, WILLIAM (1820-1875), Wesleyan minister;
b. at Aberystwyth, 16 Oct. 1820. He received a reasonably good elementary education and later taught himself by omnivorous reading. His mother was a Wesleyan and he himself joined the connexion in 1840. He was a paid preacher at Llanfair-yng-Nghornwy, Anglesey, when he was accepted as a candidate for the ministry in 1843; he was ordained in 1847 at the end of his probationary period. After serving as a minister in various circuits in North Wales, Liverpool, and London, he was in 1867 appointed supervisor of the denominational bookroom at Bangor. He was probably the most gifted Welsh Wesleyan minister of the century — an able organizer, an effective debater, a highly influential preacher, and a man of wide literary and musical interests. He was editor of Y Winllan (1857-60) and Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd (1866-75), to which latter periodical he regularly contributed over a long period of years a column known as ‘Llith yr Hen Wyliedydd.’ His chief literary works were Geiriadur Ysgrythyrol, 1857; Agoriad i'r Ysgrythyrau, 1860; Athrawiaeth yr Iawn, 1873; John Bunyan a'i Amserau, 1900 (reprinted from Yr Eurgrawn, 1867). He was the first finance secretary of the North Wales province (1855-60, 1863-6) and was general secretary of the province from 1865 to 1875. His first wife was Jane Williams, Ty Newydd, Abergele (d. 26 Jan. 1854, aged 33); William Edwards Davies (q.v.) was their son. His second wife was Mary Humphreys of Aberystwyth (d. 1875), widow of Hugh Humphreys of Holywell. He himself d. shortly after his second wife, 13 Aug. 1875, and was buried with her at Aberystwyth.
Author:
Rev. Griffith Thomas Roberts, M.A., (1887-1977), Tregarth, Bangor / Talsarnau
