FRANCIS, EDMUND (1768-1831), Sandemanian Baptist minister;
probably an Anglesey man, for his mother Lydia Francis was baptized at Amlwch; he too was baptized there, 8 Oct. 1786. He had begun preaching before 1790, and on 1 Dec. 1795 was ordained as assistant to Christmas Evans (q.v.). Evans was at that time a Sandemanian; unlike him, Francis held to those views for the rest of his life. In 1799 he removed to Caernarvon, as clerk to Richard Roberts (a slate-merchant, and owner of the Cilgwyn quarry), who was like him a Sandemanian; on Roberts's death in 1815, Francis opened a flour and corn business — he was also agent for the Drws-y-coed copper-mine. In or very shortly after 1801 he had founded ‘Scotch Baptist’ churches at Caernarvon and Llanllyfni, under his own pastorate. He was a man of a literary turn of mind, and a friend of the poet Robert Williams (Robert ap Gwilym Ddu, 1767-1850, q.v.); it was Francis who supervised the publication of the hymnary edited by J. R. Jones of Ramoth (q.v.); and in 1829 he published Welsh translations of three of the works of Archibald McLean. He d. in Dec. 1831, on the fifth according to his tombstone at Llanllyfni, on the eighth according to the Ramoth (Llanfrothen) church book. A granddaughter of his m. the historian Alfred Neobard Palmer (q.v.).
Bibliography:
- Spinther, iii, 283-5, 359;
- J. D. Davies in Traf. Cymd. Hanes Bed., 1940, 32-6.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D., F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor.
