JAMES, PHILIP (1664-1748), early Baptist minister;
b. near Pontardulais, and educated (so it is said) in the school kept by Robert Morgan (1621-1711) (q.v.). His parents resented his Dissent, and c. 1685 he went to Liverpool, in service to a Baptist medical man named Ebenezer Fabius (d. 1691); he then practised medicine, and also preached, near Lichfield. According to David Jones (Bed. Deheubarth, 524), he was for a while minister of the Swansea Baptist church, but Joshua Thomas (Hist. of the Baptist Association, 29-30) furnishes no ground for this statement. From 1704 to 1718 he was minister at Warwick, and from 1718 at Hemel Hempstead, where he d. in 1748, aged 84. Some give him an M.D. degree, but all that Joshua Thomas says is ‘he had such knowledge and skill in physic that his common title was Dr. James.’ He preached the Association sermon at Llanwenarth in 1705. Among the ‘Rhual Papers’ at N.L.W. is a letter (108) to Thomas Edwards (1649-1700) (q.v.), written by James on 5 Nov. 1698 at ‘Beguily’ (Bugeildy, Rads., or Begelly, Pembs.?).
Bibliography:
- To the above references add Spinther, ii, 463.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D., F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor.
