JAMES, THOMAS (d. 1751), early Methodist exhorter,
sometimes called ‘Thomas James of Builth,’ but mostly ‘Thomas James of Crickadarn,’ i.e. Erwood, Brecknock — and in 1744 Richard Tibbott refers to ‘Thomas James's house at Erwood.’ Nothing is known of him before he began exhorting, in 1741. At the Watford Association (Jan. 1743) he was set apart as an itinerant, and in April (again at Watford) was made overseer of Societies in the Wye Valley — some of his reports on these are printed in Meth. Cym., i, 165, iii, 315, 331. Howel Harris in his diaries often mentions James, and the Trevecka collection (N.L.W.) contains ten letters of James's to Harris, a letter of his to Harris's future wife, and one to Whitefield, together with seventeen letters from Harris to James, and one from Anne Williams (Harris) to him; the correspondence falls between Sept. 1741 and the end of April 1749. At the Disruption of 1750, James at first sided with Rowland (Bennett, Meth. Trefaldwyn Uchaf, 182), but a little later we find him a member of the little sect known as ‘the Builth people,’ to which it seems that the brothers Relly (qq.v.) belonged (Bennett, op. cit., 187). It was at the beginning of July 1751 that Harris heard of James's death (Bennett, op. cit., 196).
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D., F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor.
