His friends at Oxford included Griffith Ellis of Bootle and Llywarch Reynolds of Merthyr (qq.v.). In Cardiff he became a valued member of the Cardiff Library committee and both the city and the college owe him a deep debt of gratitude for enabling them to acquire their valuable collections of literary treasures, both manuscripts and books. From the inception of the National Library of Wales, he was a member of its governing body, and his collection of manuscripts, with many of his rare books, is now in that library. He was a member of the Society for Utilizing the Welsh language and was on the committee appointed by that society to prepare the monograph on Welsh Orthography which was published in 1893 (and again in 1905).

Tall, good-looking, and distinguished in appearance, he was an unassuming man of great charm and widely diffused knowledge. He suffered all his life from indifferent health and, as he himself said on many occasions, had to choose between his students and his research. Had he chosen the latter it is quite certain that his contribution to our knowledge of Welsh and Celtic would have covered a wide field and been of the utmost value. He chose, instead, to devote himself to his students, who have every reason to know how fortunate they were. The University of Wales recognized his services to Welsh scholarship by bestowing on him, in 1921, the degree of D.Litt., honoris causa. He d. at Aberystwyth 16 May 1922, and was buried in the town cemetery, Friday 19 May.