REES
,
DAVID
(
1801
-
1869
),
Congregational minister, and editor
;
b.
14 Nov. 1801
at
Gellilwyd
,
Tre-lech, Carms.
, [the son of a family in comfortable circumstances]. The greater part of his education was received at home and in the
Sunday school
. He spent some years
on his father's farm
, but, feeling an inclination towards the ministry, went to a school at
Haverfordwest
in
1822
. He began to
preach
in
1823
and spent a short time in the
Carmarthen grammar school
before going to the preparatory school at
Newtown, Mont.
, from which he was received to the
Gwynedd Academy
in that town in
1825
. He was ordained at
Capel Als
,
Llanelly
,
5 and 6 July 1829
. He soon came into prominence as
preacher
and
lecturer
. He was a born leader, of strong and uncompromising convictions and actuated by unflinching principles. He was a good citizen and served
Llanelly
and his country well; he was a member of the
Board of Guardians
and the
Board of Health
, etc. He
founded four new Congregational churches
at
Llanelly
. He was also one of the pillars of his denomination. As he was by nature a
politician
and a
social reformer
, his selection as the first
editor
of
Y Diwygiwr
,
1835
, was an event of significance in the history of
Welsh Congregationalism
. He supported the party which believed in the voluntary system of elementary education and maintained that the cost of education should not be a charge on the State. Apart from his work as a
church minister
his chief contribution to the thought and life of his period was his editing of
Y Diwygiwr
for thirty years (
1835-65
). He took little heed of the verbal cleverness or the satirical taunts of his opponent,
David
Owen
(
Brutus
, q.v.)
, in
Yr Haul
.
Brutus
attacked and made light of the influence of
Nonconformity
but
David
Rees
defended its foundations and its principles. Through the medium of
Y Diwygiwr
he succeeded in bringing into being a new outlook on radical Nonconformity. He retired from the editorship of
Y Diwygiwr
in
1865
and from the ministry in
1868
. He d.
31 March 1869
.
Bibliography:
-
Hanes Eglwysi Annibynnol Cymru
, iii, 470-92;
-
Cofiant David Rees
, 1871
,
1871
;
-
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography
;
-
Welsh Political and Educational Leaders in
the Victorian Era
, 1908
;
-
National Library of Wales Manuscript
9271;
-
David Rees, Llanelli Detholion o'i
waith
, Cardiff, 1950
,
1950
;
-
[
John Innes
,
Old Llanelly
, Cardiff, 1902
].
Author:
Rev. John Dyfnallt Owen, M.A., (1873-1956), Aberystwyth
