THOMAS, DAVID WALTER (1829-1905), cleric;
b. 26 Oct. 1829, eldest son of Evan Thomas, Pont-faen, Cellan, Lampeter, and Margaret his wife. He was educated at Mumbles, Swansea, and S. Davids College, Lampeter, matriculating in the University of Oxford from Jesus College, 10 June 1847. He was placed in the 3rd class in classics, took his B.A. in 1851, and M.A. in 1854. Ordained deacon by bishop Wilberforce of Oxford in 1852 on his college scholarship (he also held a Powis exhibition) he received priest's orders from bishop Bethell of Bangor in 1853. In that year he was curate of Deneio (Pwllheli) and Llannor, and chaplain at Tremadoc, 1854-5. On 13 Aug. 1855, he became perpetual curate of Penmachno and, on 14 March 1860, vicar of S. Ann, Mynydd Llandygài, near Bangor. He remained there for thirty-four years. After a year as vicar of Braunston, Northants, he returned to Wales in Aug. 1895, as vicar of Holyhead. He was largely instrumental in the foundation of a Welsh church in the settlement in Patagonia, and the first chaplain there, Hugh Davies, was one of his parishioners at S. Ann's. Thomas wrote a number of works in Welsh and English, including a collection of Welsh sermons on the Miracles, and was a constant supporter of the Welsh Church press. He was a canon of Bangor cathedral. His wife,
ANNA (Morfydd Eryri ; 1839-1920),
was a remarkable woman. She was b. on 14 Feb. 1839, at Barmingham, Suffolk, the daughter of Thomas Fison by his second wife, Charlotte, and the youngest of his twenty children. She was educated in London, at Cheltenham, and on the Continent; she went to live with one of her brothers at Oxford, and became proficient in the classics and a number of modern languages. She began, too, to take an interest in Welsh at the instigation of Dr. Charles Williams (q.v.), principal of Jesus College. In 1871 she m. David Walter Thomas, and their children (two sons and three daughters) were brought up good Welshmen and Welshwomen. She threw herself into Welsh life, holding night classes for the local quarrymen; she was instrumental in aiding many of them to pursue their studies further. She also competed in eisteddfodau, and at the Cardiff national eisteddfod in 1883 she won the prize for a poem (in English) on Llandaff. She took an active part in the attempts made in the ’70s and ’80s to reform the national eisteddfod. In 1884 she was a candidate for the chair of modern languages at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, and was nearly elected. She d. at Dyffryn Ardudwy, 12 Feb. 1920, and was buried at Holyhead.
Bibliography:
- Foster, Alumni Oxon.;
- Crockford;
- Yr Haul, Jan. 1900 and Oct. 1950;
- N. Wales Chronicle, 29 Dec. 1905;
- W. Glynn Williams, Memoir of Mrs. Anna Walter Thomas;
- personal enquiries.
Author:
Thomas Iorwerth Ellis, M.A., (1899-1970), Aberystwyth
