DAVID, REES (alive in 1746), early Arminian Baptist

of whom very little is known. According to Walter J. Evans (NLW MSS 10327B ), he was at Carmarthen under Perrott; but the only similar name in Wilson's list of Perrott's students (Dr. Williams's library, copy in NLW MS 373C ) is the 'Rees Davies ' who is there identified with Rees Davies of Canerw; neither identification is wholly convincing. Rees David, however, was not a minister but a schoolmaster. In 1720 or 1721 he published a Welsh translation of the Baptist Association's Confession of Faith. This has been wrongly attributed to Jenkin Jones of Llwyn-rhyd-owen (1700? - 1742), an attribution not only improbable in itself but contradicted by the 'R.D.' appended to the book and to its preface. On the other hand, Joshua Thomas, oddly enough, credits David with Llun Agrippa, 1723 (a version of Matthew Mead's book), although preface and title-page bear the name of Jenkin Jones. It seems that David's school was in or near Newcastle Emlyn : he was one of the signatories of a letter sent to Rhydwilym church from Llandysul in 1725. But in 1729 he adopted Arminian views, and removed to keep school at Hengoed, Glamorganshire, where Charles Winter lived. In the doctrinal disputes at Hengoed (1730), David refused to compromise, and turned his back both on Hengoed and on the Baptist denomination, becoming an inn-keeper in Brecknock. He died at Brecon 'several years after 1746 ' according to Joshua Thomas, who knew him and describes him as 'a good-living, quiet, inoffensive man' (Hanes y Bedyddwyr, 378-9).

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Published date: 1959

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