DAVIES, WILLIAM (1785 - 1851), Wesleyan minister and missionary

Born 12 October 1785 near Llandyrnog, Denbighshire. In 1800, after listening to Edward Jones, Bathafarn (1778 - 1837), he became a member of the Wesleyan connexion and in 1805 before he was quite 20 years of age went to Beaumaris as minister. From 1806 until 1813 he was a minister in Montgomeryshire and South Wales, where he established many new churches. In 1814 he went to London, and before the end of the year had sailed to Sierra Leone as a missionary - the first Welsh Wesleyan to do so. There he became alderman, mayor, and Justice of the Peace, but in 1818, his health having broken down, he returned and became a minister first in the Penzance circuit (1819-20) and then in a number of Welsh circuits until his retirement in 1841. He was chairman of the province of Wales (1821-6) and secretary of the South Wales province (1829-33). His publications included many articles written for the Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd, a number of booklets (mainly sermons), his diary as a missionary in Sierra Leone, and translations of Wesley's hymns. The disease which he had contracted in Africa affected his mind and he was found hanged near his home at Kidwelly, 9 February 1851.

Author

• Reverend Griffith Thomas Roberts, (1887 - 1977)

Sources

• Hugh Jones, Hanes Wesleyaeth Gymreig (1911–3), ii, 712-6
• Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd, 1909, 210-5

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20734586

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-RUU/1.0/