JOHN, DAVID (1782? - 1853), Unitarian minister, a Chartist, and, by trade, a smith

of St Clears, Carmarthenshire. He left the Independents to join the Unitarian church founded at St Clears by Benjamin Phillips, and received financial help from Unitarians to become one of their ministers, but was not at an academy. In 1816 he was serving, with Benjamin Phillips, the congregation that later settled at Capel y Graig, St Clears. In 1826 he became minister of the Unitarian church at Twynyrodyn, Merthyr Tydfil, where he remained until 1847, his Chartist and like activities causing repeated dissension that threatened his supersession, in 1835, and led to the dispersal of the congregation, and the closing of the chapel, about twelve years later. He died 15 January 1853, at the age of 71, and was buried at Cefn Coed y Cymer. At Merthyr Tydfil (and near his smithy) he established a school, where on Sundays and the evenings of week-days, subjects to help workmen in their occupations were taught.

His sons, DAVID JOHN and MATTHEW JOHN, were also prominent Chartists; the former, a fiery soul, published, with Morgan Williams, the Welsh Chartist paper Udgorn Cymru, 1840-2, and the English Advocate and Merthyr Free Press, 1840, of which only five numbers appeared. He represented the Chartists of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire at the Manchester convention in 1839.

Author

• Edward Ivor Williams, (1885 - 1958)

Sources

• Yr Ymofynnydd, 1853, 1930
• David Williams, John Frost, A Study in Chartism (1939), 332-4
• A History of Carmarthenshire, ii, 254
• Charles Wilkins, The history of Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tydfil 1867), 424-5
• Monthly Repository, 1816, 682
• Cardiff Manuscript 4.207

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20732836

Published date: 1959

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