LLWYD, ROBERT (1565 - 1655) 'of Chirk,' cleric and writer

Born in Caernarvonshire. He was entered at Christ Church, Oxford, 29 October 1585, and graduated B.A. 6 July 1588, M.A. 10 July 1591. He was rector of Halkin, 1594-1626, vicar of Wrexham, 1595-1640, vicar of Chirk, 1615-50, and prebendary of Meliden and treasurer of St Asaph, 1624-48. He also had the sinecure of Llandysul rectory, Montgomeryshire, 1625; his daughter Jane was buried there in 1633. He was one of the few clergymen who aimed at raising the religious standard of the Welsh by giving them books of devotion. He published Pregeth ynghylch Edifeirwch, a translation of a sermon by Arthur Dent, an English Presbyterian, in 1629. In 1630, at the request of John Hanmer, bishop of St Asaph, he published Llwybr Hyffordd yn cyfarwyddo'r anghyfarwydd i'r nefoedd, etc., a translation of Dent's The Plaine Mans Path-way to Heaven. Moreover, he is said to have edited the ' Beibl Bach ' ('Little Bible') in 1630. Apart from his own translations it was he who taught Rowland Vaughan to translate. In 1650 he was dispossessed of the living of Chirk by the Commonwealth commissioners but was allowed to retain £20 a year of its income. He died in 1655.

Author

• Sir Glanmor Williams

Sources

• Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, iii, 929
• Enwogion y Ffydd (1880), i, 151-8
• W. J. Gruffydd, Llenyddiaeth Cymru o 1450 hyd 1600 (Lerpwl 1922), 112-3
• T. Richards, A History of the Puritan Movement in Wales (1920), 10, 117, 139
• W. Rowlands, Cambrian Bibliography (Llanidloes 1869), 104-6, 110-1
• H. B. Thomas, A History of the Diocese of St. Asaph (1874), i, 341, 528, ii, 318

Published date: 1959

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