MOSES-EVANS, DAVID LEWIS (1822 - 1893), poet and schoolmaster
Date of birth: 1822
Date of death: 1893
Child: Mary Thomas (née Moses)
Child: E. Tudor Moses-Evans
Child: D.L. Moses-Evans
Child: John Moy Evans
Child: T. Moy Evans
Gender: Male
Occupation: poet and schoolmaster
Area of activity: Education; Literature and Writing; Poetry
Authors: Moelwyn Idwal Williams, John Lloyd Thomas
Born 1 May 1822 at Cwm-pib, Cribyn Clotas, near Lampeter. He was of the same family as David Davis, Castellhywel. At the age of 12 Moses moved to Blaenbidernyn near Pencarreg. Some five years afterwards, he opened a school on his own account in Pencarreg and later at Rhydcymerau, Brynaman, and Cwm-twrch. He finally returned to Brynaman where he became employed as a clerk in the local iron works, a post which he held for forty years. He was recognised locally as a good Welsh scholar.
In the 1840's he contributed a series of character sketches to Yr Haul and in the 1850's he was a frequent contributor to Yr Ymofynydd on botanical subjects. He translated ' The Vicar of Wakefield ' and ' We are Seven,' etc., into Welsh. At the Lampeter eisteddfod of 1859 he was second to John Morris Jones (Ioan Cunllo) for an ode to the memory of Daniel Evans (Daniel Ddu o Geredigion), his work being highly praised by Eben Fardd.
He was known colloquially as Dafydd Moses but about 1860 he added the surname Evans after researching his family history, and this was the surname used by the 5 or 6 youngest of his 9 children, 4 sons and 5 daughters. Moses died 1 September 1893.
His daughter Mary was the step-mother of J. Lloyd Thomas, headmaster of Llanfyllin grammar school, and the mother of Dafydd Arafnah Thomas, a minister. See T.J. Morgan's article on the eisteddfod poets of Cwmaman and the Swansea valley in Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society , 9, 162-85, for his role as a teacher of poets in the area and the comments of Watcyn Wyn (Watkin Hezekiah Williams and Gwydderig. See also Huw Walters, Canu'r pwll a'r pulpud, 94-103.
Gwydderig (Richard Williams, 1842 - 1917) bequeathed his manuscripts to T. Moy Evans, one of D.L. Moses-Evans's sons, headmaster of St. David's College school Lampeter before becoming a solicitor in Ammanford : he edited a volume of stories, Hirnos Gaeaf.
Another son, John M(oy) Evans, was a prominent solicitor in Swansea, a town council member and chairman of the library committee and of the Royal Institution. He was president of the South Wales Unitarian assembly and edited series of articles in the Cambrian Daily Leader. Other sons were D.L. Moses-Evans, a solicitor in Ystalyfera, and E. Tudor Moses-Evans, vicar of Monkton, Pembrokeshire and canon of St. David's.
Authors
- Dr Moelwyn Idwal Williams
- John Lloyd Thomas, (1889 - 1974)
- Cymru (O.M.E.), 1894, 269
- H. Blackwell, NLW MSS 9267A: A Dictionary of Welsh Biography
Sources
Published date: 1959
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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