PARRY, GRIFFITH (1827-1901), Calvinistic Methodist minister, and author

Name: Griffith Parry
Date of birth: 1827
Date of death: 1901
Child: Edmund Wynne Parry
Gender: Male
Occupation: Calvinistic Methodist minister, and author
Area of activity: Literature and Writing; Religion

Born at Caernarvon in December 1827; his mother was sister to Robert Owen (Eryron Gwyllt Walia) and a niece of the famous Calvinistic Methodist preachers Robert Roberts of Clynnog and John Roberts of Llangwm - appropriately enough, Parry was to edit the poems of Robert Owen and the sermons of Robert Roberts.

He went to Bala C.M. College (1847-1851), and began preaching. In 1851, while continuing to preach (he was ordained in 1856), he set up as printer and bookseller at Caernarvon, but at the end of 1861 he took to pastoral charges - at Llanrwst (1861-71), Salford (1871-6), Siloh, Aberystwyth (1876-83), and Carno, Montgomeryshire (1889-1901). He was moderator of the Calvinistic Methodist General Assembly in 1889, moderator of the North Wales Association in 1895, and editor of Y Drysorfa , 1887-91. He was a remarkably polished preacher, a writer of distinction, and a voracious reader. He wrote much in the Traethodydd and the Y Drysorfa , and some of the most important articles in (both editions of) Y Gwyddoniadur were his work - he also published commentaries. He died 22 August 1901 at Carno.

His second son, EDMUND WYNNE PARRY (1855 - 1897), was born at Caernarvon 8 August 1855, and educated at Llanrwst and Manchester grammar schools, at Aberystwyth University College (1877-9), and at Lincoln College, Oxford (1879-83), proceeding M.A. afterwards, and later on (1895) taking a B.D. degree at S. Andrews. He was pastor of the Calvinistic Methodist English churches at Brecon (1883) and Ruthin (1887), but in 1889 became assistant-tutor at Bala, and subsequently head of the Calvinistic Methodist preparatory department there. He died at Bala 4 September 1897. He was a man of conspicuous refinement and (though his academic career had not been distinguished) of wide culture. He edited (1895) some of the discourses of David Charles Davies, and in 1896 published a biography of Davies, with a selection of his sermons.

Sources

Published date: 1959

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