PHILLIPS, HENRY (1719 - 1789), Baptist minister

Born at Tre-lech, Carmarthenshire, in 1719. At 18 he was converted by Howel Harris, went to Llanddowror to Griffith Jones, and was afterwards master of several of his circulating schools; he was a communicant of Howel Davies 's. Joining the Baptists at Pen-y-garn, Monmouth, he was baptized (1750) by Miles Harry, and underwent training for the ministry at Trosnant, and then (1751) at Bristol. In 1752-3 he was assistant-minister of the ' Old Meeting ' at Wrexham and also at Nantwich. From 1753 till 1756 he ministered (without pastoral charge) to churches in southern England. In 1758 he was ordained pastor at Waterford, removing thence in 1763 to Back-lane, Dublin. He was in Wales in 1765 (at Pen-y-garn), then for a short time at Exeter; but in February 1766 he was inducted at Salisbury, where he spent the rest of his life. He kept a free school there, in which large numbers of poor children were taught. But he also maintained his contacts with Wales, and it was through his hands that John Thornton distributed hundreds of Welsh Bibles. In 1762 there appeared a 24-page sixpenny pamphlet, A Sketch of the Life and Character of the Reverend and Pious Griffith Jones; when this was reprinted in 1777 in the Gospel Magazine, its author was revealed as ' H.P., Sarum,' Phillips was thus in one sense the first biographer of Griffith Jones, but unfortunately the pamphlet is practically undiluted praise accompanied by very few facts. Phillips also published a 'letter,' of which a Welsh version, Y Dinasoedd Noddfa wedi eu priodoli i Grist, was published with his consent in 1781. He died at Salisbury, 20 August 1789, and was buried in the Baptist burial-ground there.

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Sources

• Joshua Thomas, A History of the Baptist Association in Wales (1795), 64, and Hanes y Bedyddwyr ymhlith y Cymry: o amser yr Apostolion, hyd y flwyddyn hon: yn ddwy ran (Caerfyrddin 1778), 491-2
• Josiah Thomas Jones, Geiriadur Bywgraffyddol o Enwogion Cymru (Aberdâr 1867-70), ii, 389-90
• G. V. Price, The Old Meeting at Wrexham
• Cambrian Bibliography (Llanidloes 1869), 467, 607

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20733156

Published date: 1959

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