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JONES, EVAN KENFFIG (1863 - 1950), minister (B), social and educational reformer

Name: Evan Kenffig Jones
Date of birth: 1863
Date of death: 1950
Gender: Male
Occupation: minister (B), social and educational reformer
Area of activity: Education; Religion
Author: Thomas Richards

Born at Bryn Du, Kenfig Hill, Glamorganshire, 20 May 1863; student at the Pontypool Baptist College and University College Cardiff; he was ordained at Merthyr Vale in 1889, moved to Brymbo in 1891 and to Cefnmawr in 1913; retired in 1934. He was a zealous, uncompromising Baptist; he was secretary of the Denbigh, Flint, and Merioneth Association for years, and its president twice; president of the Baptist Union of Wales in 1928; president of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1934; he was the outstanding authority on the Circular Letters of the Welsh Associations (Llythyrau Cymanfa), as witnessed by his substantial contribution to Trafodion Cymdeithas Hanes Bedyddwyr Cymru in 1922. In addition to all this he was one of the most active personalities in the public life of north Wales, alert, vigorous, full of enthusiasm. He was a member of the sometime Wrexham Board of Guardians, and a prominent member of the Denbighshire Education Committee; (in 1933 he published a valuable book on the history of the schools in the Cefnmawr district). He was an eager advocate of temperance, not only as a leader in the North Wales Temperance Union but as a persuasive pleader at Brewster Sessions ('Your Mr Jones is worth twenty of our men ', said a prominent brewer to one of the temperance supporters). He was a sincere pacifist, and boldly carried his beliefs to the military tribunals and wrote numerous pamphlets in Welsh for Cymdeithas Heddwch Cymru. His chief literary works, apart from a number of articles in newspapers and periodicals, were The Baptists of Wales and Ministerial Education (1902), Y Beibl a Dirwest (1906), A Short Sketch of the History of the Baptist Church of Llanidloes (1908), Hanes Cymdeithas Genhadol y Bedyddwyr (1944); in 1941 he brought out Hanes Eglwys Annibynnol Brymbo (Harwt a Bryn Seion). In 1937 he received the degree of D.D. honoris causa from the University of Wales. He died on 18 July, 1950.

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Published date: 2001

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

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