OWEN, MORRIS BRYNLLWYN (1875 - 1949), minister (B), college professor, church historian

Name: Morris Brynllwyn Owen
Date of birth: 1875
Date of death: 1949
Gender: Male
Occupation: minister (B), college professor, church historian
Area of activity: Education; History and Culture; Religion
Author: Thomas Richards

Born 15 March 1875, at Crymllwyn Bach, Abererch, Caernarfonshire. After spending some time as a weaver in Wales and England, he went to the Holt Academy near Wrexham, and in 1897 was accepted as a student in the Baptist College at Bangor, taking courses also at the university college and graduating B.A. in 1903. In 1902 he was ordained as student-pastor at Llandegfan chapel. He followed his divinity studies at the Presb. College at Carmarthen, where he graduated B.D. in 1906. For part of the years 1906-07 he was minister at St. Mellons, near Cardiff; at the end of 1907 he was invited to become a professor at his old college in Carmarthen, responsible for classes up to 1912, in the Philosophy of Religion, and from that year until his death for Church History which gave him an opportunity to use his knowledge of the Greek and Latin Fathers: he was also the librarian of the college. In addition he was pastor (from 1925) of the Baptist churches at Felin-wen and Felin-gwm and editor of Seren Cymru, 1930-33. He was a quiet, shy, studious person but at the Baptist Union meetings at Caernarfon in 1937 he suddenly came to the fore with an address to the Hist. Soc. on the place of Christmas Evans in the history of his period, an address full of dry humour but revealing a deep knowledge of the social and economic background. This was printed in the Trafodion of the society for 1938 and was followed by an article in the Trafodion for 1945-47 on Baptists three centuries ago, a close study of the works of Thomas Edwards, author of Gangræna. In the early numbers of Seren Gomer for 1949 he had no less than eight contributions, the more substantial of them dealing with various aspects of the story of early Baptists both in England and Wales. But before the end of that same year five obituary articles to him had appeared in Seren Gomer, written by his fellow-professors, by old students, one by an old fellow-student of his, A.J. George. He died 30 July 1949.

Author

Published date: 2001

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