WILLIAM, THOMAS (1697 - 1778), of Mynydd-bach, Independent minister, and author

Name: Thomas William

Author: Evan Lewis Evans

Born in 1697, he spent nearly the whole of his life at Ty’rbedw, on the slope of Mynydd-bach, in the parish of Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, but later evidence tends to show that he was not a native of that place. He was a weaver by trade, but was a man of unusual attainments. He became a member of Capel Isaac, or the Mynydd-bach church, as it was generally called, in 1715, and was appointed a deacon there on 1 September 1734. Shortly afterwards he began to preach, and on 5 April 1744 was granted a preaching licence by the Carmarthen quarter sessions. In 1724 he published his Oes-lyfr, a chronicle of events, in three parts. A second edition of this work was published in 1768, and at least three more editions, with additions, appeared after the author’s death. He was, moreover, an admirable poet and printed a number of other small books, including three impressions (1727, 1766, 1767) of Gwaedd Ynghymru yn wyneb pob Cydwybod, together with Morgan Llwyd’s Llythur ir Cymru Cariadus, his friend Joseph John’s Dammegion Iesu Grist ar Gan, 1761, and a translation of Henry Evans Bedwellty’s Cynghorion Tad i’w Fab, 1771. After having been John Harries’s right hand man throughout the period of the latter’s ministry at Mynydd-bach (1724-48), he himself was ordained minister of the church in 1757, and industriously laboured in that field until his death, 12 June 1778. He was buried at Llanfynydd. It appears that he was also the secretary of his church, for the entries in the old Mynydd-bach register (now kept in N.L.W.) were for many years made in his handwriting.