Author: Thomas, John
Biography:
THOMAS, John (1730-1804?: DWB)
Telyn y Cantorion (1828) was a posthumous collection put together by the Welsh bookseller and publisher John Davies (or “Brychan,” 1784?-1864), a follower of Iolo Morganwg (q.v. Edward Williams). It contains many songs in Welsh and only a few in English. Although it is attributed to John Thomas without question, the English songs, set to well known tunes such as “Erin go bragh” seem oddly out of keeping with the generally sombre character of Thomas’s works. Thomas, born in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, Wales, where he was baptised on 25 Mar. 1730, was the illegitimate son of Thomas Evan and an unnamed mother. He was raised by a foster mother and an aunt, and went to work as an agricultural labourer at the age of eleven. He had some schooling and learnt to read both Welsh and English. Experience as the servant of a Methodist minister and as an occasional schoolteacher led him to train as a preacher first for the Methodists and later for the Independents. Ordained in 1767, he served in Radnorshire at Rhayader, Cae Bach, Llandrindod, and Garn. On 6 June 1768 he married Elizabeth Jones at her parish of Llanfynydd, Carmarthenshire; they had three children, one of whom died in infancy. He had considerable success as an itinerant preacher both in Wales and in England, but he resigned his pastorate in 1778 and lived a rather nomadic existence thereafter, eventually settling in 1799 in Carmarthen, where he died at an uncertain date between 1804 and 1808. As an evangelical minister Thomas published collections of hymns in Welsh and English, translated tracts by John Bunyan into Welsh, and produced a spiritual autobiography, Rhad Ras (“Free Grace”), which appeared in 1810 after his death. (DWB 19 Aug. 2024 [John Thomas and John Davies]; ODNB 19 Aug. 2024; findmypast.com 19 Aug. 2024) HJ