Author: Williams, Edward
Biography:
WILLIAMS, Edward (1747-1826: ODNB)
Pseudonym Iolo Morganwg [Edward of Glamorgan]
The preface to Williams’s Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794) contains the essential points of his autobiography, which can be fleshed out by public records that confirm his birth at Pennon, Glamorganshire, Wales, on 10 Mar. 1747, the son of Ann (Matthews) and Edward Williams. The family moved to nearby Flemingston (Welsh Trefflemin) about 1754. Because he was sickly as a child he was not sent to school, but was given a basic education by his mother while following the trade of his father, a stone mason. After her death in 1770 he took to the roads as a “self-tutored Journeyman Mason.” In Bath and London he came into contact with sympathizers and embarked on his literary and antiquarian career—collecting, improving on, and in some cases forging ancient manuscripts. He wrote verse both in Welsh and in English. He was particularly interested in the 14th-century poet Dafydd (or David) ap Gwilym, one of whose poems he translated and published at Bath. He also passed off as Dafydd’s some compositions of his own. After returning to Flemingston in 1777 he married, on 18 July 1781, Margaret Roberts (1749-1827), with whom he had two surviving children, Taliesin (q.v.) and Margaret. As he spent less time on paid work and more on literary studies, he ran into debt. He also became dependent on laudanum (to which he devotes the opening poem of his collection). During a period in prison in Cardiff in 1786-7 he developed theories about the druidic origins of Welsh bardism, some of which he communicated to GM in Nov. 1789. In 1791 he left Wales and spent most of the next four years in London establishing himself as an authority on Welsh history. He organised the first annual Gorsedd or meeting of bards on Primrose Hill in 1792. The subscription list to his poems is impressive for its range of influential writers, academics, aristocrats, and clergy; Southey (q.v.) did not subscribe but owned a copy and cited it repeatedly in Madoc (1805). Williams returned to Wales but struggled to maintain his family. The RLF responded generously to seven applications for support (1794-1827), the final grant of £40 being made to his widow and daughter after his death at Flemingston on 26 Dec. 1826. (ODNB 13 June 2024; DWB 13 June 2024; Goodridge; findmypast.com 13 June 2024; RLF #27) HJ
Other Names:
- Iolo Morganwg