Author: Williams, Eliezer
Biography:
WILLIAMS, Eliezer (1754-1820: ODNB)
He was born at Pibwr-lwd, Llangynnwr, near Carmarthen, Wales, and baptized at Llandyfaelog on 4 Oct. 1754, the eldest son of Peter Williams (1722/3-96), Methodist minister, and Mary Jenkins (1725-1822), who had married in 1748. He was educated at the free grammar school of Carmarthen and Jesus College Oxford (matric. 1775, BA 1775, MA 1781)--his late entry due to his assisting with the publication of his father’s annotated Welsh Concordance to the Bible, Mynegeir Ysgrthurol (1773). He then entered the established church. In 1780 he was appointed naval chaplain on HMS Cambridge, where he served for about three years and was tutor to the admiral’s nephew, Lord Garlies (later Earl of Galloway), who was serving onboard as a midshipman. He continued as tutor until he was appointed vicar of Cynwyl Gaeo with Llansawel, Carmarthenshire, in 1784. He also engaged in genealogical research for many years to support Galloway’s claim to an English peerage. He married Ann Adelaide Grebert, from Nancy, Lorraine, France, on 22 Aug. 1792 at St. Clement Dane’s, Westminster, London. She died in Edinburgh in 1796, due to childbirth complications. He then married Jane Nugent Amelia Armstrong on 19 Oct. 1796 at St. Peter the Great, Chichester, Sussex. They had at least eight children. She died in 1813. There were claims that her extravagance led to financial distress from which he never recovered. He held several curacies in and around London before becoming curate of Chadwell St. Mary’s, Essex, in 1799. He was also appointed chaplain to the naval garrison of Tilbury Fort. The work listed here recorded his own naval experiences and celebrated the achievements of the British navy. In 1805 he moved back to Wales and became vicar of Lampeter, Cardiganshire. He opened a grammar school there to prepare young men for the church and ran it for nearly fourteen years. He died at Lampeter on 20 Jan. 1820, in distressed circumstances, and was buried there. A subscription was subsequently raised for his children. His English Works (1840) were edited by his son and contained a memoir but only reprinted his historical essays, not his verse. (ODNB 31 May 2024; ancestry.co.uk 31 May 2024; St. George Armstrong Williams, “Memoir,” The English Works of the Late Rev. Eliezer Williams [1840]; Cambro-Briton Aug. 1820, 452-5, Sept. 1820, 43; Bath Chronicle 5 Aug. 1813; Bristol Mercury 7 Feb. 1820; MH 4 Sept. 1820) AA