Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/404

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Rees
398
Rees

sters who officiated in a wig. At the clerical meetings in Dr. Williams's library (then in Red Cross Street) he showed considerable powers of natural eloquence. ‘As a companion,’ says Robert Aspland [q. v.], ‘he was unrivalled.’

He died at his residence in Artillery Place, Finsbury, on 9 June 1825, and was buried on 18 June in Bunhill Fields, the pall being borne by six ministers of the ‘three denominations.’ A funeral oration was delivered by Thomas Rees (1777–1864) [q. v.], and the funeral sermon, on 19 June, by Robert Aspland. Rees survived his wife and all his children, but left several grandchildren. His son, Nathaniel Penry Rees, died 8 July 1802, on a voyage from Bengal to St. Helena. His only daughter married John Jones, (1766–1827) [q .v.]

His portrait, by Opie, was bequeathed to Dr. Williams's library; it has been engraved by Thomson. Another portrait, by Lonsdale, is in the National Portrait Gallery.

Besides numerous single sermons (1770–1813), Rees published ‘Practical Sermons,’ 1809, 8vo, 2 vols.; 2nd ed. 1812, with two additional volumes, 1821. In conjunction with Kippis, Thomas Jervis [q. v.], and Thomas Morgan, LL.D., he brought out ‘A Collection of Hymns and Psalms,’ &c., 1795, 12mo (the ninth edition, 1823, is revised by Rees and Jervis). This collection, generally known as Kippis's, was the first attempt to supply, for general use among liberal dissenters, a hymnal to take the place of Watts's. It was supplemented in 1807, and again in 1852, but is now out of use.

[Funeral Sermon by Aspland, with Oration by T. Rees, 1825; Memoir by Evans, in ‘Christian Moderator,’ 1 May 1826; Gent. Mag. 1802, ii. 974; B. D. Jackson's Actual Dates of Publication of Rees's Cyclopædia (1895); Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808 ii. 398 sq., 1810 iii. 354 sq., 1814 iv. 317; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, pp. 288 sq.; Monthly Repository, 1825, pp. 372 sq.; Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of Dissenters, 1833, ii. 519; Bennett's Hist. of Dissenters, 1839, pp. 385 sq.; Jones's Bunhill Memorials, 1849, p. 226; Memoir of Robert Aspland, 1850, pp. 455 sq.; Catalogue of Edinburgh Graduates, 1858, p. 244; Pike's Ancient Meeting-Houses, 1870, pp. 153 sq.; Rees's Hist. Prot. Nonconformity in Wales, 1883, pp. 412 sq.; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, pp. 11, 167 sq.; Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, 1892, p. 1193.]

A. G.

REES, DAVID (1801–1869), independent minister and editor, son of Bernard and Anna Rees, was born on 14 Nov. 1801 at Gelli Lwyd in the parish of Trelech, Carmarthenshire. Having resolved to enter the independent ministry, he attended for a short time the grammar schools at Haverfordwest, Carmarthen, and Welshpool, and in 1825 was admitted to the independent college at the latter place. On 15 July 1829 he was ordained minister of Capel Als, Llanelly, in his native county, a position he held until his death. In 1835 the independent ministers of South Wales, dissatisfied with the political tone of the ‘Efengylydd,’ a monthly journal circulating largely among them, started the ‘Diwygiwr’ (‘Reformer’), with Rees as its editor. In this position he wielded great influence in South Wales for thirty years, advocating with vigour the abolition of church rates, the repeal of the corn laws, electoral reform, and disestablishment. Unlike many of his fellow-ministers, he was an advocate also of state aid for elementary instruction, and did much to reconcile the dissenters of South Wales to the principle. He took a prominent part in the public life of Llanelly, and founded three independent churches in the town. In 1865 he resigned his editorship, and died on 31 March 1869. He married, first, Miss Sarah Roberts of Llanelly, who died in 1857; and, secondly, Mrs. Phillips of Fountain Hall, who survived him. In 1871 a volume of his sermons and addresses, with a memoir by Rev. T. Davies, Llandeilo (prefixed), was published at Llanelly.

[Bywyd ac Ysgrifeniadau D. Rees, Llanelly 1871.]

J. E. L.

REES, GEORGE, M.D. (1776–1846), medical writer, was born in 1776 in Pembrokeshire, where his father was a clergyman. He received his medical education at the united hospitals of St. Thomas's and Guy's, also attending some lectures at St. Bartholomew's, where he became a member of the Students' Medical and Physical Society. He was house surgeon at the Lock Hospital, and having graduated M.D. at Glasgow on 28 May 1801, began practice at No. 2 Soho Square, where he gave a course of twelve lectures, published in 1802 as ‘A Treatise on the Primary Symptoms of Lues Venerea.’ In 1805 he published ‘Observations on Diseases of the Uterus,’ dedicated to Dr. Thynne, sometime lecturer on the subject at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. On 11 April 1808 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, and in 1810 published ‘Practical Observations on Disorders of the Stomach,’ which contains a clearly described case of cirrhosis of the liver due to alcohol, interesting as showing that such cases had begun to be distinguished in the group of diseases known