peting altogether. In 1791 the three ‘awdlau’ were printed in London. During this year and the next Thomas kept school at Llanystumdwy; in 1793 and 1794 he taught at Pentraeth, Anglesey, and was also engaged in arranging the valuable Panton manuscripts at Plas Gwyn. He then took up the business of coal-meter at Amlwch, and afterwards at Red Wharf Bay, but ultimately returned to Carnarvonshire to teach, living for the most part at Waen Fawr, his native village. In 1810 he published at Dolgelly ‘Corph y Gainc,’ a collection of Welsh poems, very many of them from his own pen; in 1817 a second edition of the ‘Diddanwch Teuluaidd’ appeared at Carnarvon under his editorship. He was the chief contributor to the ‘Cylchgrawn Cymraeg,’ of which five numbers were published at Trefecca and Carmarthen in 1793 and 1794, and acted as adjudicator in the eisteddfodau of Tremadog (1811), and Carnarvon (1821). He was accidentally drowned in the river Cegin while returning from Bangor to his home on 30 March 1822, and was buried in Llanrug churchyard. Dafydd Ddu's work as a poet, facile and vigorous though it be, is less remarkable than the position he held as bardic mentor to the school of poets which sprang up in his day in Carnarvonshire. He did much to secure the continuity of the old bardic traditions which were threatened by the innovating tendencies of Dr. William Owen Pughe [q. v.] and his London supporters. Many of his letters are printed in ‘Adgof uwch Anghof’ (Penygroes, 1883).
[Memoir in Cambro-Briton (1822), iii. 426, 433; Leathart's History of the Gwyneddigion, 1831; Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry; Ashton's Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig; letters in Adgof uwch Anghof.]
THOMAS, DAVID (1813–1894), divine, son of William Thomas, a dissenting minister of Vatson, near Tenby, was born in Pembrokeshire in 1813. For some years he followed a mercantile career, giving his Sundays to preaching and school teaching. At the solicitation of his friends, Nun Morgan Harry [q. v.] and Caleb Morris, he gave up business to devote himself wholly to the ministry. He then entered Newport-Pagnell College, where, under the instruction of the Rev. T. B. Bull and the Rev. Josiah Bull, he had a successful career. His first charge was the congregational church at Chesham, where he laboured for three years. In 1844 he came to London as minister of the independent church at Stockwell, and remained there until 1877, when he retired from active service. During his ministry at Stockwell his teaching was much appreciated by an ever-widening circle of influential minds, who gathered from far and near, attracted by the originality of his thinking and the charm of his personality. For his congregation he compiled ‘A Biblical Liturgy for the Use of Evangelical Churches and Homes,’ 1856, which was adopted by some other independent churches, and ran to twelve editions.
A further contribution to public worship was ‘The Augustine Hymn Book, a Hymnal for all Churches,’ 1866, which contains some fine hymns from his own pen, especially that beginning
Show pity, Lord,
For we are frail and faint.
In the formation of the character of Mrs. Catherine Booth, the ‘mother of the Salvation Army,’ he had a considerable share (Booth-Tucker, Life of Catherine Booth, 1892, i. 83–6, 134); and among the members of the Stockwell church was the Rev. Wilson Carlile, rector of St. Mary-at-Hill, Eastcheap, the founder of the Church Army.
Thomas was the originator of the university of Wales at Aberystwith in 1872, and of the Working Men's Club and Institute in 1862, of which Lord Brougham was president. He was the founder of ‘The Dial’ newspaper, which was first issued on 7 Jan. 1860, and after 4 June 1864 was incorporated with the ‘Morning Star;’ and it was under his impulse that the ‘Cambrian Daily Leader’ was started at Swansea in 1861 by his second son, David Morgan Thomas, a barrister. He died at Ramsgate on 30 Dec. 1894, and was buried at Norwood cemetery. His wife, who died in 1873, was daughter of David Rees, a shipowner of Carmarthenshire. By her he had two sons—Urijah Rees, at one time minister at Redland Park, Bristol; David Morgan Thomas, previously mentioned, and two daughters.
The literary undertaking with which his name is most prominently associated is ‘The Homilist, or Voice for the Truth,’ which was commenced in March 1852, and, under the management of himself and his son, ran to upwards of fifty volumes, with an aggregate circulation of about a hundred and twenty thousand copies. Through its influence he lessened in a great degree the differences of opinion between the English and American pulpits. Other works by Thomas are:
- ‘The Crisis of Being: six lectures to young men on Religious Decision,’ 1849; 4th edit. 1864.
- ‘The Core of Creeds, or St. Peter's Keys,’ 1851.
- ‘The Progress of Being: six lectures on the True Progress of Man,’ 1854; 4th edit. 1864.
- ‘The Genius of the Gospels: a
