Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Prichard, Evan

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1196994Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 46 — Prichard, Evan1896John Edward Lloyd

PRICHARD, RICHARDS, or RHISIART, EVAN (1770–1832), Welsh poet, usually called ‘Ieuan Llayn,’ born in 1770, was son of Richard Thomas Evan of Ty Mawr in the parish of Bryn Croes, Carnarvonshire, and his wife Mari Siarl (Charles). Both his mother and her father, Siarl Marc, were writers of Welsh verse. Evan began life as a schoolmaster at Llan Gian, near his home; he afterwards kept school at Llan Ddeiniolen in the same county. In 1795 his parents emigrated to America, whereupon he became an excise officer, and until 1812 lived chiefly in England. In the latter year he returned to Ty Mawr, then occupied by his uncle, Lewis Siarl, and for the rest of his life conducted a travelling school in the neighbouring parishes. He married his cousin, Mary Robert Thomas, by whom he had three children, and died on 14 Aug. 1832.

Prichard was a versatile writer in all forms of Welsh verse. He wrote much for the periodicals of his time, and edited the ‘Eurgrawn,’ of which some numbers appeared at Carnarvon in 1800. His best known poems are the ‘Ode on Belshazzar's Feast,’ that on the massacre of the bards, and the translation of ‘The Cottar's Saturday Night.’ A collected edition of his verse was published under the title ‘Caniadau Ieuan Lleyn’ at Pwllheli in 1878.

[Williams's Eminent Welshmen; Foulkes's Enwogion Cymru; Enwogion Lleyn, by O. J. Roberts (Sarn, 1884).]

J. E. L.