Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/471

 ‘Williams o'r Wern’ thus became a household word among Welshmen everywhere.

In 1836 Williams became pastor of the Welsh Tabernacle, Great Crosshall Street, Liverpool. There he remained but three years, returning to Wern with broken health in October 1839. Domestic anxieties to some extent accounted for his condition. He had married in 1817 Miss Rebecca Griffiths of Cheshire, a lady of some means, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. His wife died on 3 March 1836, which event probably led to his first removal. His eldest daughter died in February 1840; and Williams himself followed on 17 March 1840. His eldest son, James, died, also of consumption, in March 1841. They were all buried at Wern, where a memorial column, provided by public subscription, was erected in 1884. His two surviving children emigrated to Australia.

Williams, it is generally admitted, was one of the greatest preachers Wales has ever produced, and among the congregationalists (whose preaching since his days has been largely influenced by his style) he has probably never been equalled. He was a man of much personal beauty, his eyes being specially attractive, while his voice was sweet, flexible, and powerful. The chief characteristics of his sermons were their lucidity and the novelty and pertinence of their illustrations. Some of the most powerful of them were, it is believed, composed as he journeyed on horseback from place to place, so that only a few were left behind him for publication.

[Dr. William Rees (‘Hiraethog’) [q. v.] wrote a Welsh biography, or ‘Cofiant,’ of Williams (Llanelly, 1842), which was translated into English by J. R. Kilsby Jones, and published, with portrait, as his Memoirs in 1846 (8vo, London, printed at Leominster). A fuller Welsh biography, with two portraits and illustrations, by the Rev. D. S. Jones of Chwilog, was issued in 1894 from Dolgelly. An English translation was made by the Rev. Abraham Roberts for Mrs. Kelso King of Sydney, N.S.W. (a granddaughter of Williams), for private circulation in Australia. See also Hanes Eglwysi Annibynol Cymru (Rees and Thomas), iv. 15–24; Davies's Breezes from the Welsh Hills, pp. 339–340, 369, 458; Morgan's Ministerial Record of Williams, 1847; Owen Jones's Some of the Great Preachers of Wales, pp. 297–354; Homilist, iii. 210; Foulkes's Enwogion Cymru, pp. 1038–48; J. T. Jones's Geiriadur Bywgraffyddol, p. 649; Rees's Hist. of Protestant Nonconformity in Wales, p. 393; Owen Thomas's Cofiant Jones Talysarn, pp. 960–4; Cymru, 1894, vii. 170; Gwyddoniadur Cymreig, 1st edit. x. 200–6.] 

WILLIAMS, WILLIAM (1801–1869), Welsh poet, whose bardic name was Caldefryn, was born at Denbigh on 6 Feb. 1801. He was brought up as a weaver, but when about twenty-six was induced to prepare for the congregational ministry. After spending a short time at Rotherham College, he was on 2 June 1829 ordained pastor of the church at Llanerchymedd, Anglesey, and subsequently held pastorates at Carnarvon (1832–48), the Welsh church, Aldersgate Street, London (1848–50), Llanrwst (1850–1857), and at Groeswen, Glamorganshire, from 1857 until his death on 23 March 1869. He was thrice married, and his son Ab Caledfryn is known as a Welsh portrait-painter.

Williams was an eloquent lecturer and platform speaker, and took a prominent part in many Welsh controversies, political, social, and religious. He was an early advocate of free trade and disestablishment, but made himself notorious for his opposition to the total abstinence crusade. It was, however, as a poet and a man of letters that he chiefly distinguished himself. In his youth he acquired a very thorough mastery of the strict metres of Welsh poetry, and from 1822 onwards won many of the chief prizes at eisteddfodau. His most notable poems are his ode on ‘The Wreck of the Rothesay Castle’—which won him the ‘chair’ at the Beaumaris eisteddfod in 1832, when he was invested with a gold medal by Princess Victoria, who was present with her mother, the Duchess of Kent—and his ode on ‘The Resurrection,’ declared second in the competition at the Rhuddlan eisteddfod, 1850, when the ‘chair’ was awarded to Evan Jones [q. v.] for a free-metre poem—an incident which provoked a long and angry controversy in bardic circles. Williams's poetry is characterised by an extreme precision of thought and a flawless accuracy of form rather than by sublimity of ideas or originality of treatment. By nature he was more a critic than a poet, and his influence as such has been deeply impressed upon modern Welsh literature, his grammars having long served as the text-books of the humbler school of Welsh writers, while at nearly every eisteddfod of importance held during the last twenty years of his life he served as one of the adjudicators.

He had also a lifelong connection with the Welsh press, either as editor or contributor. His published writings, covering a wide range of subjects, were very numerous, the following being the more important of them: 1. ‘Grawn Awen,’ Llanrwst, 1826, 4to, a collection of poetry, containing inter