The
influence of the 1905 Revival amongst the Merseyside Welsh
community
by
D Ben Rees
Liverpool and its satellite towns like Bootle and Crosby had a
large Welsh speaking population at the beginning of the twentieth
century.[1]
It had a larger Welsh speaking presence than Cardiff or Swansea,
Wrexham or Newport. Indeed it had some of the largest Welsh
Nonconformist Chapels anywhere in the
United Kingdom.
At Princes Road Presbyterian Church of Wales in Toxteth it had a
large congregation as members and adherents and in the person of
the Reverend Dr John Williams, one of the most powerful preachers
of his era. He was also a great propagator of the Revival. One
of his contemporaries in Liverpool aptly described him, as one who
had thrown himself 'body, soul and spirit into the activities of
the Welsh religious revival'.[2]
John Williams was the instigator of the Revival
amongst the Welsh of Liverpool. He and two of his fellow Welsh
Presbyterian ministers in south Liverpool had arranged in the
autumn of 1904 a gathering in preparation for a Revival.[3]
This meeting which catered mainly for young people had soon spread
its influence into other Welsh Presbyterian chapels. It spread
also into the activities and meetings of a new sect which had
arisen amongst the Welsh of Liverpool, in the clash of
personalities and an accusation of secret alcoholic drinking and
flirting with loose women that took place between the Minister of
the Chatham Street Welsh Presbyterian Chapel, Reverend W O Jones
and some of his elders. The conflict escalated when the Liverpool
Presbytery became involved as well as the North Wales
Association. W O Jones decided to leave the Connexion and began
his own section, known as Eglwys Rydd y Cymry (The Welsh
Free Church), an organization which soon attracted a sizeable
number of dissatisfied Welsh Presbyterians on 20 November 1904 in
one of the Welsh Free Church Chapels in Donaldson Street,
Liverpool during a lively debate on the merits of preaching or
congregational singing the Holy Spirit came on ninety percent of
those gathered for the occasion.[4]
One must emphasise also the close connection of the
Liverpool Welsh community with some of the early pioneers of the
Revival. Reverend Joseph Jenkins of New Quay in south
Cardiganshire had been a minister on an English speaking Welsh
Presbyterian Church in Anfield and the saintly Anglican, Reverend
David Howell (Llawdden) had a son as a priest in St Bees Church,
Toxteth.[5]
The two American evangelists Reuben A Torrey and Charles Alexander
arranged a huge crusade over Christmas 1904 and the New Year in a
huge pavilion which seated 11,000 opposite the Edge Lane
Presbyterian Church of Wales, a chapel which experienced the
Revival. On the platform Charles Alexander arranged a choir of
3,000 to bring a special atmosphere to the meetings, and amongst
the choristers there was a sizeable section from the Liverpool
Welsh community. They were thrilled at the opportunity.
The Welsh Revival had become a reality in that period
to the Reverend W O Jones himself.[6]
He took part in the Preaching Services of an undenominational
Nonconformist Chapel known as Sutton Oak Welsh Chapel, which is
situated between the town of St Helens and its neighbouring
settlement of St Helens Junction. This event was held on Boxing
Day 1904. The preaching service became a revivalist meeting. W O
Jones had an extremely high regard of the young revivalist, Evan
John Roberts. Indeed some of the most fair minded appraisals of
Evan Roberts came from the pen of W O Jones in the monthly
magazine of his new religious organisation, Llais Rhyddid
(The Voice of Freedom). Evan Roberts, according to the appraisal
of W O Jones, inspired everyone of Welsh extraction of all age
groups. He said:
Yn
sicr, nid oes yr un esboniad yn bosibl arno ef, ac ar ei waith,
heblaw y goruwchnaturiol. Rhaid mai offeryn ydyw yn llaw Duw.
(Surely there is no possible explanation on him, or his work,
except the supernatural. He must be a vehicle in the hand of
God.)
Evan
Roberts was in Jones's opinion a master communicator. W O Jones
with one of his lay leaders travelled all the way from Liverpool
by train to Swansea to see the Revivalist at his task of winning
souls.[7]
He wrote of his experience:
Ar
ôl ei weled a'i glywed, gellir ffurfio dirnadaeth fwy clir am
broffwydi yr Hen Destament ac Apostolion y Testament Newydd.
Diolch i Dduw am un arall o broffwydi Cymru.
(After
seeing and hearing him, one can form a clearer appreciation of the
prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New
Testament. Thanks be to God for another prophet of Wales.)[8]
The
tragedy of the Evan Roberts crusade in Liverpool was this: that
one of his most sincere supporters, W O Jones was forced to change
his initial opinions of the revivalist and that Evan Roberts was
dragged into the bitter conflict between the Welsh Presbyterians
and those who had left Presbyterianism for a new spiritual home on
Merseyside.
Evan
Roberts had his reservations on the proposed visit to the thriving
Welsh language community of Merseyside. He spent a whole week at Neath in total silence before travelling to his preparatory
college at Newcastle Emlyn and south Cardiganshire. Evan Roberts
then went home to Casllwchwr (Loughor) where he decided to give
away every penny that he possessed, most of it I presume had been
his savings and gifts from his zealous evangelical well wishers.
Roberts gave £200 to clear the debt on the small building known as
Pisgah, Bwlchymynydd where he had been a Sunday School teacher and
then a superintendent and £150 towards the funds of Moriah, Welsh
Presbyterian Chapel, Casllwchwr, the chapel where he and his
parents were members and which had a financial burden to
shoulder. There he gave £10 to a fellow student at the Academy in
Newcastle Emlyn, David Williams of Llansamlet. This was a great
deal of money, comparable in our day to some £36,000. Then on the
railway station at Casllwchwr he realised that he had some money
in his suit which he gave to his brother Dan Roberts to hand over
to an elderly and poor female who lived in the village, so that he
could arrive at Lime Street Railway Station in Liverpool without a
penny.[9]
He caught the train to Cardiff and then joined with his sister
Mary Roberts, the soloist Annie Davies of Nantyffyllon, Maesteg,
Reverend D M Phillips, Tylorstown and his niece Miss Edith Jones
Phillips.[10]
The Reverend D M Phillips, Tylorstown and his great friend, Evan
Roberts stayed at 1 Ducie Street with Mrs Edwards but his
enthusiastic supporters soon came to know of his whereabouts
within a few hours. Ducie Street had a large crowd waiting for a
glimpse of the Welsh revivalist.
The crusade in Liverpool and Merseyside was so different to
anything that Evan Roberts had experienced in the valleys of south
Wales. There he had moved on his own initiative as led by
the Holy Spirit from one village to another, and from one valley
to another, but his campaign in Liverpool had been thoroughly
prepared by the Liverpool Welsh Free Church Council. The
Council had been extremely thorough, canvassing through the
members of the various chapels of every denomination, all the
houses in Liverpool and Garston as well as Bootle and Birkenhead
and had discovered 30,000 Welsh speakers. Amongst this large
community there were at least 4,000 who had no chapel or church
allegiance.[11]
17 meetings were to be arranged for him in centres in south
Liverpool, central Liverpool, Bootle, Seacombe and Birkenhead.
This was to be a concentrated effort and there were so many Welsh
communities denied a visit, like the towns of
St Helens,
Southport, Wigan, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Warrington, Runcorn and
Ellesmere Port.
The campaign began in Liverpool at the large cathedral like chapel
of Princes Road on Wednesday 29 March 1905.[12]
The end result was that there were more people outside the chapel
than were inside. This became the pattern for the Merseyside
campaign. The largest Welsh as well as the English Nonconformist
chapels on Merseyside were packed, even the large Sun Hall in
Kensington which catered for a congregation of 6,000. Posters of
Evan Roberts were to be seen in hundreds of shop windows and in
the homes of the welcoming Welsh exiles. The Welsh community was
making an impact in the city of
Liverpool,
and the leading ministers of the Protestant faith were also
attending the meetings.
But the campaign was beset from the beginning by the festering
disagreement amongst the religious adherents. Hundreds of
Welsh Presbyterians had left their chapels to form the new chapels
and many of the leading ministers, such as the Reverend Griffiths
Ellis of Bootle had been deeply hurt. Griffith Ellis had
laboured all his life at Bootle. A student of
Balliol
College, Oxford he had given of his utmost to
Stanley Road Presbyterian Church of Wales. He admitted that he
had experienced a worst bereavement in the loss of 160 members who
had left to start a Welsh chapel 400 yards from his citadel than
in the death of his eldest daughter, Leta.[13]
By the third meeting on 31 March in Birkenhead the confrontation
had again shown its ugly head. Evan Roberts went so fat as to
claim that the chapel had to be cleansed as there were people
present who could not forgive each other.[14]
A young member of Eglwys Rydd y Cymry stood on his fed and prayed
with fervour on God to bend the people to work together in the
Welsh Nonconformist vineyard on Merseyside. But Evan Roberts was
not exhibiting the wisdom that W O Jones expected of him, he
insisted that the Holy Spirit was being challenged and a large
number of Welsh Christians were stubbornly refusing to forgive one
another in the forgiveness of the Gospel. The following day, on 1
April, in the Wesleyan Welsh Methodist Chapel in Shaw Street he
announced suddenly that the Holy Spirit had left them as orphans
as there were five leaders present, three of them ministers of
religion who were extremely jealous of the successful work carried
out by him through the power of the resurrection.[15]
The congregation were somewhat startled by his boast and by his
accusation. The Reverend John Williams who knew the Liverpool
Welsh better than the young 26 year old revivalist made a valid
effort to soothe the worshippers. He suggested that the meeting
should be brought to a close.[16]
His younger colleague Evan Roberts disagreed. The powerful
experienced John Williams had to acknowledge the impossible
situation. For Evan Roberts could be extremely difficult within
the confines of a huge meeting in particular to be persuaded to
listen to anyone else. April 6 and 7, 1905 were difficult days in
his campaign. On April 6 he had gone to visit Hilbre Island to be
with the Welshspeaking lighthouse keeper, Lewis Jones known by his
bardic name of Ynyswr (Islander). The press published an account
of an accident which could have proved fatal that had occurred to
him, and years later in his autobiography Lewis Jones claimed that
there was no truth whatsoever in the story.[17]
One has to remember that the press was very well represented in
the Merseyside campaign. Reporters from the national press,
Daily Mail, Daily Dispatch were present, as well as
journalists from the Welsh daily's, Western Mail,
Liverpool Daily Post,
the Welsh language press, Yr Herald Gymraeg and the local
press, like the Liverpool Courier. Many of these hacks
were creating news, often exaggerating, enlarging it, suggesting
that the Merseyside campaign was not so successful as the south
Wales meetings had been with regard to the number of converts.
On 7 April the
leading lights of the organising committee, in particular the
Secretary, Councillor Henry Jones and Chairman, William Evans, who
had served on the City Council had persuaded the Lord Mayor of
Liverpool, Councillor John Lea to prepare a reception for the
young revivalist at the Mansion House. Councillor John Lea
was a coal magnate and a staunch Protestant.[18]
The Reverend John Williams presented Evan Roberts, who had spent
most of his life as a miner in the Welsh Glamorganshire coalfield
to the colliery owner of great wealth.
Allow
me, Lord Mayor to present to you Mr Evan Roberts, servant of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
The
top table had been kept for five – Evan Roberts, the Reverend J A
Kempthorne, Rector of Liverpool, the Reverend Dr John Watson, the
Reverend John Williams and the Lord Mayor. It was an entirely new
experience for Evan Roberts. Surrounded by the elite of the
Liverpool political and religious life the young miner cum
revivalist was completely lost. He refused to say a word at the
reception to the dismay of the guests. However, the Reverend C F
Aked, the radical minister of Pembroke Place Baptist Chapel,
responded to the challenge, thanking the authorities and praising
the young working class hero. For Aked was an enthusiastic
socialist.[19]
The Reverend D M Phillips maintains that since their arrival in
Liverpool Evan Roberts had received hundreds of letters and many
of them were anonymous, extremely critical and some down out
rude. According to his ministerial friend from the Rhondda it did
not affect him.[20]
I do not believe it. That night in Sun Hall before a large
audience of at least 6,000 he overstepped the mark from the
beginning of the meeting to its end. He was nervous, grumpy and
extremely irritable. Roberts was responsible for one
confrontation after another. The first confrontation was to do
with the effort of a person in the vast Hall to hypnotise him.
Then he delivered a strange and completely uncharacteristic
statement:
Mae
rhai ohonoch yn gweddïo ar yr Arglwydd i achub y person hwn. Ni
allaf fi wneud hynny. Gallaf weddïo am ei symud oddi ar wyneb y
ddaear, ond ni allaf ofyn i'r Arglwydd ei achub.
(Do
not pray for him. I cannot do that. I can pray to remove him
from the face of the earth, but I cannot ask the Lord to convert
him.)[21]
Then
Roberts attacked verbally an individual in the congregation who
was in his opinion a negative critic. He had a message for him
from the Holy Spirit:
Os
na chyffeswch, peidiwch â rhyfeddu os na fedrwch godi'ch llaw ar
ôl heno. Yna byddai'n rhaid i chwi gario'r arwydd hyd eich bedd.
(If
you do not confess, do not be surprised if you cannot raise your
hand after tonight. The you will have to carry that sign with you
to you grave.)[22]
Then
the revivalist disturbed the large congregation by stating that
this individual was a minister of religion. Two local Welsh
Nonconformist ministers were greatly upset. One was the Welsh
Baptist minister in Edge Lane, Hugh R Roberts and the other was
the Welsh Independent Minister in Belmont Road on the border of
Anfield and Newsham Park, the Reverend O L Roberts and on one the
six from Liverpool who had travelled to Dowlais, near Merthyr
Tydfil to persuade the revivalist to visit the Seaport to win
souls for Christ. The congregation took the side of Evan Roberts,
and the words Cywilydd, cywilydd (Shame, shame) were
uttered when the two minister stood up for an explanation from the
revivalist. John Williams intervened to bring the meeting to a
dignified close, and Evan Roberts and his two female colleagues
escaped from the Hall. The following day a well known hypnotist,
Dr Walford Bodie who worked in the Lyric Theatre, admitted that he
had sent his deputy along to hypnotise Evan Roberts.[23]
The revivalist soon recovered his integrity and even George
Wise, the militant Protestant, commentated publicly on the
revivalist.[24]
He was above everything else admitted Wise a ripe study for a
psychologist. So was George Wise if he could admit it! Then on
April 10 at the English Congregationalist Chapel of Westminster
Road W O Jones took part in prayer, pleading for a
reconciliation. Evan Roberts was moved to tears. The following
evening, 11 April at the Welsh Wesleyan Methodist Chapel of Mynydd
Seion in Princes Road Evan Roberts made a critical appraisal in
the name of God of Eglwys Rydd y Cymry:
Rhoddodd Duw y neges hono imi... Y mae a wnelo'r neges ag Eglwys
Rydd y Cymry. Mae'r neges uniongyrchol oddi wrth Dduw – 'Nid yw
sylfeini'r eglwys honno ar y Graig'. Dyna'r neges.
God
has given me this direct message... The message has to do with the
Free Church of the Welsh. It is a direct message from God – 'The
foundation of this Church is not on the Rock'. That is the
message.)[25]
The
journalists were delighted. They went immediately to the home of
the Reverend W O Jones in Percy Street and Gwilym Hughes was given
the opportunity of interviewing him. No one in Welsh
Nonconformist circles, besides D M Phillips and John Williams, had
praised Evan Roberts like W O Jones. The pulpit giants of his
day, in his opinion, could not be compared with the young
revivalist:
Ym
mhob oedfa y mae'r effeithiau yn annisgrifiadwy a'r
cynllueidfaoedd mawrion fel cŵyr toddedig yn ei ddwylaw.
(In
every service the effects are indescribable, and the large
congregations like melting wax in his hands.)[26]
Consider also this opinion of Evan Roberts from the pen of W O
Jones:
Llefara yntau ar bob pwynt, fel un ag awdurdod ganddo; braidd na
theimlech ambell funyd ei fod yn hawlio anffaeledigrwydd, fel
genau i'r Ysbryd Glân.
(He
speaks on every point, as one who has authority, sometimes you
fell for some moments as if he claims infallibility as a spokesman
of the Holy Spirit).[27]
But
Evan Roberts had deliberately snubbed W O Jones. The leader of a
new sect in Liverpool naturally changed his opinion of him. He
became a dangerous critic of Evan Roberts and claimed that he was
inspired by the occult in Liverpool, and that he had never before
seen anyone pursuing occultism 'for the propagation of the
Christian Religion.'[28]
But such a criticism was damaging, worse conflict was on the
horizon, especially in the meeting arranged at Chatham Street
where the devastating show down of the Welsh Free Church and the
Welsh Presbyterians began in 1900. This meeting was for men only
and everything went well under the guidance of the Reverend
Richard Humphreys, the successor of W O Humphreys, the successor
of W O Jones, though Evan Roberts was silent during the service.
But at 9.15 a young minister stood up by the altar with anger in
his voice and addressed the revivalist with these words:
A
wyt ti wedi dy gymodi â'th frawd cyn dod i'r cyfarfod heno? Pam
wyt ti'n chwarae â phethau sanctaidd fel hyn.
(Have
you been reconciled with your brother before coming here this
evening? Why are you playing with holy things in this way.)[29]
The
Reverend Daniel Hughes of Chester was referring to the
relationship between Evan Roberts and W O Jones. He was not a man
to be silenced and his latest biographer, Ivor T Rees has called
him The Sledgehammer Pastor.[30]
A vigorous debate ensued between the evangelist and the ministers
in the sêt fawr (big seat) of Chatham Street Chapel.
Daniel
Hughes had a supporter in the person of a Presbyterian minister of
Rhydlydan, near Pentrefoelas, the Reverend H M Roberts. He stood
up and stated dogmatically
Nid
gwaith yr Ysbryd Glân yw hwn ond gwaith athrylith dyn. Ffug yw
popeth a ddigwyddodd yma heno.
(This
is not the work of the Holy Spirit but the work of a man of
genius. Fantasy is everything that has happened here tonight.)[31]
It was
time to bring the service to an end. That night there was great
excitement in Percy Street, the home of W O Jones, where Daniel
Hughes stayed and within a few months he had moved to Liverpool as
pastor of a chapel belonging to the Disciples of Christ.[32]
The following day, 15 April, a letter appeared in the Liverpool
Courier, a bitter attack on Evan Roberts by Hughes.[33]
He claimed that the revivalist belonged to the world of the occult
and telepathy, and that he would like to follow him around and
lecture on the subject Evan Roberts, explained and exposed..
What
had happened in Chatham Street had become the talk of Liverpool.
That day, he had more exposure and he was criticised by the cotton
broker, Thomas Davies, at the opening of another chapel belonging
to Eglwys Rydd y Cymry.[34]
The Reverend John Williams had arranged for him to be examined by
four medical men in 88 Rodney Street. The verdict of James Barr,
William Williams, Thomas H Bickerton and William MaAfee was
hopeful:
We
find him mentally and physically quite sound. he is suffering
from the effects of overwork and we consider it advisable that he
should have a period of rest.
There
were two more meetings that required his presence. The Reverend H
M Roberts had by the second meeting on 17 April repented of his
criticism, and now claimed that Evan Roberts was the nearest human
being to Jesus, and resembled him move than any other religious
leader. Evan Roberts however did not receive such an apology from
Daniel Hughes. But he was leaving Liverpool as he came, a
celebrity of the first order. He left Lime Street in style on 18
April for the Royal Hotel in Capel Currig where he was to stay
till 16 May for a deserved rest. He left behind on Merseyside
i.
A strong temperance witness which was praised by the Chief
Constable of Liverpool
ii.
At least the building of one new chapel, that is Salem
Presbyterian Church of Wales, Laird Street, Birkenhead[35]
iii.
A stronger Sunday School through the medium of the Welsh
language. The Calvinistic Methodists or the Presbyterian Church
of Wales Sunday School on Merseyside gained in that year of 1905
606 new scholars as the result of his visit.[36]
The biggest failure was the sniping and the confrontation between
him and a number of Welsh Nonconformist ministers. The
biographer of the pulpit giant, John Williams, the Reverend R H
Hughes, places the blame on the minister of Princes Road Chapel.[37]
So does Alderman Joseph Harrison Jones (an elder at Princes Road
Chapel since 1877). He claimed that his minister had lost his
usual diplomacy and had spoilt the Evan Roberts visit by pursuing
with him the Eglwys Rydd y Cymry controversy.[38]
John Williams decided the following year to return to his native
Anglesey,
and admitted that his own chapel of Princes Road had not benefited
as it should from the 1905 Revival.[39]
But if the best man, W O Jones, at the wedding of his friend John
Williams to a daughter of a Liverpool Welsh building in May 1899
had not been expelled from the Connexion in 1901, one could argue
that the Evan Roberts visit would have been conducted against a
completely different background. W O Jones was a controversial
individual and his presence was very evident throughout the
crusade. Evan Roberts was a sincere revivalist who had been
converted on the Damascus road and had experience the Baptism of
the Holy Spirit. It was they experience that dominated his whole
campaign, as he himself admitted in a meeting at the Wesleyan
Methodist Chapel in Shaw Street, Liverpool:
Mae
dyn wedi ei achub am achub pawb, fel un wedi dianc o
wreck, am achub y gweddill
(A man
who has been saved wants to save everybody else, like a person who
has escaped from a shipwreck wants to save the rest of the crew
and passengers).[40]
[1] W H Parry
maintained in 1867 that Liverpool had a population of
520,000. Of these 120,000 had been born in Ireland, 80,000 in
Wales, 40,000 in Scotland and 5,000 in the Isle of Man,
245,000 Celts. See W H Parry, Y Cymry yn
Liverpool eu
Manteision a'u Hanfanteision,
Liverpool, 1868, p 45.
[2]
R R Hughes, Y Parchedig John Williams, DD, Brynsiencyn,
Caernarfon, 1929, p 156.
[3]
ibid
[4]
Y Diwygiad, Llais Rhyddid, Cyf III, Rhif 9, Rhagfyr
1904, p202.
[5]
There were Welsh speaking ministers within travelling distance
of Liverpool who had been prominent in the Keswick Movement.
Take Revd John Rhys Davies (1855-1926), a native of New Quay
where Joseph Jenkins ministered and who became a Baptist
minister in Southport in 1902. They had been praying for a
revival in Wales since 1896. M N Garrard, Mrs Penn-Lewis,
A Memoir (London, 1930), p221. Another of the Keswick
supporters was the Revd D Wynne Evans (1861-1927) a minister
with the Congregationalists in Chester since 1902. He wrote
in Welsh an important book on the phenomenon of the Revival,
Yr Ysbryd Glân a Diweddar-Wlaw y Diwygiad ('The Holy Spirit
and the Latter Rain of the Revival'), (Chester, 1906).
[6]
Y Diwygiad, op cit, p214; a Nodiadau Misol, Llais Rhyddid,
Cyfrol III, Rhif 10.
[7]
Ionawr 1905, p238; W O Jones, Evan Roberts y Diwygiwr,
Llais Rhyddid, Cyf III, Rhif II, Chwefror 1905, p245.
[8]
Nodiadau Misol, Llais Rhyddid, Cyf III, Rhif 12, Mawrth
1905, p 263.
[9]
D M Phillips, Evan Roberts a'i waith, Dolgellau, 1912,
p335.
[10]
ibid
[11]
ibid, p337.
[12]
R Tudur Jones, Ffydd ac Argyfwng Cenedl: Hanes Crefydd yng
Nghymru 1890-1914 Cyfrol 2: Dryswch a Diwygiad, Abertawe,
1982, p168.
[13]
John Owen, Cofiant y Parch
Griffith Ellis,
MA, Bootle,
Lerpwl, 1923, pps55-6. Leta Eleanor Ellis died 6 May 1897,
before her twentieth birthday.
[14]
Nodiadau, Llais Rhyddid, Cyfrol III, Rhif 11, Chwefror
1905, p279. Many felt that in the atmosphere of the revival
the time was ripe for them to shake hands and to be friends
and the Central Committee of the Eglwys Rydd y Cymry sent a
pleading letter to the Council of the Welsh Free Churches of
Liverpool for reconciliation. The response according to
Llais Rhyddid was disappointing for the letter was brushed
aside. A golden opportunity had been lost.
[15]
R Tudur Jones, op cit, 168.
[16]
ibid
[17]
Lewis Jones, Atgofion Ynyswr, Lerpwl, 1939, p61. Ynyswr or
Lewis Jones states that 'the story was a big lie from
beginning to end.' But the accident is recoded as a true
account by the journalist Gwilym Hughes and the friend of Evan
Roberts, Revd Dr D M Phillips, Tylorstown who wrote him a
substantial biography in Welsh an English.
[18]
John Lea (1850-1920) held a passionate Protestant ideology.
He owned collieries in Lancashire and had been a Liberal
Councillor on the City Council since 1890. A member of the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland Lea was a strong supporter of
the temperance movement. He was criticised by the Welsh
bohemian artist, Augustus John as a philistine. P J Waller,
Democracy and Sectarianism: a political and social history
of
Liverpool
1868-1939,
Liverpool 1981, p498.
[19]
Liverpool in all
its history had few radical ministers of his calibre, and his
campaigning efforts have been noted by Jan Sillers, Salute
to Pembroke: The Story of the Rise, Progress, Decline and Fall
of a most remarkable, dissenting congregation, Pembroke
Chapel, Liverpool 1838-1931, Alsager, 1960, pp12-24.
[20]
D M Phillips, Evan Roberts a'i waith, Dolgellau, 1912, p337.
[21]
R Tudur Jones, op cit, p170.
[22]
Y Cymro, (13 April 1905), pp2-3 and 5.
[23]
R Tudur Jones, op cit, p170.
[24]
Pastor George Wise (1856-1917) moved from London to Liverpool
in 1888, and became an important figure in the sectarian
conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the
Everton/Scotland Road area. He was a militant Protestant
leader, see P J Waller, op cit, pps 117-18, 140, 166, 174-6,
188-9, 191-2, 198-206, 227-8, 230-2, 237-41, 244-47, 150-1,
257, 260, 265, 303, 313, 427, 429, 451, 517.
[25]
R Tudur Jones, op cit, p170.
[26]
W O Jones, Evan Roberts y Diwygiwr, op cit, p243.
[27]
ibid, p246.
[28]
Gwilym Hughes, op
cit, pps 74-5, Llais Rhyddid, Vol IV, 30-7, 49-56.
[29]
Y Cymro, 20 April 1905, p3.
[30]
Ivor T Rees, 'Sledgehammer Daniel Hughes, The Sledgehammer
Pastor, 1875-1972, Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru,
Volume XXXII: No 2 Winter 2001, pps 147-175.
[31]
ibid, p149.
[32]
Ivor T Rees, op cit, pps149-50. This is the denomination that
Ronald Regan, future President of the United States of
America, was nurtured in and owed a great debt to it. See
Ronald Regan, American Dream, Norwalk, 1990, p32.
[33]
Gwilym Hughes, op cit, pp87-89. This is part of the letter:
'Brother Evan Roberts look to yourself and pray for
forgiveness, confess the bitter injustice you have
perpetrated. Seek the Rev W O Jones, fell on his neck and
weep, he will be ready to forgive; see that, before you speak
in the name of God again, you are right with your brother in
the ministry.' Daniel Hughes was willing to call Evan Roberts
a genius but his letter is dynamite for a sensitive soul such
as Evan Roberts.
[34]
'Gosod Ceryg Sylfan Capel Newydd Upper Canning Street',
Llais Rhyddid, Vol IV, No 2, May 1905, pp271-230.
[35]
W Henry, 'Anerchiad at yr Eglwysi', Ystadegau Eglwysi y
Methodistaid Calfinaidd am y flwyddyn 1904,
Liverpool,
1905, p1.
[36]
R Aethwy Jones, 'Anerchiad at yr Eglwysi', Ystadegau
Eglwysi y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd am y flwyddyn 1905,
Liverpool, 1906, p1. Dr D M Phillips states that 750 new
members joined the Welsh Nonconformist chapel. D M Phillips,
op cit, p337.
[37]
R R Hughes, op cit, 158.
[38]
ibid
[39]
R R Hughes, op cit, pps162-3. Also D Ben Rees, Welsh
Calvinistic Methodists and Independents in Toxteth Park,
Liverpool, The Journal of Welsh Religious History,
Volume 3, 2003, pp78-93.
[40]
D M Phillips, Evan Roberts a'i waith, Dolgellau, 1912,
p339.
Back to contents list
Saunders
Lewis
|
|
|
 |
|
|
The house at 6 Wilton Street, Lascard, where
J Saunders Lewis was brought up. |
Llyfrgell Gymraeg
yn adeilad Capel Bethel Heathfield Road
(9)
Library of
Welsh books
kept in Bethel Chapel Heathfield Road
Côr Cymry Lerpwl
Philharmonic Lerpwl (10)
Welsh Choral
Society that
meets and sings at the Liverpool Philharmonic
Pwy ydi pwy
ar Lannau Mersi?
Who’s who
on Merseyside?
(9) - Ffonier
0151 475 226 neu gair i 2 Heathfield Road, L15 9EZ
(10) - Gofynner am Mrs
Rhiannon Liddell, Capel Bethel, 2 Heathfield Road, L15 9EZ
Back to contents list
|
