Tag: Gwilym Davies

The Peace-Building Bedlinog Boy

by Christine Trevett

We very easily forget people on our own patch who tried to make a difference and to make the world a better place. One of those was Gwilym Davies, who was born in Bedlinog – though in his day (he died in 1955) Bedlinog was not part of the Merthyr Tydfil region patch, as it is now.

After the carnage of the First World War there were those in Wales promoting ties and understanding between nations through membership of the Welsh League of Nations Union.  The Rev’d Gwilym Davies (a Welsh speaking Baptist minister) was at the forefront of that work in Wales, was its secretary and became the WLNU’s honorary director. He tried to promote international understanding in other ways too. This was the man who in 1922 created the annual message of peace and goodwill from the children of Wales to the children of the world. It is still sent out each year through Urdd Gobaith Cymru.

The League of Nations had been founded in January 1920, following the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. This was the first ever organisation working inter-governmentally for international peace, for the settlement of disputes and co-operative working between nations. It was a sort of predecessor for The United Nations.  Then in 1925, almost certainly for the first time ever in Wales, the major non-conformist churches (chapels) got together with the Church in Wales in a public act for a cause which seemed more important than the many things which separated them. That was to try to persuade America to join the League of Nations. American churches might be a way forward in achieving that. It was Gwilym Davies who carried and publicly delivered the document.

2025 sees the centenary of that first Welsh ecumenical action.  There will be various events to commemorate it during the coming year, at a time when our world feels all-too wracked by wars and need for negotiation.

You can read about Gwilym Davies in Merthyr Historian, the publication of Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society. He appears in its 50th anniversary volume (no. 32, 2022), titled Troedyrhiw Southward and Taff Bargoed. Glimpses of Histories and Communities. You can see a video from the Welsh Centre for International Affairs about what the commemoration in 2025 is all about and his part in what happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPyQZXwUBbs

and better still, you can go along to what is happening on January 26th 2025. See the poster below.

There you will hear a range of speakers on the times, the people a century ago, the implication for our own times and about the Bedlinog boy Gwilym Davies.  January 2025 will bring the 70th anniversary of his death. All are welcome.

If further information is needed nearer the date, contact Judith Jones of Gelligaer Historical Society (judithjones131@gmail.com) or
(second best) Christine Trevett (editormerthyrhistorian@gmail.com)

Gwilym Davies

The following article is taken from the marvellous website
http://www.treharrisdistrict.co.uk, and is transcribed here with the kind permission of the webmaster, Paul Corkrey.

Gwilym Davies CBE was a Welsh Baptist minister, who spent much of his life attempting to enhance international relations through supporting the work of the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations. He also established the Annual World Wireless Message to Children in 1922, and was the first person to broadcast in Welsh, on St David’s Day, 1923. He was born in 29 Commercial Street, Cwmfelin, Bedlinog on  24 March 1879, son of D. J. Davies, a local Baptist minister.

He was a pupil teacher at Bedlinog when his father moved to the neighbourhood of Llangadog and he became a pupil at Llandeilo grammar school. He began preaching as early as 1895 and trained for the ministry at the Midland Baptist College, Nottingham, and at Rawdon College. There he won the Pegg Scholarship which enabled him to enter Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated. Whilst at Oxford he edited The Baptist Outlook. In 1906 he was ordained minister at Broadhaven, Pembrokeshire, and the same year he married Annie Margaretta Davies, but she died 3 December 1906 and their baby son died four months later; they were buried in Cwmifor cemetery, Maenordeilo, Carmarthenshire.

In 1922 he retired from the ministry to devote himself to the cause of international peace. He joined with Lord David Davies in creating the Welsh council of the League of Nations Union with its headquarters at Aberystwyth. He was appointed a C.B.E. in 1948, and the University of Wales conferred an honorary degree of LL.D. upon him in 1954.

He suffered from ill-health ever since his student days. He spent much of his life in Cardiff and Geneva, and his work took him to all parts of the world. On 24 January 1942 he married Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Dolgellau (the second woman to be appointed an inspector of schools in Wales; she was granted permission to marry and to retain her post till 1943). They lived in 8 Marine Terrace, Aberystwyth. He died 29 January 1955 and his ashes were scattered at Lavernock Point, Penarth, where the first radio messages had been exchanged across water.