Tag: Harry Evans

Rev Peter Price, Dowlais – part 2

by David Pike

Peter Price, who provoked such controversy while he was the minister of Bethania in Dowlais during the Welsh Revival, was born in Merionethshire in 1864. His family were members of Tabor Independent Chapel not far from Dolgellau – a chapel that for many years had served as a Quaker meeting house. His grandfather, who was a leading deacon there, had secured use of the building for the Independents as the Quaker group finally died out, having been compassionately involved in the care of the remaining elderly widows there. Later, Peter Price was himself greatly influenced by Quakerism, which partly shaped his own ministry.

After attending grammar school in Dolgellau, he studied philosophy at Aberystwyth University College and theology at Bala before being ordained in 1887 to Trefriw Chapel in the Conwy Valley. He served here for seven years, and in 1894 was invited to become minister of Great Mersey Street chapel, close to the docks in Liverpool. He had been invited to preach here on a number of occasions while at Trefriw, winning the hearts of the people. Here he gained a reputation as an excellent preacher and a sympathetic pastor who went out of his way to help alleviate hardship. He also gained a city-wide reputation for being a clear and uncompromising preacher of the Gospel. While he was in Liverpool the church released him in 1897 to study philosophy at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and he graduated in 1901. It is a measure of the respect and affection with which he was regarded at Great Mersey Street that they continued to support him in that period.

In was in July 1904 that he came to Bethania in Dowlais. By this time he had married Letitia Williams of Llanrwst, and she worked closely with him. They were both particularly engaged in working to alleviate hardship in the slums. Peter Price’s involvement in the Revival while he was here I have dealt with in an earlier piece.

The interior of Bethania Chapel as it would have looked in 1904. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

In 1910 Peter Price became the minister at Bethlehem, Rhosllanerchrugog, where the organist was the great Welsh composer Caradog Roberts. One newspaper report of his induction spoke of Peter Price as ‘one of the ablest preachers of the Welsh pulpit’.

R.H. Davies wrote of this period:

‘I am almost tempted to add that this was the most sympathetic and passionate circle of those in which he laboured. He was now in full swing as a preacher and lecturer. The people of Rhos had a ministry soaked and immersed in his own personal experience. It is said that the late Harry Evans, Dowlais, would whisper in his ear when he joined on Sunday evening cheerfully with the choir, ‘Keep it up’; but in later years in Rhos Caradog Roberts had to say more than once, ‘Keep it down, Doctor.’

Bethlehem Chapel, Rhosllanerchrugog

In 1913 Peter Price was invited to the USA on a preaching tour, and while there, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity at Washington University, which he must have found gratifying.

During the Great War years, Peter Price was a strong advocate of pacifism, which probably reflects the influence of Quakerism on him.

In November 1920 Peter Price became the minister at Capel Seion, Baker Street, Aberystwyth. It was not long before the chapel was reinvigorated, and many of the university’s students attended the services and prayer meetings there.  Of this period, the chapel records report:

‘“Contributions have increased, members have been fired up, and new interest has been generated in the Cause. A strong wave of spiritual life has flowed into the heart of the Church …’”

Many students found their lives profoundly impacted by Price’s ministry, and they came to revere him. One of them was Iorwerth Peate who went on to establish the Museum of Welsh Life at St. Fagans. He wrote of the prayer meetings:

‘ … scores of us, if not hundreds, were loyal to him, and the parents of all denominations … The influence of that meeting remains today not only in Aber but throughout Wales … I know of no other Welshman, except Peter Price, who could do such a miracle, which is to draw together such an intractable collection of us, for prayer. He put faith in our hearts and hope in our spirits at a time when the minister needed only a little laziness to throw us over the edge of doubt …’

Peter Price retired from the ministry in 1928 and lived for a time in Swansea. For several years he continued to travel all over Wales to preach, in spite of increasing ill-health. Eventually, he was forced to pull back from itinerating, and he and his wife moved to Llanfairfechan in North Wales, and then to Prestatyn, where he died on 1st July 1940. His widow Letitia died in 1949. The two of them were buried together in the public cemetery in Prestatyn.

One of Peter Price’s biographers, D.J. Roberts, wrote of him:

‘Peter Price was a strong man with powerful opinions and passionate feelings, who was revered by his admirers but who also made enemies easily; a powerful preacher and an influential minister; a pacifist and an original character.’

Another, R. H. Davies, wrote:

‘Many a service I remember when I was completely humbled by his passion for the truth he spoke, and by his desire for the divine presence of the Saviour. …I miss the thunderous rapture of his voice, and the lightning that flashed from his eyes, but I remember with gratitude how much he did from 1904 to 1940 to heal my country’s religious atmosphere.’

If you would like to read more about the 1904 revival, please have a look at David Pike’s excellent blog……

http://daibach-welldigger.blogspot.com/

Merthyr Historian Volume 31

The Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society is pleased to announce that, despite all of the difficulties due to Covid-19, volume 31 of the Merthyr Historian is now for sale.

Merthyr Historian Volume 31 – Contents
Chapter 1 Penydarren born Frank T Davies, 1904-1981, pioneer, geophysicist and polar explorer Roger Evans
Chapter 2 Science at the cusp: Caedraw 1887 and education in Merthyr John Fletcher
Chapter 3 ‘Whom the gods love, die young’: the frail genius of Harry Evans, conductor T Fred Holley & John Holley
Chapter 4 ‘Kathleen Ferrier slept in my bed’: musical celebrities and wartime Merthyr Vale Mair Attwood
Chapter 5 Robert Rees: the Morlais Nightingale Stephen Brewer
Chapter 6 The female drunkard in the mid nineteenth century Barrie Jones
Chapter 7 Cefn Glas: a forgotten colliery Clive Thomas
Chapter 8 Emlyn Davies, Dowlais Draper: a family flannel and local business history Alan Owen
Chapter 9 Merthyr relief and social work in the worst of times: Margaret Gardner (1889-1966) Christine Trevett
Chapter 10 Appeal and response, Merthyr’s need 1930-31, from The Skip Collection Clive Thomas & Christine Trevett
Chapter 11 Pulpit and platform, revival reservations and reforms: the work of the Rev John Thomas (1854-1911) at Soar, Merthyr Tydfil Noel Gibbard
Chapter 12 The Rev G M Maber, Merthyr and the poet Robert Southey’s Welsh Walks Barrie Jones
Chapter 13 The drums go bang, the cymbals clang. Three bands, Troedyrhiw 1921 T Fred Holley & John Holley
Chapter 14 The railways of Pant and Dowlais towards the end of steam Alistair V Phillips
Chapter 15 Book Review: Merthyr Tydfil Corporation Omnibus Dept. Keith L Lewis-Jones
Chapter 16 From Dudley to Dover and Dowlais: Black Country tram sales and their brief second careers Andrew Simpson
Chapter 18 ‘Here’s health to the Kaiser!’ Patriotic incident at Treharris, 1914 Christine Trevett
Chapter 19 Lady Charlotte and Sir John: the Guest family at large. A review essay on recent books Huw Williams
Chapter 20 Dr Brian Loosmore (1932-2019).  An Appreciation T Fred Holly
Chapter 21 ‘Rather less than four pence’: A case of benefits in Merthyr Tydfil in 1933 (transcribed)

John Dennithorne

It is a mammoth volume at350+ pages long and priced at £12.50 (plus postage & packing).

If anyone would like a copy of the book, please contact me at merthyr.history@gmail.com and I will forward your request to the appropriate person.

E T Davies – Another Musical Giant

Evan Thomas Davies was born on 10 April 1878 at 41 Pontmorlais, Merthyr Tydfil. His father, George, was a barber, and owned a shop in South Street, Dowlais. The family was a musical one; George was precentor in Hermon Chapel, Dowlais, for nearly a quarter of a century, and his mother and his mother, Gwenllian (née Samuel) had a fine contralto voice. Evan was brought up in Dowlais, and he was given private tuition coming heavily under the influence of the famous local conductor and organist, Harry Evans. (see http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=713)

At the age of sixteen, he passed the Advanced Honours Certificate of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. So successful was he in the exam that Sir Charles Villiers-Stanford, a renowned composer, and one of the founders of the Royal College of Music, persuaded him to pursue a musical career. The young Evan didn’t take his advice however, and took a job as an office clerk in Merthyr.

During this time however, he became the accompanist for both Harry Evans’ and Dan Davies’ choirs, and in 1898, he was asked to accompany a party of singers from Wales to the USA, and on his return, he finally decided to pursue a career in music. He soon was awarded the fellowship of the Royal College of Organists, and his reputation as an important musician in Merthyr was cemented during the first few years of the 1900’s performing several Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the Dowlais Operatic Society, and was acclaimed as the successor to Harry Evans as Merthyr’s foremost musician.

In 1903 he was appointed as organist at Pontmorlais Chapel, Merthyr Tydfil, and also became part-time singing teacher at the Merthyr County School. In 1904 he moved to Merthyr from Dowlais, and in 1906, when Harry Evans moved to Liverpool, E T Davies moved into his house ‘Cartrefle’, which housed a three-manual pipe organ.

After gaining his F.R.C.O. his services as a solo organist were in great demand, and he was said to have inaugurated about a hundred new organs in Wales and England. In 1920 he was appointed the first full-time director of music of the University College, Bangor, where he was responsible for numerous musical activities, and collaborated with (Henry) Walford Davies, Aberystwyth, to enhance knowledge of music in a wide area under the auspices of the university’s Council of Music. In 1943 he retired and moved to Aberdare, where he spent the rest of his life composing, adjudicating and broadcasting.

He first came into prominence as a composer after winning the first prize for ‘Ynys y Plant’ in the national eisteddfod held in London in 1909, and although he was not a very prolific composer, and tended to regard composing merely as a hobby, he had a beneficial influence upon Welsh music for more than half a century. Besides writing a few songs, he also composed part-songs, anthems and works for various musical instruments and instrumental groups, and about 40 of his tunes, chants and anthems are to be found in various collections of tunes.

He recognised the excellent work on folk-songs that John Lloyd Williams had done before him at Bangor, and he was one of the first Welsh musicians to find sufficient merit in the folk-songs to arrange them for voice or instrument. His arrangements of over a hundred of these songs, (many of them produced when the composer was in old age) have great artistic merit. He also took an interest in Welsh national songs, and was co-editor with Sydney Northcote of The National Songs of Wales (1959).

He married, 31 August 1916, Mary Llewellyn, youngest daughter of D.W. Jones, Aberdare. He died at home in Aberdare on Christmas Day 1969.

Lord Evans of Merthyr Tydfil – Physician to the Queen

Last month we highlighted the career of Harry Evans – the great Merthyr musician. No less remarkable is the career of his son Horace Evans.

Horace Evans was born in Dowlais on 1 January 1903, the eldest son of Harry Evans and his wife Edith. When his father was appointed conductor of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union that same year, the family moved to the city, and Horace was educated at Liverpool College. Following in his father’s footsteps, Horace originally decided on a musical career, and shortly after his father’s untimely death in 1914 he went to the Guildhall School of Music for four years and to the City of London School.

During his studies he realised that he wasn’t destined for a musical career, and decided his future lay in medicine. In 1921 Evans entered the London Hospital Medical College on a science scholarship. He qualified in 1925, graduated in medicine and surgery in 1928, and took his M.D. in 1930 when he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and a fellow in 1938. This work merited his appointment as an assistant director of the medical unit in 1933, assistant physician to the London Hospital at Whitechapel in 1936, and physician in 1947. He worked under Arthur Ellis, who instructed him in the traditional English clinical discipline, and who brought him into prominence by selecting him as house physician to the medical unit. Subsequently he held appointments in surgery, obstetrics, pathology and anaesthetics, which gave him a broad basis for a career as a general physician.

He specialised in the effects of high blood pressure and diseases of the kidneys, making a thorough study of Bright’s disease, on which he published papers in medical and scientific journals. In addition he was consultant physician to five other hospitals and to the Royal Navy. It was through his influence that the Royal College of Physicians was moved from Trafalgar Square, having attracted the financial support of the Wolfson Foundation towards the cost of erecting new buildings at Regent’s Park.

He served the royal family as physician to Queen Mary in 1946, to King George VI in 1949 and to Queen Elizabeth in 1952, all of whom received him as a friend. He was knighted in 1949, and created a baron in 1957. In 1955 he delivered the Croonian lectures and was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1961. The University of Wales conferred on him an honorary D.Sc. degree and he was made a freeman of Merthyr Tydfil in April 1962.

Sir Horace Evans. Photo courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery (ref NPG x167429)

He was regarded as the last of the great general physicians of his age, convinced of the need for personal physicians with a critical judgement based on broad general experience, and of the importance of treating patients as human beings. His presence in a patient’s room or hospital ward left an immediate impression on every one who came into contact with him. His sympathy and understanding stemmed largely from his own family experiences.

Horace Evans had married Helen Aldwyth Davies, daughter of a former high-sheriff of Glamorgan in 1929, and they had two daughters. His younger daughter died in tragic circumstances after accidentally electrocuting herself, and his wife suffered prolonged ill health.

Horace Evans died on 26 October 1963 at the age of 60. Following his death, the Royal College of Physycians published an obituary which contained the following accolade:

“The death of Lord Evans in October 1963 cast gloom over the College. No more would we see his tall, slightly stooping figure, and behind the lightly horn-rimmed glasses the alert but kindly eyes that inspired confidence in patients and assured a welcome to every colleague. Few men carried high honours so gracefully.”

Harry Evans – A Musical Giant

Harry Evans was born on 1 May 1873 in Russell Street, Dowlais, the son of John Evans (Eos Myrddin), a local choirmaster and his wife Sarah. Harry had no formal musical training, but was taught the Tonic Sol-fa system by his sister; such was his prodigious musical talent however, that he was appointed organist of Gwernllwyn Chapel in Dowlais when he was only 9 years old. The elders of the chapel encouraged the young Harry and arranged for him to receive music lessons from Edward Laurence, Merthyr Tydfil.

Harry Evans

In 1887 he was appointed organist of Bethania Chapel, Dowlais. He succeeded in passing all the local examinations of the Royal Academy and of the Royal College of Music, London, with honours. He was by that time anxious to devote himself entirely to music, but his father, who wished him to receive a more general education, obtained a post as pupil-teacher for him at the Abermorlais School; here he passed some South Kensington examinations in arithmetic, science, and art.

Although he passed the Queen’s Scholarship examination (for pupil-teachers), his health broke down and he was unable to proceed to a training college. In July 1893 he became A.R.C.O. (Associate of the Royal College of Organists), and from then on gave all his time to music.

An advert for Harry Evans’ services from an 1895 edition of The Merthyr Times

In 1898 Harry Evans formed a ladies’ choir at Merthyr Tydfil and a male choir at Dowlais. The male choir won the prize at the National Eisteddfod held at Liverpool in 1900; and when the National Eisteddfod came to Merthyr the following year, he conducted the Merthyr Tydfil Choir in a performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Following a further success at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli in 1903, Evans retired from competition and accepted an invitation to become conductor of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union.

In 1913 he became musical director at Bangor University College and, in the same year, local conductor and registrar of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. He also became, at this time, conductor of the North Staffordshire Choral Society. By this time many experts regarded him as the best choral conductor in the country, and he was invited to conduct Granville Bantock’s choral symphony, Vanity of Vanities, which the composer dedicated to him.

As well as his work as a conductor, Harry Evans was a one of the most well respected adjudicators at musical competitions, and he was much in demand in that capacity at musical festivals throughout the British Isles. Also a composer, his fullest compositions were Victory of St Garmon, produced at the Cardiff Festival in 1904, and also the cantata Dafydd ap Gwilym ; he also wrote several anthems and hymn-tunes, and arranged Welsh folk-songs and airs for choirs.

During 1914 Harry Evans’ health began to deteriorate, and his doctor advised complete rest, but it was soon discovered that he was suffering from a brain tumour. He underwent emergency surgery from which he never fully recovered, and on 23 July 1914 Harry Evans died and the tragically young age of 41. He was buried at the Toxteth Park Cemetery in Liverpool. After his death, a hymn-tune named In Memoriam was composed by Caradog Roberts in his memory and included in several Welsh hymnals.

Throughout his life Harry Evans’ main ambition was to establish a music college in Wales; had he lived he might have realized his ambition – the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama was established in 1949 as Cardiff College of Music at Cardiff Castle.