William Thomas (Islwyn)

William Thomas, bardic name Islwyn (3 April 1832 – 20 November 1878), was a Welsh language poet and Christian clergyman. His best known poems were both called Yr Ystorm ['The Storm'], and were written in response to the sudden death of his fiancee.

Biography

William Thomas was born in Wales on 3 April 1832, near Ynysddu (then in Monmouthshire). Born to an English-speaking family, he learnt Welsh from his uncle. He was educated at Cowbridge Grammar School. Both his elder brothers were engineers, and he was intended for the same profession, training initially as a mining surveyor. However, he showed an aptitude for the Christian ministry, and was sent to an academy run by Dr Evan Davies at Swansea. He was at one time tutored by a namesake, the poet William Thomas (Gwilym Marles).

He became engaged to a Swansea girl, Ann Bowen. Her death in 1853, at the age of twenty, became a source of poetic inspiration to him. He was a regular winner of local Eisteddfod prizes from the 1850s onwards, taking his bardic name from the mountain Mynyddislwyn, above his home.

His two best-known poems are both entitled "Y Storm" ("The Storm"), a long philosophic poem over 9,000 lines long. His poems are noted for their confident expressions of Christian faith, expectation of reunion in heaven, fulfilment of Christian duty and completion of a life fulfilled in God's work. He began preaching in 1854, and was ordained a Calvinistic Methodist minister in 1859, but he never took charge of a church.

In 1864 Thomas married Martha Davies, Ann Bowen's stepsister. He edited several periodicals, and the Welsh column of the Cardiff Times. His poetry, although not always greatly regarded in his own lifetime, found favour after his death and is now thought to be amongst the finest of the nineteenth century.

He also wrote twenty-nine poems in English.

He died from bronchitis in Ynysddu in 1878. He is buried in Babell Chapel, located in Cwmfelinfach.

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