Researching Benjamin Evans

Evans was born at Ffynon-Adda, Meline, Pembrokeshire, on 23 February 1740. In his early days, while he was minister at Llanuwchllyn, Merionethshire (where he was ordained 1769), he met with a good deal of persecution and was compelled to apply to the king's bench for a mandamus before he was allowed to conduct the services in peace.

He removed in 1777 to Haverfordwest, and thence to Drewen in Cardiganshire, 24 June 1779, where he was much beloved, and remained till his death, 3 March 1821. His first duty here was to undo the work of his predecessor, who was in sympathy with the Arminian movement, then led by the Rev. David Lloyd of Llwynrhydowen. Evans showed great tact and gradually and successfully led back the congregation to the prevailing Calvinism of the day.

The Baptist controversy which began about 1788 was originated by the great activity of a few Baptists in the neighbourhood, who distributed large numbers of tracts among members of the congregation. This compelled the minister to act on the defensive. The historian of nonconformity in Wales says that probably nothing abler was ever written on both sides of this question of baptism than the letters of Evans on the one side and those of Dr. William Richards of Lynn on the other. According to the same authority Evans's services to his countrymen were very great, both through the pulpit and the press.

Born on 2 May 1844 in Dowlais in Glamorganshire, Evans worked as a coal miner from the age of eight. He joined the Baptist congregation at Moriah in Dowlais in 1856, and in 1868 was accepted as a student at Haverfordwest Baptist College. Ordained in 1871, his first ministry was in the city of St Davids, Pembrokeshire, relocating in 1876 to Aberdare where he became minister of Gadlys Chapel. Evans was one of several Baptist ministers serving a working-class and largely Welsh speaking population. His personal ministry was to the community living immediately adjacent to the Gadlys ironworks which had been established in 1827.

Evans quickly established himself in Gadlys as a popular preacher and Eisteddfodwr. He was known, without apparent irony, as the 'Bishop of Gadlys'.During his Gadlys ministry he was selected by the Baptist Missionary Society as its agent for Wales, and was later named Secretary of the Society as a whole. In 1891 he wrote a biography of fellow minister and missionary Thomas Price. In 1896 he was appointed as inaugural clerk to the Governors of Aberdare Boys' Grammar School, and was elected two years later to the Aberdare School Board.

Soon after his arrival in Aberdare, Evans became involved in public life and this often brought him into conflict with other leading figures such as the local miners' agent, David Morgan, with whom Evans had a feud over several years. In 1894 he became one of the first members of the Aberdare Urban District Council, and remained a member until his death. When Morgan was elevated to the aldermanic bench in 1895, Evans staked a claim to succeed him as county councillor but the Liberal nomination went to another minister, Richard Morgan.

Evans died in 1900, leaving a widow and six children.