Every county in Wales, even Glamorganshire and far away Monmouthshire which we today call Gwent, have contributed to the rich and immensely varied contribution of the Liverpool Welsh to the city of Liverpool as well as Merseyside. No counties can compete with Anglesey or Caernarfonshire mainly because it was easier to travel by boat from the Welsh ports such as Beaumaris, Pontdinllaen, Nefyn and Pwllheli than by walking or on horseback. Liverpool since its earliest days has been blessed with its location, and has been of tremendous importance as fas as Wales and Ireland and most of England is concerned.

Ramsay Muir, an historian of great distinction as far as Liverpool is concerned, expresses it better than any of us. This is what he said in 1907:

Liverpool would have been a great city if she had been nothing but the port of Lancashire. But she is far more that that. Even before the days of railways the broad gateway of Cheshire opened to her the trade of the greater part of England, and the waters of the Irish Sea gave her the trade of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.

This puts it in a nutshell. Liverpool became a Celtic Kingdom in exile, and thousands of Irish, Welsh, and Scottish people settled in what was called Liverpool. Muir enlarges on his thesis when he says of Liverpool:

She is the meeting place of the Four Kingdoms, with more Welsh citizens than any Welsh town but Cardiff, more Irish citizens than any Irish town but Dublin and Belfast, more Scottish citizens than any but some three or four of the great town of Scotland.

Ramsay Muir can be challenged on his comparison with Cardiff. For as far as Welsh speaking Welshmen and Welshwomen are concerned there were many more Welsh speakers in Liverpool in the nineteenth century that there were in Cardiff until the last forty years. Indeed one could say that in the period between 1880 and 1914 Liverpool had a larger Welsh speaking population within its city than any other town and city in Wales or anywhere else in Wales, including Cardiff. Chester was the only serious competitor for trade that Liverpool ever had in its early history, and the Roman city had a number of advantages. But King John, who saw the potential of the village by the river Mersey for military reasons was, will all his weaknesses a man of vision. On the 28th of August 1207, the ninth year of the reign of King John, he decided that Liverpool had to be given a special status. He saw the advantages Liverpool had in keeping an eye on the rebellious Welsh as well as shipping troops and provisions to Ireland. On the same day he granted the letters patent inviting settlers to come to Liverpool. We have a copy of the Letters Patent.

In King John’s Charter the town is referred to as ‘Villa de Liv’pul’ and his whole attitude was geared to the idea that this small fishing village had a significance all of its own as a military outpost of his kingdom. This was well understood by his successor, Henry III, who granted the second Charter to Liverpool, dated 24th March 1229. This Charter raised the town to the dignity of a Borough, creating a Merchants Guild with a Hansa. This Guild was a reality in Liverpool for over 600 years, while Hansa is a term all of its own, meaning a Society of Merchants who were united in this purpose to get safe passage of goods from Kingdom to Kingdom. On the following day, that is 25 March, the King granted to ‘our honest men of Liverpool’ the earliest Lease. Every ‘honest man’ could get a lease for a term of four years at a rent of £10 per year. Liverpool was a hamlet, the so called honest men were given privileges. Soon they were gaining confidence while the de Ferres family who have gained control from the Earl of Chester of the property between Pebble and Mersey.

The first William de Ferrers, between 1232 and 1237, built the imposing Liverpool Castle. The site was perfect, controlling the mouth of the Pool, and dominating the ‘honest man’ of the hamlet. The population was still small, at the end of Henry III’s reign in 1272, there were only 840 inhabitants. Fishing was the most important occupation and sailing boats became a permanent presence in the Mersey. The Welsh sea captains kept the Welsh presence in Liverpool like the Irish merchant did for the Irish people. Most of the sea captains and sailors were from Gwynedd, though occasionally as the years go by one would come across Liverpool born sailor like Hugh Pugh, born in Liverpool in 1794 and became captain of the flat called Ann (a 60 ton boat) which has been immortalised by the Liverpool Welsh poet and scholar John Glyn Davies in his Welsh ballad, Flat Huw Puw. The fearless Hugh Pugh sailed and traded chiefly between Runcorn, Liverpool and Caernarfon.

The first Welshman of distinction, whose name has been preserved in historical records, was David ap Griffith, who was a favourite of King Henry VIII, and three years before the expiry of the Lease to Henry Corsse, that is in 1491, the Lordship of Liverpool was granted to him for seven years at a rent of £14. This Lease included the Wavertree and West Derby Mills at an additional rent of 20s each. This Lease would expire on 29 September 1494. but between that date and 1502 no Lease of Liverpool has been discovered. In the historical account the rent of £14 is accounted for as received from a farmer called David Harvey. A Lease is mentioned as existing in which this Harvey appears to be the same person as the favoured Welshman David ap Griffith. In 1502 a further Lease for seven years was granted to the same party and at the same rent, and 1505 a new Lease was enrolled to David ap Griffith, Alice his wife, and Robert his son for 21 years at the same rent. This Lease is of significance for it mentions the Birkenhead Ferry which was a lifeline for Liverpool. In the sixteenth year of Henry VIII’s reign, that is 1524, the Lease was again renewed to Alice Griffith, widow of David ap Griffith and Henry Akers for 21 years. Henry Akers had a mill in Wavertree called the Accress Mill. It was not the only Mill in this ancient township.

David ap Griffith was an important figure as far as the history of the Welsh in Liverpool are concerned for he was the Mayor on two occasions, firstly in 1503 and then in 1515. In the Lease given to David ap Griffith the town of Liverpool is spelt Lyrpwl which is extremely close to the modern spelling of Liverpool in Welsh, namely Lerpwl. There is a slight difference, the ‘e’ instead of the ‘y’. The traveller and the naturalist John Leland spelt it somewhat differently in the period between 1533 and 1539. This is what he wrote in his Itinerary (Volume VII)

Lyrpole, aliwas Lyverpoole, a pavid town, hath but a chapel. Walton, a IIII miles off, not far from se, is the paroche chirch; the king hath a castalet there, and the earl of Derbe hath a stone-house there. Irish merchants cum much thither, as to a good

After that Mersey water cumming towards Runcorn in Cheshire, tiseth among the commone people the name, and is called Lyrpole.

So according to Leland the common people called it Lyrpole. One can argue, as I do, that there was a Welsh influence on this name, Lyrpole, by comparing it with the Welsh phrase for the place of the pool, Lle’rpwll. Obviously it is an open question, and one can place the name Lyrpwl side by side with all the other names which have been kept for posterity in historical records, namely Litherpwl, Liverpoole, Liverpolle, Lyerpwll and Leverpoole.

It was in the eighteenth century that the Welsh presence was felt on the streets of Liverpool. One of the far sighted politicians and entrepreneurs of Liverpool but in 1713 bought land on which stands present day Birkenhead. His daughter Alice married a Welshman from Flintshire, Frances Price of Bryn y Pys, and the inheritance came down to the grandson Frances Richard Price. The name of this Welshman has been immortalised in one of the chief street of old Birkenhead, Price Street.

The continual trade with Anglesey was strengthened by the early eighteenth century, in particular the small ports of Dulas and Moelfre, as well as the larger ports of Holyhead, Amlwch and Beaumaris. This can be seen in the ministry of the influential Welsh poet Goronwy Owen. Born in 1723 in Llanfair-mathafarn-Eithaf in Anglesey, he was at Jesus College, Oxford from 1742 to 1745. From 1745 to 1748, he lived in north Wales and in the border town of Oswestry, and from 1748 to 1757 in various parishes outside Wales, serving as a curate in Donington, Shropshire, Walton near Liverpool and Northolt, near London. In 1757-58 he emigrated to Vigrinia, USA where he died. He had a love-hate relationship with Anglesey which became a subject of a great deal of his verses, as well as his family, Elin, his wife, Elin his daughter who died when he was at Walton, and for his two sons who struggled to speak the language as many a Liverpool Welshperson has done since the middle of the eighteenth century. Goronwy Owen had a very close relationship with his mother’s tongue. He said: ‘The more I know of the Welsh language, the more I love and admire it.’

Goronwy Owen steeped himself in the Classics, in the Scriptures, as well as the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym, Sion Cent in particular, but also the best work of John Milton. He was constantly reading the poetry of the Puritan poet. He regarded Milton as a genius, adding that ‘had he born’ in Wales, ‘we, no doubt, should have been the happy nation that could have boasted of the grandest, sublimest piece of poetry in the Universe.’

In another letter, written as he contemplated moving from Shropshire to the Liverpool area, Owen states it well: ‘Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is a book I read with pleasure, nay with admiration and raptures; call it a great sublime, nervous, etc, or if you please, a divine poem.’ To Goronwy John Milton was his hero. ‘Homer’ he says ‘is preferred to Virgil and Milton to both.’

One of the reasons why this cleric and poet decided to move from Donnington in Shropshire to Walton and Liverpool was the fact that there was a sizeable number of Welsh speakers on Merseyside. Donnington was a typical English village. Liverpool was so different. It was growing prosperous port. By the middle of the eighteenth century it had overtaken London and Bristol in the trade to the British West India islands and the new world. By 1720 there were 130 vessels belonging to Liverpool, and ten years they had found another outlet, the west coast of Africa. Liverpool was entering the slave trade in a big way. Huge profits came to the merchants of Liverpool. It mad it a place of importance. Hospitals, churches, were added and the Welsh language was heard on the waterfront and in the streets of the town. Soon after he moved to Walton Goronwy Owen was pleasantly surprised to hear sailors from Holyhead speaking his dialect. Goronwy Owen had another special contact, namely Owen Prichard (c1687-1765), a leading citizen and burgess of Liverpool. He spent many a happy hour in his company. Another compatriot who knew Liverpool was William Morris (1705-63) who belonged to a remarkable family known as the Morrisians of Anglesey. There were three brothers and their letters and impact on Welsh literature has to be reckoned with. Socially and politically the Morrisians were pro Establishment, glad of the conditions that prevailed through the efforts of politicians such as Sir Robert Walpole and extremely critical of the Methodist exhorters which they regarded with disdain. We know that William Morris was living in Liverpool in 1726. He acted as a servant to Owen Prichard. In 1744 Owen Prichard was the Mayor of Liverpool in 1744. A Welshman called John Hughes was the Mayor when William Morris, lived in Liverpool in 1727. Goronwy Owen (1723-1768) came as a curate to St Mary’s Church, Walton in April 1753. He was given an additional £13 to be a teacher in the Classics, in the Grammar School which was situated near the church in Walton. By this time Owen Prichard was resting on his laurels. He spent a great deal of his time, according to the Morrisians, after selling his assets in Liverpool, in Beaumaris after the death of his wife in 1752. But like so many other exiles he could not settle in Beaumaris. By August 1753 according to William Morris he had returned to Liverpool. He also had remarried, and he was in his element as a corn merchant, slave trader and a seller of wine and beer. Prichard hailed from the parish of Llaneugrad in Anglesey and was a cousin to the Morrisian borthers. There was a close connection between Owen Prichard and one of the great charactars of the town, namely Fortunatus Wright (1712-1757), a hero to the inhabitants, as he captured no less than forty-six French vessels in the Western Mediterranean. Captain Fortunatus Wright was a privateer whose boat called the Fame waged a private war against the enemies of England for profits. He was one of many Liverpool pirates. Wright taught Captin William Hutchinson to be as successful as he was. Fortunatus Wright was the role model.

The first wife of Owen Prichard was the mother of the pirate Fortunatus Wrights. After the death of his father, Captin John Wright, Philipa Wright re-married with Owen Prichard. Even Fortunatus Wright sealed his Welsh connection by marrying the second time with an Anglesey woman, Mary Bulkeley, the daughter of William Bulkeley (1691-1760), Bryn-du, a member of the influential and affluent Buckley family of Baron Hill, near Beaumaris. The courtship and the subsequent marriage could be the material for a romantic novel, and the daughter and the five granddaughters. Goronwy Owen, the Anglican Welsh poet, knew Fortunatus Wright. They had one thing in common, a love of alcohol. Who told William Morris, Holyhead that Goronwy Owen used to frequent the waterfront taverns? As he was a customs officer at Holyhead he was in constant touch with sailors who used to travel back and for from the Anglesey port to Liverpool. It was been suggested that Owen Prichard must have told William Morris. I prefer to believe that it was those sailors who had come under the influence of the Methodist Revival which had spread the gossip on the Anglesey born curate. After all Owen Prichard had a business which dealt with wine and beer. You never hear of a brewer complaining of a church curate enjoying his wine.

Another man of Anglesey who had a close connection with Liverpool during the period that Goronwy Owen spent in Walton was Thomas Mosson the superintendent of the Customs in Beaumaris. As Holyhead was under the jurisdiction of Beaumaris as a port, William Morris had to be on good terms now and again, though he complained that Mosson used to keep him from his bed, to the early hours of the morning. We know that Mosson travelled by boat to Beaumaris from Liverpool to see the poet, and that this took place at the end of November 1754. The poet was quite upset that he failed, due to his financial circumstances, to prepare a more substantial meal for Mosson. But the days of Goronwy Owen in Liverpool was slowly daunting him, due to all the funerals he had to take charge of, his visitation to his parishoners, teaching at the Grammar School, worrying about transferring to his two sons the treasures of the Welsh language, and then early in April 1755 his daughter Elin died at the age of fifteen months. The poet had suffered a great deal of illness himself, and he was in charge of his daughter’s funeral on 11 April. There is a record of the funeral in the handwriting of the poet in the Register kept at the Picton Library in Liverpool. Four days after burying his delightful daughter, he was on his way to Middlesex and later on to Virginia. But Goronwy Owen is the first Welsh man of letters ot have lived in Liverpool, but his fellow Welshmen were beginning to move as well as visit the growing port. We have already mentioned the main reason for the influx of the Welsh to Liverpool. They came with the small boats that brought barley, potatoes, stones for the pavements and lime to the port. A large number of Welsh people travelled with these boats, and many of them were soon settled in the area which became known as Welsh town.

It was in 1761 that an Act of Parliament was passed giving permission for the Corporation to build St George’s Dock. This was the main reason for the influx that came in the early 1770s. The Welshmen were used to hard work as agricultural workers and as quarrymen, and in the ten years that it took to build the St George’s Dock they were involved in the project. The wages they received as payment for labouring and building the St George’s Dock was very much better that they would have received back in Wales, and naturally they soon brought their families to be with them in the new environment. In 1770 another huge project was initiated, namely the Leeds and Liverpool, which was completed in 1774. The in 1784 another Act of Parliament was passed so that they could built the King’s Dock and the Queen’s Dock. The King’s Dock was completed in 1788 and the Queen’s Dock in 1796. Most of those men who worked on these tow docks were the labouring poor from north west and north east Wales, namely the counties of Anglesey, Caernarfonshire, Merionethshire, Denbighshire and Flintshire. Some of these migrant settled in the area around Pitt Street. One of these came from Ysgeifiog near Lixwm in Flintshire in 1781. His name was William Llwyd and his wife was called Mari. They attended the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Pitt Street but he did not feel at home in the services. He longed for the language of his home, Welsh rather then English. Llwyd had experienced persecution after becoming a member of the Calvinistic Methodist cause at Berthen Gron in Lixwm. It was a painful and continuous persecution over a period of 20 years, until William Llwyd was forced to leave the Lixwm area for Liverpool. He had suffered more than enough persecution when at the age of 47, he came to the port of Liverpool. Llwyd was fortunate, and obtained work first as a ships carpenter, but he did not stay at this task for a long period. He then went from house to house selling stockings. Llwyd became known as a Salesman, although tradition has it that he worked for some time in the St James Mount quarry. St James Mount became a favourite with the growing Welsh community. William Llwyd was a simple, godly man who could lose his temper easily, especially when anyone questioned his theology. He was a fervent Calvinist. Associated with him in the early venture to hold a Welsh language service in Pitt Street were a number of seafaring men, such as Captian Owen William Morgan, owner of the sailing boat Pennant and Israel Matthew, one of the Pennant hands, who came from Rhoscelyn, Anglesey, Captaint O W Morgan hailed from Llanallgo near Moelfre in Anglesey.

William Llwyd welcomed an Anglesey man who has the honour of being the preacher that gave the first sermon in the Welsh language in Liverpool. The preacher was Owen Thomas Rowlands from Penrhosllugwy. Born in 1735, he had been somewhat erratic in his youth. He had spent periods working in Beaumaris where, within twenty-four hours, he could squander £3 (a large sum in 1755) on playing cards, and drinking beer. Owen Thomas Rowlands had no fear of any human being or an animal. He had wrestled with a poisonous snake and with a raging bull. For a period between 1759 and 1763, he worked in a smithy at Dulas where he came under the ministry of four Methodist exhorters, Hugh Griffiths, Llanddaniel; Siarl Marc, Lleyn; William Jones, Glancothi in Carmarthen and Peter Williams, the biblical exponent from Carmarthen. In 1768 he, along with sixteen fellow Calvinistic Methodists from his home parish, had to appear before a clergyman and the overseer of Lord Boston at Plas Llugwy to give account of their new religion, Methodism. Because Owen Thomas Rowlands would not budge or change his views he was turned out of his smallholding. Owen Thomas Rowlands (at times referred to as Owen Tomas Rolant) found refuge far away from Penrhosllugwy: he walked all the way, nearly as far as Holyhead, to Liverpool. As there was no Welsh religious cause in Liverpool in 1770, Owen Thomas Rowlands found himself in Pitt Street and amongst the followers of John Wesley. When the leaders of this community heard that Owen Thomas Rowlands was a Methodist exhorter, they arranged to hold a special service in Welsh on a weeknight. This became the first Welsh language sermon as far as we know ever delivered in Liverpool.

The name of the preacher is also associated with that of a younger man, seventeen years of age, who went to Liverpool from the same district, Penrhosllugwy. His name was Hugh Evan, son of Evan Dafydd, Ty’n Llan. The Anglicans were so determined to stamp out Methodism in that area of Anglesey that Hugh Evan Davydd has no chice but to leave hie home or see his parents ejected from their smallholding of Ty’n Llan. Owen Thomas Rowlands often visited Liverpool after his initial visit in 1770. On one of his journey, when he was 66 years old, Rowlands told a congregation of Methodists at the Gatehouse, near Bangor:

Yr wyf wedi cerdded yr holl ffordd o Liverpool ac wedi blino fel pe bawn i wedi bod yn hela petris. Lle rhyfedd ydi Liverpool! Wyddoch chi mae yn Liverpool dai â thri uchtwr lloftt! Ond beth ydy rhyfeddau’r iachawdwriaeth! O iachawdwriaeth raso, Rhyfeddod wyt i gyd.

[I have walked all the way from Liverpool and am as tired as if I had been shooting partridges. A strange place is Liverpool! Do you know that there are houses in Liverpool which have three storeys! But what are the wonder of Liverpool when compared with the wonders of salvation! O gracious salvation, what a wonder thou art!]

This great warrior, who loved visiting the Liverpool Welsh of the 1770s, spend his last days amongst the Calvinistic Methodists of Holyhead. Among the pioneers of the Welsh community in Liverpool there were two brothers Evan and William Roberts. They were both from Denbighshire and were among those who were enthusiastic in their search for learning. In 1777 we know that William walked all the way from Liverpool to visit his brother Evan who was recovering from an accident to his leg at his home in Pentrefoelas. William persuaded him to leave the Denbighshire countryside so that he could experience an entirely new world in Liverpool, the coffee houses, the large bowling greens, the open air concerts, sea baths, and to see the tree lined Ladies Walk. The Ranelagh Gardens which had opened in 1759 with a fish pond in the centre of it was a very fashionable pleasure garden. These sights and pursuits attracted visitors in their thousands from Wales and the north of England. Some of the pleasures would not be of such interest to the Methodist brothers Evan and William Roberts or to William Llwyd such as the playhouse in Drury Lane or the Dining and Drinking Clubs, such as The Ugly Club established in January 1743 and the Noble Order of the Bucks which met at the Golden Fleece Inn in Dale Street from 1756,

But William Roberts was able to persuade his brother Evan that the road through the Vale of Clwyd in Liverpool was well worth the effort. That is how Evan Roberts left Pentrefoelas with eight pence in his trousers, walking through Ruthin to Chester, and from there to Eastham where he caught a ferry across the Mersey to Liverpool.

His greatest fear was of the Press Gang but his brother introduced him immediately to a number of Nonconformist ministers and officers in a number of English Chapels that he had been attending. However, the fear of the Press Gang within Liver[pool got the better of him and he gladly left from Manchester, probably in 1779, for he was present at the opening of the Oldham Street Methodist Chapel on 30 March 1781, a ceremony performed by none other than his great hero, John Wesley.

Later Evan Roberts returned to Liverpool where he was captured for the second time by the press gang, and through his brother’s intervention he was release. Evan Roberts went to stay with William Llwyd and his wife Mari at their home in Pitt Street, where both had gathered together a nucleus to hear Welsh Calvinistic Methodist preachers who were willing to travel to Liverpool.

For two years Evans Roberts listened to Welsh Calvinistic preaching on their journey from Anglesey and Merionethshire in particular and would never hear the Arminian theology associated with John and Charles Wesley. But soon he questioned the Calvinistic theology that he heard, much to the annoyance of the emotional William Llwyd who requested Evan Roberts to find another lodging place! His presence created an unpleasant atmosphere in 92 Pitt Street as he buttoned the leading preachers of Calvinistic Methodism such as the scholarly Thomas Charles, founder of the Sunday School movement in Wales, and his staunch friend from his base at Bala, Dafydd Cadwaladr on the difference in the theology of Calvinism and Arminianism. Evan Roberts is an intriguing figure who has a definite place as a pioneer of Welsh Wesleyan Methodism in the town of Liverpool.

The first Welsh preacher to settle in eighteenth century Liverpool was a Denbighshire man, John Davies, a native of Cefn Meiriadog near St Asaph. He and his family came to Liverpool from Henllan in the Vale of Clwyd in 1786. A weaver by trade he was also an acknowledged exhorter within Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. John Davies was incredibly loyal and faithful but not very talented. The Welsh hymn writer Peter John (Peter Fardd) who knew so many of the pioneers in those early days in Liverpool pays them testimonials for loyalty to the fledging Welsh community that was to be found in the vicinity of Old Hall Street and Tithebarn Street and Chapel Street. It was a Welsh language community and one would hear a great deal of Welsh on the street as they would have heard in the rural hamlet of say Cefn Meiriadog or even in the town of St Asaph. The local people called these streets not by its proper names but by the new names of Welsh Court, Welsh Yard, Welsh Chapel Court and the whole area became known as Welsh Town.

Among these early pioneers we come across remarkable women such as Grace Lewis. According to the evidence at our disposal she came to the town from the same area as Owen William Morgan in Anglesey. She became a member at the Methodist Chapel in Pitt Street like William Llwyd, but soon after this transferred her allegiance to the English Baptist Church in Byrom Street, a community which had a most popular minister, Reverend Samuel Medley as leader. He had been a seaman, injured in battle on the high seas, but after his religious conversion he entered the Christian ministry. His evangelical sermon attracted large audiences ever Sunday morning and evening. But Grace Lewis could not enjoy full membership without total immersion and this took place before William Llwyd established regular services at his home. When Grace Lewis heard of this she reverted her steps to 92 Pitt Street, and was accepted by them though they were rather dismayed that she had been baptised as an adult. However she kept her membership with the English Baptists in Byrom Street as well as attending the Welsh Calvinist Methodist gathering. Grace Lewis died in 1793 and she was buried at Dr Fabius Chapel in Everton Road, the officiating minister being Samuel Hedley.

Another female that attended the gathering in the home of William Llwyd was Rachel Hughes, a widow, who later married the hymn writer, Peter Jones (Pedr Fardd). Three children were born to them, Sarah (born in 1802), Margaret (born in 1905) and Eunice (born in 1806). She became like her father a poetess with skills in Welsh strict meters. The pioneers of Pitt Street were few in numbers but zealous, totally possessed by the ethos of the Methodist Revival – such as their contemporaries who were prepared to sail from Aberdaron on the Lleyn peninsula to Aberdovey or Aberystwyth or Llannon in Cardiganshire and then to walk the final stretch to Llangeitho every month to receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at the hand of Daniel Rowland.

It was this small nucleus which greeted Owen Thomas Rowlands and Evan Roberts who decided to establish a Welsh Christian community. It was soon after hearing the first Welsh sermon when they formed the church in the home of William Llwyd. It was around that time they called William Llwyd as an elder, to give guidance and be a leader of the flock. They also felt the need to be sustained by constant preaching, and their hope was in the area that Llwyd hailed from, the county of Flintshire. Even though Flintshire was only 30 miles away it was a difficult, hazardous journey and at times perilous. Furthermore the new church and its congregation were small and its finances were non-existent. They had the zeal and they decided to send William Llwyd to place their circumstances before the Flintshire and Denbighshire Monthly Meeting of the Methodists. Some of the leaders of the Monthly Meeting knew of their efforts, their desire to be spiritually uplifter, their longing to worship God in the Welsh language. The appeal of William Llwyd had a ready response and they decided to assist the small church in Liverpool on the third Sunday of every month by sending a Methodist exhorter or preacher. The three that were given the task of visiting Liverpool was Humphrey Owen from Berthen Gron Chapel in Lixwm, William Davies form nearby Golch and Robert Prys, Plas Winter.

The first to visit the Welsh community was Humphrey Owen, the brother of John Owen, known as the ‘Father of Welsh Methodism in Flintshire’ . The two brothers were the first preachers within the Methodism movement of Flintshire. Humphrey Owen travelled a great deal in north Wales as an evangelist, he had courage and a gift of communicating the Gospel. He also possessed a singing voice which endeared him to small congregations as he could sustain the congregational singing.

William Davies was an entirely different personality, small in stature, suffering extensive ill-health, but devout and zealous. He lived on the outskirts of Holywell, and by trade he was a weaver. On one occasion in 1788 he was preaching in Liverpool, he heard a letter from Edward Jones who used to live in Liverpool and had settled in Manchester being read to the congregation pleading for a preacher to visit them. William Davies volunteered without any hesitation and walked all the way to Manchester. It was this Flintshire weaver who had the opportunity of preaching the first Welsh language sermon in Manchester.

The third preacher that visited Liverpool from Flintshire was Robert Prys, a native of Caernarfonshire. As a young child he moved with his family to live in Plas Winter which was situated not far from the village of Lixwm. Robert Prys was a tall, clumsy individual with an unattractive voice to preach, and his grasps of Calvinism that was limited. Though he had obvious limitations and line frugally, he had a valid contribution to the congregations in Flintshire and to the fledging chapel community of Liverpool.

They met three times a Sunday in the home of William Llwyd for a period of two years. The congregation on the Sunday would average 15 which was more or less the limit. Efforts were made to find a more appropriate and larger meeting place for the Welsh speakers who were settling in the town in numbers. Evan Roberts of Denbigh mentions the large number of young people who had moved to the Tithebarn area as well as a large number of monoglot Welsh people who needed spiritual nourishment in their native language. Roberts noticed that the Welsh speakers tended to wander on a Sunday to the countryside around Liverpool, or frequent the taverns, when a Welsh preacher was not available. Evan Roberts with two of his friends rented a large business room at the bottom of Dale Street so that his fellow countrymen could gather and listen to a Welsh language sermon. They began to hold Sunday services in this large room sometime in 1784, but, the church meetings were still held in the home of William Llwyd. The premises were situated in the street that became known as North Street, and there are fluctuating accounts with regard to the meeting place. It has been described as a large room but without any comfort. William Davies from Holywell called at shed while the Liverpool Welsh author Robert Herbert Williams (‘Corfanydd’) described it as an old coach-house or a stable besides a merchant house. It belonged to a Steptoe kind of person, known as Billy the Ragman or to some Merchant Billy. He had no scruples or respect for the congregation, his aim was to make money. Sometimes when the congregation arrived they would find coffins with bodies inside being stored in part of the room. William Davies mentioned how one Sunday morning tow bodies of people who had drowned in the river Mersey were brought into the room while he was preaching his sermon. Samuel Jones who became an elder of the community mentions how Merchant Billy would rent out the room to gypsies and other travellers to lodge while passing though the town. By then the patience of the Welshmen and Welshwomen had been severely tested and they were extremely frustrated with their meeting place. Their fellow Calvinistic Methodists in Wales were concerned and full of sympathy for the small gathering of believers and they often referred to them as the poor Welshmen who deserved to receive the sympathy of Welsh Methodist chapels. One of the staunchest supporters was the extraordinary Thomas Charles, an Anglican Methodist based at Bala, and they discussed their vision often with him.

They also had the support and advice of John Davies, a native of Cefn Meiriadog near St Asaph, the first Welsh preacher to settle in eighteenth century Liverpool. He and his family came to Liverpool from Henllan in 1786. A weaver by trade, John Davies was an acknowledged exhorter within Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. The Welsh hymn writer Pedr Fardd, already mentioned, pays him an excellent testimonial as a good, faithful and conscientious servant, in the three years he lived in Liverpool. Davies was not of robust health and died in 1789, buried at St Paul’s Anglican Church cemetery.

Most of the Welsh people that came in the last two decades of the eighteenth century from Wales were either young, between 12 and 15 years of age, or extremely poor. Yet their yearning to meet as a distinct community through the medium of the Welsh language encouraged them to consider having a building they could call their own. Most of the community did not live like William Llwyd in Pitt Street but rather in the Welsh town, as it became to be known, where they lived as blacksmiths, craftsmen, tailors, and manual labourers, with Tithebarn Street as the hub of their activities. Tithebarn Street was a poor, narrow street which ran to Mariebon, later known as Marybone a street which attracted in particular the immigrant Irish. Around Tithebarn Street there were areas where the poor people enjoyed playing games, and cockfighting. Palla (ball) and mallu (mallet a hammer) gave its name to Pall Mall and cockfighting to Cockspur Street. A piece of land was bought by the Welsh, of William Llwyd’s organising committee, to build a meeting place which they could call their own. This piece of land was in Pall Mall and in 1786 they began building the first chapel to be built in Liverpool by the Welsh Methodists. It was a simple structure which measured eleven years every way, and it had an open courtyard at the front. Thomas Charles came to inspect it when it was built in the company of William Llwyd. When Llwyd saw a crack in the front of the building, he completely lost his temper, and in his frustration he landed a punch to the face of the builder. Charles was horrified. He asked him: ‘Beth y gwnaethoch fel yna, William bach?’ [Why did you do that, dear William?] Llwyd answered him: ‘Ai meddwl yr ydych y gwna i oddef i dŷ fy Nuw gael cam?’ (Do you think that I would let a house of God suffer?)

A Welsh Calvinistic Chapel was opened at the corner of Prussian Street and Pall Mall, near to the house which used to be the residence of George Stubbs, the celebrated Welsh painter. The whole town of Liverpool was fully aware of the new centre (Pall Mall Welsh Chapel) when it was opened with a great deal of publicity on Whitsun 1787, and the event is recalled in the Gore Annals. But the building would never have been built without the support of ministers such as Thomas Charles, individuals and chapels of northern Wales, and in particular the generosity of Richard Roberts of Melin-y-coed, near Llanrwst who gave a loan of £70 (a huge sum in 1785) while George Gittins of Rhosllanerchrugog gave the sum of £50 on loan and Peter Williams from Berthen Gron, Lixwm a loan of £40, and Humphrey Lloyd of Adwy’r Clawdd near Coedpoeth the loan of £5. Thomas Charles travelled through Anglesey and Caernarfonshire to collect donations towards the Liverpool chapel while another Methodist preacher of Bala, John Evans travelled through Denbighshire and Flintshire with the same appeal. Back at Bala they realised that they had collected £55. Edward Watkin, another Methodist exhorter, was given the task of collecting among the Calvinistic Methodists of Montgomeryshire and his effort came o £6.2.6 . Thomas Charles collected £5-17-0 in Merionethshire for the Welsh chapel. The only Welshman in Liverpool who did contribute a substantial sum was the carpenter, Evan Davies. He gave the sum of £21-10-0. The Association Meetings in north Wales ensured that the loans were repaid, at the Machynlleth Association on 8 April 1790 he received the sum of £40, and £10 had been paid to him at an earlier Association in Ruthin on 31 December 1789. Peter Williams of Lixwm had to wait till the Association at Denbigh on 29 December 1791 for his £40.

The new chapel was fortunate in a number of very talented people that moved into Liverpool around the time that the new chapel was being built. One can refer to Thomas Edwards, a blacksmith, who was a native of Llanelidan in Denbighshire, a fervent believer who had been converted like so many of the eighteenth century Methodists. He began to preach at Pall Mall. Soon he was recognised and ordained as a Minister though he followed his occupation in the smithy in the weekdays. The second individual that we need to introduce is Thomas Hughes, a carpenter, and a native of Bala. He came to Liverpool twelve months after Thomas Edwards, around the spring of 1787, a few months before the opening of Pall Mall, and soon he was asked to give homilies in the Sunday gatherings. In 1789 the Chapel had to be extended as the Welsh people were coming to Liverpool in their dozens as one observer notes. The knowledge that a Welsh religious centre had been opened was one of the main reasons for the in-migration. Many were unwilling to emigrate before 1787 but after the opening of Pall Mall they were able to consider the adventure. As a result, the chapel and its congregation increased in a short period of time, and to meet the need they placed two galleries in the chapel, one of the left side of the sanctuary and the other on the right side. Among the new, larger influx of 1789 one has to note the name of a new lad from Eifionydd, Daniel Jones, the son of the Methodist exhorter and a remembrance of Methodism, Robert Jones of Rhoslan. Daniel Jones was only fifteen years of age when he arrived in 1789 in Liverpool, the year in which William Roscoe, an intellectual and a man of letters and even more important a generous friend to the Welsh, was elected President of the Liverpool Library. Daniel Jones soon prospered in commerce and became one of the leading members of the Pall Mall community. By 1796 he began to preach for it was not easy to cater for all the Sunday services. Pall Mall depended a great deal on Thomas Hughes and Thomas Edwards, and soon after being accepted by the community in Liverpool as preachers, they were enticed to accept invitations to preach in Flintshire and the chapels of the Borderland. Daniel Jones would often ask his father to persuade preachers he met at the Association meetings in north Wales to consider visiting Liverpool. The son himself visited the Association in Pwllheli in 1794 to seek preachers to visit Liverpool for he realised the importance of being taught and guided by men who had been called to proclaim the gospel. Jones believed as most of his contemporaries in Pall Mall that a chapel member had to be completely devoted and dedicated to God and to his word. He would agree with John Calvin: ‘For there is no other lamp that will guide us so well as the word of God.’

They were difficult times in Liverpool. When the news of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth arrived in Liverpool in 1793 it produced for Daniel Jones and William Llwyd a feeling of anxiety, gloom and uncertainty. On 27 January 1793 the colours at the Exchange and Custom-house were hoisted at half-mast and the shipping in the Liverpool port indicated a similar concern. Early in February a meeting of merchants was held at Liverpool which concerned Daniel Jones in which a letter was read from the politician, William Pitt requesting that a deputation should be appointed to travel to London, for the purpose of discussing with the ministers of the Crown, on what was called ‘protection necessary to be afforded to the shipping of the port.’ Liverpool merchants sent three capable spokesmen to London, namely George Case, Richard Walker and John P Richard. Not everyone agreed with a war against France. William Roscoe and Dr James Currie protested vehemently in speech and articles against the war which to them was unnecessary. But their words had no impact on the majority of the population though there would be some in the Welsh community who would support Roscoe and his fellow radicals. But the propaganda in favour of confrontation was obvious, and most felt that the French were destroyers of civilisation. Within five months of the declaration of war, sixty-seven Liverpool privateers were either at sea or ready to start, and soon they reaped a rich harvest. Soon the inhabitants of Liverpool would see French prisoners of war being marched to the new Borough Goal, built in 1786 in Great Howard Street on the fringes of the Welsh town, and first used in 1793. Even this prison was insufficient with six years to cater for the French prisoners. By 1799 they numbered 4,009 at Great Howard Street. Cheerful and innovative, they acted plays and entertainment which the inhabitants of the Welsh town supported, even the most prosperous of them buying their pretty toys which they managed to create in the captivity.

Many of the Welsh who had emigrated were caught in the economic crisis. Unemployment was rife. The cost of living had risen, and in particular, the essentials. Tea was priced at fourteen shillings a pound, sugar, a shilling or fifteen pence, salt was sold at five pence. It was a source of concern, but the biggest worry for the Welsh were the press gang which was more energetic during the conflict that even in the 1780s when Evan Roberts found himself in their clutches.

There were a large number of Welsh sailors in the Welsh town, and they lived in fear during the 1790s of the press gang. Daniel Jones mentions it vividly in November 1793:

‘Nos Fercher diweddaf cafodd rhai o’r aelodau ddiangfa gyfyng wrth ddyfod o’r Seiat; llwyddasant i ddianc i ryw dŷ, a chael a chael i gau y drws a’r ‘gang’ ar eu sodlau! Y fath achos sydd gan Cymru i ddiolch i Dduw am y rhyddid sydd ganddi i fyned i foddion gras heb ofni gorfod myned i faes y rhefel nac i long ‘Man of War’. [Last Wednesday night some of the members had a narrow escape as they cam to the ‘Seiat’; they succeeded to escape to a house, and was fortunate in closing the door, with the gang on their heels. Wales has a great deal to be grateful to God for the freedom it has in being able to go to the means of grace without worrying about going to the theatre of war or to man the war ships.]

It was obvious that those who came to preach to Pall Mall were afraid of the press gang as we find in the jottings of Daniel Jones. He writes:

‘Nid oes raid i John Roberts, Llanllyfni, na John Edwards (Tre’r Dryw, Môn) ofni dyfod yma ond iddynt ddyfod yn ystod y dydd, cyn iddi nosi, a chant lety wrth ymyl y capel yn nhy Thomas Hughes.

[There is no need for John Roberts, Llanllyfni, nor John Edwards (Tre’r Dryw, Anglesey) to be afraid of coming here but they have to come during the day, before it darkens, and they will have accommodation near the chapel in the home of Thomas Hughes].

He also mentions the suffering and the grief experienced by the families of those caught by the fierce and unscrupulous sailors operating in the press gang:

‘Neithiwr y bu byd dychrynllyd ymhob cwr o’r dref, pressio ofnadyw, llusgo ugeiniau o bobl i’r rhyfel, bodd neu anfodd. Rhyfedd fel y mae gwragedd yn wylo, a mamau a chwiorydd yn llefain: “O fy ngwr!” medd un; “O fy mab, fy mab!” medd y llall. “Ni does ond y swn a’r crio drwy’r dref o ben bwy gilydd… Gwelais “gang” yn llusgo un dyn, fel gŵr bonheddig o ran ei wisgiad. Nacaodd un Cadben llestr o Belfast ddyfod gyda’r “gang”; yn Strand Street yr oedd. Darfu iddynt, hwythau ei saethu yn y funyd a’i drywanu a chleddyf. Yno mae ei gelain heddyw yn gorwedd yn ddrych i bawb sydd yn myned heibio i’w weled’

[Last night there were terrible scenes in every part of the town, press gang at work, bringing dozens of people to war, willing or unwilling. It is strange to hear the women crying, and the mothers and sisters, shouting: “Oh my husband” says one; “Oh my son, my son” says another one, “Oh my brother” says the other. There is nothing to hear but the noise and crying through the town from one end to another… I saw a gang dragging a man, a gentleman from his clothing. A Captain of a ship from Belfast refused to go with the gang, this was in Strand Street. They then, at that moment in time, shot him and inserted a sword in him. He is today a dead body lying there as a mirror to those passing by to see him.]

No wonder some of the sailors from Wales, in incoming vessels, would leap into the river Mersey, and swim to the Seacombe and New Brighton. They always had a welcome by the celebrated innkeeper, known as Mother Redcap, whose house lay on the Liscard shore. She built for herself a reputation as a friend of the hunted sailors, and Mother Redcap, according to Ramsay Muir, ‘had subterranean hiding-places for them.’

But when in 1796, the naval forces of Holland and Spain were joined to those of France, and the main impetus of this large fleet was turned against Britain, the danger became obvious. This was exemplified on 22 February 1797 when news reached Liverpool that a French army had landed in Fishguard in west Wales. The panic increased as the story reached the port, for Liverpool was regarded as a target for it was the town which built the ships of war, and the centre for the privateers, employed by Lord Derby and other aristocrats, who had destroyed a large number of lucrative French ships. Half the population of Liverpool fled to the countryside. Daniel Jones saw cart after cart of possessions taken up Old Hall Street, Prescot Road, Mount Pleasant, Brownlow Hill, with women and frightened children in their tears. All the roads leading out of Liverpool looked like a huge fair. Volunteers were called for, and in four days over 1,000 men had been enrolled to defend Liverpool. Ramsay Muir mentions how the town organised itself against the threat:

‘Fifty guns were mounted on the fort, which still stood on the shore, near where the Prince’s Dock now is; and the points along the coast; vessels, mounted with guns, were moored at the mouth of the river to serve as floating batteries, and pilot boats were sent to reconnoitre for the enemy. The alarm turned out to be needles; the small force which had been landed was quickly forced to surrender.’

We are told that nobody were more energetic in the plans outlined by Ramsay Muir than the Welsh community. To Daniel Jones:

‘teimlent yn ddiogofus oherwydd i’r gelyn osod ei droed ar ddaear Cymru, a theimlent rwymau i amddiffyn anrhrydedd eu gwlad.’

[They felt annoyed that the enemy had placed his foot on the soil of Wales, and they felt an obligation to safeguard the privileges of their country.]

Daniel Jones was involved in 17985 in an interesting project on behalf of his father, when he persuaded Nevetts of Castle Street to print a collection of hymns for Welsh chapels under the title of Grawnsypiau Canaan, neu Gasgliad o Hymnau, mostly the hymns of the third leader of real significance in the history of Welsh Methodism, William Williams or Williams Pantycelyn (for that is how Welsh chapel people refer to him). Pantycelyn was his homestead, a few miles from Llandovery, in the Carmarthenshire countryside. Robert Jones as editor took too much liberty with the hymns of Williams and brought criticism upon himself though the hymnbook was widely used. For a period of fifty years this was the hymnbook in circulation in the Welsh chapels of Liverpool and north Wales. The first edition of 4,000 copies came to £75/12/0 and six more editions appeared between 1795 and 1831, though only one, the edition of 1816 was published by Nevetts of Castle Street.

The Welsh community were fortunate also in the provision made for them by the Anglican church which had two Welsh speaking clergy at their disposal in Liverpool, namely Reverend Lewis Pugh, curate of St Ann, and who resided in 1790 at 16 Christian Street, Everton Road, and the Reverend John Davies, curate of St Paul’s Church and who resided at 28 St Paul’s Square. In November 1793 the Bishop of Chester authorised a Welsh language service at St Paul, and Reverend Lewis Pugh also conducted Welsh services at St Nicholas on Sunday evenings. The Church of St Paul was always full to overflowing at the Welsh services. It had a choir as well as an orchestra to support the hymn singing, a bassoon, a clarinet and the flute. The precentor was Edward Jones, a carpenter by trade, and who also could play the bassoon. He was the first of a long line of precentors that served the Welsh communities in Liverpool, and he had a great dial of musical knowledge. Reverend Lewis Pugh is described as an enthusiastic Welshman, proud of his Welsh town. According to the historical records, the Corporation of Liverpool paid him £60 a year as a ‘missionary’ or a ‘Welsh Lecturer’ amongst the Welsh people, as well as a further salary for officiating in weddings and funerals of Welsh people. It was he between 1793 and 1813 who officiated usually amongst the Welsh, and a wedding for example was not regarded as official if it was not held in an Anglican Church. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists did not become part of an official religious body until 1811. Reverend Lewis Pugh was involved in the dreadful accident that took place on Sunday 11 February, 1810 at the parish church of St Nicholas by which twenty two persons were killed and many more were seriously injured. A few minutes before the start of the 10.30 am service, the key-stone of the bell tower gave way and fell through the roof to the centre aisle. Thomas Baines has graphically and in minute detail described the tragic event:

‘The spire and tower, in their fall, carried with them the peal of six bells, the west gallery, the organ, and the clergyman’s reading-desk, totally crushing all that they came in contact with. The ringers who were in the tower, ringing the bells, were fortunate enough to escape, with the exception of one who was caught in the ruins, along with a local boy, who was in the steeple at the time when it fell… The man was only slightly wounded, but the boy died soon after… The Rev L Pughe, the officiating minister for the day, entered the church at nineteen minutes past ten, having himself noticed the clock on his entrance. He proceeded immediately to the great south door, and was in the act of entering it, when he was stopped for a few seconds by the children of Moorefield School who were passing into the church at the same time. On his appearance a young woman, a teacher in the school, and one of the unfortunate sufferers began to separate the children on each side, to afford him a passage, when he heard a person exclaim, “For God’s sake, Mr Pughe, turn back.” He stepped back, and, looking up, perceived the spire sinking down towards the east. Immediately the whole fell in, burying the young teacher and all the children in the ruins, and killing her and seventeen of the children. These poor innocents were all interred at St John’s Church on the following Tuesday, and were followed to the grave by a great number of children of their own age, friends and acquaintances, decently habited in white.”

Lewis Pughe has his rightful place in the growth and emergence of the Welsh town and on 31 March 1797 we have Daniel Jones writing to his father as well as to Thomas Charles in Bala on the desire of the Welsh community of Pall Mall to extend the chapel in the near future he writes:

‘Gweled yr oeddym angenrheidrwydd o helaethu y cappel; mae’r Society wedi cynyddu i 120 neu ragor, a’r gwrandawyr yn fwy prydnawn sabothau na all y capel yn gyfleus gynnal, a chan fod cynifer o filoedd o’n cenedl y Cymry yn y dref, sicr ydym pe byddai le y deuai llawer mwy i wrando nag sydd. Am hynny fe benderfynwyd yn y dywedig gyfarfod ddanfon atoch chwi a Mr Charles… chwi a’r rhai sydd wedi eu nodi yn Drustees. A ydych chwi yn fodlon?’

[We see the need to enlarge the Chapel, the Society has increased to 120 and more, and the listeners on Sunday afternoon are more than the chapel can cope, and as there are thousands of our fellow Welshmen in the town, we are certain if there were more room more still would come to our services. For this reason we decided in the meeting to send to you and Mr Charles… you and those mentioned as Trustees. Are you in agreement?’]

The Trustees took their time but by 1799 the authority was given and the Pall Mall Chapel was extended for the second time by enlarging the galleries and including the area in the front of the Chapel. The cost came to £600 when the work was completed in the autumn of 1799. By then William Llwyd had completed his dream of laying the foundations of a vibrant Welsh community which was on the verge of enlarging itself in the new century, in a way that he could never have envisaged. It would entail the creation of an urbanised Welsh settlements, the birth of a middle class Welsh community, which belonged to two worlds; the world of the local cosmopolitan community and the world of Welshness that is Welsh culture, language and values. The history of the Welsh in Liverpool is part of the history of Wales as well as part of the history of Liverpool. Daniel Jones was as much concerned at the threat from the press gang in the strand as he was concerned at inviting the most articulate Welsh Calvinistic preacher of the day, Thomas Charles, to Liverpool. He had his feet firmly placed on the soil of Eifionydd as well as in Pall Mall. The Welsh in Liverpool have to be seen as an extension of the Welsh nation, sharing so much in common, but also different. The anger at the French who landed in Fishguard was extended to the Welsh people in the threatened city of Liverpool, for the Welsh realised even then in 1797 that they belonged to two different stands, the Liverpool home and their Welsh roots. This would be the concerns of the Welsh throughout the years, some would be swallowed by Liverpool, loosing their language and their allegiance, while the others would retain their Welshness, with two tongues and two cultures, spending their time in safeguarding the meeting places of the new community and been involved in new issues, organisations and movements which would retain their distinctive contribution to their adopted city as well as to the nation they were proud to belong to. Very little happened in Wales which did not have repercussions in the Liverpool Welsh community, and this was felt in the first formalised Welsh town of the Welsh diaspara on Merseyside. Other similar settlements and townships would follow.