Davies, Gwilym, 1879-1955

Person

Davies, Gwilym, 1879-1955

Gwilym Davies (1879-1955) was born at Cwmfelin, Bedlinog, Glamorgan. He began preaching in 1895, and trained at the Midland Baptist College, Nottingham, and at Rawdon College. There he won the Pegg Scholarship, enabling him to enter Jesus College, Oxford, where he edited The Baptist Outlook. In 1906, he was ordained minister at Broad Haven, Pembrokeshire, and married Annie Margaretta Davies. She died in December the same year and their baby son died four months later. He later served as minister in Carmarthen, 1908-1915, Abergavenny, 1915-1919, and Llandrindod, 1919-1922, after which he retired from the ministry. He co-founded the Welsh School of Social Services in 1911, to apply Christian principles to social questions. He also championed the rights of boys from reformatory schools, who were not always justly treated by their employers. In 1922, he co-founded with Lord David Davies of Llandinam the Welsh council of the League of Nations, with the aim of securing co-operation between the world's nations, and served as its director 1922-1945. Under his direction, the council's Welsh Education Committee's draft model constitution for an international education organisation greatly influenced the creation of UNESCO. Davies is probably remembered best for initiating in 1922 the peace message of the youth of Wales to the youth of the world, now broadcast annually on 18 May. He was also the first person to broadcast in Welsh, on St David's Day, 1923. In January 1942, he married Mary Elizabeth Ellis of Dolgellau, only the second ever woman to be appointed a school inspector in Wales. He had suffered ill-health since a teenager, and died in January 1955; his ashes were scattered at Lavernock Point, Penarth.