File NLW MS 20728C. - Letters

The Rev. A. W. Wade-Evans (1875-1964), was the rector of Wrabness, Essex, and a historian.

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963), was a prolific novelist, poet, and literary critic. He wrote one of the most remarkable autobiographies in the English language; he was the author of several works of popular philosophy; and throughout his long life he was an obsessive letter writer and diarist. Although never fully accepted as part of the ‘canon’ of English novelists, he is widely regarded as one of the great novelists of the 20th century, and his admirers include many eminent writers and critics. He was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, on 8 October 1872. In 1879 the family moved to Dorchester, Dorset, eventually settling, in 1885, in Montacute, Somerset. Powys therefore spent most of his childhood within the borders of the ancient kingdom of ‘Wessex’. Its landscape – which was also the setting for Thomas Hardy’s novels – came to dominate his imagination. He was the eldest of eleven children in a family notable for its strong-willed and individualistic characters. Two of his brothers, Theodore Francis Powys (1875-1953) and Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939), also became distinguished writers, while his sister Marian Powys (1882-1972) settled in New York, becoming a leading lace designer and a world authority on the history of lace making. Their father Charles Francis Powys (1843-1923) was a clergyman who took great pride in his Welsh ancestry, while their mother Mary Cowper Powys (1849-1914) was descended from the English poets John Donne and William Cowper. John Cowper was educated at Westbury House preparatory school, Sherborne, and Sherborne School (1883–1891), and subsequently at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1896 he published his first volume of verse, Odes and Other Poems, and in the same year he married Margaret Alice Lyon (1874-1947). They had one son, Littleton Alfred Powys (1902-1954), but the marriage was a failure and Powys and his wife eventually separated. After leaving Cambridge Powys had found work as a teacher at various girls' schools before becoming an extension lecturer affiliated to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Between 1909 and 1930, he earned his living as an itinerant lecturer in the USA, where he won fame as an inspired and charismatic orator. His first novel, Wood and Stone, was published in New York in 1915, and his first full length work of of popular philosophy, The Complex Vision, appeared in 1920. During a visit to Missouri, in 1921, he met Phyllis Playter (1894-1982) who became his life companion, his muse, and a powerful influence upon his literary career. While in the USA Powys also made the acquaintance of several eminent American literary figures, including the poet, Edgar Lee Masters, and the writers, Theodore Dreiser and Henry Miller. He reached his maturity as a novelist with the publication, in 1929, of his fifth novel, Wolf Solent. Its success led him give up lecturing and devote his life to writing. In 1930 he and Playter went to live in Phudd Bottom, upper New York state. There followed two other novels of immense scope and psychological subtlety: A Glastonbury Romance (1932), and Weymouth Sands (1934). In the same year he published his very frank and revealing Autobiography. Although written in America, these books are full of sensuous descriptions of the ‘Wessex’ landscapes of his youth. Like Powys himself, many of the protagonists of his novels are introspective characters who develop a personal ‘mythology’ as a means of coming to terms with the world. In 1935, while in his sixties, Powys fulfilled a long cherished ideal by moving to live in Wales. For twenty years, he and Phyllis Playter made their home in Corwen, Meirionnydd, where Powys immersed himself in the language, history and mythology of the country. He also made the acquaintance of several eminent Welsh academics and writers, including Iorwerth Peate, the founder of the Welsh Folk Museum, and Gwyn Jones, Viking scholar and translator of the Mabiniogion. Powys's two late masterpieces, Owen Glendower (1940) and Porius (1951), belong to this period. In 1955 he and Playter moved to a quarryman’s cottage at Blaenau Ffestiniog. John Cowper Powys died at the Memorial Hospital, Blaenau Ffestiniog, on 17 June 1963.

Yr oedd D. J. Williams (1885-1970), Abergwaun, yn llenor a chenedlaetholwr.

Ganwyd David John Williams ar 26 Mehefin 1885 yn ffermdy Penrhiw Fawr ym mhlwyf Llansawel, yn fab i John a Sarah Williams (née Morgans), ac yn 1891 symudodd y teulu i Abernant, Rhydcymerau.

Mynychodd Ysgol Gynradd Rhydcymerau, 1891-1898. Rhwng 1902 a 1906 bu D. J. Williams yn gweithio fel glöwr yn Ferndale, Cwm Rhondda; Y Betws, Rhydaman; a Blaendulais. Cyn hynny bu'n gweithio ar y tir. Yn 1906 bu'n ddisgybl yn ysgol ragbaratoawl Mr Stephens, Llanybydder, ac yn 1908 fe'i penodwyd yn athro heb drwydded yn Ysgol Llandrillo yn Sir Feirionnydd. Mynychodd Ysgol yr Hen Goleg, Caerfyrddin, o dan Joseph Harry, 1910-1911, ac yn 1911 aeth i Brifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth gan raddio mewn Cymraeg yn 1914, a Saesneg yn 1915. Bu'n allweddol mewn sefydlu cylchgrawn Y Wawr, cylchgrawn Cymraeg cyntaf Prifysgol Cymru ac fe'i penodwyd yn olygydd cyntaf. Enillodd Ysgoloriaeth Meyricke i Goleg yr Iesu, Rhydychen, am ysgrifennu traethawd ar 'The nature of literary creation' gan raddio mewn Saesneg yn 1918. Bu'n dysgu Cymraeg yn Ysgol Lewis Pengam am dri mis yn 1918. Yn 1919 fe'i penodwyd yn athro Saesneg ac Ymarfer Corff yn Ysgol Ramadeg Abergwaun ac yn athro Cymraeg yno o 1937 nes iddo ymddeol yn 1945.

Priododd Jane (Siân) Evans, a oedd yn chwaer i Wil Ifan, ar 24 Rhagfyr 1925, a symud i 49 High Street (a fu gynt yn dafarn y Bristol Trader), Abergwaun, a dyfodd yn fan cyfarfod i ffrindiau lu. Bu'n feirniad cyson ar gystadlaethau rhyddiaith yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, ac yn Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Llanrwst 1951 yr oedd yn un o feirniaid y fedal ryddiaith. Lluniodd ei feirniadaeth gyntaf tra yng ngharchar Wormwood Scrubs ar gyfer cystadleuaeth y stori fer yn Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Machynlleth 1937. Yr oedd yn un o'r tri a fu'n gyfrifol am losgi'r Ysgol Fomio yn Llŷn ac fe'i carcharwyd am naw mis fel canlyniad. Ym mlynyddoedd olaf ei ddyddiau bu'n gefnogwr i ymdrechion Cymdeithas yr Iaith dros hawliau'r Gymraeg.

Bu'n ymwneud â'r Blaid Lafur cyn ymuno â'r Blaid Genedlaethol Gymreig pan ffurfiwyd hi yn 1925. Yn Ysgol Haf Plaid Cymru a gynhaliwyd yn Abergwaun yn 1964 cafwyd cyfarfod i anrhydeddu D. J. Williams a Siân ei wraig, a darllenodd Waldo Williams ei gywydd mawl iddo.

Bu D. J. Williams yn Ysgrifennydd Cymrodorion Abergwaun, 1920-1928, ac yn Llywydd, 1936-1937, gan gynhyrchu sawl drama. Cafodd ei benodi yn Llywydd Undeb Prifysgolion Cymru yn 1935, ac yn 1957 cyflwynwyd gradd DLitt iddo er anrhydedd gan Brifysgol Cymru. Yn 1965 cafodd ei ethol yn Llywydd yr Academi Gymreig ac yn yr un flwyddyn cyhoeddwyd cyfrol deyrnged iddo wedi'i golygu gan ei gyfaill J. Gwyn Griffiths.

Bu farw D. J. Williams wedi iddo roi anerchiad gwladgarol mewn cyngerdd cysegredig yng Nghapel Rhydcymerau ar 4 Ionawr 1970, ac yno y cynhaliwyd yr angladd. Ar 17 Medi 1977 dadorchuddiwyd cofeb iddo yn Abernant, Rhydcymerau, gan Cassie Davies a threfnwyd gweithgareddau i'w goffáu, gan gynnwys pererindod o Gaerfyrddin i Rydcymerau gan ieuenctid y sir.