William Evans (divine)

Life

Evans was educated at the college at Ystradwalter, then under the presidency of the Rev. Rees Prytherch. He was ordained at Pencader, near Carmarthen, in 1688, and continued pastor there for fifteen years. In 1703 he removed to Carmarthen to become pastor of the presbyterian congregation, and received in his house students for the Christian ministry. He has been regarded as the founder of the Welsh Academy, from the fact that the education of divinity students first assumed under him a collegiate form.

Evans was patronised both by the London funds and by the liberality of wealthy dissenters. Dr. Daniel Williams bequeathed a sum of money towards his support, and it continued to his successors. He is supposed to have retired in 1718, and he died in 1720.

Works

In 1707 Evans published in Welsh The Principles of the Christian Religion, based apparently on Westminster Assembly's catechism; in 1714 he published and wrote a preface for Gemmeu Doethineb ("Gems of Wisdom"), a work by his old tutor Rees Prytherch. In 1717 he wrote and long preface to his friend and neighbour Iago ab Dewi's translation of Matthew Henry's Catechism; in 1757 Abel Morgan published Evans's Principles of the Christian Religion, which he had adapted so as to teach adult baptism.