Sir Richard Richards, Lord Chief Baron, was born in the year 1752. In the whole circle of the profession, no man stood higher in private estimation, or public respect. As a lawyer and a judge, his decisions, particularly in exchequer cases, were sound, and evinced considerable acuteness. He long enjoyed the friendship and confidence of Lord Chancellor Eldon, for whom, on several occasions, he presided under special commissions as speaker of the House of Lords. He was appointed on the fourth of May, 1813, chief justice of Chester, one of the barons of the exchequer in 1814, and in April, 1817, on the death of Sir A. Thomson, Lord Chief Baron, Sir R. Richards succeeded him in that high office. He died in London, on the 11th of November, 1823.
Grufydd Roberts, a learned grammarian, who was educated at the University of Sienna, in Italy, under the patronage of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. He printed his valuable “Welsh Grammar” at Milan, in the year 1567.
Rev. Daniel Rowlands, rector of Llangeitho, in Cardiganshire, was born in the year 1713. He was a very distinguished minister of the gospel, who, by the mighty power of his extraordinary eloquence, roused some of his countrymen from that lethargy into which the whole country had sunk as to religion. His preaching was so valued, and such the benefits derived from it, that many flocked to hear him from every part of the Principality. He continued rising in the public esteem till his death, which happened on October 10, 1790. He was reputed among the Calvinistic Methodists; but he taught particular tenets, and was the founder of a distinct sect, now pretty numerous in Wales, and denominated Rowlandists after his name.
David Samwell, an elegant poet, who was a native of Nantglyn, in Denbighshire. He was surgeon to the ship Discovery, commanded by Captain Cook, and was an eye-witness of the death of that celebrated navigator, of which melancholy event he wrote a circumstantial account in the Biographia Britannica. He died in the autumn of the year 1799.
Rhydderch Sion, a poet and grammarian, who lived from about the year 1700 to 1750. The latter part of his life he passed as a printer at Shrewsbury, where he published his “Welsh Grammar,” and a small “Welsh Vocabulary.”
Trevredyn Sion, an eminent divine among the Nonconformists, who flourished as a theological writer from about the year 1670 to 1720; and who published his opinions in a book, which is an elegant specimen of the Silurian dialect.
Prys Thomas, of Plâs Iolyn, a distinguished poet who lived from about the year 1560 to 1610. He was a gentleman of an ancient family and large property in Denbighshire; who, being of a wild and roving disposition, fitted out a privateer in which he went to try his fortune against the Spaniards. It appears also from one of his poems that he was an officer in the land service, and was at Tilbury when Queen Elizabeth reviewed the array then assembled there.
Davydd Edward o Vargam, an eminent poet of Glamorgan, who was admitted a graduate of the Gorfedd for that province in the year 1620, presided there in 1660, and died in 1690. Many of his productions are preserved, but his most important work is the “Augmentation of the Collection of the Bardic Mysteries,” formed by Llywelyn o Llangewydd.
Alderman Waithman was, indeed, “the architect of his own fortune.” He was born near Wrexham, North Wales, in 1764, of parents of virtuous character, but in humble life. His father died soon afterwards; and his mother re-marrying, Waithman, when an infant, was adopted by an uncle, a respectable linendraper, in Bath, and sent to the school of one Moore, an ingenious man, the economy of whose plan of education led all his pupils to acquire the habit of public and extemporaneous speaking. Mr. Waithman was afterwards taken into the business of his uncle; on whose death, about 1788, he obtained a situation at Reading, whence he proceeded to London, and lived with a respectable linendraper until he became of age. He then married, and opened a shop at the south end of Fleet Market, nearly on the precise site of the monument there erected to his memory. His activity and success next enabled him to remove to more extensive premises, at the corner of Bridge-street and Fleet-street, where he always honoured the high character of a London citizen and tradesman. He retired from his business about twelve years since. He appears to have commenced his political career about the year 1794; when, at a Common Hall, he submitted a series of resolutions upon the war with France, and enforcing the necessity of a reform in parliament; which resolutions were triumphantly carried, and laid the foundation of his popularity. He was next elected into the Common Council, where the speeches, resolutions, petitions and addresses, which he moved and carried, would fill a considerable volume. His friends, and his own well-directed ambition, next prompted him to seek to represent the city of London in parliament; but his efforts were unsuccessful, till, at the general election of 1818, he was returned by a great majority, having polled 4,603 votes. He next became alderman of his ward, Farringdon Without, the most considerable in the city. At the general election, in 1820, he lost his seat by 140 votes. In the same year he served as Sheriff of London and Middlesex, with activity and intelligence; as he filled the office of Lord Mayor in 1823–24. At the elections of 1826, 1830, 1831, and 1833 he was again returned for the City. He died in February, 1833, and was buried in St. Bride’s church, Fleet street. A glance at these few data of the Alderman’s useful life will bear out the proposition that he was “the architect of his own fortune.” He owed nothing to court, or even City patronage; but, even amidst the turmoil of a political life, he accumulated a respectable fortune; for, it should be remembered that he became an active politician forty years since, or within ten years after he had established himself in business. He was a man of unflinching integrity and untiring industry—qualities which make their possessor rich indeed. As an orator, he was characterized rather by fluency than finery of language: he preferred common to fine sense, and his experience in matters of the great stage of the world was very considerable.
Edward Williams, master of Rotherham Academy, was born November the 14th, 1750, at Glancllwyd near Denbigh. The rudiments of his education he received at various schools in the neighbourhood, but having at the age of twenty, decided on entering the Christian ministry, he was placed under private tuition. If a few years time he was sent to prosecute his studies at the Dissenting Academy of Abergavenny. His first settlement in the ministry was at Ross, in Herefordshire, where he was ordained in 1776. A few years after this, Mr. Williams was requested to direct the concerns of the seminary at Abergavenny, but as he declined that proposal, the academy was removed from Abergavenny to Oswestry, where Mr. Williams now commenced the delivery of a course of college lectures, which he continued for about ten years, when he transferred the academy to other hands, and removed to Birmingham in 1792. After spending three years at the latter place, he received an invitation to superintend the concerns of the Independent Academy at Rotherham, in Yorkshire, to which station he removed in 1795, and that station he continued to occupy to the period of his death, March 9, 1813. A diploma from Edinburgh constituting him Doctor of Divinity, was received in 1792. Among the numerous productions of his pen are a reply to Mr. Abraham Booth on the “Baptismal Controversy,” two volumes, duodecimo, an “Abridgement of Dr. Owen’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” four volumes, octavo, an “Essay on the Equity of Divine Government, and the Sovereignty of the Divine Grace.”