Welsh Journals

EVAN PAN JONES-LAND REFORMER IN his weekly review of the Welsh press for the South Wales Daily News, a correspondent, Rhydycheiniwr, attempted to describe the spirit of the age. The year was 1893. 'The return wave of nationalism in Wales has brought with it many strange things, good, bad and indifferent. It has brought the cry for Disestablishment, for Welsh Home Rule, for a Welsh University; it has brought a Welsh Land Commission, tithe wars and socialism; it has produced Professor Rhys and Mr. Owen Edwards, Mr. Tom Ellis and Mr. Lloyd George, Michael Jones and Dr. Pan Jones, the Dafydd ap Gwilym Society, and other national societies, it has given us national magazines from Cymru and the Geninen downwards; it has "revived" the Welsh language, the Welsh Church and the eisteddfod. In a word it has infused a new spirit into the whole of Welsh life-political, social and religious.'1 A shrewd commentator, RJiydycheiniwr had summarized all the elements that went into the making of that elusive phenomenon that may be called, for want of a better term, nationalism. Few modern historians would challenge either his list of leading issues or his general conclusions. But of the six personalities he mentioned, five only have an undisputed place in Welsh history. It will be the aim of this article to explain why Dr. Pan Jones was included among the leading figures of the age. Born in 1834 near Newcastle Emlyn, Evan Jones was the posthumous son of an itinerant labourer. His mother scraped a living as a dairy maid and supplemented her meagre income by knitting and basket weaving; before he was nine years old, Evan, too, was skilled at knitting and weaving. Although a sickly child, he was soon engaged in a more profitable employment, stone breaking. His formal education during these years consisted of periodic visits to five different 'schools' held in various barns and cottages in the Llandysul area, but his mother taught him to read the Bible. He was evidently a promising scholar, since he was soon confirmed and appointed a Sunday school teacher at Horeb Independent chapel. 1 South Wales Daily News 11 July 1893. 2 The biographical details are based on Pan Jones's own account, published in Oes Gofion (Bala, n.d. [1911] ), and R. G. Owen's account in Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig, 'Atodiad', P. 1.053.