Welsh Journals

The Seafaring Preacher: A Note on Captain Thomas Davies, JP (1825-1905) Ivor Thomas Rees Possibly the most colourful, if not unusual, of the ordained ministers to contest a parliamentary election in Wales, or anywhere else for that matter, was Thomas Davies, a sailing ship captain and merchant, Calvinistic Methodist, total abstainer and Liberal Unionist. A Pembrokeshire man, he lived for most of his life in Swansea and became councillor, alderman, mayor and justice of the peace. Thomas Davies was born at St Davids, Pembrokeshire, in 1825. He had a better general education than many of his generation. As was common among Welsh coastal families, young Thomas went to sea and was earmarked for a successful maritime career. His hopes and those of others were eventually fulfilled when he became a ship's captain, closing this stage in his life as captain of a clipper in 1860. Davies had held strong religious convictions from his youth and, as a captain, he felt a great responsibility for the moral well-being of his crew. The Calvinistic Methodist Presbytery to which he belonged empowered him to preach to his sailors when in port and to any others whenever convenient. One wonders what effect his powerful oratory in favour of temperance had on his captive congregation just before its members were allowed ashore. Swansea In 1860 he set up in business as a steam and sailing shipbroker. The 1881 census describes him as 'coal merchant and alderman', the coal being supplied to steam ships, despite his belief that they would come to nothing. After leaving the sea, he lived in Briton Ferry for some time before moving to the Swansea area to Glais, 3 Picton Place, Swansea, in 1991 and Gwernllwynwyth, Llansamlet, at the time of the 1886 election. There was a short stay at Llandrindod Wells (because of ill-health in his family) and briefly in Caernarfonshire, soon after marrying his second wife, Jane, before finally settling at Mumbles, at Gwern. Church Place. He was married twice and had a large family. (The 1881 census declares him to be 56, his wife, Jane, to be 41 and with six children aged between two and eleven years.) The census also