Welsh Journals

John Peter (loan Pedr), 1833-1877.* By R. T. Jenkins, M.A., LL.B. ONE who is no bibliographer, and yet is honoured by an invitation to address a Bibliographical Society, is some- what hard put to it. But it so happens that John Peter, or loan Pedr, has been for very many years a subject of interest to me. As a boy, I often heard his name in the little town in which I was brought up. Among the trees which flanked a pleasant footpath near the town was one whose trunk and branches forked in a curious way so as to form a complete and very comfortable arm-chair, and upon it someone had carved the words Cadair loan Pedr." Many an hour had I spent in this chair, at times wondering about this legendary predecessor of mine, whose austere and heavily-bearded portrait frowned at me from many a parlour-wall in the town-bearing an uncomfort- able resemblance to the revered but rather awe-inspiring Professor Hugh Williams, and, like him, a standing rebuke to the levity and idleness of youth. Now John Peter, among his many other interests, was certainly devoted to Welsh Bibliography. And thus it has been possible for me to gratify my purely human interest in his life and character, while at the same time professing to address this Society upon one of the pioneers in its own special field of study. I cannot help admitting that the result will be rather a paper on John Peter, the man and the scholar, than a study of the bibliographer, but I hope to give some little account of the latter in my concluding remarks. The materials for a study of John Peter are tolerably ample. Apart from his numerous contributions to the Traethodydd, the Beirniad, the Dysgedydd, and other Read at the Annual Meeting of the Society held at Wrexham, August 10, 1933.