Welsh Journals

IOLO MORGANWG AND THE REES FAMILY OF GELLIGRON IT was inevitable that the remarkable Rees family of Gelligron near Pontardawe with their background of religious unorthodoxy, their avid interest in Welsh scholarship and their munificence, should attract Iolo Morganwg into their sphere of acquaintances. An examination of the relationship between the bard and the members of this family will reveal much regarding the character of Iolo himself, and perhaps explain how his contemporaries were misled by his many deceptions and his spurious claims to scholarship. Josiah Rees was the second son of the Rev. Owen Rees of Clun-pentan near Llandovery and Mary his wife. Owen Rees was ordained minister to a congregation of Protestant Dissenters at Pentre Ty Gwyn on 9 March 1742. Morgan Williams' diary records the baptism of Owen Rees' first son on 22 July 1743, with a note that the child 'troubled with ye gripes" died within a month. The same diarist also records the birth of Josiah Rees on 2 October 1744. In 1756 Owen Rees became a minister to the dissenters meeting at Hen Dy Cwrdd, Aberdare, and his son Josiah received his early education at Solomon Harries' school in Swansea and then proceeded to the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen. In 1767, he was ordained minister of Gelli-onnen, a chapel standing on the bare moorland above Pontardawe and he took up residence at Gelli-gron. During his ministry, 1767-1804, he led his flock at Gellionnen through the stages of Arminianism to Arianism and eventually to Unitarianism. This religious unorthodoxy in itself would ultimately have brought Josiah Rees into contact with lolo Morganwg, but even before the foundation of the Unitarian Society, we can surmise, that Josiah Rees' literary and antiquarian interests had attracted the attention of Iolo. It is highly probable that Josiah Rees was acquainted with many manuscript collectors in South Wales, and it is almost certain that he was friendly with Morgan Llywelyn of Neath, the possessor of a vast collection seen by Iolo in 1770. Furthermore, it is more than likely that the 'curious collection' of manuscripts known to the editor of the Cambrian Register2 and in the possession of Josiah Rees, was in fact Morgan Llywelyn's collection acquired by Josiah Rees on the collector's death in 1777. This affinity of interest would possibly have drawn Iolo and Josiah Rees together, but it is the launching of the first serious attempt at publishing a Welsh magazine 'Trysorfa Gwybodaeth' or 'Eurgrawn Cymraeg' which provides us with real documentary evidence of any contact between them. The first issue of this magazine appeared in 1770, and the part played by Josiah Rees in its publication has until the last few years been a matter of controversy. It is not necessary here