Description
A Winning Essay in the Abergavenny Eisteddfod in 1838
DANIEL LEWIS – IFOR GWENT
Very little is known about Daniel Lewis. In the definitive work on the Abergavenny Eisteddfodau by Mair Elvet Thomas: Afiaith Yng Ngwent, Hanes Cymdeithas Cymreigyddion y Fenni 1833-1854, 1978, University of Wales Press, she notes: ‘I have not been able to discover any information about Daniel Lewis, Ifor Gwent, except for that fact that he worked in Coalbrookvale Iron Works [ie.Nantyglo], and that he won twice at the Abergavenny Eisteddfodau in 1836 and in 1838.
I have tried to discover more about him but with limited success’. In my reading of other Gwent manuscripts of the same period, such as the diaries of John Davies – Brychan of Tredegar, the several manuscripts by T.E.Watkins, Eiddil Ifor of Llanffwyst, all of which are in Cardiff Library, I have come across a Daniel Lewis and a David Lewis – Ehedydd Gwent, the both from Blaenau Gwent and the implying that they were brothers. If indeed they were, then Daniel Lewis is a son of a former vicar of Llenwenarth and Aberystruth or Blaenau Gwent parish. Thomas E. Watkins, one of the founder members of Cymreigyddion y Fenni and a prolific competitor himself in these Eisteddfodau, refers to a Daniel Lewis of Blaenau Gwent advising and accompanying Archbishop William Coxe when he made his solo tour in Monmouthshire in 1799. Though one cannot be certain from the data currently available, it seems very likely therefore that the author of this history was indeed a local lad from the very parish described in this history.
Colin Morgan
