The Welsh Baptist Church of South Wales

CHAPTER TWO

THE WELSH BAPTIST CHURCH

21 May 2016

The family of Kenneth Louis Jones descends from Mid 17^th Century Welsh Baptists who were instrumental in the growth of that faith. At the beginning of the 18th Century, David Jones and his wife Esther Morgan immigrated with their children and other Welsh Baptists to the Delaware River valley of the Pennsylvania Colony. David Jones’s father in law was Morgan ap Rhydderch a popular Baptist preacher in Wales. Jones brothers-in-law Rev. Abel Morgan and Rev. Enoch Morgan were prominent ministers in the establishment of the Baptist faith in America.

The Church of England kept vital statistics of the births, marriages, and deaths of its members in the parishes in which they lived. However the Jones and Morgan families of this study were nonconforming Baptists and unlike the nonconforming Quakers, the Baptists kept little vital statistics of their members. Only through the prominence of the Morgan family with the formation of the early Welsh Baptists Church are records of these families found. It is through the marriage of Esther Morgan, daughter of Rhydderch ap Morgan, to David Jones son of John ap Johns can these families be traced.

The Welsh Baptists claim a mystical connection to Christian sects located in the Valley of Olchon where the site of the first known Baptist community was formed. The valley provided a safe haven for these dissenting Christians long before they adopted the name of Baptists. The Welsh Baptists are sometimes referred to as Primitive Baptists, as they emerged gradually out of the older Lollard movement and may even pre-date that. It is claimed that the Valley of Olchon had been an enclave of an ancient Christian community dating back to the sixth century and some historians claim even back to the first century. The very name of the valley, Olchon, is Welsh for ‘baptism or washing’ and the valley provided a safe haven for dissenting Christians long before they adopted the name of Baptists.

What is historically known is that within South Wales, centered in the Valley of Olchon, there was a long tradition of protestant dissent from at least the 13th Century onwards, manifesting ideas that later consolidated into the Baptist Church. The Baptist people claimed a practice unique to the time period that of baptizing adult believers by full immersion in water as did John the Baptist in ancient Judea.

The Baptist Church properly begins during the early 17th Century, but it can be shown clear lines of descent from earlier Christian non-conformist movements such as the Lollards and Anabaptists. These sects opposed traditional infant baptism and were first known as Anabaptist.

The Lollards taught the idea of a secret ‘invisible’ community of ‘true Christians’ within but distinct from the outward and corrupt form of the established church institution. Olchon has been cited by Baptists, seeking to prove continuity of their church through the ‘invisible church’ all the way back to primitive Christianity, though such claims are not now generally accepted. True or not, and was undoubtedly the center from which the Baptist Church spread across South Wales.

The religious revivalism that occurred in the mid-17th century that created the Baptist Churcg was prompted by men who had a connection with the Olchon region, including Welsh Baptist believers such as John Miles, Thomas Watkins, and William Jones. As early as 1633 there was a Baptist community of believers at in the Valley of Olchon between the borders of Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and Brocknockshire in Wales and England.

The Baptists took root in Great Britain in the mid 1600 during a time of a great political conflict between Parliament and the king. The English Civil War of the 1640’s was theological as well a political one. This rebellion against the king created a religious upheaval against the dominance of the established Church of England of which the king was the head.

Calvinist Protestantism, the theological philosophy espoused by Reformer John Calvin in the 16th Century, gained root in Great Britain in the form of Puritanism and Presbyterianism. The Puritans only dissented from the Anglican Church desiring to “purify” it of its remnant Catholic rituals. The Presbyterians were mostly found in Scotland where Calvinist reformer John Knox created the Church of Scotland void of the hierarchy of Bishops as in the Church of England. When the Presbyterian King James of Scotland became the King of England after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, these belief system of the Puritans and the Presbyterians clashed with Anglicanism over their attempts to simplify church worship.

King James as the head of the Church of England was tolerant of Puritan and Presbyterian ministers. However after his death his son, the autocratic King Charles viewed any religious dissent as undermining his civil and ecclesiastical authority. Charles embraced the notion of “Divine Rights of Kings”. This political argument stated that God alone appointed kings over nations which became the basis for Absolutism of the mid-17th Century in France and England. Charles claimed absolute authority as king because of his “divine right” to rule. Therefore any religious dissent against the established Church of England of which he was supreme head was considered disloyalty to the crown. The dissenters however only desired to reform the Church of England of its Catholicism not replace it.

Prior to the Civil War, the government’s persecution of Puritan dissenters led to a wholesale exodus from England to a “New England”. The Puritans and Presbyterians who remained gained control of Parliament were angry with King Charles who closed Parliament for 11 years and ruled without them. When the king recalled Parliament, which held the purse strings of the nation, Charles was derided as a tyrant and a civil war broke out in the mid 1640’s between the supporters of Parliament and those of the King.

Under the leadership of Welsh Puritan Oliver Cromwell, General of the New Model Army, the King and his royalist allies were defeated. King Charles was charged with treason by Parliament and beheaded. For the first time in British history, Great Britain was without a king. Oliver Cromwell was appointed by Parliament “Protectorate” of the Commonwealth of Great Britain after the death of the king.

During the 1650’s the Commonwealth removed the Church of England as the official state supported church. The ascendancy of the Puritan and Presbyterian Parliament in Great Britain led to more religious tolerance as expressed by laws passed by Parliament. This allowed the rise of Baptist and Quaker movements which had found fertile ground in western England and Wales.

These churches that made a clean break from the Anglican theology were known as “nonconforming” or ‘independents” as opposed to dissenters. Many of the ministers of Wales were known as “Independents” and without censorship by the government they became susceptible to the teachings of Baptist proponents as well as to the message of George Fox’s Society of Friends also known as Quakers. This was the political and religious climate in which gave rise to the Jones and Morgan families becoming Baptists in southwestern Wales.

John Miles or Myles, attributed to be founder of the Baptist Church in South Wales, during Cromwell's Commonwealth began attracting Baptist converts. Miles was born in 1621 near the mystical Ochlon Valley part of Herefordshire, England. His Puritan family was affluent enough to afford for him to go Oxford College. When the English Civil War commenced he was a soldier in Oliver Cromwell’s New Model parliamentary army. In 1648 he was part of the army sent to restore order South Wales and there he felt connected with the Baptist teachings of adult baptism and a literal reading of the Bible.

In spring 1649 he and a colleague, Thomas Proud, travelled to London to be baptized at the Glasshouse Baptist Church, the leading Baptist church in England. Miles returned to South Wales Wales in the autumn of 1649 determined to spread the word.

There were “Independents” with Baptist sentiment in Wales before Miles, but there is no evidence that a properly organized, distinct and visible church of Baptist believers existed in Wales before John Miles established his Baptist church at Ilston on 1 October 1649. Miles’ church was located near the port town of Swansea in Glamorganshire. There he served as rector of the Ilston parish church in place of William Houghton who was ejected as a royalist. As that he received a salary, Miles was provided the means for his ministry.

The Baptist movement, under John Miles’ influence, mushroomed during the 1650s by taking advantage of the religious freedom afforded during the English Commonwealth years. By 1652 six Baptists fellowhips had been established in a 70 miles radius from Ilston.

The second Baptist Congregation founded by Miles was in the small community of Llanigon in Breconshire in the Ochlon Valley. Llanigon was a four day journey from Ilston and in the middle of February, 1650 a society of Independents, accessible only by a narrow path, called “Gospel Pass” was converted by Miles. As Llanigon was located a mile and half from the market town of Hay-on-Wye the church was known as the Hay. Llanigon was situated just within the Welsh side of the border not far from the English county of Herefordshire, where John Miles was reared.

In the next two years John Miles and his Baptist missionaries formed congregations at small agrarian villages in Glamorganshire and in the city of Carmarthen in Carmarthenshire. These congregations maintained close and regular contact and representatives from each met periodically to discuss points of difficulty or dispute and to maintain overall discipline.

The most important of these early congregations was located in the city of Carmarthen which was also the most populous municipality in Wales. Between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was described as "the chief citie of the country" and claimed to be the oldest town in South Wales protected by the Castle Carmenthen which was dismantled by Parliamentarian forces during the Civil War in 1644.

Twenty-five miles, or a long day journey north of Carmarthen is the village of Llanwenog in Cardiganshire [Ceredigion]. Here lived the family of Morgan ap Rhydderch [Morgan Roderick]. He and his children would all convert to the Baptist faith and his daughter Esther verch Morgan would marry David Jones. Certainly the family frequented Carmarthen for various reasons and probably it was here that this family heard the message of the Baptists.

It is helpful at this point to understand the Patronymic naming practices of the Welsh. Until the mid-1800's, sons and daughters of Welsh parents would often take their father's given name as their surname with the addition of the prefix ap for males and verch for females. Morgan ap Rhydderch thus was son of Rhydderch, a Welsh name comparable to the Scottish “Roderick”. Esther verch Morgan was the daughter of Morgan. The English used the name Prothroe often as synonymous with Rhydderch thus in some records Morgan ap Rhydderch is called Morgan Prothroe.

Morgan ap Rhydderch was descended from a Cardiganshire literary family. His people were educated and were intellectuals, writers and poets which indicate that they were from an affluent class that did not depend on agricultural pursuits. Yeomen were farmers who owned their lands while the Gentry were people who owned land but lived off the rental of the lands. Morgan was probably of that class.

Morgan ap Rhydderch’s grandfather was author Dafydd ap Gruffyd, [David son of Griffith] who was born about 1570 in Wales. He wrote three books that were published probably after his death. They were “The Genealogies 1664”, “The War in Caemarthen and a prayer for her, 1664”, and “Complaint of Adversity.” Dafydd ap Grufydd’s brother Iago ap Griffith [James son of Griffith] was also a renown poet and distinguished author.

Dafydd ap Gruffyd had two known children, Morgan’s father Rhydderch ap Dafydd and James ap Dafydd Little is known of Morgan’s father, Rhydderch ap Dafydd [Roderick son of David], who was born circa 1590 in Cardiganshire, Wales. His wife was Jane verch Dewi [Jane daughter of Dewi]. Dewi is an alternate or diminutive form of the Welsh masculine given name Dafydd. The couple had six known children two of which were associated with the Baptist faith. They were Dafydd ap Rhydderch, John ap Rhydderch, Rees ap Rhydderch, Morgan ap Rhydderch, Phillip ap Rhydderch, and Gwenllian verch Rhydderch, untraced.

Morgan ap Rhydderch was born circa 1625 in the village of Alltgoch, in Llanwenog Parish, Cardiganshire, Wales. The village is located about a mile north of the river Teifi, and near the boundary with Carmarthenshire. The village is 25 miles north of the town of Carmenthen. That distance assured that the family would have lodged in Carmarthen at least overnight whenever they had business in the city.

The affluence of the family is indicated by the fact that Morgan’s elder brother, Rees ap Rhydderch, was an officer in Cromwell’s New Model Army during the English Civil War. Officers were required to provide their own military uniform armory, weapons, and horses and often paid for the recruitment of poorer foot soldiers. Philip would have been probably too young to have participated as an officer in the war but Morgan certainly could have participated in some capacity.

It is not known when Rees ap Rhydderch became affiliated with the Baptists but probably was converted in the 1650’s when he was in his thirties. He married a woman named Catherine and in his extreme old age Rees immigrated to Pennsylvania Colony in 1701 with his nephew Enoch Morgan. He was eighty-one years old. In America Rees became a member of the Welsh Tract Baptist Church in New Castle County which was then still part of Pennsylvania but now Delaware. He died in October 1707 at the age of eighty-seven and is buried in the Welsh Tract Baptist Church cemetery. His headstone is inscribed in the Welsh language and is the oldest headstone in the cemetery.

Philip ap Rydderch, also known as Phillip Protheroe, may have been a Quaker instead of a Baptist as his children were all Quakers. He was the first of the family to immigrate to the Pennsylvania colony in 1689 at the age of 61 years. Philip married about 1655 in Carmarthenshire to a woman named Dorothy. The children of Philip and Dorothy used the surname “Philips”, “Philpin” and “Protheroe”. Philpin was the Anglicized form of the Welsh "ap Philip." This family was living at Narberth in Pembrokeshire about 25 miles west of Carmarthen. His daughters Margaret and her sister Katherine appeared in Quaker records on 8 January 1664 and their brother appeared from 13 November 1669. The Phillip Protheroe held lands in Narberth Parish, and may have been a reason why his Morgan eventually came to this area in 1667. The children of Philip ap Rhydderch immigrated to the Welsh Tract which was 40,000 acres that William Penn gave for a Welsh settlement west of Philadelphia. Thousands Welsh Quakers and Baptists immigrated there where Welsh was the dominate language. Phillip settled in the Welsh Tract section if Chester County, Pennsylvania Colony where he died of extreme old age. Benjamin Franklin printed an obituary notice for him in the Pennsylvania Gazette. “Sunday last died of a flux at Newton in Chester Co. Phillip Rhyddarch in the 102d year of his age, He was born in Caermarthenshire in South Wales, and came into PA about 40 years ago. He was a man of a peaceable disposition, very religious, and remarkable for his temperance, having never been overcome with drink during his whole life." ... He left behind him living, 6 children, 85 gd chldrn, 48 grtgd chldrn. Sept 17, 1730.” September 17th was a Thursday, therefore Phillip ap Rydderch died on the 13th.