Well, I wasn’t expecting that. It turns out my family has a Dylan Thomas connection.  His great-uncle, the man who inspired Dylan Thomas’s middle name Marlais, was the minister at my ancestor’s church, where my hard of hearing g-g-g-grandfather James used to sit in the pulpit to hear the sermons.  It is also said that the same minister probably inspired the character Rev. Eli Jenkins, in Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.

 I was looking around the lovely Dylan Thomas Museum on Swansea Marina when for some reason my eye was caught by an open book in a display cabinet.  It was open at a page about Rev. William Thomas (bardic name: Gwilym Marles).  He was the great-uncle of Dylan Thomas or Dylan Marlais Thomas to give the famous poet his full name. 

It is said that Dylan’s father decided upon his son’s first and middle names.  Dylan comes from the Mabinogion, the collection of mythical Welsh tales.  Marlais is a derivation of his great-uncle’s name Marles.  In fact Dylan Thomas’s sister also had the middle names Marles.

Rev William Thomas (Gwilym Marles) was a Welsh radical Unitarian minister, poet, school master and political activist.  He led his congregation during the scandalous Llwynrhydowen Lockout of 1876, when they were evicted by the local landowner because of their religious and political views.

The sentence that had caught my eye in the open book on display at the museum was the first about Rev William Thomas ‘Born in Brechfa, Carmarthenshire in 1834, educated at Ffrwdfal, Carmarthen College and University of Glasgow, took charge of Llwynrhydowen and Bwlchyfadfa in 1860 and in the same year opened a grammar school in Llandyssul, came to the front as a political leader in 1868, became a convert to Unitarianism’.

It was only a few weeks later, the evening before I was about to take a group on a trip to Swansea and to see the Dylan Thomas Museum, did it click into place. 

Bwlchyfadfa, mentioned in that first sentence, is a tiny village in Cardiganshire where my great grandfather Evan Christmas Thomas was born. I’ve visited it a couple of time researching my genealogy.  My g-g-g-grandfather James Thomas is buried there in the churchyard of the Unitarian chapel. The last time I was there I met the present minister who showed me around the chapel and then took me to nearby Llwynrhydowen chapel where we discovered some obituaries in church magazines to my ancestors.

The visits were very useful in helping me piece together my family tree. I wrote up my finding in an article ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’.

Having read the fact that Dylan Thomas’s g-uncle Rev. William Thomas (Gwilym Marles) was minister at the Unitarian chapel in Bwlchyfadfa between 1860 and his death in 1879 I went back my notes. He would have been officiating there when my great grandfather Evan Christmas Thomas was born in the village in 1864.

It appears Rev. William Thomas officiated my g-g-grandmother Mary’s funeral in 1875.  Her obituary makes sad reading. 

It also appears Rev. William Thomas was also due to officiate at my g-g-g-grandmother’s funeral in 1879 but could not due to ill health (he died later that year).

My g-g-g-grandfather James lived to the age of 84 in 1890.  His obituary stated he was hard of hearing and used to sit in the pulpit in order to hear the sermons.  I’m guessing these included sermons of Rev William Thomas (Gwilym Marles) before he died.  

In 1876, the local landowner evicted Gwilym Marles and his congregation from Llwynrhydowen chapel because he disapproved of their “radical” politics (they supported the Liberal Party and electoral reform) and unorthodox Unitarian faith. The eviction caused a national scandal and Gwilym emotionally addressed 3,000 people on the steps of the locked chapel, famously declaring that while the landlord could take their chapel and its contents, down to the candlesticks, he could never take the burning flame – that could never be extinguished.

I am guessing my g-g-g-grandfather James and maybe Evan Christmas Thomas, being a keen Unitarians in Bwlchyfafa chapel, may well have been among the 3,000 people on the steps of the locked nearby chapel Llwynrhydowen.  

Barred from their beloved chapel and the graves of their ancestors, the congregation built a new chapel a short distance away, but Gwilym, defeated by stress and ill-health, tragically died in 1879 aged just 45, before the opening ceremony of the new chapel, where his body was laid to rest.

It is said that Rev. William Thomas (Gwilym Marles) probably inspired the character Rev. Eli Jenkins, in Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood set in the imaginary village of Llareggub.  Reverend Eli Jenkins is Llareggub’s reverend, preacher, and poet. He addresses the town in the poetic daily sermons he delivers from his doorway, and he is constantly writing, thinking about, reciting, and praising poetry and dreams of Eisteddfodau.  Eli Jenkins loves Llareggub, though he knows that there are places more magnificent and exciting than the small village. He’s in the process of writing a book the town called the White Book of Llareggub. Though Jenkins knows Llareggub’s citizens “are not wholly bad or good,” he thinks that God will judge them on their goodness and forgive them their sins, and he sees Milk Wood as a symbol of “the innocence of men.”

When I next listen to Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood I’ll be imagining my hard of hearing g-g-g-grandfather James sitting at the feet of Rev Eli Jenkins.

There was one more piece in the family history jigsaw that revealed itself during this little bit of research.  Looking at the information board for Llwynrhydowen chapel online it specifically mentions Christmas Evans, the man who I think my g-grandfather Evan Christmas Evans named himself after. I had known Christmas Evans came from the Llandyssul area but hadn’t realized there was such a local connection to Bwlchyfadfa where my g-grandfather grew up.