LLOYD
,
JOHN
(
Einion Môn
;
1792
-
1834
),
schoolmaster and poet
;
b. at
Pwllgynnau
,
Ceidio
,
Anglesey
. Almost everything we know of his life comes from an anonymous elegy printed in
Y Gwyliedydd
(
1834
, 375) and from
Y Gwladgarwr
(
1835
, 24). His parents d. when he was a child; he went to school at
Llannerch-y-medd
; and at some time or other went up to
London
. It is sometimes said that he was a ‘
lawyer
’ (? a
lawyer's clerk
); but the notice of his death in
Y Gwyliedydd
(
1834
, 288) describes him as a
teacher
in ‘
Sir John Cass's School
’ — it is added that two of the
duke of Wellington
's sons were at that school, and that
Lloyd
tutored them at their home during vacations. He became a member of the
London Gwyneddigion
in
1827
(
Leathart
,
Origin … of the Gwyneddigion
, 110). He was also a member of the
Cymreigyddion
, becoming
vice-president
and
official ‘bard’
of that Society; and when clerics in
Wales
attacked the society,
Lloyd
, in
1829
, composed a reply to these ‘
brainless chatterers
’ as he called them. The reports of
Cymreigyddion
meetings, in
Seren Gomer
, show that he also
lectured
to the society. But in
1832
we find him, in company with
Griffith
Davies
,
F.R.S.
(q.v.)
, protesting vigorously against the
increasingly Radical tone of the society — see the debate in
Y Gwyliedydd
and in
Seren Gomer
— though, if the elegy can be trusted, he had himself taken a prominent part in the protest against enclosures of commons in
Llandwrog
and
Llanwnda, Caerns.
He
wrote verse
, not only in
Welsh
but also in
English
— in
Seren Gomer
,
1832
, 55, there is a
Welsh
translation (by
Eryron Gwyllt Walia
, q.v.
) of a poem by
Lloyd
(
1831
) on Spring. He d.
3 Aug. 1834
, aged 42.
Bibliography:
-
Geiriadur Bywgraffyddol o Enwogion
Cymru
, ii, 228-9;
-
information from
Mr. Robert Owen
, Croesor;
- other references above.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D.,
F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor
