POWELL
,
THOMAS
(
1608?
-
1660
),
cleric
;
b. in the parish of
Cantref
,
Brecknock
, son of
John
Powell
,
rector
of
Cantref
,
1601-26
. According to
Wood
he was b. in
1608
but, according to
Foster
, he was 18 years of age on
25 Jan. 1627/8
. He was educated at
Jesus College
,
Oxford
(
B.A.
1629
,
M.A.
1632
,
D.D.
1660
). He obtained the living of
Cantref
,
4 May 1635
— his eldest brother,
Hugh
Powell
, being the
patron
. In
1650
, under the
Commonwealth
, he lost the living and spent some time in exile. In
1651
he published a translation of a book by the
Italian
Virgilio
Malvezzi
under the title
Stoa Triumphans: or Two Sober Paradoxes, I. The Praise of Banishment, II. The Dispraise of Honors
, but no special significance should be attached to the title, for in
Feb. and March 1653/4
he and two fellow-clerics were seeking permission to preach from
Jenkin
Jones
of
Llanddety
(q.v.)
, one of the approvers appointed under the
Act for the propagation of the Gospel in Wales
. It is possible that his exile was due to the fact that he had ignored
Jenkin
Jones
's prohibition. His only
Welsh
book,
Cerbyd Iechydwriaeth
,
1657
, is tainted with the bitterness of those years. He was restored to his parish in
1660
and was appointed
canon of S. Davids
. According to tradition he was nominated
bishop
of
Bristol
, but d.
31 Dec. 1660
, before he could be elected. His grave is in the church of
S. Dunstans in the West
,
London
.
Wood
gives a list of his works.
Henry
Vaughan
(q.v.)
, the
poet
, was his closest friend and it was to him that he left his works still in manuscript, among others his ‘
Fragmenta de Rebus Britannicis, A Short Account of the Lives, Manners, and Religion of the British Druids and Bards
.’
Bibliography:
-
Wood
,
Athenae Oxonienses
, 1813–20. Sometimes
cited in the first (1691-2) edn
(ed.
Bliss
), iii, 507;
-
Henry Vaughan
,
The Works of Henry Vaughan
, Oxford,
1914
(ed.
L. C. Martin
);
-
Hutchinson
,
Henry Vaughan. A life and
interpretation
, Oxford, 1947
;
-
T. Richards
,
A History of the Puritan Movement in
Wales
, 1920
, 252;
-
Theophilus Jones
,
History of the County of
Brecknock
,
1911, iv, 50 (some of the dates are incorrect);
-
Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical
Society
, vi, 293.
Author:
Garfield Hopkin Hughes, M.A., (1912-69), Aberystwyth
