Howell Harris (1714-1773) was one of the main leaders of
the Welsh Methodist revival in the 18th
century, along with Daniel Rowland and William Williams Pantycelyn.
Harris was born at Talgarth in Brecknockshire in
1714. He underwent a religious conversion in 1735 while listening to a sermon by the Rev. Pryce Davies in the parish church on
the necessity of partaking of Holy Communion. While listening to that sermon Harris came to
the conviction that he had received mercy through the blood of Christ. He immediately began to tell others about this and to hold
meetings in his own home encouraging others to seek the same assurance that he had of Christ's forgiveness.
Having failed to be accepted for ordination in the Church of England because of his
"Methodist" views, he became a travelling preacher and was tireless in his determination to
spread the word throughout Wales. His preaching often led him into personal danger, and he endured considerable persecution and
hardship before gaining a following.
In 1750, having fallen out with Daniel Rowland, and having been the subject of a
public scandal, he retreated to his home at Trefeca, near Brecon. In 1752, inspired by the example of the Moravians, he founded a
religious community there, known as Teulu Trefeca (=The Trefeca family) with himself as "father".
However, Harris had not given up preaching, and resumed his former activities in 1763, after reconciliation with Daniel
Rowland. When he died, ten years later, and was buried close to his birthplace at Talgarth, twenty thousand people are said to
have attended his funeral.
He was effectively the founder of the Presbyterian church of Wales, also
known as the Calvinistic Methodist church.
The papers of Howell Harris
Howell Harris presented today’s historians with a gift — his keeping of a detailed diary, in addition to a careful filing of
letters he sent and received during his ministry. His papers are not only a first eye witness of the Welsh Methodist revival, but also give historians an insight into the thoughts of one of the
most influential Welshmen ever.
After his death, the papers were left to gather dust for over a century until O.M.
Edwards, in the 1880s, noted their importance and suggested they ought to be taken care of. By this time, the once-home of
Harris at Trefeca had been turned in to a college. The deputy head of the College, Edwin Williams, took on the task of putting
the papers in order. They were kept safe at Trefeca until 1910 when the Presbyterian church of Wales (which ‘owned’ the papers) decided to set up a committee whose
responsibility it would be to take care of the papers and to study them.
Not until 1913 did the scale of the work needing to be done on the papers become apparent. As many of the papers were in
Latin, it was estimated that it would take a good part of a decade and a vast sum of money to ready the papers for publication.
In 1913, it was decided that a better use of resources would be to set up a Historical Society of the Presbyterian church of Wales that would be responsible for publishing a regular journal to
include, amongst other articles, some of Howell Harris’s papers.
It is believed that around 1932, the papers were moved from Trefeca to the denomination's theological College in
Aberystwyth. Those papers, along with others from Coleg y
Bala (an old college of the denomination in Bala, North Wales), were taken in 1934 to be stored safely at the
National Library of Wales. The papers are in the vaults to this day. Recently
Dr. Geraint Tudur (son of R Tudur Jones), Chair of ‘Church History’ at University of Wales, Bangor, published a biography of Harris: Howell Harris : From conversion
to separation, 1735-1750, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000.
See also
Other Welsh Christian persons:
References
- Davies, Gwyn (2002), A light in the land : Christianity in Wales, 200-2000, Bridgend: Bryntirion Press. ISBN
1-85049-181-X
- Tudur, Geraint (2001), "Papurau Howell Harris" in Cof Cenedl XVI, Gwasg Gomer.
External links
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