Cached
Sunday,
May 2, 2010, from Welsh Biography
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DAVIES , THOMAS WITTON ( 1851 - 1923 ), Baptist
minister, and Semitic scholar ;
b. [28 Feb.] 1851 at
Nant-y-glo, Mon. , of illiterate but pious parents. The family
moved to Witton Park , co.
Durham
(whence he took his middle name); his elementary schooling there was
the only education afforded him before he was over 21. In 1872 he entered the Baptist
College at Pontypool ; there, in
addition to pursuing the prescribed courses, he diligently read Coleridge and Carlyle , whose
influence upon him throughout his life was very deep. From Pontypool he went in 1879
to Regent's Park and University
Colleges in London , graduating in
1876 — James Martineau
deeply influenced him in these years. From 1879 to
Dec. 1880 he was pastor of High Street church at Merthyr
Tydfil , and from 1881 till 1891 classical and Hebrew tutor at Haverfordwest
Baptist
College . He was principal of
the Baptist College at Nottingham
from 1891 till 1898 , acting also as lecturer in Arabic and Syriac in University College
, Nottingham ; several terms during these
years were spent at German universities — a
whole year at Leipzig under Buhl , Socin , and Dalman , and a
term under Noldeke
at Strasbourg ; he also studied Assyrian under Sayce . He moved to Bangor
in 1898 , first as Hebrew
tutor at Bangor Baptist College ( 1898-1905 ) and afterwards ( 1905-21
) as professor of Hebrew at the University College of North Wales ; he d. 12 May 1923 . In addition to articles in periodicals
( English , American
, and German ) and in the Welsh
Geiriadur Beiblaidd and Hastings 's Dictionary of the Bible
, he published, among other things, commentaries on Ezra, Nehemiah,
and Esther , 1909 , and the latter half of
the Psalms , 1906 , a book entitled Magic,
Divination,
and Demonology among the Hebrews , 1898
, another, Heinrich Ewald , 1905 , and
a small Welsh ‘ Introduction ’ to the O.T.
He was a doctor of Leipzig
and Jena universities [and an honorary doctor of Geneva
and Durham ]. His large library was left
(for the most part) to the National Library of Wales
. [His students at Bangor held him in very
high regard, in no way diminished by his many eccentricities. He was
twice m.: (1) 1880 , to Mary Anne Moore
, who d. in 1910 , leaving one daughter, and
(2) 1911 , to Hilda Mabel Everett
, by whom he had a son and a daughter.]
Bibliography:
- Outstanding Literary and Human Factors of
My Life , Brecon, 1911 , 1911 , by T.
Witton Davies ;
- ‘Vita,’ in Magic, Divination, and
Demonology among the Hebrews and their neighbours, : including an
examination of Biblical references and of the Biblical terms ,
London, 1898 ;
- [ Who was who? ;
- information from Mrs. Witton Davies
- and from the Very Rev. the Dean of S. Davids.]
Author:
Rev. Lewis Edward Valentine, M.A., (1893-1986),
Rhos.