R. J. Derfel

Robert Jones Derfel (24 July 1824 – 16 December 1905) was a Welsh poet and political writer.

Early life Derfel was born Robert Jones on 24 July 1824 on his grandfather's farm, between Llandderfel and Bethel in Merionethshire, Wales. He was ordained in 1862, after long being a Baptist lay preacher and writing for the Baptist periodicals Y Tyst Apostolaidd and Y Greal. and its name moved into the lexicon of the nation as a substitute for the name of the 1847 reports. In the 1860s, he continued to include national pride and implied condemnation of those who had given evidence to the 1847 commission as themes in his poetry. Robert Owen, and he wrote the first articles on Socialism in the Welsh language, campaigning for causes such as a university for Wales. In 1865, he gave up religion and bought a bookshop in Manchester, which soon collapsed. In his later years, he wrote more in the English language, particularly on the subject of socialism, and he wrote annotated English poems on Llywelyn the Last, among others.

Derfel published a total of about 800 poems in Welsh, 500 in English, and more than 50 other publications. He died aged 81 on 16 December 1905 in Manchester and was cremated there the same month.

Works Brad y Llyfrau Gleision (The Treason of the Blue Books) (1854) Traethodau ac Areithiau (Essays and Discourses) (1864)