Julie McNicholls Vale speaks to Ceredigion author Jen Llywelyn, who is sharing the life of a Tywyn minister in her new book.

A CEREDIGION writer and historian will launch a book this week on a famous Welsh pacifist, conscientious objector and peacemaker.

The life of Tywyn minister, George M Ll Davies, was remembered on 2 March, 100 years to the day the Military Conscription Act came into force.

Born in 1880, George M Ll Davies is best remembered and most revered as a peacemaker but his full life reflected a broader spectrum of interests and activities that place him at the heart of life in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Wales. He was also a non-Conformist minister in Tywyn and became MP for the University of Wales.

A Pilgrim of Peace by Jen Llywelyn, is the biography of George M Ll Davies.

“This charismatic Welshman worked ceaselessly, with quiet strength and humour, to achieve reconciliation between individuals, and in industry and politics,” Jen, who lives in Trisant, explained.

“He suffered with mental illness all his life, but few knew.”

He committed suicide in Denbigh Hospital in 1949.

“From his roots in the Liverpool Welsh community, his life, with its complicated relationship with organised religion and his uncertain engagement with party politics, embodied change and uncertainty as much as constancy,” said Professor Paul O’Leary of Aberystwyth University, who was Jen’s academic supervisor from 2001-2010.

“He was a complex figure, whose life reveals much about the challenges and pressures of his period.

“This is a lasting testimony to a true son of Wales – which is, I now have no doubt, as far removed from England as my native Scotland,” added academic Frank McGinnis. “The author has ensured the reader understood the love George had for his country and his people.”

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