# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Howell, David

​HOWELL, DAVID (1831–1903), dean of St. David's, son of John Howell, farmer and calvinistic methodist deacon, of Treos, in the parish of Llangan, Glamorganshire, was born on 16 Aug. 1831. His mother being of weak health, he was brought up for the most part by his grandmother, Mary Griffiths of Tynycaeau, a church- woman. At the age of fifteen he returned to his father's home, which was now at Bryn Cwtyn, near Pencoed. Farming, however, was not to his mind, and, having shown a decided bent for letters, he was persuaded by his mother and the rector of St. Mary Hill (afterwards well known as Archdeacon Griffiths of Neath) to prepare ​for orders in the Church of England. After passing through the Eagle School, Cowbridge, the Preparatory School, Merthyr, and the Llandaff Diocesan Institute at Abergavenny, he was ordained deacon in 1855 and priest in 1856. A curacy of two years at Neath under Griffiths was followed by his appointment in 1857 as secretary for Wales to the Church Pastoral Aid Society; he then became vicar of Pwllhell in 1861. In 1864 he was transferred to the important vicarage of St. John's, Cardiff, where his abilities found a congenial field; he endeavoured to adapt the machinery of the church to the needs of a rapidly growing community, and raised no less than 30,000l. for the purpose. In 1875 he was elected a member of the first Cardiff school board. In this year he became vicar of Wrexham, where he remained until 1891, when he removed to the neighbouring vicarage of Gresford. At Wrexham, as at Cardiff, he greatly extended the activities of the church. He received the degree of B.D. from the archbishop of Canterbury in 1878, was appointed prebendary of Meliden and honorary canon of St. Asaph in 1885, and became archdeacon of Wrexham in 1889. Popular opinion marked him out for yet greater responsibilities, and the bestowal upon him in 1897 of the deanery of St. David's was regarded as a kind of retirement. The restoration of the Lady chapel showed that he had not lost his zest for work. He died on 15 Jan. 1903 at St. David's, and was buried in the chapel of St. Nicholas in the cathedral. An altar tomb and a bronze tablet commemorate him there.
His gifts and his temperament, no less than his famUy connections (his brother William became a calvinistic methodist deacon and his sister married Dr. David Saunders of the same body), fitted him to become a mediating influence between the church and Welsh nonconformity. He was well versed in Welsh literature, particularly its hymnology, and in warm sympathy with every Welsh patriotic movement. Party politics did not interest him, and after 1875 he held aloof from political strife. He was a highly gifted orator, powerful not only in the pulpit but also in a remarkable degree on the eisteddfod platform, where he was known by the bardic name of 'Llawdden.' He brought the evangelical temper and the methodist fervour into all his church work. Yet his 'churchmanship though always broad was never really vague' (The Times, 16 Jan. 1903). His parochial work was thorough, and he was a believer in the voluntary school system. He married Anne Powell of Pencoed, and left four sons, of whom the youngest, William Tudor Howell, was conservative M.P. for the Denbigh boroughs from 1895 to 1900.
[Article in Geninen, April 1903, by W. Howell; Byegones (Oswestry), 28 Jan. 1903; The Times, 16 Jan. 1903; Welsh Religious Leaders in the Victorian Era, ed. J. V. Morgan, 1905.]
J. E. L.