Richard Davies (Quaker)
Richard Davies | |
---|---|
Born | 1635 |
Died | April 1708 |
Nationality | Welsh |
Occupation | Quaker |
Richard Davies (1635 – April 1708) was a Welsh quaker.
Biography
Davies was born in 1635 at Welshpool, where his family had a fair estate, and received his education in that town. Although brought up to the episcopal church, when only thirteen years old he began to go to dissenters' meetings, and used to follow one independent minister when he preached at considerable distances. When fourteen he was sent, preliminary to being apprenticed, on trial to a tradesman, but a single conversation proving that his destined master's religious views were not ‘right,’ he returned home, and waited until he met with a felt-maker of whose opinions he approved, to whom he apprenticed himself. In 1657 he met with a person who professed quaker principles, and, without joining that body, Davies broke off his connection with the independents, and adopted the quaker forms of speech and customs, for using which his mistress once broke his head and, as he alleged, tried to murder him. Shortly before the termination of his apprenticeship he visited Welshpool, and, going with his parents to church, interrupted the preacher, for which he was arrested, but discharged by the magistrates, as his offence was not sufficient to constitute legal brawling. Finding three other men of like mind, he commenced to worship with them on a hillside in quaker fashion, for which he was avoided, and underwent some petty persecution. On the termination of his apprenticeship in 1658–9 he went to live in London, joining
In 1662 he was again arrested at Welshpool, but was offered his liberty if he would consent to go to church the following Sunday, which he accepted, and insisted on speaking both during the morning and evening service. He, however, always spoke with so much courtesy that he generally parted on friendly terms with the preachers he interrupted, and many of his closest friends were ministers whom he opposed. In his ‘Account of the Convincement,’ &c., he states that he was for the next ten years nominally a prisoner under a writ of præmunire, but he was put under no restraint of any kind, and, although during these years, which he occupied as a travelling minister, he was frequently arrested, he was never detained more than a few hours. On one of his journeys he made the acquaintance of Thomas Corbet, a barrister, of whose legal knowledge he made such use as to obtain the liberation of numbers of imprisoned Friends. From this time the relief and liberation of the suffering quakers seems to have been his real business, and he never hesitated to urge them to take any advantage a faulty writ or technical error might afford. In 1680, while he was in London, a writ of excommunication was issued against him. He immediately returned to Wales, and called on
He died after a very brief illness in April 1708, and was interred in the Friends' burying-place near his house at Cloddiechion, near Welshpool. He was a recognised minister for forty-five years. He was a man of amiable disposition, of considerable gift in preaching, kind-hearted, charitable, and unpretending, with considerable tact and foresight. His only work is ‘An Account of the Convincement, Exercises, and Services of that Ancient Servant of the Lord, R. D.,’ &c., 1710, which has been frequently republished in England and America.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Henderson, Thomas Finlayson (1886). "Davies, Richard (1635-1708)". In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 05. London: Smith, Elder & Co.