John Blackwell (Alun)

Blackwell was born near Mold, Flintshire, in north Wales, and followed the trade of a shoemaker. He won prizes offered for poems and essays in the Welsh language and, supported by friends, he entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1824, graduating B.A. in 1828.[1] In the autumn of that year, at the Royal Denbigh Eisteddvod, a prize was awarded him for his Welsh elegy on the death of Bishop Reginald Heber.[2]

In 1829 Blackwell was ordained to the curacy of Holywell. During his residence there he contributed largely to the columns of Gwyliedydd, an Anglican periodical; and in 1832 he was presented with a prize medal at the Beaumaris Eisteddvod. In 1833 he was presented by Lord-chancellor Brougham to the living of Manor Deivy, in Pembrokeshire. Soon afterwards he became editor of an illustrated magazine in the Welsh, Y Cylchgrawn, which he ran successfully. He died on 14 May 1840, and was buried at Manor Deivy Church.[2]

Blackwell's poems and essays, with a memoir of his life, were edited by the Rev. Griffith Edwards of Minera, in a volume entitled Ceinion Alun, Ruthin, 1851.[2]

Attribution

Cooper, Thompson (1886). "Blackwell, John" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 146–147.

• Works by Alun John Blackwell at Project Gutenberg