Born on 9 December 1907 at Llwynypia, Rhondda, the son of a coal miner. He lived through the miners' strikes of 1910 and 1921 and began working in the pit in 1923, but was invalided out in 1929. From 1935 he worked at a sugar beet factory in Kidderminster. Under the influence of the Rev. Reginald J. Barker he became an active member of the Labour Party and became a borough councillor in 1946, alderman in 1949 and mayor in 1960. In 1973 he received an MBE and in 1990 became the first Honorary Burgess of Kidderminster.
From 1930 he served as a local preacher and was well known as a pacifist. A member of Birmingham Road Church, Kidderminster, he was instrumental in obtaining the site for the new Trinity Church (opened 1976) in which three former Methodist congregations were united. He became involved in the Regnal League, first in the Rhondda valley and then from 1952 to 1970 as its full-time General Secretary. From the 1950s on he was active as a group leader with Raymond Cook Holidays. He died on 24 April 1994.
Category: Person
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