He was a collector of Welsh folk music and poet born at a farm near Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog in NE Wales. When he left school he started as a grocer’s assistant and then became a railway clerk, working in England at Manchester and London before returning home to become the stationmaster at Caeswrs in 1868, where he would stay until his death.
Occasionally called the “Robert Burns of Wales” he was an extremely successful poet who won several prizes for his poems and in 1860 had first collection, Oriau’r Hwyr (Evening Hours), published. He gave himself the bardic title of “Ceiriog” from the river and valley where he was born and alongside his poetry he was an avid collector of Welsh traditional folk tunes and would often add lyrics to them. These lyrics can now be heard in songs such as “God Bless the Prince of Wales”, “David of the White Rock”, “The Ash Grove” and the immensely popular carol “Ar Hyd y Nos (All Through the Night)”.
In 1863 he published the first volume of a four-volume project called Cant O Ganeuon (A Hundred Songs), but sadly the other three never reached the printing presses.
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