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Hughes, John (3)

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Hughes, John (2)

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Hughes, Joseph, D.D.

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a Wesleyan Methodist minister, nephew of John Thomas, vicar of Caerleon, Monmouthshire, was born at Brecon, County Brecon, May 18, 1776. He was educated at the grammar-school at Brecon, under the care of Reverend David Griffiths. Dr. Coke and other distinguished persons received their education at the same place and under the same master. In 1790 Hughes was converted under a sermon by John M'Kersey, and joined the Methodist Society. His parents designed him for the Established Church, but young Hughes could not conscientiously enter its ministry. In 1793 he became a resident with his uncle at Caerleon. In 1796 he was appointed by the Conference to the Cardiff Circuit. In 1800 he and Owen Davies were appointed the first missionaries in North Wales. In 1805 he was superintendent of the Welsh Mission in Liverpool. His remaining circuits were, Swansea, Bristoli Glasgow, Northwich and Warrington, Macclesfield, Newcastle-under-Lyne, etc.

In 1832 he became a supernumerary at Knutsford, Cheshire. He died May 15, 1843. Hughes deliberately declined a life of ease and honor, and, contrary to the wishes of his friends, chose the toils and privations of the Methodist ministry. From this course he never swerved. He was a most diligent worker, producing, amid the pressing duties of his itinerancy, works of great and lasting value. In 1803 he published a new edition of the Welsh Hymn-Book; he translated part of Dr. Coke's Commentary on the New Testament (1809); while at Macclesfield, 1813, he wrote A Plea for Religious Liberty, a reply to Joseph Cook's ("Civis") The Danger of Schism, pamphlets which were the result of a controversy respecting the Sunday-schools originated by David Simpson, and which were now carried on by the Methodists; Hor Britannicae, or Studies in Early British History (Lond. 1818, 2 volumes 8vo), a work which received the encomiums of Dr. Thomas Burgess, bishop of Salisbury, then bishop of St. Davids, of Sharon Turner, in a letter to the author, of Price, of David M'Nicoll, and of the Eclectic Review. It embodied the results of many years' antiquarian research and is a work of great value. Hughes also wrote, but did not publish, a work entitled Historical Triads; Consisting of Memorials of Remarkable Persons and Occurrences among the Cymry, translated from the Welsh, with notes and illustrations. The manuscript has been deposited in the British Museum. He received several prizes, premiums, and medals from the Cambrian Society for his literary productions. His last work was the Memoir and Remains of Fussell, which he finished in 1839. See Robert Jackson, Memoir in Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, March 1847, page 209 sq.; Minutes of the British Conference, 1843; Wesl. Meth. Magazine, September 1834, page 669; Smith, Hist. of Wesl. Methodism, 2:359, 361, 393 sq.