Background
Pugh was a dissenting minister, was born at Hendref, Blaenpenal, Cardiganshire, in 1679, and inherited a good estate.
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Philip Pugh
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Career
He was trained for the independent ministry at the nonconformist college at Brynllŵarch, near Bridgend, Glamorganshire. He was received as church member at Cilgwyn in 1704, and in October 1709 was ordained co-pastor with David Edwards and Jenkin Jones. He and his colleagues were in charge of six or eight churches, with a united membership of about one thousand.
Between 1709 and 1760 he baptised 680 children.
Pugh avoided controversy, but he regarded with abhorrence the Arminian doctrines introduced by Jenkin Jones and the Arian doctrines propagated by David Lloyd (1725–1779). He sympathised, however, with the Calvinistic Methodist movement under Daniel Rowlands, and induced Rowlands to modify the ferocity of his early manner of preaching.
Of the churches with which Pugh was more or less connected, three continue to be congregationalist, three have gone over to the Methodists, and three are Unitarian. Pugh died on 12 July 1760, aged 81, and was buried in the parish churchyard of Llanddewi Brevi, where the effigy of one Philip Pugh, probably an ancestor, once figured in the chancel.
His unpublished diary and the Cilgwyn church-book contain much information about the Welsh nonconformity of the period, and have been utilised by Doctor Thomas Rees and other Welsh historians.
