Background
Thomas Charles was born of humble parentage at Longmoor, in the parish of Llanfihangel Abercywyn, near St Clears, Carmarthenshire, on the 14th of October 1755.
Thomas Charles was born of humble parentage at Longmoor, in the parish of Llanfihangel Abercywyn, near St Clears, Carmarthenshire, on the 14th of October 1755.
Thomas Charles was educated for the Anglican ministry at Llanddowror and Carmarthen, and at Jesus College, Oxford (1775 - 1778).
In 1777 he studied theology under the evangelical John Newton at Olney.
Thomas Charles afterwards added to his charge at Sparkford, Lovington, South Barrow and North Barrow, and in September 1782 was presented to the perpetual curacy of South Barrow by the Rev. John Hughes, Coin St Denys.
But he never left Sparkford, though the contrary has been maintained, until he resigned all his curacies in June 1783, and returned to Wales, marrying (on August 20th) Sarah Jones of Bala, the orphan of a flourishing shopkeeper.
He had early fallen under the influence of the great revival movement in Wales, and at the age of seventeen had been " converted " by a sermon of Daniel Rowland's.
On the 25th of January he took charge of Llan yn Mowddwy (14 m. from Bala), but was not allowed to continue there more than three months.
The Church of England denied him employment, and the Methodists desired his services.
His friends advised him to return to England, but it was too late.
By September he had crossed the Rubicon, Henry Newman (his rector at Shepton Beauchamp and Sparkford) accompanying him on a tour in Carnarvonshire.
Before taking this step, he had been wont in his enforced leisure to gather the poor children of Bala into his house for instruction, and so thickly did they come that he had to adjourn with them to the chapel.
Writing was added later.
By this time the salary had been increased to £12; in 1801 it was £14.
His first Sunday School was in 1787.
A powerful revival broke out at Bala in the autumn of 1791, and his account of it in letters to correspondents, sent without his knowledge to magazines, kindled a similar fire at Huntly.
The scarcity of Welsh bibles was Charles's greatest difficulty in his work.
John Thornton and Thomas Scott helped him to secure supplies from the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge from 1787 to 1789, when the stock became all but exhausted.
In 1799 a new edition was brought out by the Society, and he managed to secure 700 copies of the 10, 000 issued; the Sunday School Society got 3000 testaments printed, and most of them passed into his hands in 1801.
In 1800, when a frost-bitten thumb gave him great pain and much fear for his life, his friend, Rev. Philip Oliver of Chester, died, leaving him director and one of three trustees over his chapel at Boughton; and this added much to his anxiety.
The Welsh causes at Manchester and London, too, gave him much uneasiness, and burdened him with great responsibilities at this juncture.
When he visited London a year later, his friends were ready to discuss the name of a new Society, and the sole object of which should be to supply bibles.
Charles returned to Wales on the 30th of January 1804, and the British and Foreign Bible Society was formally and publicly inaugurated on March the 7th.
The first Welsh testament issued by that Society appeared on the 6th of May 1806, the bible on the 7th of May 1807-both being edited by Charles. Between 1805 and 1811 he issued his Biblical Dictionary in four volumes, which still remains the standard work of its kind in Welsh.
The London Hibernian Society asked him to accompany Dr David Bogue, the Rev. Joseph Hughes, and Samuel Mills to Ireland in August 1807, to report on the state of Protestant religion in the country.
Their report is still extant, and among the movements initiated as a result of their visit was the Circulating School system.
By correspondence he stimulated some friends in Edinburgh to establish charity schools in the Highlands, and the Gaelic School Society (1811) washisidea.
His last work was a corrected edition of the Welsh Bible issued in small pica by the Bible Society.
