MATHIAS (TEULU), o Lwyngwaren ('Llwyn Gwaring,' ' Llangwaren,' a ffurfiau eraill) ym mhlwyf Tref-Wrdan ('Jordanston') yng nghyffiniau Abergwaun, ac yn ddiweddarach hefyd o Lantyfai (Lamphey) gerllaw tre Penfro Nid ' Mathias ' oedd eu cyfenw gwreiddiol, eithr ' Cole,' ac wedyn ' Young '; ac nid Llwyngwaren chwaith oedd eu hendre, eithr y Clastir ger Trefdraeth yng Nghemais (Fenton, Pembrokeshire (arg. 1903), 293 - ar gam yr esbonia Fenton yr enw fel 'tir glas,' oblegid dengys y recordiau mai 'tir y clas,' tir eglwysig, a olygai. Enw bedydd ar ambell fab o'r teulu oedd ' Mathias ' ar y cychwyn (gweler W. Wales Records, ii, 41-2). Gyda THOMAS MATHIAS, a fu farw ddiwedd 1617 neu ddechrau 1618 (pan brofwyd ei ewyllys), y sefydlogir y cyfenw ' Mathias '; ail wraig iddo ef oedd Ursula, ferch yr hynafiaethydd George Owen o'r Henllys, ond nid oes a fynno'r briodas hon â'r Mathiasiaid diweddarach. Gyda'i fab ef, JOHN MATHIAS, y symudir yr aelwyd o'r Clastir i Lwyngwaren; bu ef ar y ' Parliamentary Committee ' yn ystod y Rhyfel Cartrefol (Mehefin 1644; Laws, Little England, 327); bu farw yn 1681 (W. Wales Hist. Records, ii, 42). Ni fynnai mab hwn, LEWIS MATHIAS (a fu farw yn 1733; ibid.) ddygymod â chwyldro 1688, ac ar ddiwedd Mehefin 1693 bu mewn cynnwrf yn nhref Arberth yn erbyn y brenin newydd; cyhuddwyd ef yn yr un flwyddyn o 'yfed, yn ei dŷ yn Llwyngwaren a hefyd yn Slebech ac Arberth, gan floeddio “ fe ddaw'r Brenin eto'n ôl ”,” - a thrachefn yn 1694; ond erbyn 1696 yr oedd wedi ymdawelu, ac ni symudodd law na thafod yn yr helynt yn 1715 (Francis Jones yn Trafodion Anrhydeddus Gymdeithas y Cymmrodorion, 1946-7, 220-1). Mab iddo ef oedd JOHN MATHIAS (1694? - 1774), a chwanegodd Dre-faeog ('Trefayog') ym mhlwyf S. Nicholas, rai milltiroedd i'r gogledd o Lwyngwaren, at ei stad - yn Nhre-faeog y bu farw, ac yn S. Nicholas y claddwyd ef 21 Hydref 1774. Bu ef, ac amryw o'i blant, yn ymhel â Methodistiaeth; bu Howel Harris yn aros yn Llwyngwaren yn 1740, ac y mae gennym lythyr gan Harris ato (Trev. Letters, 295), ac un arall (294) at un o'i ferched - efallai Ann, oblegid enwir rhyw ' Ann Mathias ' yn adroddiad William Richards ar seiadau gogledd sir Benfro yn 1743. Ond atynwyd John Mathias, a rhai o'i blant, gan Forafiaeth hefyd; cynhelid moddion Morafaidd ar ei aelwyd yn Nhrefaeog; yr oedd gweinidog Morafaidd Hwlffordd yn ei angladd; ac yr oedd ei ferched Ann, Elizabeth, a Martha, yn Forafiaid - a'i fab David hefyd. O'i wraig Margaret Thomas o'r Dyffryn cafodd John Mathias gynifer â 16 o blant - gweler y rhestr lawn, a gafwyd drwy garedigrwydd y diweddar Charles Ronald Mathias o Lantyfai, yn Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd, xxxiv, rhifyn 1. Y mae'r ail ferch (y pedwerydd plentyn), ELIZABETH, yn bwysig yn hanes ei theulu; priododd â William Smalling (yr oeddynt ill dau'n Forafiaid), gŵr a chanddo eiddo yn Jamaica; gyda'r arian a adawsant hwy y prynwyd Llantyfai gan y teulu'n ddiweddarach, meddai Mr. C. R. Mathias - am fwy o'i hanes hi, gweler Cymm., xlv (mynegai). O'r saith mab, nid oes ond tri a eilw am sylw yma, sef y mab hynaf, JOHN MATHIAS (1720 - 1800?), swyddog yn y llynges, siryf yn 1792 - bu farw'n ddibriod; y mab ieuengaf, LEWIS MATHIAS (1740 - 1815), siryf yn 1811 - bu farw heb adael plant; a'r chweched mab (y pedwerydd plentyn ar ddeg), David (isod). DAVID MATHIAS (1738 - 1812), 'llafurwr' Morafaidd Crefydd; Ganwyd 27 Mehefin 1738. Y mae'n anodd deall, yn wyneb y ffeithiau a adroddwyd uchod, sut y daeth Laws (Little England, 365) i gredu mai David oedd 'aer' ei dad, ac i John Mathias ei 'ddi-etifeddu' am iddo droi'n Forafiad - yn anos fyth pan gofiwn fod Edward Laws wedi ymbriodi â merch o deulu Mathias. Y mae'n eglur nad oedd fawr ragolwg y byddai 'etifeddiaeth' fras i chweched mab (£40 a adawodd ei dad iddo yn ei ewyllys); ac mewn siop yn Hwlffordd y rhoddwyd David. Yr oedd yn aelod o'r seiat Forafaidd yno yn 1759. Ddiwedd 1761 aeth i'r sefydliad Morafaidd yn Fulneck (gerllaw Leeds), i gadw siop y Brodyr yno, a bu yno hyd ddiwedd 1771 - yn y cyfamser (1768) yr oedd wedi ei dderbyn yn bregethwr Morafaidd. Erbyn haf 1772 yr oedd wedi cychwyn cenhadaeth Forafaidd yn nyffryn Nantlle (gweler dan William Griffith o Ddrws-ycoed, John Morgan o Lanberis, ac Edward Oliver); bu yno hyd ganol 1776. Yn 1776-80 yr oedd yn 'llafurio' (ni ddaeth byth yn weinidog urddedig) yn Devonport, yn 1780-2 yn Kingswood, ac o 1782 hyd 1788 yn cadw siop sefydliad y Brodyr yn Ockbrook (gerllaw Derby). Dychwelodd i Wynedd fis Mai 1788, gan ymsefydlu'r tro hwn yng Nghaernarfon, a bu yno hyd ganol 1792. Digiodd wrth John Morgan o Lanberis, ac ymadawodd yn swta ac ymsefydlu yn Abergwaun, gan gadw siop ar ei gyfrifoldeb ei hunan a rhoi'r gorau i bregethu; yn wir, ymddieithriodd oddi wrth y Brodyr am gyfnod, a bu raid ei 'aildderbyn' i'w plith yn 1804. Bu farw yn Abergwaun, 15 Ionawr 1812, a chladdwyd yno. Yr oedd yn ddyn egnïol ac yn genhadwr selog (prin efallai y mae'n rhaid dweud ei fod yn Gymreigiwr rhugl), ond yn fyrbwyll ac anhydrin dros ben - adroddir ei hanes yn llawn, gyda chyfeiriadau at y ffynonellau, yn Cymm., xlv. Bu'n briod ddwywaith - am ei briodasau a'i 'blant, gweler Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd, loc. cit. Yn herwydd marwolaethau brodyr David Mathias, i'w ail fab ef, CHARLES DELAMOTTE MATHIAS (1777 - 1851), y disgynnodd stadau'r teulu wedi'r cwbl - ef hefyd, â'r arian a adawyd iddo gan ei fodryb Elizabeth (uchod), a brynodd Lantyfai yn 1821 gan Oweniaid Orielton; ac ohono ef y tardd y Mathiasiaid diweddarach, a fu'n flaenllaw ddigon ym mywyd eu sir, yn y lluoedd arfog (un ohonynt oedd y cyrnol Mathias a arweiniodd y ' Gordon Highlanders ' yn y rhuthr ar fryniau Dargai, yng nghwr gogleddol India, yn 1897), ac yn y gyfraith. Awdur Yr Athro Emeritus Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

MATHIAS (TEULU), of Lwyngwaren (‘Llwyn Gwaring,’ ‘Llangwaren,’ and other forms) in the parish of Tref-Wrdan (‘Jordanston’) near Fishguard, and later also of Lantyfai (Lamphey) near Pembroke town.

‘Mathias’ was not their original surname, but ‘Cole,’ and later ‘Young’; nor was Lwyngwaren their ancestral home, but the Clastir near Newport in Cemais (Fenton, Pembrokeshire (ed. 1903), 293—Fenton mistakenly explains the name as ‘green land,’ whereas the records show that it meant ‘land of the clas,’ i.e. church land). ‘Mathias’ was originally a baptismal name given to some sons of the family (see W. Wales Records, ii, 41–2). With THOMAS MATHIAS, who died late in 1617 or early 1618 (when his will was proved), the surname ‘Mathias’ became established; his second wife was Ursula, daughter of the antiquary George Owen of Henllys, but this marriage is not connected with the later Mathias family. With his son, JOHN MATHIAS, the household moved from the Clastir to Lwyngwaren; he served on the Parliamentary Committee during the Civil War (June 1644; Laws, Little England, 327); he died in 1681 (*W. Wales Hist. Records*, ii, 42). His son, LEWIS MATHIAS (died 1733; ibid.), refused to accept the Revolution of 1688, and at the end of June 1693 he was involved in unrest in the town of Narberth against the new king; in the same year he was accused of “drinking, in his house at Lwyngwaren and also in Slebech and Narberth, while shouting ‘the King will come again’,”—and again in 1694; but by 1696 he had quieted down, and he took no part in the disturbances of 1715 (Francis Jones in Transactions of the Honourable Society of the Cymmrodorion, 1946–7, 220–1). His son was JOHN MATHIAS (1694?–1774), who added Dre-faeog (‘Trefayog’) in the parish of St Nicholas, a few miles north of Lwyngwaren, to his estate—he died at Trefaeog and was buried at St Nicholas on 21 October 1774. He and several of his children were involved with Methodism; Howel Harris stayed at Lwyngwaren in 1740, and a letter from Harris to him survives (*Trev. Letters*, 295), as well as another (294) to one of his daughters—possibly Ann, since an ‘Ann Mathias’ is mentioned in William Richards’s report on north Pembrokeshire societies in 1743. However, John Mathias and some of his children were also attracted to Moravianism; Moravian services were held in his household at Trefaeog; the Moravian minister of Haverfordwest attended his funeral; and his daughters Ann, Elizabeth, and Martha, as well as his son David, were Moravians.

By his wife Margaret Thomas of the Dyffryn, John Mathias had as many as 16 children—see the full list, kindly supplied by the late Charles Ronald Mathias of Lantyfai, in Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd, xxxiv, no. 1. The second daughter (the fourth child), ELIZABETH, is important in the family history; she married William Smalling (both were Moravians), a man who owned property in Jamaica; according to Mr. C. R. Mathias, it was with the money they left that Lantyfai was later purchased by the family—for more about her, see Cymm., xlv (index). Of the seven sons, only three need mention here: the eldest, JOHN MATHIAS (1720–1800?), a naval officer and sheriff in 1792—he died unmarried; the youngest, LEWIS MATHIAS (1740–1815), sheriff in 1811—he died without issue; and the sixth son (the fourteenth child), David (below).

DAVID MATHIAS (1738–1812), a Moravian “labourer” in religion.

He was born 27 June 1738. It is difficult to understand, in light of the facts given above, how Laws (*Little England*, 365) came to believe that David was his father’s heir, and that John Mathias disinherited him for becoming a Moravian—still more so when we recall that Edward Laws had married into the Mathias family. It is clear that there was little prospect of a substantial inheritance for a sixth son (his father left him £40 in his will); and David was apprenticed to a shop in Haverfordwest. He was a member of the Moravian society there in 1759. At the end of 1761 he went to the Moravian settlement at Fulneck (near Leeds), to keep the Brethren’s shop there, and remained until the end of 1771—in the meantime (1768) he had been received as a Moravian preacher. By the summer of 1772 he had begun a Moravian mission in the Nantlle valley (see under William Griffith of Drws-y-coed, John Morgan of Llanberis, and Edward Oliver); he remained there until mid-1776. From 1776–80 he laboured (he never became an ordained minister) in Devonport, from 1780–2 in Kingswood, and from 1782 until 1788 he kept the Brethren’s shop at Ockbrook (near Derby). He returned to Gwynedd in May 1788, settling this time in Caernarfon, where he stayed until mid-1792. He quarrelled with John Morgan of Llanberis, and left abruptly, settling in Fishguard, keeping a shop on his own account and giving up preaching; indeed, he became estranged from the Brethren for a period, and had to be “readmitted” to them in 1804. He died in Fishguard on 15 January 1812, and was buried there. He was an energetic man and a zealous missionary (it hardly needs saying that he was fluent in Welsh), but extremely impulsive and difficult—his life is fully recounted, with references to sources, in Cymm., xlv. He was married twice—for his marriages and children, see Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd, loc. cit.

Because of the deaths of David Mathias’s brothers, it was his second son, CHARLES DELAMOTTE MATHIAS (1777–1851), who ultimately inherited the family estates—he too, with the money left to him by his aunt Elizabeth (above), purchased Lantyfai in 1821 from the Owens of Orielton; and from him descend the later Mathias family, who were quite prominent in the life of their county, in the armed forces (one of them was Colonel Mathias who led the Gordon Highlanders in the assault on the Dargai heights, in northern India, in 1897), and in the law.

Author
Professor Emeritus Robert Thomas Jenkins (1881–1969)