(Q61540)

Poet and socialist Robert Jones (later Robert Jones Derfel) was born on a farm situated between Llandderfel and Bethel in Merionethshire. He was for a time a Baptist preacher but turned to socialism and agnosticism and left the Church around 1865. He was one of the founders, in 1890, of the Manchester and District Fabian Society and wrote numerous articles, in both English and Welsh, on socialism, some of which were published at the Welsh bookshop and printing press he established in Manchester during the 1860s. A Welsh nationalist and accomplished poet, Derfel was successful at a number of eisteddfodau.