(Q68818)

The most revealing portrait of David William Jones appears to be Glyn Jones's description of his grandfather in The dragon has two tongues. He spent his entire life in Merthyr, and worked as an insurance agent for the Scottish Legal Insurance Company. Despite the poor working and living conditions in the industrial towns of South Wales during the nineteenth century, the chapels, eisteddfodau and various cultural societies flourished, and 'Llwch Haiarn' was one of a number of poets and musicians to emerge in this region. Glyn Jones describes him as 'a sort of intellectual ... a great talker and debater, theologian, politician, philosopher, singer and musician, an indefatigable competitor and frequent winner at eisteddfodau'. He died in 1900 aged 68 years.