Thomas Charles Edwards

Thomas Charles Edwards (22 September 183722 March 1900) was a Welsh minister, writer and academic who was the first Principal of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. Life Thomas Charles Edwards was born at Llanycil, Bala, Merionethshire, on 22 September 1837. Edwards was the son of Lewis Edwards, founder of the Bala Theological College. His mother was a granddaughter of Thomas Charles, the organiser of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. He was educated at his father's college in Bala, at St Alban Hall, Oxford and at Lincoln College, Oxford. At Oxford he was deeply influenced by Mark Pattison and Benjamin Jowett, and kept in touch with them for the rest of their lives. He began preaching with the Presbyterian Church of Wales in 1856, and his resolve to become a minister was deepened by the revival of 1858–1859. In 1867 he became minister of the Windsor Street chapel in Liverpool, and later of the Catherine Street chapel in the same city. He was accounted one of the leading preachers of his generation.