David Williams (philosopher)

David Williams (1738 – 29 June 1816), was a Welsh philosopher of the Enlightenment period. He was an ordained minister, theologian and political polemicist, and was the founder in 1788 of the Royal Literary Fund.

Williams was born in a house called Waunwaelod in Eglwysilan near Caerphilly. His early education was partly under John Smith, vicar of Eglwysilan, and he went on to a local school run by his namesake, David Williams. His father, William David, was converted to Methodism by Howell Harris; it was at his request that David Williams entered the ministry. Rev. David, an unfortunate speculator in mines and miners' tools, died in 1752; the family consisted of one surviving son and two daughters.

His father on his deathbed made David promise to enter Carmarthen Academy to qualify as a dissenting minister. He studied there, with an exhibition from the London presbyterian board (1753 to Christmas 1757), under Evan Davies, a pupil of John Eames. The academy, hitherto Calvinist, had begun to acquire a heterodox repute. From February 1755 the London congregational board sent no students, owing to the alleged Arianism of Davies's assistant, Samuel Thomas. Davies himself resigned his chair in 1759 under suspicion of Arminianism. Williams' views were unconventional, largely thanks to his four years study at Carmarthen Academy, and he was regarded as a Deist.

Williams was ordained in 1758 to the charge of the dissenting congregation at Frome, Somerset, on a stipend of £45. This was the congregation from which Thomas Morgan, the deist, had been dismissed in 1720. Williams's theological views did not prove satisfactory. In 1761 he moved to the Mint meeting, Exeter, founded by James Peirce. Here he was reordained. He prepared A Liturgy on the Principles of the Christian Religion, which is said to have been adopted by his congregation. He soon quarrelled with 'elder members' who objected to his opinions. He retorted by finding fault with their morals. By way of an 'accommodation' he left Exeter about 1769 to take charge of a waning congregation in Southwood Lane, Highgate. To this congregation the father of John Wilkes used to drive in a coach-and-six. In this charge he appears to have remained till 1773. His withdrawal was ascribed by himself to 'the intrigues of a lady', and to no rejection of revelation, 'which he had taken for granted'. His successor, in 1774, was Joseph Towers. His first publication, The Philosopher, in Three Conversations, 1771, (dedicated to Lord Mansfield and Bishop Warburton), containing a project of church reform, drew the attention of John Jebb. With the co-operation of John Lee, a proposal was set on foot for opening a chapel in London with an expurgated prayer-book. Williams was to draw attention to the plan through the public papers. His communications to the Public Advertiser republished as Essays on Public Worship, Patriotism, and Projects of Reformation, 1773, were so deistic in tone as to put an end to the scheme.

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