Thomas Charles
Clergyman of Bala in north Wales who worked with the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. His appeal in London in December 1802 for Welsh Bibles led to the plan for a general Bible society.
John Owen describes Charles as an ordained minister of the established church who officiated in connection with the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, and who knew the wants of his countrymen from his habit of itinerating and promoting Sunday schools (Owen, History of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1816), vol. 1, pp. 15–16). In London in December 1802 he urged the need for “new and extraordinary means” to supply Wales with Bibles (Owen, History of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1816), vol. 1, pp. 15–16), and the discussion of his appeal produced the proposal for a society to distribute the Scriptures generally (Owen, History of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1816), vol. 1, pp. 16–17). The Society’s first report records an order for twenty thousand Welsh Bibles (British and Foreign Bible Society, Reports, First Report (1805), pp. 22–23). See the British and Foreign Bible Society.
In the timeline
- 7 March 1804, firm dateThe British and Foreign Bible Society
Moved by the want of Bibles in Wales, Christians of several denominations meet in London on 7 March 1804 and found a society with one object, the wider circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment, at home and abroad.