William Richards

Born in Pembrokeshire in 1749, he had very little formal schooling, but built a reputation through reading, preaching, and writing. He became a Baptist minister and spent much of his working life in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, where he was known not only as a preacher but also as a forceful controversial writer.

His books ranged widely. He wrote on theology and politics, compiled a Welsh-English dictionary, and produced a substantial history of King’s Lynn that helped secure his place as a local historian as well as a religious author. Sources on his life also describe him as an antiquary and a writer with strong independent views.

He died on September 13, 1818. Today he is remembered as a lively Nonconformist voice whose work connected Welsh literary culture, dissenting religion, and the civic history of an English town.