Dyer, John (1699–1758)

Welsh poet, painter, and cleric. He was the author of three poems: Grongar Hill (1727), The Ruins of Rome (1740), and The Fleece (1757). The first of these contains fine descriptions of the scenery of South Wales.

Born at Llanfynydd, Carmarthenshire, and educated at Cambridge, Dyer studied art in Italy 1724–25 and for some years travelled in Wales as an itinerant painter. In 1741 he was ordained and became vicar of Calthorp, Leicestershire.