Parry-Williams, Thomas Herbert (1887–1975)

Welsh poet, essayist, and scholar. In 1923 he published his authoritative study of the English element in Welsh, and ten volumes of his prose and verse appeared 1928–66, together with many works of scholarship. The terse realism in his poems of the 1920s signalled an end to the lingering romanticism of the period and showed Parry-Williams as the main precursor of modern Welsh poetry. A final, personal selection of his verse appeared 1972.

He was born in Rhyd-ddu, Gwynedd. After a brilliant academic career at Aberystwyth, Oxford, Freiburg University, and the Sorbonne, he became lecturer in Welsh at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1914 and held the chair of Welsh 1920–52. He won the bardic crown and the chair in each of the National Eisteddfodau of 1911 and 1915. Knighted 1958.