David Griffith

David Griffith was born on 29 November 1800 in Denbigh, Denbighshire, the son of Richard Griffith a watchmaker in that town. Clwydfardd was brought up to work in the same trade. In 1826 he became a local preacher with the Wesleyan Methodists.

• Illustration — Portrait of an elderly "Clwydfardd", c.1880 When the Gorsedd was first invented by Iolo Morganwg in 1792 it was split into four regions or taleithiau: Cadair Gwynedd (north Wales), Cadair Powys (mid-Wales) Cadair Dyfed (west Wales) and Cadair Morgannwg Gwent (south east Wales). Clwydfardd was the first person to be acknowledged as an Archdruid with seniority over all of the Gorseddau, not just of Wales but of the Isle of Britain and, indeed, the world. There is some difficulty in working out when, exactly, he gained this supremacy. Clwydfardd himself stated: I was appointed Archdruid … in the year 1860; but it was in the Wrexham Eisteddfod in the year 1876 that I was licensed as the Archdruid of the Gorsedd … of the Bards of the Isle of Britain. The Gorsedd's website only acknowledges him as Archdruid from 1888. There is, however, little doubt that when he died he was accepted as the one and only Archdruid of Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain (The Throne of Bards of the Isle of Britain) and all of his successors have enjoyed the same title. There is no extant record of when Clwydfardd was inducted into the Gorsedd; it was probably shortly after his success in the 1824 Eisteddfod. He was first recognised on a national level as a representative of the Gwynedd talaith of the Gorsedd in the National Eisteddfod of 1834 at Cardiff Castle by Taliesin ab Iolo. According to the Merthyr Guardian newspaper dated 31 August of that year, he had walked all the way from Denbigh to Cardiff (about 160 miles) in order to receive his honour. The following year (1835) an Eisteddfod was held in the Gwynedd talaith in Llanerchymedd, Anglesey, where Clwydfardd was acclaimed as that Eisteddfod's Chief Bard.

A biography of Clwydfardd was published by his great-grandson, also named David Griffith, in 2000. *