Albert Evans-Jones

Sir (Albert) Cynan Evans-Jones CBE (14 April 1895 – 26 January 1970), more commonly known within Wales by his bardic name of Cynan, was a Welsh poet and dramatist.

Cynan was born in Pwllheli, the son of Richard Albert Jones and Hannah Jane (née Evans) his father was the proprietor of the Central Restaurant in Penlan Street, Pwllheli. He was educated at Pwllheli Grammar School and the University College of North Wales where he graduated in 1916.

On graduation Cynan joined the Welsh Student Company of the RAMC, serving in Salonika and France serving initially as an ambulance man and then as the company's pastor. His wartime experience had a profound effect on his poetic works, to such an extent that Alan Llwyd claims that Cynan, not Hedd Wyn, is the premier Welsh war poet of the First World War. Hedd Wyn's poems relating to the war were written before he had enlisted and he was killed before he could recount his experience of the war in his muse. Cynan, however, gives the best descriptions of the gritty atrocities of war, and the impact of war on a man's body as well as his spirit.

After the war, Cynan entered Coleg ym Pwllheli to train for the ministry of The Presbyterian Church of Wales. He was ordained at Penmaenmawr Caernarfonshire in 1920 where he served as minister until 1931 when he relinquished his calling having been appointed a tutor in the Extramural Department of the University College of North Wales specialising in Drama and Welsh Literature. Despite having given up his ministry Cynan continued to accept regular preaching engagements, and was one of the most popular preachers of his day on the nonconformist preaching circuit in Wales.

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