The Rev. William Rees usually known in Wales by his bardic name

Bardic name

A bardic name is a pseudonym, used in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement....

 of Gwilym Hiraethog, was a Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 poet and author, one of the major figures of Welsh literature

Literature of Wales (Welsh language)

After literature written in the classical languages literature in the Welsh language is the oldest surviving literature in Europe. The Welsh literary tradition stretches from the 6th century to the twenty-first. Its fortunes have fluctuated over the centuries, in line with those of the Welsh...

 during the 19th century.

Gwilym Hiraethog took his pseudonym from his birthplace, a farm on the Hiraethog mountain in Denbighshire

Denbighshire

Denbighshire is a county in north-east Wales. It is named after the historic county of Denbighshire, but has substantially different borders. Denbighshire has the distinction of being the oldest inhabited part of Wales. Pontnewydd Palaeolithic site has remains of Neanderthals from 225,000 years...

. Largely self-educated, he was a polymath, who took an interest in astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 and political science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 as well as being a Nonconformist minister and a leading literary figure.

In 1843 he founded the Welsh language

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 journal Yr Amserau ("The Times") in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 http://www.newsplanwales.info/s005.htm. He used the newspaper to campaign for the disestablishment of the Church

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 in Wales.

Sources

• D. Ben Rees
  David Benjamin Rees
  The Reverend Professor David Benjamin Rees , widely known as D. Ben Rees, is a Welsh-language publisher and leader of the Welsh community in Liverpool. He leads one of Liverpool's five remaining Welsh chapels...
  
  - The Polymath: Reverend William Rees (Gwilym Hiraethog 1802-1883) (Modern Welsh Publications)
• DNB