John Blackwell (Alun)
British writer
John Blackwell (1797 – 19 May 1840), who used the bardic name Alun, was a Welsh language poet.
Life
Blackwell was born near Mold, Flintshire, in north Wales, and followed the trade of a shoemaker. He won prizes offered for poems and essays in the Welsh language and, supported by friends, he entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1824, graduating B.A. in 1828. In the autumn of that year, at the Royal Denbigh Eisteddvod, a prize was awarded him for his Welsh elegy on the death of Bishop Reginald Heber.
In 1829 Blackwell was ordained to the curacy of Holywell. During his residence there he contributed largely to the columns of Gwyliedydd, an Anglican periodical; and in 1832 he was presented with a prize medal at the Beaumaris Eisteddvod. In 1833 he was presented by Lord-chancellor Brougham to the living of Manor Deivy, in Pembrokeshire. Soon afterwards he became editor of an illustrated magazine in the Welsh, Y Cylchgrawn, which he ran successfully. He died on 14 May 1840, and was buried at Manor Deivy Church.
Blackwell's poems and essays, with a memoir of his life, were edited by the Rev.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3403756. VIAF identifies the subject as 20537290. The Library of Congress control number is no2002038902. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1797, 1840, 1824 and 1828.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Blackwell (Alun)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.