Joseph Harris [Gomer]

Joseph Harris [pseud. Gomer] (1773–1825) was a Baptist minister, author, and journal editor who grew up attending the Llangloffan Baptist Church. He began preaching there in 1795. He published a Baptist hymnbook in 1793, and another edition in 1796. Ordained in 1800, he began his ministry at Swansea, and wrote several defenses of his Baptist faith and theology. In 1806, along with Titus Lewis (1773-1811), began a new periodical, Y Drysorfa Efengylaidd. On 1 January 1814 he established the first newspaper in the Welsh language, Seren Gomer (ten years after The mbrian, the first newspaper in Wales published in English). Seren Gomer was both about nonconformity and the Welsh language. He then started another Baptist magazine, Greal y Bedyddwyr, and later made Seren Gomer a fortnightly paper, but not merely from a Baptist perspective. Seren Gomer continued to appear in print until 1983, associated with the Baptists since 1859. In 1825 he published a bilingual Welsh and English Bible.