John Hughes

John Hughes was a Welsh Baptist deacon, precentor, hymn-tune composer, and colliery official born at Dowlais, Glamorgan, in 1873. His family moved to Llantwit Fardre when he was an infant. Hughes began work in a mine at about twelve, later became a clerk, and eventually served as an official of the Great Western Colliery at Pontypridd. Like his father, he was active in the music and leadership of Salem Baptist Church.

Hughes composed the tune that became CWM RHONDDA for the 1907 anniversary services at Capel Rhondda, Hopkinstown, Pontypridd. The surviving program and contemporary newspaper evidence place the festival in November 1907. An important detail is that the tune was not introduced with “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” but with a hymn by Welsh poet Ann Griffiths. The tune was originally called RHONDDA and was later renamed CWM RHONDDA to distinguish it from another tune.

Hughes wrote other tunes, anthems, and songs, but CWM RHONDDA became his enduring contribution to congregational music. Its later pairing with Williams’s pilgrimage hymn and with Harry Emerson Fosdick’s “God of Grace and God of Glory” carried the melody far beyond its original Welsh Baptist setting.