Robert Williams

Robert Williams was a Welsh musician and hymn-tune composer from Mynydd Ithel farm near Llanfechell on Anglesey. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography gives his dates as 1782–1818, recording his baptism at Llanfechell on October 27, 1782. Blind from birth, Williams earned his living as a basket maker but became known locally for exceptional musical memory and for singing hymns at public gatherings.

Williams is remembered chiefly for the tune now called LLANFAIR. In a manuscript book attributed to him the melody was titled BETHEL and dated July 14, 1817. The tune did not appear in print during his lifetime. It was first published, still under the name BETHEL, in John Parry's Peroriaeth Hyfryd in 1837, with a four-part harmonization by John Roberts of Henllan. Later editors renamed the tune LLANFAIR, and it entered a wide range of Welsh and English-language hymnals.

The tune's later international circulation greatly exceeded the documentary record that survives about Williams himself. Modern biographical sources securely establish his Anglesey origin, blindness, occupation, musicianship, and association with LLANFAIR, but do not provide enough evidence to assign him a precise denominational affiliation here. His burial was recorded in the Llanfechell parish register under the name Robert Owen in July 1818.