David Vaughan Thomas

[8] He moved back to Wales and became a member of the Gorsedd at the 1911 National Eisteddfod, taking the additional surname Vaughan on this occasion.

[8] In 1919 he applied for the post of music director of the University of Wales, but controversially the decision was made to appoint Walford Davies instead.

Apart from his mathematical gifts he was a poet, a scholar,[10] a pianist,[4] wrote articles and reviews for the magazine Welsh Outlook and for several music journals,[3] produced a report on the teaching of music in Welsh schools,[11] lectured, and acted as organist of Mount Pleasant Baptist Chapel, Swansea.

[16] His mature style has been described as "fastidious and cultivated",[17] and as being marked by a strong sense of harmony and careful craftsmanship.

His song "Ysbryd y Mynydd" and his Saith o Ganeuon ar Gywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym ac Erail (Seven songs on poems in cywydd metre by Dafydd ap Gwilym and others), praised in the 1950s for their originality and scholarship, remained popular long after his death,[14][16][2] but most of his works were no longer played by the 1980s.