His father, Thomas Emrys James, was a minister of the Congregational denomination at Llandudno, and Dewi's mother Mary Ellen (née Jones), was the daughter of a sea captain.
[1] The family moved to Fishguard, where the Reverend James took on another church, and Dewi Emrys went to the local county school.
He became apprenticed to a local newspaper, the County Echo, and was able to continue his training at The Carmarthen Journal when his family moved there in 1896; he soon became editor of its Welsh-language content.
In later life, he was associated with two female Welsh-language poets, Dilys Cadwaladr and Eluned Phillips; the latter wrote a biography of Dewi Emrys.
[3] In the early 1940s he went to live with his daughter, in Talgarreg, Cardiganshire, joined the local Congregational church and began preaching again, although he did not return to the ministry.