Griffith Hughes

Hughes attended St John's College, Oxford from May 1729 (although he does not appear to have taken a degree at this time), and he was ordained in London, England in 1732, and turned to the church for orders.

[2] The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) supported his efforts to join the Anglican mission in colonial Pennsylvania with two Welsh congregations, St. David's in Radnor and St. James Perkiomen in Evansburg.

By March 1734, he claimed in a report to the SPG to have traveled over 1,100 miles (1,800 km) in the Pennsylvania backcountry to serve various congregations, including one in the newly organized Lancaster County.

Hughes published a tract on "The Last Four Things" in Welsh in Pennsylvania under the title Myfyrdodau Bucheddol ar y Pedwar Peth Diweddaf.

[10] Hughes' arrival in this part of Pennsylvania provided a Welsh rector to a region that had been starved of this service for several years.

A dying parishioner thought highly enough of Hughes to provide a horse – "one bright bay young mare with a star on her forehead" – for him in his will in late summer 1734.

[12] In June 1736, Hughes reported that because of his deteriorating health, aggravated by lengthy journeys to Caernarvon, Newtown, and Evansburg, he had traveled to Barbados, stayed there for three months, and accepted a post at St. Lucy's Parish there.

Pleasants complains of the "desertion of his mission and unceremonious withdrawal" and relates a legend that his departure from Barbados was similarly sudden.

Hughes' arrival on Barbados coincides with the completion of Codrington College and the expanding influence of the Royal Society in that locale.

From this ("leeward") continental island location, he probably returned to England in 1743 and 1748, as he was present at meetings held by the SPG in 1743 and the Royal Society during 1748.

The first return coincides with his paper entitled "Of a Zoophyton resembling the Flower of a Marigold," provided to Philosophical Transactions, the first scientific publication from Barbados.

Grainger and Moseley reference Hughes' work especially as it applies to symptoms and treatment of diseases he observed while in Barbados.

One source lists his date of passing as "1778?, location unspecified," while another has him returning to Barbados around 1758, the latter view aligns with the records from the Royal Society.

[21] Hughes' detractors point out that this book did not achieve any scientific breakthroughs, and other works of the Old Colonial Era surpassed it.