Thomas Bowles (priest)

[3] He would seldom if ever have ministered in either Tubney or Aston Tirrold: Bowles followed the then common Church of England practice of pluralism, under which Rectors could hold a number of parishes for their tithe or glebe income, use some of that income to pay a perpetual curate to minister in each parish, and keep the difference.

[10]The Court of Arches took evidence on the case in May 1770,[7][9][11] two years after the bishop who appointed Bowles, John Egerton, had left the see of Bangor.

Richard Williams and John Thomas testified that Bowles had seldom conducted services at St Beuno's, and when he did it was only in English.

[12][13] Another witness, Henry Jones, testified that Bowles had conducted a service at St Beuno's no more than three times.

[14] Williams and Jones testified that soon afterwards Bowles tried to minister in Welsh, but his grasp of the language was so poor that none of the congregation could understand him.

[15][16] Several witnesses, including his own curate,[17] declared that when Bowles tried to minister the sacraments at Holy Communion, his Welsh was so bad that many communicants either burst out laughing or had to stifle themselves to avoid doing so.

[14][15][18][19][20] Since then Bowles had but seldom attended St Beuno's, and had employed a Welsh-speaking perpetual curate, John Griffith,[21] to officiate in his stead.

[6] The Dean of Arches, George Hay, agreed that clergy who lacked knowledge of Welsh should not be appointed to Welsh-speaking parishes.

[32] Bowles had been lawfully inducted and instituted to the benefice, and therefore held the ecclesiastical freehold, so Hay doubted whether he had the power to deprive him of it.

[37] William Thomas Bowles went on to be Vicar of King's Sutton, Northamptonshire 1760–73 and also Rector of Uphill and Brean in Somerset.