R. S. Thomas

The Reverend
R. S. Thomas
Photograph of an unsmiling, elderly man looking side on into camera. His hair is white and collar length. He wears a brown jacket, blue-collared shirt and red tie. He appears to be seated in front of a bookcase.
Thomas in his eighties
Born
Ronald Stuart Thomas

(1913-03-29)29 March 1913
Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales
Died25 September 2000(2000-09-25) (aged 87)
Pentrefelin, Gwynedd, Wales
NationalityWelsh
Occupation(s)Poet, priest

Ronald Stuart Thomas (29 March 1913 – 25 September 2000), published as R. S. Thomas, was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest noted for nationalism, spirituality and dislike of the anglicisation of Wales. John Betjeman, introducing Song at the Year's Turning (1955), the first collection of Thomas's poetry from a major publisher, predicted that Thomas would be remembered long after he himself was forgotten. M. Wynn Thomas said: "He was the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn of Wales because he was such a troubler of the Welsh conscience. He was one of the major English language and European poets of the 20th century."