Elijah Waring

Who was Elijah Waring?

Elijah Waring was an Anglo-Welsh writer.

Born at Alton, Hampshire, Waring was the son of a Jeremiah Waring, and settled in South Wales in about 1810. He founded an English-language periodical, The Cambrian Visitor: a Monthly Miscellany, at Swansea in 1813, and moved to Neath in the following year. The periodical was a failure. In 1817, Waring married Deborah Price, daughter of the Quaker industrialist Joseph Tregelles Price.

Waring preached at local chapels and later became a Wesleyan. He wrote articles for The Cambrian on subjects such as Parliamentary reform, and became friendly with Iolo Morganwg, about whom he later wrote a series of articles. His memoir of Iolo, Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams, the Bard of Glamorgan, was published in 1850.

In 1835 Waring moved to Cardiff, and afterwards to Clifton near Bristol, but returned to Neath in 1855 and spent his last years there. His daughter, Anna Laetitia Waring, became well known as a hymn-writer.