Joseph Jenkins

Joseph Jenkins (2 November 1859 – 27 April 1929) was a Calvinistic Methodist preacher, known as a progenitor of the 1904-1905 Welsh revival, a Christian revival in which, the BBC says, "a hundred thousand people had made a new commitment." A strong personality, Jenkins affected many church communities as a preacher, his contemporaries saying he resembled a volcano — "sometimes lifeless and sometimes in full eruption." Background and childhood Jenkins was born to Mary and John Jenkins on 2 November 1859. John was a miner at the local Cwmystwyth lead mine, where the life expectancy for miners was just 32 years, due to the toxic effects of lead exposure. Jenkins trained to be a draper in his youth, taking an apprenticeship to John Lloyd, in Pentre, Rhondda. He became a member of Nazareth Chapel, a Welsh-speaking Calvinistic Methodist faith community, where he began to preach. He was educated at William James's school at Cardiff and the Pontypridd Academy. He was then sent to Trevecca College in Trefeca — the same college where the miner-preacher Evan Roberts was trained.