Regarded in his own country as the “Doctor Johnson of the Welsh language”, the lexicographer H. Meurig Evans was responsible with his collaborator W. O. Thomas for Y Geiriadur Mawr (The Great Dictionary), a Welsh-English, English-Welsh dictionary which first appeared in 1958 and had been through 27 editions by the time it celebrated its half century in 2008. Evans devoted his life to the advancement of understanding of, and expression in, the Welsh language, the fostering of which meant everything to him.
In 1953 he had published (also with Thomas) what was acknowledged as the first really authoritative Welsh dictionary to appear in the 20th century, Y Geiriadur Newydd, (The New Dictionary). He followed this with many text books in Welsh and was still writing and competing in the National Eisteddfod into his nineties.
Harold Meurig Evans was born in 1911, in Hendy, Carmarthenshire, where he started school at 3. He attended Ammanford County School and its successor Amman Valley Grammar School before entering the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he took a first in Welsh in 1932.
While an undergraduate he had worked some shifts during vacations at the coalface to help eke out the meagre income of his coalminer father. During one of these the mine roof collapsed, burying him under debris. He owed his life to a heroic rescue by one of the other pitmen, who risked his life to dig him out, something he never forgot.
He taught in the Midlands and then at Caernarfon County School until 1941 when he was commissioned in the RAF, and posted to the Far East where he was on the last ship out of Singapore before it fell in February 1942. He later served on the South East Asia staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten. Demobbed in 1946, he returned to teaching and became head of the Welsh department in his old school, Amman Valley Grammar, until his retirement in 1975.
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When he and Thomas won first prize at the Llanrwst Eisteddfod of 1950 for their Welsh dictionary, his pathway to lexicography was assured and two years later Y Geiriadur Newydd was published by Llyrfrau’r Dryw of Llandybie, Carmarthenshire (now Gwasg Dinefwr, which is responsible for all his dictionaries except Y Geiriadur Mawr which is jointly published by it and Gawsg Gomer of Llandysul). These were succeeded in 1959 by Y Geiriadur Bach (Welsh Pocket Dictionary) and in 1981 by Geiriadur Cymraeg Cyfoes (Modern Welsh Dictionary), both the work solely of Evans, who was also in charge of the later editions of the previous publications. W. O. Thomas died some 40 years ago.
A prolific writer, Meurig Evans published a number of other books in Welsh, ranging from Llwybrau’r Iaith (Byways of the Welsh Language, 1961) through Cymraeg Heddiw (Welsh Today, 1970) to Rhodio Gyda’r Gymraeg (Strolls with Welsh, 1978) and Sylfeini’r Gymraeg (Elements of Welsh, 1981). He was appointed OBE in 1988. Although increasingly deaf and blind, he continued almost to the end to work on updating his big dictionary Geiriadur Mawr with the help of his cousin, Aeres Rowe, his mind as sharp as ever in spite of his disabilities.
His wife, Sal, died in 2001. They had no children.
H. Meurig Evans, OBE, lexicographer, was born on March 11, 1911. He died on December 2, 2010, aged 99