Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richards, Thomas (1710?-1790)
RICHARDS, THOMAS (1710?–1790), Welsh lexicographer, born about 1710 in Glamorganshire, served for forty years the curacy of Coychurch (Llan Grallo) and Coety in that county. In 1746 he published a Welsh translation of a tract on the ‘Cruelties and Persecutions of the Church of Rome.’ But his chief work was ‘Antiquæ Linguæ Britannicæ Thesaurus,’ Bristol, 1753, a Welsh-English Dictionary, with a Welsh grammar prefixed, dedicated to the Prince of Wales. Founded in the main on the work of Dr. John Davies and Edward Llwyd, this dictionary was much fuller than any which had yet appeared. A second edition appeared at Trefriw in 1815, a third in the same year at Dolgelly, and a fourth at Merthyr Tydfil in 1838. Richards died on 20 March 1790.
[Rowlands's Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry; Ashton's Llenyddiaeth Gymreig, pp. 295–6.]