Eryl Thomas
Eryl Stephen Thomas (20 October 1910 – 6 December 2001) was a Welsh Anglican clergyman who served as Bishop of Monmouth and Bishop of Llandaff. An Anglesey man, after education at St John's College, Oxford, Eryl Thomas served curacies in the Diocese of St Asaph before being appointed to a parish (Risca) in South Wales then as Warden of St Michael's College, Llandaff. He was appointed Dean of Llandaff in 1954, and in this post completed the restoration of the war-damaged cathedral begun under his predecessor Glyn Simon. Stephen Thomas was in many ways a charismatic figure, he was renowned for his pastoral and preaching gifts, but he could also divide opinion. He vigorously exposed an important case of misuse of funds in the Church in Wales, incurring thereby some ill-will, and his opposition to the Sunday closing legislation applicable to Welsh public houses irritated Nonconformist abstainers. A prominent representative of the Anglo-Catholic school of theology, he seems however to have avoided the narrowness of outlook of some more conservative Christians and played an important role in Jewish-Christian dialogue in the Cardiff area. There is some suggestion that Thomas was considered as a candidate for episcopal appointments during the 1950s,