OWEN, John Garnon, Rev (1875-1949)
Assembly memorial minute, 1949
Garnon Owen was born in Wales, at Carnarvon, on the 26th February, 1875. He was educated under Professor Ellis Edwards and Dr. Hugh Williams, at the Theological College of Bala, North Wales. As a minister of the Welsh Church he was inducted into a London Parish, where he laboured for eight years. He married in 1906 and came to Australia in 1914, with his wife and son, Alwyn. That year he was inducted into the Welsh Church at Williamstown, succeeding the late Rev. J.J. Owen, father of the Rev. J.E. Owen, of Gardiner. Some time later he was admitted to our ministry by the Reception Committee, which act was reported to the G.A.A. in 1916. A settlement was effected at Morwell on the 3rd May, 1917. In 1922 he was translated to Clifton Hill, where in 1935 he married his second wife, then matron of the Sisterhood. After resigning Clifton Hill in 1937, for six years he accepted pulpit supply throughout Victoria, until he accepted a call to Yea in 1945.
Mr. Owen in his loveliness of character gave of his best in thoughtful humility to the work of the Church of his Lord. His nature was that of a poet. Professor O. M. Edwards, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, wrote, in 1902, in a letter still in the possession of Mrs. Owen—“John Garnon Owen is a most competent Welsh scholar, and is one of the ablest and most thoughtful Welsh poets of the day. He will make a thoroughly efficient teacher of his subject; his teaching will be found exceedingly stimulating. ”
The day before his 74th birthday, Mr. Owen died at his home in Mount Dandenong, on the 25th February, 1949.
To Mrs Owen and his two sons the Assembly extends sincere sympathy.
Gender
- Male