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Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg, 1747-1826), stonemason, poet and literary forger, was born 10 March 1747 in Llancarfan, Glamorgan, to Edward Williams (1715-1795), stonemason, and Ann Matthews (1713-1770), and lived for most of his life in Flemingston (or Flimston), Glamorgan, apart from periods spent in London, Kent and elsewhere. His only schooling came from his mother and from the numerous poets who taught him their craft. He worked as a monumental mason and builder. He also tried his hand at various other trades but with little success; he was imprisoned for debt in Cardiff Gaol in 1786. In 1781 Iolo married Margaret Roberts (1749-1827). They had four children, of which two, Margaret (b. 1782) and Taliesin (1787-1847), survived into adulthood. Iolo Morganwg died at Flemingston on 18 December 1826. Iolo had various literary, antiquarian and political interests. He wrote poetry in both Welsh and English, his Poems Lyrical and Pastoral appearing in 1794. He became a Unitarian from about 1797 and wrote many hymns, published in Salmau yr Eglwys yn yr Anialwch (1812, 1827 and 1834). Following the French Revolution he had radical sympathies. However he has become notorious for his forgeries and fabrications. The edition of Dafydd ap Gwilym published in 1789 contained an appendix of additional poems which were in fact written by Iolo. The Myvyrian Archaiology (1801, 1807), of which he was an editor contained many of his fabrications. These forgeries went largely undiscovered until the early twentieth century. His interest in the ancient druids led to his unveiling of the Gorsedd of Bards of Great Britain, which first met on Primrose Hill, London, in 1792. He claimed it to be a miraculous survival from ancient times and it persists as an integral part of the ritual and pageantry of the National Eisteddfod. However it too was invented by Iolo. Following Iolo's death his son Taliesin, a schoolmaster in Merthyr Tydfil, edited his manuscripts and upheld his legacy, apparently completely oblivious to the forgeries.

Thomas Bevan (Caradawc or Caradawc y Fenni), antiquary, was born in Talybont, Breconshire. While living and working in London, Bevan became acquainted with a number of Welsh literatti and immersed himself in the Welsh literary scene. On his return to Wales, Bevan settled in Monmouthshire and, in 1833, was appointed secretary of the Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Society (Cymdeithas Cymreigyddion y Fenni). Despite a scant literary output, Bevan was a capable poet in his own right and also won the essay prize at the Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Eisteddfod of 1835. He resiged his secretarial position in 1839 but continued to contribute industriously to the Society and it is this unstinting labour which ensured not only the long-standing success of the Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Society but also of the eisteddfodau held under its auspices.

The Rev. John Williams (Ab Ithel, 1811-1862), Anglican minister and antiquary, took his pseudonym from the surname of his grandfather, William Bethell, but for much of his earlier life he wrote under the name Cynhaval, after his birthplace in Llangynhafal, Denbighshire. He graduated from Jesus College, Oxford, in 1835, and became Anglican curate of Llanfor, Merionethshire, where he married Elizabeth Lloyd Williams; he became perpetual curate of Nerquis, Flintshire, in 1843, and rector of Llanymawddwy, Merionethshire, in 1849. His first book, concerning the relationship between the Church of England and Rome, was published in 1836, followed by another in 1844 on the ecclesiastical antiquities of Wales. Williams was industrious both as a parish priest and as an antiquary, but his enthusiasm and Welsh nationalist fervour often outran his knowledge and judgement. His uncritical approach to historical sources was strongly influenced by the romantic inventions of Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg, 1747-1826), and much of his work has since been discredited. Nevertheless, he was regarded by many as one of the leading Welsh scholars of his day, and was able to exert a considerable and decidedly mixed influence on the course of Welsh scholarship. In 1846, together with Harry Longueville Jones (1806-1870), another cleric and antiquary, Williams founded the Cambrian Archaeological Association, whose journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis, he edited until 1853. He also published an edition and translation of the Gododdin in 1852, established the Cambrian Journal, which he edited from 1854 until his death, and was prominent in the Welsh Manuscripts Society, editing four of its publications. The Llangollen Eisteddfod of 1858, which he organized together with Richard Williams Morgan (Mor Meirion, c. 1815-c. 1889) and Joseph Hughes (Carn Ingli, 1803-1863), caused much derision and embarrassment; Williams' own family won several prizes, and Thomas Stephens (1821-1875) was adjudicated against because he suggested that the story of Madog ab Owain Gwynedd's American expeditions was not true. Williams was nevertheless considered for the chair of Celtic at Oxford University, and he was appointed by the government in 1858 to complete the editions of the medieval Welsh chronicles Annales Cambriae and Brut y Tywysogion, which had been left incomplete by Aneurin Owen (1792-1851), and which were published in 1860. His editorial work was later severely criticised by academics, who pointed to his lack of the necessary diplomatic skills for interpreting medieval manuscripts, and also to his plagiarism of the work of others, notably Owen himself and Thomas Rowland (1824-1884). Williams became rector of Llanenddwyn and Llanddwywe, Merionethshire, in 1862, by which time he was very ill, and he died in the same year. The Ab Ithel Memorial Fund was established in his memory.