David Samwell

David Samwell was a Welsh naval surgeon and poet, born in Nantglyn, Denbighshire, on 15 October 1751 and dying in London on 23 November 1798. He wrote under the bardic name Dafydd Ddu Feddyg and was an important supporter of Welsh cultural organisations. He became a surgeon in the Royal Navy and between 1776 and 1779 sailed around the world with Captain James Cook aboard HMS Resolution, where his task was to keep the crew healthy on the long Pacific voyages. His journal gives a detailed account of Cook's third and last voyage, including the death of Cook in the Sandwich Islands in 1779. In London he joined the Gwyneddigion Society and attended the first Gorsedd of the Bards of the Island of Britain in 1792. In 1798 he was treating English prisoners of war in Versailles before returning to Britain, where he died.