Daniel Hughes - Ivor Thomas Rees

A biography of an unconventional Nonconformist minister who served churches of various denominations in Lancashire and Cheshire, and America, but mainly in industrial south Wales, during his long life. His Socialist ideals often brought him into conflict with his deacons. Being locked out of his chapels by the officers on two occasions, he resorted to the use of the sledgehammer to gain admittance hence the epithet in the title.

Daniel Hughes was an unconventional minister in many ways, not least for having been imprisoned in Walton Gaol. He not only took an active part in politics on a local government level, but he contested parliamentary elections as well. Rather than take a pacifist stance against the Great War as might be expected, he wished to take on a combatant role, but had to make do as a medical orderly. He was accused of drinking at public houses, when Baptist ministers were expected to be teetotal, and was also probably a divorced man, his wife having disappeared off-stage sometime during his turbulent career. Perhaps the most unusual feature of all was his naturist frolic with friends into the Monmouthshire countryside.