David was born and raised in Dolgellau, Merionethshire. 
Very little is known of his early life other than he was the son of the late Dafydd and Dorothy Edwards who lived in Well Street in the town. 
David enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1899. In 1914 he was returning to the UK from India for discharge but at the outbreak of war he immediately re-enlisted. During the first few months of the war he saw action at Mons. He spent the war with that Regiment in France and Belgium. He was wounded on two separate occasions.
David wrote to a friend in November 1914 to report the death of his friend Joe Kynaston a month earlier in October 1914. Joe is also commemorated on the War Memorial in Dolgellau. It is poignant that Joe was one of the first from the town to die in the First World War and David was one of the last.  
In that letter David also described his experiences during the early months of the war. 
He wrote: "I have been very unlucky in one way, as I was shot right through the muscle of my right arm, but it is getting better now ; but I am not grousing because I had it defending my country. Let us hope that the Germans will never invade England, after what I have seen in Belgium and the North of France. It properly broke my heart to see women and little children and old men murdered by the dirty Germans. After they burned their houses and left them penniless, they would murder them. I cried many a time when I went through a little village seeing many a poor mother with her child in her bosom stone dead, brutally murdered by the cannibals."   
In 1918 David was posted to Ireland. It is unclear, from available records, to establish the purpose of this deployment. It is possible that it was in connection with the British Government's response to Irish unrest at that time. 
Whilst in Crosshaven, County Cork David died, on 20 November 1918, suddenly and unexpectedly. No cause of death is known but natural causes is suspected. At the time family and friends reflected on the irony of having survived twenty years in the army, particularly the four years of front line action on the Western Front, only to die in such circumstances.
David's body was repatriated to Dolgellau where he was given a Military Funeral.  He is buried in St Mary's Church Extension Cemetery. He is commemorated on the War Memorial in Dolgellau.
We will remember him. 

Emrys Tippett