(with thanks to William Roulston for this photograph)
Josias Welch (also spelled Welsh) was the grandson of John Knox, the son of the famous minister John Welch of Ayr, and the father of the famous Covenanter John Welch of Irongray. Josias arrived in Ulster around 1622, John Welch was born in 1624 (probably at Templepatrick where Josias had become minister), just before the Sixmilewater Revival of 1625. Josias' grave is at Upton Graveyard in Templepatrick - here's a photo:
John became a minister back in Scotland, at Irongray outside Dumfries. He was ejected from his pulpit in 1662, and became a Covenanter field preacher, preaching at many conventicles of 8000 - 10,000 people (some of which, held in Fife, were attended by the young Richard Cameron).
In the 1670s it was John Welch and Gabriel Semple who licensed Richard Cameron to the ministry, with Welch encouraging Cameron with the famous words "Go your way Ritchie, and set the fire of Hell to their tails!". John Welch fought at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in June 1679, and died in London on 9 January 1681. He was buried at St Botolph's churchyard in Bishopsgate, London, but he has no marked grave.
[ UPDATE: "...Mr Josias Welsh, son of the great John Welsh and Elizabeth Knox, youngest daughter of Mr John Knox the reformer of Scotland, came to Templepatrick, in the year 1621 or 1622, having finished his literary education under the attention of his own father, who was gospel minister in Ayr, but was obliged to fly to France from persecution. Josias having perfected his studies at the great reformed college of Geneva, on his return to his native land, he was found so perfect in literary acquirements, that he was appointed immediately to the professorship of Humanity, in the university of Glasgow..."
He died on Monday 23rd June, and his original gravestone had the inscription:
Here lies interred, under this stone
Great Knoxes grand child, John Welshes son;
Born in Scotland, and bred up in France,
He then came to Ireland the gospel to advance.
from "A Historical Essay on the Parish and Congregation of Templepatrick", SM Stephenson, Belfast 1824. Available free from GoogleBooks here]
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