Rees Howells (1879–1950) was a Welsh preacher, missionary, and intercessor whose ministry became a cornerstone of the holiness and revival movements, particularly through his founding of the Bible College of Wales. Born on October 10, 1879, in Brynamman, Carmarthenshire, Wales, he was the sixth of eleven children in a poor mining family; his father, Thomas Howells, died in a mining accident when Rees was two. Raised by his mother, Ann, in a devout Methodist home, he left school at 12 to work in the tin mines and later as a collier. Converted at age 22 during the 1904 Welsh Revival through the preaching of Rev. Joseph Jenkins, Howells experienced a profound spiritual awakening that redirected his life from worldly pursuits to radical faith. In 1910, he married Elizabeth Hannah Jones, known as "Lizzie," and they had one son, Samuel Rees Howells. Howells’s preaching career began with missionary work in South Africa from 1915 to 1920 under the South Africa General Mission, alongside his wife, where he preached holiness and saw significant revival among the Zulu people. Returning to Wales in 1922, he established the Bible College of Wales in Swansea in 1924, transforming a dilapidated estate into a training ground for missionaries, funded through faith and prayer without direct appeals for money. Known as "the Intercessor," his ministry peaked during World War II, when he led the college in intense prayer campaigns believed to influence key events, such as the Battle of Britain, as chronicled in Norman Grubb’s biography Rees Howells, Intercessor (1952). A prolific preacher of sanctification and dependence on God, he continued leading the college until his death on February 13, 1950, in Swansea, leaving a legacy of intercessory prayer and global missions that endures through the college’s ongoing work. He was buried in the college grounds, survived by Lizzie and Samuel, who succeeded him as director.