John G. Smith
May 2019
Introduction
This is the story of the ancestors of William and Bessie Davies who lived in Llechfaen, Breconshire from about 1918.
We have tried to give a flavour of their lives and times.
Until the time of Henry VIII, the Welsh did not use surnames. Henry decided to impose them on the Welsh population. The number used was absurdly small which accounts for the preponderance of a few surnames in the present population. Given Morgan, Davies, Llewelyn, Jones, Williams and a few others then one can name a fair proportion of the Welsh population. This story is riddled with Morgans. There are several Morgan Morgans and Morgan crops up frequently as a first name on the Davies side. It does not make searching old records an easy task and presenting them in a comprehensible manner is even more difficult. In real life this isn’t a problem. The Welsh have long adapted by adding a place name or occupation to one or more of the names. Dylan Thomas invented the undertaker, Evans the Death. In our case, the key factor proved to be the names of the farms since most of the Davies ancestors were farmers.
Researching a family history is a bit like reading a book backwards: you know the end result but have somehow to puzzle out the beginning. When one comes to report the results of this research, there is a choice. One can follow the line of the research back in time or report the story as it happened. The latter is the course chosen here. The beginning presented here is thus not the real beginning but the furthest back in time we have been able to search successfully. In this case, it is not much further back than 1800. We are starting at the bottom of the known tree and will follow it upward (forward in time). We shall be forced on occasion to refer back or forward in time in order to illustrate a point.
Most of the people we will meet here lived in a relatively small part of Breconshire and Glamorgan
Nant Ddu village is north of the Lwyn Onn Reservoir at the top of the map.
Note the Nant Gwinau and Nant Car streams which enter the reservoir from the east.
Nantmaden Farm is in the SW corner.
Cwm Llysiog top of map to east of Nant Ddu
c
- Most of the early family were tenant farmers who lived within an area bounded by Penderyn in the south, Ystradfellte in the north and west and the Taf valley (Nant ddu to Merthyr Tydfil) to the east. It lies just north of Merthyr Tydfil as shown in the above diagram which is drawn from an OS map of about 1890. The distance from Ystradfellte to Penderyn is about 3.5 miles. The red numbers give approximate positions of some of the farms mentioned.
- Nantmaden farm
- Beili Helig
- Coed Cae Ddu
- Wern Las farm
- Heol Las Farm
- Penyrheol
- Blaentringarth
- Abercar
- Nantgwinefach
- Glynperfedd farm
It is an unfortunate fact that women were regarded as second-class citizens for most of the early records. Consequently, our story is somewhat male-dominated. The position is not helped by the fact that women took their husband’s surname on marriage which made them difficult to place in the family tree.
The Davies’ Ancestors
Thomas (1774 – 1851) and Jane Powell (1779 – 1842)
Strangely, the story starts with Powells – Thomas and his wife, Jane.
It is interesting to place Thomas and Jane in History.
When he was a teenager, Mozart was still alive.
He was a contemporary of Napoleon Bonaparte (b.1769)
Thomas Powell was a tenant farmer near Ystradfellte. He was married to Jane but we know very few further details about her. Thomas, however, has left a wealth of information, partly due to his living a long life and also he left a will.
We first meet Thomas and Jane in the 1841 census reproduced here:
The ages (rounded to the nearest 5 years) are guesses by the census recorder.
Thomas and Jane were farming at a farm called Blaen Nedd Uchaf (Grid ref SN908156) [ ‘Blaen’ – ‘front’ i.e. top of the valley, ‘Nedd’ – River Neath, ‘Uchaf’ – upper (there was a lower Blaen Nedd)] with sons William and Rees.
Blaen Nedd Uchaf in 2019
An advert from 1841, where the owner was trying to sell the land, tells us that it was not a very big farm (47 acres). It was extremely isolated. The nearest neighbour was another farm some kilometers or more away and the nearest village was about 4km across very hilly country. This must have been subsistence farming.
The land around Blaen Nedd is certainly not “excellent Arable, Meadow and Pasture”. It is mainly upland moor.
Jane died in 1842 at the age of 63. We are sure it is her because of the name of the farm.
The 1851 census is more informative.
Thomas is, of course, described as widower. Son, William, was still at home and they now farmed Blaentringarth (Grid Ref SN942162), a bigger farm of 135 acres. Of particular interest in this census are Jane Davies (b.1832) and David Davies (b.1840) who is described as “nephew” (David could hardly be Thomas’ nephew so William presumably filled in the census form), We shall return to them.
The ruins, shown below, can still be found.
Thomas and Jane had five children.
The eldest, Jennet, we know from her baptism record at Ystradfellte in 1807.
Jennet has an important role to play in this story.
Placing Jennet in History.
Parliament abolished slavery in 1807.
Coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte
For Thomas’s other children:
- Rees (b.c.1810) we know a little of thanks to the legal action detailed below.
- William (b.1812) is well documented and we shall consider him further.
- Mary(b.1812) and Ann (b.1813) do not play a significant role in our story. and we have not found any further details.
In 1851, Thomas died. He and Jane are buried in the cemetery of St Mary’s Church, Ystradfellte.
Strangely, this gravestone is in English. That may have been the choice of the undertakers rather than the family who almost certainly spoke Welsh.
Fortunately we have William’s will (also in English – this was probably a legal requirement):
In it he bequeathed the bulk of his estate to daughter Mary and son William. There are smaller bequests to daughter Ann and son Rees.
But the most striking ones are to granddaughters Jane and Mary Davies.
Ann’s married name was Walters and Mary’s was Jones.
Thus only Jennet could be the mother of these two Davies granddaughters.
An Aside
William took over the farm at Blaentringarth after Thomas’s death. He does not seem to have been a very successful farmer.
In any event, the farm was put up for sale in 1868.
He had one interesting brush with the law in 1868. He and his wife, Hannah, were obviously trying to supplement their farming income.
However, despite the notice of the sale, William Powell, the son, was still at Blaentringarth in the 1871 census.
William seems to figure in several legal cases. Particularly interesting is one brought by his brother, Rees. Only a portion of the article is reproduced below.
Two excerpts from a long press report are given above. Rees had brought the case against a local shepherd. In the trial Morgan Davies (b.1839 – we shall meet him below as he proves to be an important link in the family tree.) stood as a witness. He worked for William Powell at Blaentringarth and the press cutting quite clearly states that he is a nephew of Rees. The case was lost partly due to Morgan’s inept testimony. It is interesting to note that Morgan went to work at 4.00am!
We shall meet William Powell and Morgan Davies (b.1839) again.
William (1774 – 1850)
and
Jane Davies (1778 -1858)
This sets the scene for the introduction of the Davies branch of the family.
Placing William and Jane in History
American War of Independence begins in 1775.
James Cook lands in Australia 1770
We first meet them in the 1841 census living not far from Nant Ddu:
William was a mason and his wife was called Jane.
There is one other surprising entry. Living with them was a young girl, Jane Powell (b.1832 – according to the census). [This date is probably a guess. Jane in fact was baptised in 1831 as we shall see later. Note that William and his wife have ages rounded to 60] Since she has a different surname and is obviously not William and Jane’s daughter, it is probable that she was their granddaughter.
We have an interesting symmetry to the problem of finding the Davies ancestors. We have a Davies with a Powell granddaughter and have met a Thomas Powell with Davies grandchildren. In order to find the next generation we have to use these grandchildren to find their parents.
Fortunately Jane Davies (b.1778) [who we met above] was still alive at the time of the next census in 1851, although husband William had died:-
Even more fortunately, Jane Powell was still living with her and was described as “granddaughter” (as we suspected). Also present was Llewelyn Davies (b.1843) “grandson”.
William had died on 6th Jan 1850 and Jane eventually died in June 1858. They are buried in Capel Nant Ddu alongside the grave of Jennet Davies, their daughter-in-law. This proximity of the grave stones is further proof of their relationship. Family graves tend to be grouped together.
From the grandchildren in the 1851 census above, Jane Davies (b.1778) must have had at least two children who married :
1/. a girl, married a Powell and had a daughter, Jane, in 1832
2/, a boy, who married and produced a son, Llewelyn, in 1843.
Llewelyn Davies (1809 – 1899)
Jennet Powell (1807 – 1844)
The answer to the search for the father of this grandson, Llewelyn Davies(b.1843) {mentioned above}, is another Llewelyn Davies (b.1809). The latter Llewelyn was illiterate and his first name was spelled by others in so many different ways as to make it difficult to follow his life. He was born in Vaynor (not the small village north of Merthyr Tydfil but the large parish which spreads out north of that town). We do not have a baptism record. All we know comes later in his life.
In 1831 he married Jennet Powell (who we met above) from Ystradfellte. They were married in Penderyn:
This, we believe, is one of the links between the Powells and the Davies. Jennet Powell was the daughter of Thomas Powell (1774-1851) who was described above.
Placing Llewelyn in History :
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805) took place just before Llewelyn’s birth.
Before Llewelyn and Jennet’s marriage, George Stevenson had successfully won the Rainhill trials with his locomotive, Rocket.
Llewelyn has an important part to play in our story. This is due to the fact that he lived throughout 90% of the 19th century. This was a period of great change when the industrial revolution started to gather pace. Means of transport changed from the horse to the railway. Llewelyn may have been the first of the ancestors described here to travel by train: the Brecon to Merthyr railway opened in 1864. Alongside, were changes in education. Llewelyn was illiterate but his sons were not. Newspapers were started and we have the evidence of press reports involving Llewelyn. National census-taking was started in 1841. This has proved an important source for genealogists as evidenced by what we have found about Llewelyn’s life.
Despite Jennet’s short married life, she produced 10 children (that we know of) in their 14 years of marriage:
Jane (b.1832), William(b.1832), Thomas (b.1834), Mary (b.1835), Rees (b.1837), Rees (b.1838), Morgan (b.1839), David (b.1840), Llewelyn (b.1842), John (b.1842).
Thomas, Rees and Morgan have been high-lighted because they are important later in the story.
We remarked earlier on Jane and David Davies who were living with Thomas Powell at Blaentringarth in 1851. Two of Jennet’s children, Jane and Llewelyn Davies, have birth dates that correspond exactly with those found in Thomas Powell’s 1851 census. Also, in Thomas Powell’s will, Jane and Mary Davies, granddaughters, are both bequeathed money. We believe we have found the parents of Thomas Powell’s grandchildren.
Jane Davies’ baptism document is instructive.
In 1832, when Jane was born, the family lived at Ynys-y-felin (the island of the mill). Ynys-y-felin was a village on the western bank of the Taf Fawr. It was totally drowned when Llwyn Onn reservoir was built. Only the chapel remains because it was moved to safety to its present site (on the A470 south of the church discussed below) before the valley was flooded.
Note that her father, Llewelyn, was a blacksmith.
It was common practice to name the first-born after the grandparents which gives additional credence to our explanation.
Jennet died in 1844 at the young age of 37.
We know the death certificate shown here is hers because the address ‘Nantgwine fach’ is found on the baptism notes for the later children as exemplified by that of Rees.
Jennet’s grave is to be found in the tiny cemetery of St. Mary’s Church immediately south of Nant Ddu on the A470. As additional evidence, it can be found next to that of her parents-in-law, Willaim and Jane Davies.
Taken from Alan George
An Aside
The gravestone records Jennet dying on June 22 1844. This is inconsistent with the written record which gives June 3rd 1844.
We know the gravestone is hers because it records the death of two of her sons. Buried with her are sons John (1842-1851) and Llewellyn (1842-1879) so we are certain that it is her grave.
In particular we note that John Davies died on March 13th 1851 at the age of 8.
We can find the written record which supports this:
John Davies died March 13? 1851 aged 8.
Why then the three week discrepancy between the date of death of Jennet on the gravestone and the written record? We believe the latter is the correct date.
We will probably never know the real reason.
However, we can postulate that the gravestone was erected much later than 1844, possibly some time close to the death of son Llewelyn.
The stonework looks remarkably clean for a grave of its age and there is the strange fact that it is all written in English not Welsh (as was her husband’s grave).
It is possible that the gravestone replaced an earlier one which did not record the death of son Llewelyn and by that time memories were faulty and the wrong date was engraved.
An Aside
Most of Llewelyn’s children were baptised in the chapel at Nant Ddu (see above). Next to the record for his daughter, Jane Davies, is one for the daughter of a Rees Powell and his wife Jane. They too named their daughter Jane and she was baptised in 1832). 
We know that William and Jane Davies had a granddaughter, Jane Powell(b.1831), living with them. We know that Thomas Powell had a son Rees. We believe that this is the additional link between the Davies and Powell families. This complex relationship is illustrated by the family tree below. Only some of the children are included in order to simplify the diagram.
The name ‘Jane Davies’ occurs in three successive generations!
Husband Llewelyn (b.1809) appears in the 1851 census:The census recorder spells his name ‘Lewllin’. He was a widower and his trade was given as blacksmith. Note the house name: Tyr y lai bach.
An advert from 1838 uses the same name. Despite the freehold being for sale, Llewelyn lived there at a yearly rent of £12 until at least 1854 because a similar press cutting exists. It tells us where this house was situated (even if the name is not quite right) and that it included a blacksmith’s shop. It was right next to the Nantgwine estate. More of this name later.
In the1861 census, we learn that son Llewelyn followed the same trade as his father and that daughter Mary, who we met in the 1851 census, had married Thomas Morgan, a navvie.
At that time there were hundreds of such workers employed on the construction of reservoirs and also on the navies line which ran from Cefn Coed to Cwm Taf and carried limestone up Cwm Taf.
History Link: The Brecon – Merthyr railway was opened in 1864
The address given in this census (noted earlier) enables us to locate their dwelling.
Nantgwinefach is obviously a name taken from the Nant Gwinau stream. The farm appears on the 1813 OS map reproduced here. It is not far north of Abercar which we shall meet later.
It is the same address to be found on the baptism documents found for the later children – for example:
It is presumably next to, or on, the Nantgwine estate mentioned above. Today the Nant Gwinau flows into the Llwyn Onn reservoir above Nant Ddu village (see map). The remains of their home lie under the present A470 road.
In 1861 Llewelyn, aged 52, re-married. Elizabeth Jones, the bride, was 40 and came from the parish of Cilycwm in Camarthenshire.
The marriage certificate is disappointing. Where it might have given us Llewelyn’s father’s name, we get the terse ‘deceased’.
Note the witness, Rachel Ingram. She appears on the 1861 census sheet for Llewelyn. There is obviously some Camarthen connection that we do not know about. It is unlikely that Llewelyn would travel to Carmarthen but the Ingrams in the 1861 census return are listed a “carriers” (possible butter carriers from later census returns). They must have been fairly close friends of Llewelyn for Rachel to be a witness at his wedding.
(We have discussed this and Elizabeth’s origins elsewhere in the Carmarthen connection.)
If you believe the witness in the fraud trial discussed below, it may not have been a very happy marriage though the judge, in his summing up, refuted this.
They had no children together .
Llewelyn , was a well-known local figure who lived to a ripe old age.
The local press (Western Mail 1899) takes up the story just after his death. He was known as Llewelyn y Gof (‘Gof’ – ‘blacksmith’) .
His weekly visits to Merthyr Tydfil pose a question: Merthyr is about 5 miles from Abercar so how did he travel?
The answer is supplied by a small cutting from the Cardiff Times, 26 Aug 1893.
The road to Merthyr was not entirely safe even with a horse and trap!
£40 in 1893 would be worth approximately £4600 at present-day values.
One wonders what the attraction in Merthyr can have been.
By 1881 the family had moved a short distance to Abercar Farm (Mouth of the Car).
The Nant Car flows into the reservoir just south of the Nant Gwinau (See earlier map for these streams).
Now Llewelyn was described as farmer.
The vacated farm was occupied by his brother-in-law William Powell(b.1813) whom we met earlier. We do not know why he did not stay at Blaentringarth farm. So, in the 1881 census, we found him living in Nantgwinefach, next to Abercar .
The remains of Abercar now lie close to the water of Llwyn Onn reservoir. There is little evidence of it, as the farm must have been destroyed during reservoir construction to prevent re-habitation.
Llwyn Onn was not finally built until the 1920s but preparations for it started long before.
Llewelyn also started early as shown by this record of his claim for compensation. Note the amount claimed for what was probably a very similar farm.
Just before Llewelyn’s death in 1899 the whole family was split apart by what must have been a very bitter dispute. The details were widely reported in all the South Wales press.
(A full report of the trial proceedings can be found at this link)
One of the sons of Llewelyn, Thomas Davies(1834), had got the blind and bed-ridden Llewelyn to make his mark (he was illiterate) on a new will that left Abercar to a grandson of Llewelyn, Morgan Davies(1875-?) , (one of the sons of Rees Davies (1838-1913)) and made no provision for widow Elizabeth. Elizabeth went to court. Strangely, Morgan claimed he was unaware of his inheritance. It may be that Morgan Davies was the ‘fall guy’ and that at least some of the sons and daughters of Llewelyn’s first marriage were ganging up against the second wife, Elizabeth, who was no relation of theirs.
The judge was particularly scathing about the testimony of Thomas Davies who seemed to have been the main contestant. In the event, the case was decided in Elizabeth’s favour but there was no judgement about damages! These were to be settled out of court by the family!
The inheritance was Elizabeth’s.
As an aside:
What happened to the so-called perpetrator of the crime, grandson Morgan Davies?
There are census returns for 1891, 1901 and 1911 that show a Morgan Davies with the appropriate birth year.
His birth-place is recorded as Penderyn where father, Rees Davies, lived.
In 1898 he had married Celia Williams, daughter of John Williams of Blaen Taf Fechan farm (This was north of the Pontsticill reservoir in Llanfrynach parish. Grid Ref SO035173).
When one looks at the names chosen for his children then we can be more confident about his father. Of the seven children, three carry names which are those of Davies family members:- John Llewelyn (his grandfather), Rees (his father), Jennet (his grandmother).
Crucially, in the 1891 census he is living with Evan Jenkins and his trade is given as ‘ironmonger’s assistant’ – agreeing with the clipping from the fraud trial proceedings shown here although it says ‘iron-maker’s assistant’. Evan Jenkins is recorded in the census as living in Dowlais which agrees with the clipping.
In the 1911 census return, whilst living at Blaen Taf Fechan, Morgan still claimed to be an ‘ironmonger’s assistant’ . We have our man. The job was rather a come-down from father’s ‘blacksmith’. The piece about ‘assisting his uncle at the farm’ is more difficult to understand unless Celia, whom he married in 1898 (before this trial), was his cousin.
He and Celia eventually settled down near Caerleon where they raised a large family.
Photograph courtesy of Nicholas Haines, his great grandson. 
Elizabeth moved back to NantGwinefach after the death of Llewelyn. She lived there with her sister Mary and the latter’s husband, John Morgan.
A few years after, she suffered a broken thigh from a fall and died in hospital.
We have her will, reproduced below:-
Elizabeth left her money to the sons of John Morgan, her brother-in-law. There is no mention of the Davies’ sons!
History Link: Queen Victoria died on Jan 22 1901.
Finally, Llewelyn’s grave is to be found a few yards from that of his first wife, Jennet. It is a very imposing affair with metal lettering. Elizabeth was buried with him.
Note that, unlike the writing on the gravestone of his first wife, it is all in Welsh (Elizabeth only spoke Welsh).
“Er Cof Am” – “In Memory of”
What of the sons and daughters of Llewelyn?
Some we know of. Twins, Llewelyn and John are buried with their mother. Some are untraceable.
In the Great Fraud trial proceedings, it mentions that Llewelyn had three sons and a daughter living in 1898.
The two sons who are traceable, are Rees and Morgan.
Thomas, the key to the fraud trial, has proved untraceable.
The surviving daughter is probably Mary but we have not located her.
Rees Davies (1838 – 1913)
Rees in History
Queen Victoria is Queen from 1837 to 1901
In 1861 son Rees married Rachel Morgans from the parish of Cilycwm in Camarthenshire – the same place as his father’s second wife.
Much of what we know about him comes from the 1861 and 1881 census returns reproduced above. In 1861 he was living in Abercar Farm next door to his father This was Rachel’s address in the marriage certificate.. This may just be coincidence but possibly father, Llewelyn, met Elizabeth through his son’s wife.
The names of the children in the 1891 census are sufficient to identify this Rees as being Llewelyn and Jennet’s son. They now lived at 19 Chapel Road, Penderyn.
Note that the infamous grandson, Morgan Davies, appears as a 6 year old. We have already discussed his family tree.
In the 1911 census it is recorded that Rachel had 11 children but only 5 were living. Infant mortality at this period was high.
Her place of birth is given as Llandovery.
Rees died in 1920. He and Rachel are buried in the same cemetery, Capel Nant Ddu, as his father and grandfather.
Morgan Davies (1839-1907)
Martha Davies ( 1841-1915)
Placing Morgan in history:
In 1839 the first surgery under anaesthetic was carried out.
Fox-Talbot showed his “photogenic drawings” (photographs) at the Royal Institution in London.
Morgan Davies was the seventh child of Llewelyn and Jennet. No baptism record has been found (the page in the church records is missing) but we know he existed because, in the records of the great fraud case, a “Morgan Davies ( son)” , is mentioned (see excerpt):
Morgan and brother William appear in the 1851 census, two successive sheets of which are reproduced below:
The second sheets showed a continuation of Daniel Jenkins’ census return. In it we see Llewelyn’s son, William Davies (1833) and then Morgan Davies (1839).
There is some doubt about the age given to Morgan. At first sight it looks like 43 but a careful examination of the way in which the census taker wrote his “4”s and “3”s suggest this is really 13 (see Daniel Jenkins’ daughter, Margaret). This is supported by the fact that the census taker didn’t bother to indicate the marital status of persons under the age of 17. Morgan falls into this category.
There are other reasons for believing the relationship (see later).
In the 1861 census, as described above, Morgan was to be found working for William Powell at Blaentringarth. We have already seen (in the ‘aside’ above) how he was involved in a court case which confirms that he was William’s nephew.
More concrete evidence for Morgan emerged in 1870 when he married Martha Davies.
Martha was born in Hendre Isaf, Pembrokeshire:
We can find her in every census from 1871- 1911. Unfortunately, when responding to demands for a birth place she gave different places:- Boncath, Emlyn, Boncath, and Hendre on the last 4 occasions. All can be located and all are in the same area near Newcastle Emlyn in Pembrokeshire. Fortunately, we can find Martha at the bottom of the list, aged 4 months, in the 1841 census above.
Note the address – Hendre Isaf (Lower Hendre), which agrees with the birthplace given in the 1911 census reproduced some way below.
Morgan and Martha’s marriage certificate gives us further confirmation of their parentage
They were married in Heol y Felin, Mill Street, Aberdare, on 19 Nov 1870. Note that both Morgan and Martha signed by making a mark. Martha’s father, William Davies, was described as farmer (agrees with 1841 census) and the groom was Morgan with a father Llewelyn who was a blacksmith – surely Llewelyn y Gof.
In 1871 Morgan was working in Aberdare as farm servant. The main point of interest is that he and Martha had a son, William. Their address was Ynyscynon Street. This is in Cwmbach which is son’s William declared birth-place in the 1911 census and only 0.3 miles from Pant-y-cerdin which is probably Morgan’s address on the marriage certificate. By 1881 they had rented their own farm – Coed Cae Ddu (grid ref SN95989 10350), a farm of 99 acres. The Welsh translates as ‘trees of the black field’ or something approximating that. It is typical upland sheep country. The farm still exists. The 1891 census is reproduced below.
They now had a son Llewelyn in addition to William.
Morgan seems to have kept quite a low profile. We find very little about him in the local press.
By 1901 they had moved further up the valley to Nantmaden farm (grid ref: SN96891 10734), another sheep farm of 117 acres.
Morgan died in 1907.
A rough translation is :-
PENDERYN. Deaths – September 20th, after ten days of severe tribulation, Mr Morgan Davies, Nant- maden, from the parish above, died. On the following Tuesday, a lot of the neighbours and others gathered, to be escorted to the Nantddu Chapel Burial, Cwmtaf. The Rev.- Price, Pontbren (B) administered in the house, and the Rev-Harris, curate, in the church. He was a member of the Baptist church, in Pontbren, for 34 years, and he was faithful in attending the the services over the years, despite having three miles of road to travel. He was peaceful, helpful, and a very useful neighbour in the area. He leaves a widow, and two sons, and several grandchildren behind him to mourn. He was 69 years old
He left his estate to his widow.
Martha continued with the farm as shown by the 1911 census return. Note that Mattie Davies is described as niece. This is probably because son, Llewelyn, filled in the census form as Martha was illiterate. Mattie was, of course, Llewelyn’s niece.
Finally, Morgan’s wife Martha died in 1915.
In the same churchyard as Llewelyn and Jennet can be found an imposing
marble headstone, now lying flat on the ground, inscribed with ‘Morgan
Davies and Martha his wife, Nantmaden, Penderyn’.
Martha’s will is interesting:
She detailed all sorts of things which she bequeathed to Mattie, her grandaughter.
The bulk of the estate was left to son Llewelyn.
There is no mention of the other son, William, who was Mattie’s father..
William was not even made Guardian of his own daughter which is very surprising – particularly as we believe that, on Martha’s death, Mattie went to live at Dolymaes with William and her brothers and sisters.
An Aside
It is worth noting here how the Davies family are all buried at the chapel at Nant Ddu. They had to travel about three miles over rough terrain to reach the chapel but it was very much the centre of family life outside the home. We will also find this to be true of the Morgan family when we come to consider them except that their chapel was in the centre of Penderyn. The Welsh chapels played an important role in Welsh life at this period.
As an Aside:
We should add a note about son, Llewelyn. He did not stay at Nantmaden as shown by the advert from the County Times, March 1916.
In 1924 he married Gwenllian Ann Lewis, a widow. She was 45 and he was 51. The wedding certificate is from Merthyr Tydfil register office. There is no indication that any of the Davies family were present.
He is recorded as living at Ysgubor Fawr farm (‘large barn’) and she is from the Red Lion Inn, Penderyn.
Both places still exist.
The 1911 census return for the Red Lion shows that the publican was Lewis Lewis (he also worked in the huge limestone quarries north of Penderyn). His wife is recorded as Gwenllian Ann Lewis. Lewis Lewis died in 1918. His death is recorded in a local welsh-language newspaper of 1918:
A rough translation is:-
SUDDEN DEATH. So suddenly moved our brother, Mr. Lewis Lewis, Red Lion, from our midst. He followed his work in the quarry until January 19th, and that evening he went to the doctor. Dr. Thomas, Hirwaun, complaining of pain in his neck, but that was not harmful to him advised the doctor. The next morning (Sunday) he had risen as usual, but went back to bed and felt tremors, and then came the inflammation, and within a week he died. A local man, his healthy body was cut down in its prime at mid-41. A huge crowd came to his funeral last day of January. Served by the Revs. Cefni Jones (B.), Teifi Davies (MC), and Hugh Williams (W), and Rector Jenkins in the church. The Lord protect his widow and children in their grief and their intense longing for him
From Lewis and Gwenllian’s marriage certificate we find that her maiden name was Price. A search for Gwenllian and her father showed that she came from Glyn-perfedd Farm which is not very far from Coed Cae Ddu Farm where Llewelyn grew up. Gwenllian Price can be found at the top of the same 1891 census sheet as Llewelyn (which was reproduced earlier above the photo of Coed Cae Ddu farmhouse). The young Llewelyn and Gwenllian must have been well acquainted. What is especially interesting is that Gwenllian’s mother, Margaret Price came from the Morgan family and will be discussed in the web page for the Morgan branch of the family. In a relatively sparsely populated region, intermarriage with distant relatives must have been commonplace.
In the 1891 census sheet mentioned above, there are 6 occupied farms, four of which were occupied by distant relations:
1/ Glynperfedd Charles Price – father of Gwenllian
2/.Morgan Davies with sons William (see below) and Llewelyn (who married Gwenllian above).
5/ Jenkin Morgan at Beili Helyg (brother of Morgan Morgan below)
6/.Morgan Morgan at Penyrheol – father of Bessie (who married William above).
Llewelyn Davies (Morgan’s son) died in 1930. It is recorded that he had been living at the Red Lion. In his will he left £1677-7s-9d to be divided between his widow and John Ivor Evans (the husband of Mattie Davies (1896) who was the eldest of brother William’s children and who had been brought up by Llewelyn’s parents).
William Davies (1871 – 1962)
So where had Morgan’s elder son, William, gone? He is certainly hard to find in the early records.
We find a helpful hint in an England & Wales marriage report. In 1896 a William Davies married Bessie Morgan. They were married in Calfaria Chapel (see entry in Wikipedia).
We don’t have to look far to find Bessie and her family.
As mentioned above, in 1891 Bessie and William appeared on the same census sheet, William was living at Coed Cae Ddu Farm(at the top of the sheet) and Bessie at Penyrheol Farm (at the bottom).
William and Bessie must have been very well acquainted.
(We will discuss Bessie’s family , the Morgans at https://morgdavfamtree.wordpress.com/the-morgan-family-tree/
By the time of the 1901 census, William and Bessie were living at Llysiog which, from reading the census, must be somewhere close to Nant Ddu because the Nant Ddu pub, The Tredegar Arms, is mentioned on the same census sheet. The 30 year-old William was grandly described as farmer. He and Bessie now had a family with the birth of Mattie (1896) (Mattie was looked after by her paternal grandparents at Nantmaden Farm) Mary Jane (1897) and Lizzie (1898), both born somewhere in Penderyn. Also present was son Morgan (1900), born at Llysiog (parish of Cantreff).
The family must have been poor because there is a suggestion (‘The Talybont Saga’ by David Tipper, published by Welsh Water) that William tried working for a brick-making business in Merthyr but did not enjoy the experience.
In 1906 the family moved to a farm, Ynys-poste (Grid Ref SO 07431 16963), in the valley upstream from the present site of the Talybont Reservoir.
Daniel (1903), Fristwith(1905) and William(1906) were born there. Today no trace of Ynys poste remains – just a flattened stony area.
In 1909, William had the chance of another farm, Aber Farm, closer to Talybont on Usk. He left one of his workmen as bailiff in Ynys-poste and the whole family moved to Aber Farm.
The farm still exists .
Here the family was completed by the birth of Gweneth (1913) and Heulwyn (1914).
Further details of life at Aber Farm are sparse but at least we know that William attended chapel!
The Talbont reservoir was being planned and William knew all too well that building reservoirs meant loss of farm-land.
On 12 July 1917 this advert appeared in The Brecon County Times:
‘TO LET. BY TENDER from Michaelmas next, DOLYMAES FARM, LLECHFAEN,
r 2 miles from Brecon, comprising good house and homestead and 328a. 3r. 30p.-
For tender forms and order to view, please apply to J. H. Furmedge, i Glanusk Estate Office, Crickhowell.’
William seized it and over the course of the next year the family moved to Dolymaes, Llechfaen.
William stayed behind to finish business at Talybont .
This advert showed that William paid a bit more in rent than his grandfather, Llewelyn, did for Tyr y Tay Bach.
By 1919 the family was at Dolymaes as shown by the newspaper cuttings
of little brushes with the law:-
William seems to have made his mark in the farming community very quickly:
Here is the whole family. If we judge the youngest (Heulwen) to be about five, then the photo would have been taken in 1919 at Dolymaes. Having a photograph taken was a serious businees. There is hardly a smile amongst them all!
Mattie, Gweneth, William, Heulwen, Bessie, Mary Jane
Aside:
We can give a flavour of what life was like for the Davies family when they lived in Dolymaes. Llechfaen was a relatively isolated village with no mains water, electricity or sewage. The farm had the luxury of having its own pump: the rest of the village had to get their water from a pump lower down the village. At some stage the farm pump was replaced by a tank on the hill above the farm which somehow caught a water supply and this was piped to the wash-house – a lean-to building that can be seen on the left of the main farmhouse in the photo above. In the washhouse was a large boiler (fed by coal) which could be used to provide hot water for washing clothes. In the farm house there were washstands in most bedrooms with a jug of cold water. As a child, the author often had baths in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire. People coming to buy milk had a perfect view of the bath!
All lighting was by oil lamps and candles. Once it was dark then there was little point in staying up.
The main WC was housed separately from the farm house and consisted of a small, wimdowless building containing a plank over a bucket. The author, as a small boy, once had the un-nerving experience of sitting over this bucket only to hear the clank of chains. A gin trap had been placed under the plank and had caught a rat!
Heating was rudimentary. The kitchen fire was heaped with slack (fine coal) and usually was on all day. The other fireplaces were only lit on special occasions.
Electricity eventually arrived at Dolymaes some time in the 1950’s.
Transport for William and his family became increasingly easier. The days of his grandfather, Llewelyn, travelling by pony trap had long gone.
In the 1860’s, the Brecon – Merthyr – Newport railway was constructed. This was the major means of transport for most of the population. As the railway passed within 1/2 mile of the village, visiting Brecon for shopping was at last practical for the population of Llechfaen. The railway was single track and had some of the steepest gradients found anywhere in the country (and there were some spectacular accidents from loss of control of trucks). The train stopped at every minor hamlet. The author once travelled by train from London to Newport and then Newport to Brecon. The latter journey took longer than London to Newport!
Transport by horse was still used but by the 1920’s motor vehicles increasingly took over and suddenly at least the well-off population was much more mobile.
Fristwith with an early car at Dolymaes
This is well illustrated by an anecdote concerning William. Daughter, Fristwith, who was his housekeeper, discovered that he had never seen the sea! This must have been just before the second World War. The family had been using motor transport for some time. So, Fristwith decided to take him on a trip to the seaside. I do not know where they went. On arriving at the sea, William took a long look and then said. “Well! Well! …..Let’s go home now!”
In present times almost no-one over the age of three has not seen the sea. We take travel for granted.
Now we should also consider Bessie’s ancestors. A similar treatment to the above is given here on the Morgan Family Page
Having considered their ancestors, we return to the Davies to record the deaths of William and Bessie Davies. Bessie suffered from diabetes and died in 1937.
William remained at Dolymaes looked after by Fristwith until he died in 1962.
They are buried in the cemetery of Llanhamlach Church.
Daughter Fristwith is buried close by.
This completes the tour of the early Davies and Morgan families. Below is a skeleton outline of the family tree which may help the reader:-
It is not the end of the story.
The author should declare his interest. If you look at the photo of William Davies with his family, then the young girl on his right, Gweneth, is the author’s mother.
It is possible to extend the information above a bit further forward in time to the marriages of the children of William and Bessie Davies, Dolymaes.
Briefly:
Mattie married a farmer, John Ivor Evans in 1924. They farmed Letty Rhys near Penderyn. They had 2 children, Elizabeth(1926) and Alice (1927)
Mary Jane married Phillip Williams in 1922. They had 2 children. Bryan (1924) and Evelyn (1925). They farmed Greenway near Llanhamlach
Lizzie married Rees Owen George in 1930. They had 3 children, Fristwyth (1931), Jean (1935) and Roland(?). They farmed near Aberystwyth.
Morgan married Dorothy Kathleen Davies in 1930. They had 2 children, Geoffrey and Llewellyn. They farmed Ty Gwyn near Llangorse
Daniel married Bronwen Margaretta Morgan in 1929. They had 1 child. Jean.
Fristwith did not marry.
William married Ruth Wicks in 1934. They had 3 children, Roger (1935), Andrew (1939( and Alan James (1942). He became a bank manager with Barclays
Gweneth married Enoch Gwynfryn Smith in 1939. They had 2 children, John (1941) and Richard (1943). For more details, please visit the Smith web site:
The Family Tree for the Smiths Of Rhosllanerchrugog
Heulwen married Lewis Edgar Walters in 1938. They had 3 children, Dorothy (1939), David (1942) and Martyn(1945). Lewis was an Estate Valuer.
Conclusion
There is much we don’t know (and some of what we have found may be incorrectly assigned) but it is an indictment of the Welsh educational system at that time. The Davies were illiterate until William(1871) and the Morgans until Daniel(1848). However, these early family members only spoke Welsh. Daniel, for example, completed a Welsh version of the standard 1911 census form. William (who went to school) spoke Welsh and English. William’s children spoke both. Less Welsh was spoken as one progresses to the younger members of the William Davies household. William spoke Welsh to daughter Fristwith but she replied in English! William’s grandchildren (with a few exceptions) could only speak English . The schooling system was designed to eradicate the Welsh language and it very nearly succeeded.
Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank the following:-
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Elsa, my granddaughter, who started me off on family research.
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Brigid, my daughter, who first started the research when the web was a dream. She also has been an enthusiastic supporter and researcher on our visit to South Wales.
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Daphne, my wife, who, despite struggling with Welsh pronunciation and the multitude of Morgans, proof-read the early versions and made many valuable suggestions.
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Carolyn Jacob for constructive criticism and encouragement.
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Barbara Evans, my third cousin once removed (who researches a parallel tree on the Davies) for much help.
Data has been obtained from the following sources:-
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‘The Talybont Saga’ by David Tipper, published by Welsh Water.
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All census, birth, marriage and death documentation has been found through the use of the web site Find My Past
Any mistakes are mine. Please let me know if you spot any.
Our family Trees 
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