Welsh Historical Figures

 

Wales has a rich history of which are legends and myths.  Using some of the names of infamous people in Welsh from the website, famouswelsh.com, this blog shows history of the people who make the list.

The first name n the list is that of King Arthur.  

Geoffrey paints the illustration, that King Arthur, who has defeated the Saxons has also established a vast empire. The other names in the history of King Arthur also include, Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father, Merlin, the magician, Guinevere, Arthur’s wife.  Also, the sword Excalibur.  Arthur’s kingdom was at Tintagel.

King Arthur, the legendary British leader, who according to medieval histories led the defence of the Britain against the Saxon.  However, the existence of King Arthur is that of the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fanciful and imaginative 12^th-century Historia Regum Britanniae “History of the Kings of Britain”. 

Also, during the 12^th-century, the French writer Chretian de Troyes, also added Lancelot, one of the Knights of the Round Table and the Holy Grail.  

During the 21^st century. The legend of King Arthur continues to have the prominence, not only to feature in literature about also to feature, in theatre, film, and television.

The next person in the list is Elihu Yale

Elihu Yale

Elihu Yale, born 1649, Boston. Yale was a British-American merchant and a slave trade.  President of the East India Company settlement in Fort St. George, Madras.  Yale is also best remembered for being the benefactor of Yale College, named in his honour.

Yale was the son of David Yale and Ursula Knight.  The Yale ancestry can be traced back to Plas yn Ial, Denbighshire.

Yale aged 3, along with his family left Boston, where they settled in England.  After his education, Yale served with the Honourable East India Company for 20 years, 1684, he became the first president of Fort St. George.  Yale was also instrumental in development of the Government General Hospital. 

Whilst working for the company, Yale amassed a large fortune. By 1692, after flouting the Company’s regulations and Yale’s embarrassment at his illegal profiteering, the Company relieved Yale of his position as governor. 

Yale returned back to United Kingdom, during 1699, where he resident at the mansion, his father had purchased at Plas Grono, or at his house in London. 

Cotton Mather, contact Yale during 1718, asking for his help.  Mather was represented a small institution of learning that had been founded during 1701 at Old Saybrook, Connecticut as the Colleigate School of Connecticut, and they needed money for a new building.  Yale sent 417 books, a portrait of King George I and nine bales of goods, of which were sold and raised £800. In their gratitude the officials named the new building Yale.  Eventually the institute became Yale College.

Elihu Yale's grave
St. Giles Church, Wrexham

1721, whilst at London, Yale died. However he was buried at St. Giles Church, Wrexham.  His tomb bears the inscription.

Born in America, in Europe bred
In Africa travell'd and in Asia wed
Where long he liv'd and thriv'd; In London dead
Much good, some ill, he did; so hope all's even
And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to Heaven
You that survive and read this tale, take care
For this most certain exit to prepare
Where blest in peace, the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the silent dust.

 

The next on the list is Edwin Hughes

Edwin Hughes c.1873

Edwin Hughes born 1830, Wrexham was nicknamed “Balaclava Ned”.  He was the one of nine children to William Hughes, tin-plate worked and Mary Jones.  Hughes became a shoemaker, before he joined the 13^th Light Dragoons at Hounslow, 1852.  1854, he sailed with them from Portsmouth for the Crimea.

October 1854, Hughes rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade, during the Battle of Balaclava.  During the charge, his horse was killed under him, and trapping his leg. 

After the Charge, Hughes returned back the British lines, where he was put in charge of Russian prisoners.  He was present during the battle of Inkerman, November 1854 and throughout the Siege of Sevastopol.  At the end of t war, Hughes was awarded both the Crimea Medal and the Turkish Crimea Medal.

Hughes was promoted 1858 to corporal and 1863 to sergeant and finally 1871 to troop sergeant major.  After serving for 21 years and 24 days, Hughes was discharged from the army at his own request at Colchester Garrison.  He was awarded the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

Edwin Hughes's grave
Layton Cemetery, Blackpool

Hughes was a member of the Balaclava Commemoration Society and attended reunions of the survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1895, 1910, 1912 and 1913.  He also received a pension from the T. H. Roberts Fund. 

At the time of his death, 1927, Hughes had become the last survivor of the Charge and was buried with full military honours at Layton Cemetery, Blackpool.

The next on the list is Daniel Morgan

Daniel Morgan

Daniel Morgan, born 1735 was the fifth of seven children to James Morgan and Eleanor Lloyd.  All of Morgan’s four grandparents, were Welsh immigrants, who had lived in Pennsylvania. 

Morgan, after a fight with his father left home, before settling on the Virginia frontier, he worked at odd jobs in Pennsylvania.     Morgan had saved enough money, as a teamster, where he had enough to buy his own team.  During the French and Indian War, Morgan served as a civilian teamster.  During the retreat from Fort Duquesne, he was punished with 500 lashes.  Having a disdain to the British authorities, Morgan banded flogging. 

Morgan served as a rifleman during the provincial forces assigned to protect the western settlement from French-backed Indian raids.  During the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783, Morgan was respected as one of the successful battlefield tacticians. He later commanded troops during the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, 1791-1794.

His wife Abigail Curry, who helped Morgan to read and write.  1794, Morgan ran for US House of Representatives as a Federalist, having lost but won in 1796.  Morgan served for a single term.

Morgan died 1802, at his daughter’s house, Winchester.  Having been buried at Old Stone Presbyterian Churchyard, after the American Civil War, Morgan’s body was moved to the Mt. Hebron Cemetery.

Morgan’s great-great-grandfather was the uncle of the Welsh privateer and pirate Henry Morgan.

Next on this list is, Beau Nash

Beau Nash

Swansea own, Beau Nash born 1674, was born Richard Nash.  He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford. After his education Nash who was not successful as an army officer or and barrister having been called to the bar. 

However, Nash, was successful as Master of Ceremonies, when he appointed during 1704 for the rising spa town of Bath.  He retained this position until he died, 1761. 

Next on the list is Jemima Nicholas

Jemima Nicholas born 1750, was the daughter of William and Elinor Nicholas of Llanrhian, Pembrokeshire. 

Nicholas is best remembered for her involvements during the Battle of Fishguard, 1797.

Battle of Fishguard, 1,400 French troops, sailed from Camaret and landed at Llanwnda, Pembrokeshire.  Nicholas and a group of women rounded up 12 French soldiers who had been drinking and locked them over night in the church.  The French shortly surrendered at the Royal Oak.  Nicholas was awarded lifetime pension.

1824, Nicholas was involved with the rioting in Fishguard, and was not convicted of any crimes.

Nicholas died 1832 and buried in St. Mary’s Church, Fishguard.  At the centennial of the invasion, 1897, her grave was marked with a plaque.

Next on the list is Owain Glyndwr

Owain Glyndwr born 1349/1359 to a prosperous landed family hailing from the Welsh Marches. 

1384, Glyndwr entered the English king’s military service, where he undertook garrison duty on the English-Scottish border at Berwick-upon-Tweed.  The following year, 1385, he served King Richard II under the command of John of Gaunt again in Scotland. 1387, this time Glyndwr under the command of Richard FitzAlan, 4^th Earl of Arundel saw action at the English Channel with the defeat of a Franco-Spanish-Flemish fleet off the coast of Kent.

Following the death of his father-in-law, Sir David Hanmer, Glyndwr returned back to Wales. 

Glyndwr is best immortalised in Welsh history as being the Welsh leader who instigated fierce and long-running yet unsuccessful War of Independence, 1400-1415.  The aim of the war was to end of the English ruling in Wales.  Glyndwr was the last native Welshman to hold the title of Prince of Wales.

Next on the list is Robert Owen

Robert Owen, aged about 50
by William Henry Brooke 

Robert Owen born 1771, in the small market town Newtown, Monmouthshire.  Owen the sixth child out seven was the son, of Robert Owen, saddler and ironmonger and the local postmaster and his wife Anne Williams.  After leaving school at the age of 10, Owen was an apprenticed draper at Stamford, Lincolnshire.  He also worked in a draper’s based in London during his teen years.  At the age of 18, Owen moved to Manchester where he would for the next 12 years was employed at Satterfield’s Drapers.  

Whilst here in Manchester, Owen borrowed £100 of his brother, William, so that he could go into partnership to make spinning mules.  After 6 months he exchanged his business shares for six spinning mules that he worked in rented factor space.

By the age of 21, Owen was made manager of the Piccadilly Mill in Manchester.  During the 1790’s Owen’s spirit, management skills and progressive moral views were emerging.  1793, Owen was elected member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, also becoming a committee member of the Manchester Board of Heath.

Whilst visiting Scotland, Owen fell in love with Caroline Dale, the daughter of David Dale, a Glasgow philanthropist and the proprietor of the large New Lanark Mills.  The couple married during September 1799.  It was at New Lanark that the Owen set up home. 

Owen and his partners brought the mills of Dale, and by the January 1800, Owen was the manager

Robert Owen's grave
Newtown

It was here at New Lanark, that Owen tested his social and economic ideas.  His huge success was in the support of youth education and early child care.  Owen also raised the demands of the 8-hour day during 1810, finally formulated by 1817, with the slogan “eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest”.

Having spent most of his working life in England and Scotland, Owen, did return to his native village of Newtown, where he died penniless during November 1858, and where he was buried. 

The next of the list is John Nash

John Nash

John Nash born 1752, Lambeth, London.  Was the son of John Nash, a Welsh millwright.  Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor completing his apprenticeship 1775/1776.

Nash was one of Britain’s foremost architects during the Regency and Georgian eras, with his style echoing the neoclassical and picturesque styles.  The Prince Regent financed his designs.  Nash’s solo designs include the Royal Pavilion, Marble Arch, and Buckingham Palace. Working with collaboration with Decimus Burton, they are best known for their designs of Regent Street, London.

Nash’s career ended with the death of George IV during 1830.  The Treasury were looking at the cost of Buckingham Palace.  Nash original cost had been £252,690, by 1829, this cost had risen to £496,169.  The actual cost was £613,269.  This controversary left Nash receiving no more commission nor would be awarded a knighthood.  Nash retired to his home, East Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight.  It was here where Nash died, May 1835.  He was buried at St. James’s Church, East Cowes.

The next on the list is Ann Griffiths

Ann Griffiths born 1776, in the village of Llanfihangel-yng-Ngwynfa, 6 miles from the market town of Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire.  Griffiths was the daughter of the tenant farmer and churchwarden, John Evan Thomas and his wife Jane. 

Griffiths was the Welsh poet and writer of Methodist Christian hymns in the Welsh language.  After the death of her parents, Ann married Thomas Griffiths, a farmer in the parish of Meifod.  Griffiths died after childbirth, August 1805, aged 29.

The next on the list is William Morgan

William Morgan

William Morgan born 1545, Ty Mawr Wybrnant, near Betws-y-Coed, North Wales.  Morgan became the Bishop of Llandaff and St. Asaph, and Morgan was the translator of the Bible into Welsh from Greek and Hebrew.

The next on the list is George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys

George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys

George Jeffreys born 1645, Acton Hall, Wrexham. Jeffreys was the son of John and Margaret Jeffreys.  Jeffreys was educated at Shrewsbury School from 1652 to 1659.  Then attending St. Paul’s School, London from 1659 to 1661 and then Westminster School from 1661 to 1662.  Finally, an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1662, leaving a year later without graduating and entered the Inner Temple for law in 1663.

Jeffrey embarked his career in law during 1668, becoming a Common Serjeant of London during 1671.  Jeffrey became the Solicitor General to the Duke of York and of Albany, later King James II. 

During the reign of King James II, Jeffrey rose to the position of Lord Chancellor and he came known the “the hanging judge” during the Monmouth’s Rebellion, 1685. 

During the Glorious Revolution, James II, fled the country. Jeffreys who was staying in London, who tired to flee at the last moment, was captured in a public house in Wapping. 

Whilst under custody in the Tower of London, Jeffreys died 1689.  He was originally buried in the Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula, but his body was moved to St. Mary Aldermanbury.