Native talent a Williams family of early Victorian Swansea 1

To track down a random nineteenth century person called Williams in Wales is a task unlikely to be successful: Williams was the third most common surname in Britain (almost entirely in Wales) in 1881, as it continues to be2. However, a search becomes more tractable if the person has an uncommon Christian name, especially now that census data, newspapers, books, and archives are increasingly digitised, indexed, and available at any time, anywhere, to anyone via the internet. This paper demonstrates how far one can get, given subjects of some achievement or notoriety, some luck, and serendipity. Let's Turn Back The Years3 My starting point was something that I have long admired: the first published geological map of a place called Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. The map was first researched in 1845, drawn in 18464, published in 1847 (sans geology) as Admiralty Chart 1822, and in 1848 in a book5 by a Royal Navy captain which recounted some of his experiences, but was primarily the edited journal of James Brooke, showing how he became Rajah of his own independent state while remaining a British subject. The map was by Hiram Williams; Mr Williams was also acknowledged as contributing a chapter on geology, but there was no indication of where he came from, and nobody ever seems to have attempted to elaborate on his origins or destiny (a trait common to almost everyone bar Brooke, in fact). There are many books about Sarawak (most published from 1845-1909 and republished in the 1970's and 1980's), and especially Rajah Brooke, but it is the Geological map of Sarawak from Mundy (1848) digitisation, largely by Google, and for a short period by Microsoft, of the contents of some of the larger American university libraries, plus the Bodleian Library in Oxford, that has really facilitated the mining of the data contained in them. Mr Williams appears in a couple of these, albeit briefly (and also as a mistaken rendering of Williamson). Here, we can find: that he was 'sent out by the Government'; him described as 'examining a sandstone pebble' in Singapore; that he had been granted land in Sarawak; that he attended a dinner for Rajah Brooke in London in 1852; and by looking closely at the small print below the illustrations in three books, we find that he was a Min.(eral) Sur.(veyor) and a good artist. He is also credited on an Admiralty Chart, as I first found from accessions lists in Dutch and French journals, and there is some Admiralty material by him at the National Archives in Kew6. But none of this helped with his origins or destiny. The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff occasionally publishes detailed catalogues of some areas of its collections: in 1998 it published one summarising all the letters in its collection relating to H.T.De la Beche who based himself in Swansea from 1837 and initiated the Geological Survey of Great Britain there7. I glanced through this on a visit to the museum's exploratory gallery in 2008 and the name Hiram Williams jumped out at me. Eureka!? Well, there was a slight problem as the correspondent was actually called David Hiram Williams, but was that really significant? It was not

seen as significant by an eminent historian of geology when writing on the life of another prominent Swansea-associated geologist, William Edmond Logan8, but it is now clear that he conflated two brothers. D.H.Williams, it turns out, was De la Beche's first employee in the Geological Survey and has generated two oft-repeated stories: first when he lost his coloured survey maps in Pembrokeshire, suspecting that they had become someone's wallpaper 9, and second when he died of fever after falling from his elephant in India (where he had gone in 1846, Logan and others having declined De la Beche's recommendation to start a Geological Survey there). It seemed likely that D.H.Williams was a Swansea man, although nobody had stated this or, apparently, even recorded his age. My hunch was confirmed by the index to the Cambrian10, Swansea's newspaper of the time, which reported the death of David Hiram Williams, as well as saying that his father was David Williams. As Williams was employed in 1839 he must have been born well before statutory recording of Births, Deaths, and Marriages started in 1837. However, perhaps there were some parish records? I went to the West Glamorgan Archives and made a major discovery: William, David, Lewis, and Hiram were baptised together at St.Mary's Church, Swansea on 18 th February 1816. As William was then 5 years old, David 4, Lewis 2, and Hiram just 5 weeks11 this, perhaps, suggests a rise in the fortunes or status of their parents, David William and Hannah, ne Evans. Further combing of the records revealed more family members, but they seem to have gone otherwise unremarked by history. Other sources of information made much more accessible by recent digitisation and indexing are the census performed every ten years since 1841; local and national newspapers; the collections of the National Library of Wales; and the contents of other archives made available through Access to Archives. On the night of 6th June 1841, David Hiram Williams, Geological Engineer, was in Haverfordwest with his wife and daughters, while De la Beche and other Ordnance Geological Surveyors were together in Dale. Digitised newspapers failed, in this case, to turn up Births, Deaths, or Marriages, but they did reveal business and legal details; the library turned up a book and several maps. The details are given individually below for the father and four of his sons. The daughters, other sons, and succeeding generations remain, apparently, unremarkable and I know of no living relatives: who knows what material they might add?

David William(s) b.1783 Llangyfelach; d.1856 Swansea

Very little is known about David beyond what is given in census records, two adverts in the same edition of the Cambrian, a brief obituary in the Cambrian, and his will, now digitised by the National Library of Wales. His obituary teasingly states that he 'started Trevethic's 1st locomotive in S.Wales',12 at the quadruple christening in 1816 he gave his profession as labourer, but by 1828, he was practising as a Mineral Surveyor. In 1830 he had added an 's' to create a surname from his patronym and is a Coal and Mine Surveyor.13 In 1835 he was working with David Hiram to produce a map and 'Report on minerals at Clyn Ithrim farm, Llangyfelach by David Williams and Son, land and mineral surveyors of Swansea' (ie Glyn Eithrim, upper Clydach Valley) now held by the British Geological Survey in Keyworth in the papers of W.E.Logan. It seems not unlikely that they collaborated with Logan in his mapping of coal seams, and that is how David Hiram and Hiram came to the One of two adverts in The Cambrian, attention of De la Beche and to leave Wales. Everything, 20th Dec, 1828 which proved to be less than 100 in value, was left to his eldest daughter in his will, which was made only 4 days before his death14.

David married Hannah Evans in 1807 and had at least 10 Children: William (1811-1886), David Hiram (1812-1848); Lewis Ambrose (1814-1873); Hiram (1816-1872), Mary (1818-), Hannah (1820-), Richard (1822-), Herbert (1823-), Richard (1827-), Thomas (1831-)

William Williams b.1811 Swansea; d.1886 Swansea

William advertised his services as a surveyor in The Cambrian in 1836. His first known map is of Cefnycoed farm in the parish of St Mary, Borough of Swansea, then a Map of Lands, the Property of the Right Hon. The Earl of Jersey, Situate in the Parish of Lansamlet (1840). He then benefited from the Tithe Commutation Act of 183615 and produced the (second class) tithe maps for Defynnog (1842), and Ystradgynlais (1844), in the Upper Swansea Valley, Ilston (1846), Penmaen (1846), and Pennard (1848), all in Gower; he was also valuer for Ilston and Pennard. In 1845 he produced a Map of the Palleg Estate and a Book of maps of the Palleg Part of the 1840 map of the Earl of Jersey's Estate in the County of Brecon - the property of Sir property situate in the Parish of Lansamlet Charles Morgan Bart. which comprised 25 (West Glamorgan Archives) individual farm surveys. He was in partnership with younger brother Hiram between at least 1840 and 1845: trade directories show them to have had offices in Goat and Waterloo Streets in 1840, Gower Street in 1846. In 1848 he seems to have moved towards more general engineering and tried to open a colliery at Pandy in the parish of Newcastle (now just remembered in road names in Aberkenfig): two seams are shown there in Logan's maps (held by the BGS, and displayed in an exhibition at Swansea's National Waterfront Museum in 2011). The colliery venture evidently failed as interest payments on a 4000 loan were defaulted after just one 6 monthly instalment, giving rise to a succession of legal proceedings from Ipswich Assizes in 1856 to the Court of Common Pleas in 1861.16 William married Martha Damp in 1832 and had at least 8 children: Frederick Landeg (1833-), Elizabeth Mary (1834-1838); William John (1835-1867); Edward Landeg (1836-1909), Elizabeth Mary (1840-), John Alexander (1842-1917), Martha Ann (1845-1881), Hiram Wick (1848-1861). The names are apparently conventional except that only the mother's name is re-used, and for some distinctive names: Landeg is highly local to SW Wales 17, and reveals that Martha was second cousin to the proprietors of the first Swansea Bank18; Hiram may honour William's successful siblings, if not their namesake antecedent, and Wick may come from John Wick Bennett19, the landlord for the colliery venture at Pandy, for whom William had also acted as land-agent.20.

David Hiram Williams b.1812 Swansea; d.1848 Hazareebaugh, NE India

As described above, David Hiram Williams worked with father for some time. In 1839, he became the first person employed by De la Beche, who wrote that he had picked up one very clever hand as an assistant at 7/- per day, a regular good one he is - and his salary was regularly increased. He was evidently well respected, especially for preparing vertical sections, and North 21 remarked on his delight at giving a precise height to Twmbalwm, replacing one given by a military surveyor (a Lieut. Williams). In the survey, his letters 22 and the published maps and memoirs show that he worked first in Pembrokeshire, then Glamorgan, the Forest of Dean, Somerset, Gloucestershire, and then in the coalfields of Flint and the Welsh Marches. The latest editions of the 1:50000 geological maps of Swansea still bear an acknowledgement to the work of D.H.Williams. After some consideration, he signed a Deed on 2nd Dec 1845, collected a warrant for 200, and went out to India as 'Surveyor of coal districts and superintendant of coal works, Bengal' for the East

India Company. He left with the mail on 20th December 184523 and arrived in Calcutta early in February 1846. His letters to De la Beche were now rather less formal and contained some personal information and requests for his family to be looked after. In early 1848 he was the Mr Williams who introduced the botanist J.D. Hooker 24 to India, as recounted in Himalayan Journals, but later died, as picked up the Morning Journal and quoted in the Cambrian25:

news arrived of the death of Mr H.Williams, mineral surveyor to the Government, and an able practical geologist of some note. He was out on survey, near Hazareebaugh, and had a fall from his elephant. This, however, he minded so little, that he carried on his work for three days after it; but he was then taken ill of low jungle fever, carried into Hazareebaugh, and there died on 15 th inst. One of his assistants, a Mr Jones, died on the same day of the same disease, which is, it appears, raging in the camp. We hear that he has left a wife and four children to lament his death

Sketch map, and Tigers!!, in part of a letter to De la Beche from India in 1847 (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff)

His demise was regretted by the geologist Charles Lyell when wrote to his own father about Joseph Hooker on 11th January, 184926:
no less than 4 of his intimate friends had died, and among them Mr Williams the geologist ... cut off in the prime of life, for want of aid in assistants, elephants, steamers, &tc., which alone could enable them safely and effectively to perform their mission; and I protested, with De la Beche, against the best of his practical men (the said Williams) being sent out on a forlorn hope. He has done his business, poor fellow, well, put them in the way of working rich mines of coal, and is now left like his predecessors to die in the ditch.

Hooker wrote home to his mother on 1st February, 1849 on hearing of:
'the sudden death not only of his late companions, Mr. Williams and his assistant on the Survey, who had imprudently camped in a most unhealthy jungle' ... ''If, as I fear is the case, the widow of Williams (of the Geological Survey) is left destitute (she has six children) there ought to be a small sum raised for her by the officers of the Geological Survey. I have written to Reeks about it, and requested that, if this be done, he would apply to you for 10 in my name; for during the two months I spent with poor Williams, he would not allow me to spend a shilling for board or travelling expenses. Reeks will only set down my name for 2 25., and give the rest under a fictitious signature; for neither could some of my brother officers afford so much, nor are they called upon to give it by obligations to the deceased.

De la Beche is reputed to have preferred his field geologists to be unmarried, but David (as he signed his letters, if not just D.H.) had married the distinctively named Mea prior to his appointment and had at least 5 children: Mea Angelina (b.1838, Swansea), Edith Emma Rose (b.1839, Swansea), Augusta Lilly (b.1842, Chepstow), Haidie Rosa (b.1843/4?), and Mary Ann (1845-1846) 27. The last daughter died soon after his arrival in India. There seems to be some sentimentality and a liking for word play in those names. The fate of his family is not clear: only Mea Angelina seems to have been recorded in a subsequent census in 1861 as 22 year old Angelina Williams, born in Swansea, a Religious Sister of Charity in School House, Little Crosby, Sephton (Liverpool); an Augusta Lilly had been living in Bedford Square, London, in 1867, but bankruptcy removed her to the Debtor's prison28. No death records have been found.

Lewis Ambrose Williams b.1814 Swansea; d.1873 Cardiff

Lewis Ambrose Williams produced A Report on the Pyle Iron Works and minerals contained under the lands called Cefn, Ffos, Lloyds, Tymawn, Llunelig, and Pantllwitro, in the parishes of Tythegstone and Lalestone in the County of Glamorgan in 1836. This included a map, since lost. 29 In the 1841 census he is listed as a collier living at the Kevan Works 30, but later that year he was helping his brother for the Geological Survey31, and in 1844 we can read32 of the case at Bristol Assizes where, in the case of Malins & Others v. Sir R.Price, Bart. 33, & Others, relating to the Ty Gunter and Parc Dio mines (N. of Cefn Cribwr): The evidence of Mr Lewis Ambrose Williams, mineral surveyor, was taken at great length. The witness was more

than five hours under examination and cross-examination, and we have seldom seen a person who appeared more intimately acquainted with the subject on which he came to give his testimony. Without, however, the assistance of the models and plans to which constant reference was made, it would be impossible to make the evidence in detail intelligible to the reader; the general aim was to show that patchings were injurious to the plaintiffs' works, that the drainage was inefficient, that mining by sinking shafts was preferable in that district to patching, and otherwise to support the opening of the learned counsel for the plaintiffs. On cross-examination the witness stated that patching was extensively adopted in Glamorganshire, and was used by the plaintiffs themselves in their iron mines, not 60 yards from the mines of the defendants.

Before 1849 he had been the mining-engineer for the Patent Galvanized-Iron Company at the Garth iron-works (Maesteg) 34 and had invented
an ingeniously constructed hydraulic apparatus... by which the different materials are conveyed to the tops of the furnaces with astonishing facility and despatch. [whereby] Unlike other works in this neighbourhood, the necessity for what are termed "back-walls" to the furnaces has been here altogether superseded".

In 1848 he was intent on setting up a colliery at the Pandy, a site now remembered just in an Aberkenfig road name, with his brother William, an enterprise which doesn't seem to have lasted long but put his name in legal case history. In 1856 (probably from 1853-1857) he was resident manager of a colliery at West Dean in the Forest of Dean, acting under his brother, Mr. Hiram Williams, of London, the secretary and engineer of the company 35, although his children were born in and around Bridgend between 1842 and 1858. By 1861 he had moved to Cardiff 36 and went on to manage the Caerphilly Colliery Company37 at Wernddu. Lewis married Margaret Frances Jones in 1834 and had at least 12 children: Georgi(a)(n)na (1834-), Cordelia (1836-), Julia Elizabeth (1838-), Leonora38 (1840-1849), Lewis Ambrose (18421886), Edgar F(ortyscure/itzormond) (1844-1868), Hiram Thaddeus (1846-1849), Augustus Frederick (1848-1909), Hiram Brooke39 (1850-1854), Arthur/Lewellyn Digby (1853-), Julia (1855-), Laura Isabella (1858-).40 An interesting, and fluid, assortment of names! To be noted is the association of brother Hiram with first Thaddeus (bosom buddy/younger brother) and then, for a reason that will soon suggest itself, Brooke.

Hiram Williams b.1816 Swansea; d.1872 Oswestry

Hiram worked with his older brother William on tithe and other surveys between 1840 and 1845. In 1845 he went to Borneo to survey for coal. Parliamentary Papers show that the mission was led by Captain Charles Drinkwater Bethune R.N. although the geologist was selected later.41 Shipping reports show that he passed via Bombay on 15th February. Hugh Low42 mentions Williams leaving Sarawak for Labuan, and Borneo on May 9th. Brooke wrote to an uncle from Singapore in July that Captain Bethune is taking angles and Mr.Williams is picking up bits of sandstone, and told A View in Singapore from J.A.St.John (1847) his closest friend in England on 12th Feb. 1846 that Williams goes home by the mail and will tell you all about us43 In the meantime he had been back in Sarawak and joined a tour of the interior in September with the Rajah, Bethune, Low, and some naval officers from H.M.S.Cruizer which was recorded by their Captain in his journal. In particular, he noted that at one village where festivities went on into the night Bethune, Brooke, and myself were glad to retire after about half an hour, but the rest remained and finished the evening by treating the Dyaks with a dance in their own style; Williams keeping the fat Datu in perfect terror by threatening his bare feet with a tremendous pair of high-

lows.44 The Singapore Free Press reported seeing 'some wonderful watercolour drawings....by Mr Williams, the gentleman sent by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to inspect the coal &c. at Borneo...we hope [he] will lose no time in publishing...a selection of these Sketches...', The Cambrian reproduced most of it under the headline 'NATIVE TALENT'.45 The sketches presumably included the the seven subsequently published probably as independent prints as well as incorporated into Views of the Eastern Archipelago46, a very rare volume with 'the descriptive letterpress by James Augustus St. John Esqr.', then a London journalist and author although he was actually Welsh - born James John in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. The two Royal Navy captains who contributed views are individually credited in the full title; Williams is relegated to Others, of which he was the only one! Three of the four illustrations of scenery in Hugh Low's Sarawak47 are also his, and one in Mundy's Borneo and the G.Gigi, (Tooth Mountain) a limestone tower in Celebes. Sarawak from Low It is not clear what went on for a few years after the Borneo trip 48 (1848) but in 1848 The Cambrian reproduced an article from the Mining Journal which indicated that Hiram enjoyed the patronage of Rajah Brooke and had been granted a lease on valuable ground in Sarawak in fact, the site of the rapidly growing town. That had been granted just before the Rajah returned to Sarawak from his first visit to Britain as Rajah and the only other reference is during a court case49 in London on his next visit, in 1852, when Hiram declares a prospective interest in Borneo, having an arrangement with Sir James Brooke to work it and the Rajah says both Mr Williams has no arrangement with me as to working coal and In 1847 I gave Mr Williams a letter, that he might come to Sarawak and enjoy certain privileges there on payment of certain sums to the government Newspapers from 1851 to 1863 carry adverts identifying Hiram as the Secretary, and occasionally accountant, agent, or mining consultant, of, first, the Metropolitan and Provincial Joint Stock Brewery Company, and then of a number of mining companies including Drakewalls, Respryn Copper, and Tincroft Mining Companies, in Cornwall, and the South Tyne Colliery Company: his office was at 51 Moorgate Street in the heart of the City of London. Between 1851 and 1852, Hiram was in partnership50 with Ernest Noel, a younger man who was a Fellow of the Geological Society and would go on to become an MP, and they were Consulting Mining Engineers for a proposed purchase of the Hafod-y-Llan and Sygun mines to the S. of Snowdon. The National Library of Wales holds a joint report with a Belgian mining engineer on metal mines in Belgium from 185351, and Hiram was engineer, manager, secretary, and ultimately liquidator, of the colliery operated by his younger brother, Louis, in the Forest of Dean from 1853-1857, and wound up in 185952. Hiram was also involved in the cases of fraud brought against directors of the Royal British Bank which had operated from 1849 until being declared bankrupt in 1856, having directed its capital and income largely towards its directors and into speculation on what were referred to as the Welsh Works -viz., the Cefn, Garth, and Briton Ferry Mines, in Glamorganshire... 53: In 1851, Hiram had valued them at 94000, which looked optimistic when valuations in 1856 agreed on only 26000.54 Both the Royal British Bank and the Metropolitan and Provincial Joint Stock Brewery Company featured John MacGregor M.P.55 as a leading director; intriguingly, his other major enterprise was the Eastern Archipelago Company, the first major developer of the coal resources of Labuan56. By 1861 he had moved out of London to Rotherham to be managing partner in the new Thrybergh Hall Colliery at Kilnhurst. Unfortunately, there was a fatal accident in 1863 when
The chair in which a party of miners were descending the shaft, suddenly turned on one end, and the men were precipitated a depth of 150 yards, their bodies being dreadfully mutilated.

6 men died and by September 1864 he was advertising the sale by auction of his
Modern and Useful HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, PIANO, Double-barrelled GUN, Pair of PISTOLS;

GREENHOUSE, with the Vines, Plants &c.

He re-established himself in Oswestry as a gentleman farmer living in Llys House, rearing cattle, and apparently with interests in other property. Hiram Williams married twice, but had no children. The first marriage, to Emma Grant, daughter of C.T.Grant of Portland-place, Bath57, was reported in the Cambrian in March 1843, but she may have died in Bath in 184458. The 1851 census records him as Unm(arried), but he was living with his future wife, Ph(o)ebe Berry, and her family. The Cambrian records that they married at St.Pancras on 31st October, 1851, and that he died in Oswestry on 16 th April, 1871. He was buried 15 days later in Highgate Cemetery, London: presumably he had bought a plot when both his office and that of the London Cemetery Company were in Moorgate Street. Probate was granted to his relict, Phebe, for effects under 3000,59 although Phoebe had to deal with some debts in 1874.60

Coda
It seems surprising that the five men discussed above have gone largely unremarked for so long, and the two whose names have continued to be remembered have had that honour not in their native Swansea but in far-off India and Sarawak. Perhaps their working-class, if aspirational, backgrounds are to blame for only D.H.Williams making a fleeting appearance in one of two recent books celebrating early Victorian Swansea as the Intelligent Town61 where Heroic Science62 flourished for the well-connected, at least. And no, I don't know why the name Hiram appealed to David William...63 Someday You'll Call My Name64

1 Draft article for publication in Minerva, the Swansea History Journal (http://www.risw.org.uk/pubs.shtml) by Martin Laverty, July 2011-June 2013. Acknowledgents for help include: Cardiff Libraries; Tom Sharpe, National Museum of Wales; West Glamorgan Archives, Swansea; Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff; Hugh Torrens; Alan Powell; Caroline Lam, Archivist, Geological Society of London; British Library; Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, and all those who have contributed to digitisation and indexing projects, especially Google, the Internet Archive, A2A at the National Archives, and the Cambrian Index from Swansea Library Service. e.g. Search for Williams at http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/ Song by Hank Williams with His Drifting Cowboys (1952). Any web search for Hiram Williams will turn up lots of references to Hiram King Williams, the American country musician (1923-1953) A manuscript, hand coloured Chart of Sarawak version, without key, by Hiram Williams, mineral surveyor, was presented to the Geological Society of London by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty on 23 June 1846: the map is still in their archives (although an accompanying report was apparently lost before 1856 c.f. Note 56). The Hydrographic Service ignored the geology but used the inland survey of rivers and hills to publish chart number 1822, Sarawak River, in 1847, parts of which were retained in a revised version first published in 1863. Mundy, R. (1848) Narrative of events in Borneo and Celebes, down to the occupation of Labuan: from the journals of James Brooke: Together with a narrative of the operations of H.M.S. Iris (2 vols)

2 3 4

Exceptional coloured version of Mr.Brooke's House at Sarawak by H.Williams from Mundy (1848) 2nd edition (digitised copy in Sarawak State Library)
NB This View of Mr.Brooke's House at Sarawak (Vol.1, fp.176) is by Hiram Williams but is misattributed to Martens in 1st edition; corrected in the 2nd edition. The same picture was published, attributed only as from an old print, in Relations and Complications : being the recollections of H.H.the Dayang Muda of Sarawak (1929) by Gladys Brooke (ghost-written by Kay Boyle: http://brianbusby.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/john-glassco-ghostwriter.html ) East Sussex Record Office: 'Plan of Newhaven Harbour showing Proposed Wet Dock. By Hiram Williams.' QDP/250/1 Deposited 30 Nov 1850 [Found via Access to Archives at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=179-q_2&cid=1-11-1-1-368#1-11-1-1-368] T.Sharpe & P.J.McCartney (1998) The papers of H.T.De la Beche (1796-1855) in the National Museum of Wales Torrens, H.S. (1999) William Edmond Logan's Geological Apprenticeship in Britain, 1831-1842 in Geoscience Canada Vol.26 pp.97-110 [also in Torrens,H.S. (2002) The Practice of British Geology, 17501850] Morgan, N. (2009) Slip Up in Geoscientist Vol.19 No.7 p.6 The index to Cambrian (1804-1930) can be searched online at http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5673 Swansea Library has a full archive (microfilmed); Cardiff an incomplete collection The baptismal records record birth dates as: William 13/1/1811; David 5/10/1812; Lewis 4/4/1814; Hiram 9/1/1816. Torrens (note 8) assumes that the reference is to Trevithick's Penydarren locomotive: surprisingly little is actually

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 . 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

known about its building, but there is no indication that David was involved. Perhaps the reference was really to one of Trevithick's stationary engines in Lougher or Neath? Matthews's Swansea Directory (1830) David Williams signed his last will and testament (rather shakily) on 12th Nov, 1856. The will was proved [SD/1857/179] on 3rd June 1857. Images of will and probate at http://www.llgc.org.uk/ under wills pre-1858 in Family History (http://hdl.handle.net/10107/891960) "An Act for the Commutation of Tithes in England and Wales" (6&7 Will. IV, c.71) to replace the payment of tithes in kind with monetary payments, which required maps to be produced as part of the valuation process which the change entailed. The case of Howkins v. Bennet was reported in several legal journals. Howkins was the source of the money the Williams brothers borrowed, Bennet their landlord and security. The original case was at Suffolk Assizes on 22 nd July 1856, but that evidently didn't settle matters as it came up again on 28th April 1859 (Reports of cases argued and determined in the English courts of Common Law, Vol.95), and was subject to a Special Case at the Court of Common Bench/Pleas, 17th January 1860, and again on 18th January 1861 (Law Journal Reports for 1861 Vol.30 pp. (CP)193-209). e.g. Search for Landeg at http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/ ; http://web.archive.org/web/20110501104716/http://www.landeg.com/alan.a.powell/ suggests, more specifically, Gower in the 11th century, with a branch in Llangyfelach by the mid 16th century. Alan Powell's research shows that Martha's mother, Mary, was daughter of Edward Landeg, one of whose brothers, Roger founded the first Swansea Bank, and another, John, rose to high rank and fortune in the East India Company. That these names weren't used suggests that they were not close; paternal relations, however, lived either with or close to the family for many years John Wick Bennett (1795-1867) was the son of John Bennett (1761-1855). They owned land from Llanelli, through Swansea, to the Laleston Estate (Glamorgan Record Office GB 0214 DXAY) around Bridgend.. He lived in Laleston House, close to where Lewis' son Edgar was born in 1845. p.199 of the report of the 1861 court case referred to in note 16. North,F.J. (1934) Trans. Cardiff Naturalist's Society vol. 67, pp.31-103 Further chapters in the history of geology in South Wales; Sir H.T. De la Beche and the Geological Survey There are 20 letters (1840-1848) from DHW to De la Beche in the National Museum of Wales; Imperial College (originally the School of Mines), London, holds another one (1845), together with 11 (1844-1846) to A.C.Ramsey. Fox,C.S. (1947) Nature Vol.160 pp.889-891 The Geological Survey of India, 1846 to 1947. A goodbye letter from Southampton to A.C.Ramsey has survived, as well as one sent not long after his arrival in Calcutta. Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) was the Geological Survey's palaeobotanist from 1846-1847. The death was on the 15th November, and was reported in the Cambrian on 12th Jan.1849 Lyell,K.M. (1881) Life letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (v2 p153) Hooker,J.D. (1849) Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany Extracts from the Private Letters of Dr J D Hooker written during a botanical mission to India (1854) Himalayan Journals or Notes of a Naturalist (Vol 1) Huxley,L. (1918) Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (v1, p288) The names of the four children surviving in 1848 are given in DHW's will, a copy of which is in the India Office Records at the British Library [L/AG/34/29 78 pp.225-228]; it also gives Mea's maiden name as Bevan; her father's name as John, late of Minehead, and a sister called Marian living in Exeter. A Thomas Henry Williams was born in Chepstow in 1842 it is not impossible that he might have been a short-lived son, named for Henry Thomas de la Beche: Williams might have told Hooker he had (had) 6 children, although only 4 survived at his death. London Gazette, Dec.10, 1867; Dec.31, 1867 Riden, P. (1992) John Bedford and the Ironworks at Cefn Cribwr. Appendix 4 is a copy of the report The Kevan Works were adjacent to Aberbaiden, to the north of Cefn Cribwr and west of Parc Slip. 'My brother' referred to in a letter to De la Beche (NMW/DLB/2115-20); the first Memoir of the Geological Survey (1846) attributes (p.176) a section at Cefn Cribwr to Lewis Williams. Bristol Mercury (1844) 31st August. Found in the digitised British Library collection searchable online at http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/ with content available from Gale Group 19th Century Newspapers via, inter alia, Cardiff Libraries. c.f. A.J.Flint (1975) Glamorgan Historian, XI "Neither a Borrower or a lender be Sir Robert Price, Bart., M.P. , where the case is also mentioned Lewis (1849) A Topographical Dictionary of Wales pp. 36-47, Llangonoyd, or Llangonwd (Llan-Gynwyd). Digitised at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=371 The Bristol Mercury of 24th April, 1856, reports a case at Coleford Petty Sessions where Hiram appeared as secretary and general manager of the Edward and Arthur and Mirey Stock Colliery Company of West Dean which was charged with infringing the laws relating to collieries. (See also note 44) In 1861, the family was in Lima Villa, near King's Castle House in Canton Road; in 1871, in Sydney Villa. The Villas have long gone from what is now Cowbridge Road East, but I have passed the site most days in my 30 years as a resident of Canton, less than a mile to the west.

37 The Western Mail (Cardiff) of 8th Jan 1870 recounts a substantial dinner given for all the company's workmen and colliers on 31st Dec 1869 at the Boars Head hotel, Cardiff, under the presidency of Mr.Lewis Ambrose Williams, the eminent mining engineer..., the manager... 38 The 1841 census shows Leonora as a boy called Leonard but birth registration and parish (Tythegston baptism; Pyle burial) records make it clear that there was a copying error. 39 The Cambrian of 20th Sept 1850 says At Cefn Cwsc Iron Works, a son to the wife of L.A.Williams; the census taken on 31st March 1851 records 6 month old Thadeus A.; but Hiram Brooke was the name given at baptism on 29th June, and recorded in the Cambrian for his death on 20th Jan 1854. 40 Part of Lewis' family appears in an online family tree at http://www.clan-davies.org/webtrees/family.php? famid=F2580&ged=DFT2006c.ged but the link, through his son to the Thomas family, seems to die out in the early 1900's. 41 Parliamentary Papers 1852-53 (266), Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed 18 March, 1853, includes a copy of INSTRUCTIONS from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Captain Bethune R.N., of the 1 st day of November 1844, to inquire into the state of COALFIELDS in the EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO. He was told: You are hereby required and directed to take to your assistance the individual named in the margin, who is well acquainted with coal, and can therefore form a correct opinion as to any in the neighbourhood of the spots you visit, both as to its probable extent and its fitness for use in steam vessels; and so soon as yourself and the said person shall be ready, you are to proceed with him in the regular mail steam vessel to Bombay, from which place you are to procure a passage to Singapore... However, in the margin is printed No individual was selected when Captain Bethune went. On 5th December 1845, The Standard reported in London that Captain Bethune has again left for London and on his return in a few months there is little doubt that formal possession will be taken of Labuan, and among the many advantages derived from the new colony will be the check it puts upon piracy. Mr.Williams , a geologist sent out by government, reports favourably on the coal... 42 Hugh Low (1824-1905) was sent to the Far East by his father, a horticulturalist, to collect plants and seeds for his business. He spent 18 months with Brooke in Sarawak, wrote a book about the country, and was then invited to be Secretary to Governor of the new colony of Labuan (initially Brooke), where he served in various roles, and gardened, for 28 years in a rather undistinguished career which was to be eclipsed by subsequent service in Perak, for which he was knighted.. 43 Templer, J.C. (1853) The Private Letters of Sir James Brooke (Vol.2) Letters 71 and 79 quoted (also 69, and a memorandum asking Mr Williamson to get for Mr.Williams all the specimens which can be procured of the geological or mineral productions) 44 Fanshawe, E.G. & A.E.J. (1904) Admiral Sir Edward Gennys Fanshawe G.C.B. - A record notes journals letters pp.131-140. The Dyaks were the indigenous inhabitants of Sarawak and Datus were Malay rulers. 45 The Singapore Free Press (digitised and searchable via http://newspapers.nl.sg/) article was on 5th March, 1846; The Cambrian version was published on 22nd May. 46 St.John, J.A. (1847) Views in the Eastern Archipelago : Borneo, Sarawak, Labuan, and c. drawn by Captn.Drinkwater Bethune R.N. C.B., Commander L.G. Heath R.N. and Others. An annotated version is available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/21141187/Views-in-the-Eastern-Archipelago 47 Low, H. (1848) Sarawak:its inhabitants and productions Online via http://openlibrary.org/search?q=sarawak %3A+its+inhabitants 48 Allen's Indian Mail records that an H.Williams left Southampton for Suez on Oct 20th, 1847, and there is another entry recording that H.Williams was expected back from Alexandria on 24th December, 1848. A September, 1849, letter to W.J.Hooker (Kew Director's Correpondence at http://plants.jstor.org/visual/kdcas10549) shows that Hiram was then anticipating another visit Sarawak. 49 THE QUEEN v THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO COMPANY (1853) 22 LJQB (NS) 196, 213 (QB) Lord Campbell CJ at the Court of Queen's Bench, Westminster on 19th June: reported in Morning Post on 21st 50 The partnership and its dissolution (17 March, 1851 11 Feb, 1852) were announced in the London Gazette (http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/exact=hiram+williams/) 51 Report on the Ardennes copper, lead, and sulphate of barytes mines situated in the kingdom of Belgium by L.J. Chevremont and Hiram Williams. [in Greenwell Collection Coal Trade Tracts (Series II) 11, Item 6. at National Library of Wales] 52 See http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/CoalA&E.html quoting the Mining Journal. The Standard of 15th Jan 1859 reported: A meeting of shareholders in Arthur Edward and Mirey Stock Colliery Company was held this day at the offices of Mr.Hiram Williams, Moorgate, when the resolution for the voluntarily winding up of the company was confirmed, and Messrs.Hiram Williams, Watson, and Robins were appointed the liquidators. 53 The Curious and Remarkable History of the Royal British Bank, showing How we got it up and how it went down by One behind the scenes, London, (1859) refers to the Cefn Gwyne mine: there was a lead mine of that name in Cardiganshire, but that is probably a coincidental error, as the only minerals mentioned are coal and iron. 54 Evans, D.M. (1859) Facts, Failures, and Frauds: Revelations Financial, Mercantile, Criminal, p.353, refers to the Cefn Iron Works, suggesting that the works were in the area north of Cefn Cribwr familiar to Hiram's brother Lewis. 55 John MacGregor (1797-1857), a Hebridean, lived in Canada for many years before returning to Britain where he

was a prolific author and civil servant at the Board of Trade before becoming M.P. For Glasgow in 1847. 56 The report that Hiram had made on the coal of Labuan and what is now Brunei to the Admiralty in 1845 was given to James Motley, the Eastern Archipelago Company's managing engineer in Labuan from 1849-1853 (see Minerva 13 (2005), pp.20-37 and 18 (2010) pp.339-43 for pertinent articles by A.Raymond Walker). 57 One of the houses in Portland Place had been the home of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), the demographer, but, perhaps more significantly, in the 1840's it was the address of some of the Landeg family, whose name Hiram's brother William gave to two of his children. 58 http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ shows deaths registered in Bath against the name of Emma Williams in June 1844, Dec.1845, and Sept.1847, but none in Swansea. 59 http://www.measuringworth.com/ suggests that 3000 in 1872 is comparable to from 200,000 to over 3 million, in 2011 didn't he do well? 60 London Gazette 30th June, 1874 Philip Jennings (probably of Dudleston Hall, Ellesmere) had raised a decree in the High Court of Chancery and all creditors were to present themselves to the Master of the Rolls to adjudicate on claims. 61 Miskell, L. (2006) Intelligent Town: An Urban History of Swansea, 1780-1855 62 Rees, R. (2005) Heroic Science: Swansea and the Royal Institution of South Wales 1835-1865 63 Wikipedia might provide a clue: after noting that Hiram is Hebrew for 'high-born', King Hiram I of Tyre (1000947BC) is said in the Bible to have been the equal of King David of Israel... 64 Song by Hank Williams with His Drifting Cowboys (1955)