Picton's of Newport
Picton's of Newport
(last part)
Starting with
Howell Picton
Father of
Owen Picton (of Newport)
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Please click high-lighted items to select:
(last part)
Starting with
Howell Picton
Father of
Owen Picton (of Newport)
(last part - below)
Background
In order to set the scene on the early history of this branch of the Picton family it is essential to understand the history of the development of the ancient Borough of Newport in Pembrokeshire, the adjacent parish of Nevern and the history of the Lordship and Barony of Cemais [also sometimes written as Kemes or Kemmys].[1] It is only the survival of so much material from this Lordship that makes it possible to reconstruct so much of the early history of the family. A good recent introduction is given in the book by Dillwyn Miles, The Ancient Borough of Newport in Pembrokeshire, Cemais Publications, 1995, pp. 144. The Records of the Borough of Newport in Pembrokeshire are discussed in two articles by B. G. Charles in the National Library of Wales Journal, VII, 1951, pp. 33-45 and pp. 120-137. It is also impossible to do research in this part of Pembrokeshire without acknowledging the huge debt due to its first real historian, George Owen of Henllys in the parish of Bayvil. Again, the biography of this remarkable Welshman by B. G. Charles, George Owen of Henllys: A Welsh Elizabethan, Aberystwyth, 1973, is essential reading. Another equally valuable work by B. G. Charles is his monumental The Place-Names of Pembrokeshire, 2 Volumes, National Library of Wales, 1992, which describes almost every place name occurring in each Pembrokeshire parish and is thus essential to understanding the variations in spelling which have occurred over time and what names were used in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Discussion of Source Materials
Other useful books for the early history of the Picton families in Newport, Nevern and surrounding parishes include:
The seminal work by Peter C. Bartrum, Welsh Genealogies AD 1400-1500, 18 Volumes, 1983, ISBN 0-907158-08-0. The article by Michael Powell Siddons, Using Peter Bartrum’s Welsh Genealogies, in John and Shelia Rowlands, Eds., Second Stages in Researching Welsh Ancestry, FFHS, 1999, pp. 134-146, should also be read to understand the basis of the compilation and also the subsequent Addenda which have been published. A short critical review article on the Welsh manuscript sources which form the basis of the work is in Peter C. Bartrum, Notes on the Welsh Genealogical Manuscripts, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1969, pp. 63-98.
The Golden Grove Books of Welsh Pedigrees (4 Volumes), now at the Carmarthen Record Office, carries various earlier attempts at the Picton pedigree down to about 1700.[2]
For Pembrokeshire pedigrees, Bartrum’s conclusion was that the work of David Edwardes of Rhyd-y-Gors (c1630-1690) is the most useful starting point. This manuscript work is in the College of Arms as Protheroe MS V, fol. 21-291. It has lost pages 1-20. A copy of the Picton and Young pedigrees from this source was obtained several years ago.
The work of David Edwardes formed the basis of further work by William Lewes of Llwynderw (1652-1722), through whom the work of David Edwardes found its way ultimately into the Golden Grove Books. This is a fair copy, in four Volumes, neatly written and made about 1765, by an unknown writer. They now are kept at the Carmarthen Record Office, but up to 1987 they were in the Public Record Office at Chancery Lane. The Golden Grove Book is at its fullest and most reliable for South Wales. It is chiefly useful for information concerning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It must be used with caution for earlier material, as it contains the accumulated errors of past centuries, as well as unsubstantiated guesses by Hugh Thomas and others.
A Catalogue of Welsh Manuscripts in the College of Arms, written by Francis Jones, is now available, Harlean Society, New Series, Volume 7, 1988.
Another useful book is by Michael Powell Siddons, the Welsh Herald, Visitations by the Heralds in Wales, 1996, Alan Sutton Publishing.
There is also much assistance given also by the survival of a number of Ancient Deeds in which the Picton surname, and spelling variants thereof [Pictone, Pycton, Pikton, Piketon, Piketun and even Piccethon] are given on documents within Class E 210, Ancient Deeds, at the National Archives [TNA].[3] The survival of these valuable deeds is due to them forming part of the large deed collection relating to the sequestrated estates in Wales of Sir John Perrot, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1592, sentenced to death as a traitor to Queen Elizabeth I, but died before he could be executed. The earliest reference to the Picton surname therein dates back to 1277. See Roger Turvey, The Treason and Trial of Sir John Perrot, University of Wales Press, 2005, pp. 208. Huw Pryce and Charles Insley, The Acts of Welsh Rulers, 1120-1283, University of Wales Press, 2005.
This volume provides the first comprehensive collection of charters, letters and other written acts issued by native rulers of Wales from the early twelfth century to the Edwardian conquest of 1282–3. It thereby makes more accessible than ever before a key body of source material for the study of medieval Wales during ‘the age of the princes’ – an era of struggles for power by native rulers both among themselves and with Marcher lords and the English crown. The documents assembled and analysed here illuminate a wide range of topics including political developments and concepts of authority in Wales, Anglo–Welsh relations, contacts with kings of France and the papacy, benefactions to religious houses, dispute settlement and uses of the written word in Welsh society. The edition prints the surviving texts, almost all in Latin, of 444 documents, together with English summaries and explanatory notes, and also contains notices of a further 174 documents whose full texts have been lost. Coverage is broad, extending from the major dynasties of Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth to less powerful dynasties such as those of Arwystli in mid-Wales and Gwynllŵg in the south-east. The significance of the material as a whole is assessed in a substantial Introduction. This outlines the history of each dynasty and territory whose rulers’ acts are included before analysing the textual transmission and diplomatic of the documents extant as texts and discussing the agencies responsible for their production. Huw Pryce is Reader in History at the University of Wales, Bangor. In addition to numerous articles, mainly on various aspects of medieval Welsh history, his previous publications include Native Law and the Church in Medieval Wales (1993) and the edited volumes Yr Arglwydd Rhys (with Nerys Ann Jones, 1996) and Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (1998). Charles Insley is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at Canterbury Christ Church University College. List of Welsh Entries in the Memoranda Rolls, 1282-1343 by Natalie Fryde, 1974. F. G. Cowley, The Monastic Order in Wales, 1066-1349, UWP, 1986.
This account begins, therefore, with an account of the descent of the Lordship of Kemes, and how the papers came into the family of Lloyd of Bronwydd, by whom they were deposited in the National Library of Wales in two major instalments in 1933 and 1938. Peter C. Bartrum has done extensive work on early Welsh genealogical trees available from a large variety of sources. He has summarised his vast detailed research in two compilations. The later one is entitled Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, 1400-1500, NLW, 1983, whereas the earlier one covers the period up to 1400. The Picton families appear in Volume 9 No. 1446 of Bartrum’s 1983 work, but actually contain a disappointing amount of detail. In particular there is no connection given between Jenkin Picton of Newport, who was living in 1434, and had extensive land interests there, and Howell Picton of Nevern, the ancestor of the Nevern and Whitechurch branches.
Another remarkable survival is of a manuscript volume of services, which, from the various entries therein, seems to have served as the family bible of the Perrots of Haroldston and their relations. It dates to at least the fifteenth century, and consists of 93 sheets of vellum, the last 10 of which are fly-leaves and contain various memoranda of the family. The volume is said to have been the property of Sir Herbert Perrot (d. 1683), and from him it passed to the family of Captain Harris of Brunton, near Hereford, and was sold around 1859 to the British Museum by his son, the Revd. Beresford Harris. It is now registered as Addl. MSS No. 22720. It has been suggested that Alice Picton, who died in 1441 [see below] was descended from Philip Picton, a brother of the last William Picton of Picton, whose daughter conveyed the Picton estate, where Picton Castle now stands, to the Wogan family [Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1865, Notes on the Perrot Family, p. 38 and p. 179-181].
John Picton
Father of
Howell Picton
Father of
Owen Picton (of Newport)
JOHN PICTON, the (eldest) son of Jenkin Picton, died before 18 March 1504/5. He owned land at Trefoel in the parish of Bayvil. On 19 January 1476/7, Llewelyn ap Llewelyn ap Gwillym Young and Agnes, his wife, daughter of Llewelyn ap John, executed a grant of a messuage and lands at Trefiorwerth Voel [i.e. Trefoel] to John Picton [Bronwydd MS I, No. 804]. On 9 August 1475 John Picton had been a party to a grant of lands in the fee of Bayvil, formerly held by Oweyn ap Eynon ap Kynvrig [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1053]. John Picton was dead by 18 March 1504/5, when his son, Howell, Picton, obtained a grant of the lands at Trefoel [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1088].[5]
JOHN PICTON had the following children:
i. HOWEL(L) PICTON, see below.
ii. ELIZABETH PICTON. She was married to Lewis Gwillym, son of David Gwillym [Lewis ap David Gwillym [see Lewis Dwnn, Golden Grove MS (p. 50) and Tucker MS].
iii. JANE PICTON. She was shown as married William ap Jenkin Lloyd of Morvil [Dwnn and Protheroe V MS; not shown as such in the Tucker MS, which show Jane Picton as wife of William Lloyd, and as a sister of Jenkin Picton and aunt of John Picton of Trefoel].
HOWELL PICTON appears in the Golden Grove MS, p. 88 where he is described as “of Newport (and whose son he was) married Joan, daughter of Ieuan [John] Robin of Vron goch ar Lan Nevernâ€.
In 1505 Agnes, widow of Llewelyn ap Llewelyn ap Gwillym Young and daughter of Llewelyn ap John, granted to Howell Picton the messuage and lands in Trefiorwerth Voel [Trefoel] which John Picton lately had of the gift of her husband [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1088; 18 March 1504/5]. This presumably refers to John Picton, father of Howell Picton, and thus provides some confirmatory evidence that he was the son of Jenkin Picton of Newport in 1434. Howell Picton was an arbitrator in a dispute concerning a boundary near Henllys, Nevern, in 1508 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1953], in which case has must have been ‘of age’ presumably at least 18. He married Joan, a daughter of Ieuan ap Robin of Frongoch [or Vrongoch] a'r Llan Nevern [John ap Robin of Frongoch (or Vrongoch), on the bank of the Nevern [according to Lewis Dwnn i. 167; Tucker MS pedigree of the Pictons [NLW 10871B; Protheroe MS V, p. 160, College of Arms and Golden Grove MS, p.88].
Howell Picton was dead by 5 February 1513/4 when his son, Owen Picton, was a Ward of the Barony of Kemes. Howell Picton was the father of:
1. OWEN PICTON of Newport, see below.
2. MARGARET PICTON, who married Thomas Young of Tregaman. He was the youngest son of Hywel ap Jenkin Young of Tredrysi [Tredressi]. George Owen states that “He married Margaret the daughter of Hywel Picton, by whom he had issue Philip, who was the father to Rowland Young of Tredrysi, John Philip Young of Crugiau and Thomas Philip Young of Tregaman and divers others [see Pembrokeshire Record Series, Volume 2, 1973, p. 90-91]. This Thomas Young bought Tredrissi, being his father’s seat and inheritance, for after the birth of these five sons the said Howell ap Jenkin Young married the said Margaret Matthew, a woman of Anglesey, and had further issue one only daughter, named Ellen [Young], wife to David ap Ieuan David, whose son, named Rydderch, sold Tredrysi to this Thomas Young, the youngest of the five brothers, whose issue now enjoyeth itâ€. For an early (17th century) pedigree of the Youngs [alias Mathias] see the pedigree of the Young family in Protheroe MS V [copy available, ex-College of Arms] and Golden Grove MS, p. 124. Margaret Picton and Thomas Young had the following children:
a. PHILIP YOUNG [see above for his children, and Protheroe MS V]. He was father to Rowland Young of Tredrysi, John Philip Young of Crugiau and Thomas Philip Young of Tregaman.
OWEN PICTON of Newport
Owen Picton was born about 1500 and was living up to at least 1582. He was in Wardship within the Barony of Kemes on 5 February 1513/4 [Baronia de Kemeys, Arch. Camb., Supplement, 1862, p. 106].
Probably further details of his early life can be gleaned from the records of the Barony of Cemais. He is next found as a witness to the will of James Lloyd of Nevern [Will, PCC, 1551], whose will was dated 31 March 1551/2. James Lloyd was probably the son of Owen Lloyd, and thence the grandson of Jane Picton, who married William Lloyd of Morvil [see above]. Owen Picton is mentioned as one of the burgesses of Newport in a Bill of Complaint by William Owen to His Majesty’s Council in the Marches of Wales, touching upon the refusal of the Portreeve, Tenants and Burgesses of Newport to pay their rents for the years 1554-1556, amounting to 42 marks and more [Bronwydd MS I, No. 506]. He was described as a Gentleman of Nevern in 1557, when sued by Rice Howell, senior, merchant of Haverfordwest, to recover £12:9s:8d on a bond [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 17]. The Golden Grove MS, p. 88 and p. 69, give him as marrying Jenet, the daughter of Rees David ap Howell of Penybenglog.
Owen Pycton, gent., and Elizabeth his wife, of Haverfordwest, and Rice Howell, mercer, of the same place, were parties to a suit against Eleanor Sutton, widow and executrix of John Sutton, to recover £3 in 1556 [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 14]. Owen and Elizabeth Pycton were defendants to an action brought by Rees Morgan and Thomasine, his wife, daughter of John Sutton, to recover a messuage and garden in Haverfordwest [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 15]. This action was still proceeding in 1560 [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 20]. He was a Juror at the Inquisition Post Mortem of Sir John Wogan of Wiston held on 15 January 1557/8.
There is a grant of burgage on the west side of St. Mary’s Street, Newport, dated 14 December 1562, which refers to the burgage of Owen Picton on the south side [Bronwydd MS I, No. 865]. In 1566 he was tenant of a dwelling house in Dew Street, Haverfordwest, which he held from Hugh Harries, Mayor of Haverfordwest in 1538 and 1553; and husband of Margaret, daughter of John Sutton (see above), at an annual rent of 12d [see Will of Hugh Harries, dated 8 July 1566]. He was a tenant in the Barony of Kemes on 31 May 1568 [Baronia de Kemes, Arch. Camb., Supplement, 1862, p. 48] and a free tenant of the Lordship of Kemes in 1567/8 [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 30].
He was a Merchant of Newport in 1566-1567, and was the owner of the only ship recorded as trading out of Newport in the Welsh Port Books. On 18 July 1566 the vessel 'Le Saviour' of Newport sailed to Bristol under Captain John Roberts, with a crew of three, and with cargo comprising 1 pack of fardel [bundle] of frieses [coarse woollen cloth with a nap on one side] and 11,000 slate stones for Owen Picton. On 16 August the same vessel sailed from Bristol to Newport, under Captain Henry Roberts, with iron, tar, pitch, alum, white salt, soap, linen etc. On 12 September 1567 it sailed (under Henry Roberts) with a similar cargo; and on 31 July 1567 it sailed (again under Captain Henry Roberts) with six tons of coal - the merchant in each case being Owen Picton of Newport, who “usethcomonly to trade to Ireland, North Wales and up Severne afishinge†[E. A. Lewis, Welsh Port Books, 1550-1603, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1926].
Owen Picton acted as an arbitrator in a dispute between David Llewellyn of Bayvil and Ieuan ap Rees of Moylgrove, and gave his award on 15 June 1575 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 665]. On 14 October 1577 an examplification was made, at the request of George Owen, of the enrolment of a Charter which Owen Pycton, Morgan ap Owen, Thomas George Bowen, Rees ap Owen and other tenants of the Lordship of Kemmys had petitioned to have enrolled in the Court of the Great Sessions, held at Pembroke on 31 May 1568 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 928].[6] He was a Juror at the Inquisition Post Mortem on Richard Morgan Bowen of Haverfordwest, held on 24 February 1577/8. The heir of Richard Bowen was Elizabeth Bowen, aged 3 weeks. Owen Picton was apparently still living in 1582, when on 14 August 1582 Owen Pycton witnessed a covenant between George Owen of Henllys and William Thomas ap Howell ap Rees of Nevern, yeoman, concerning the quiet enjoyment by William Thomas of the tenement and lands in which he was living in Nevern, called Panty llech for the term of his life, and on his death George Owen was to enjoy the same on the payment of £8 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1312]. The other witnesses to the covernant were H. Lewys [probably Hugh Lewis], James Bowen, John Lloyd, William Griffith, John Beynon, Thomas Peter and John Browne. On 10 January 1588/9 there was a grant of a burgage and garden from William ap David Robert to Rydderch (Rodericus) ap David Gwynn lying on the west part of the street of the Blessed Mary the Virgin, between the moiety of the burgage of Alson verch Nicholas ap Guillim on the north part and the burgage of Owen Pycton on the south part in the town of Newport (povus burgus) in Kemeys. Witnesses: Phillip Adams, clerk, Rees Devenolld [Devonald], gent., Llewelyn Ada, Owen Lloyd, Bailiff of Kemeys, John Owen, Burgess of Newport, David Gentell, Burgess of Newport [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1274, latin with seal].
Owen Picton married, as his first wife, Jenet [Rees], daughter of Rees ap David ap Howell of Penybenglog in the parish of Meline [Golden Grove MS, p. 69]. She must have died before 1556, as by that date he was married, as his second wife, to Elizabeth ------- . His mother-in-law by his first marriage, Dyddgu, was the daughter and sole heiress of David ap Gwilym of Penybenglog [see Article on the descent of the Penybenglog property by Francis Jones, Griffith of Penybenglog, in Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1939, pp. 125-153]. She died in 1538. Her husband was a great-grandson of Howell ap Jankyn [Picton (?)] of Nevern, and it may be that Jenet, wife of Owen Picton, brought with her in marriage the Trellifen [Trellyfaint] property, which afterwards served as the principal residence of this branch of the Picton family. George Owen of Henllys wrote that “Trellyffant is the Mansion House of Owain Picton (i.e. the grandson of Owen Picton of whom we treat), as it hath been to three or four of his ancestors before, but in ancient time (these were) the lands of Hywel ap Jenkin of Nevernâ€. It is probable that Howell ap Jenkin was not of the Picton family, from George Owen’s description, but a separate individual from a different family. But it could just be possible Owen is referring to Howell ap Jenkin Picton. A check should be made to see if there are references to a Howell ap Jenkin living in Nevern around 1500. Owen Picton was married to Elizabeth ----- by 1556 [Elizabeth Bowen, daughter of William Bowen of Ponteinon (Pontgynon (?)], when described as of Haverfordwest [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 14].
In the Tithe Apportionment of Nevern, made on 10 September 1840, and the accompanying 1843 Tithe Map, surveyed by H. P. Goode and Philpot, Surveyors of Haverfordwest at a scale of 10 inches to 1 mile (8 chains) Trellyfain farm [spelt thus] extends right out to the coast and had an area of 370 acres 1 rood and 16 perches [Piece Nos. 110-145]. It was owned by Owen Owen and farmed by William Morris. The farm of Castell y Garn was immediately to the west, likewise extending to the coast and the farm of Tredrissi was adjoining to the southwest. Both these farms occur in the account of the Picton family.
The children of OWEN PICTON were:
1. JOHN PICTON of Trellifen [Trellyfaint], see below.
2. LUCY PICTON (LLEUCU/LLYKY PICTON), who married William Bowen of Pontgynon, in the parish of Meline, son of Mathias Bowen [died 1559], and grandson of Sir James Bowen of Pentre Evan. His mother was Mary Phillips, sister of Thomas Phillips of Rushmoor, Martletwy, High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1549, and grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Phillipps of Picton by his wife, Jane Dwnn. His elder brother was James Bowen of Llwyngwair, High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1624 [see Lewis Dwnn i, 166, 171; West Wales Historical Records, Volume II, p. 37; Golden Grove MS, p. 55; Protheroe MS V].
The wife of Mathias Bowen was Jane Philipps, daughter of John Philipps of Picton. After his death she remarried to Hugh Lewis of Nevern (see below), and died in 1606. William Bowen of Pontgynon was born ca 1547, and was aged 60 in 1607. He built the house at Pontgynon around 1575. After the death of Lucy Picton/Bowen he remarried to Katherine ap Owen. Katherine Bowen of Haverfordwest left a will in 1625 [SD 1625/115]. William and Lucy Bowen were the parents of a large family:
i. JAMES BOWEN, of Pontgynon, living in 1637. He married Agnes, daughter of William Lloyd ap Ieuan Lloyd ychan of Pennywern. They were the parents of:
a. WILLIAM BOWEN of Pontgynon, living in 1635, 1637, 1638 and 1652.
b. JAMES BOWEN
c. ALICE BOWEN
ii. THOMAS BOWEN
iii. EINON BOWEN
iv. WILLIAM BOWEN, jun.
v. MATHIAS BOWEN
vi. HARRY BOWEN
vii. ROBERT BOWEN
viii. ELEN BOWEN
3. MAUD PICTON, wife of John Lloyd of Pennallt-y-Llyn, Clydey [son of Gruffydd ap Ieuan Lloyd ap Ieuan ap Howel ap Ieuan]. See Dale MS 128 and Golden Grove MS, p. 42.
4. JANE PICTON, wife of Thomas Lloyd of Fagwyr goch in the parish of Llantood, according to Caroline Charles-Jones, Historic Pembrokeshire Homes and Their Families, 2001, p. 74. They may have had a son, Owen Lloyd of Fagwyr goch, who in 1586 had sued David ap Rees of Trefiffeth for trespass and depasturing in the Manorial Court of Moylgrove. The home remained in the possession of the Lloyd family down to the late 18th century.
JOHN PICTON of Trellifen [Trellyfaint]
He was the son of Owen Picton of Newport, was born after 1556, and died around 1586/7. He was a witness to the grant of two closes of land in the parish of Bayvil, called Parkeyr barrach, on 18 November 1580 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 691]. As John Picton of Trefllyffain, gent., of Nevern parish, he was party to a grant of properties on 26 February 1583/4 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 850]. As John ap Bowen Pictoun of Nevern, gent., he was party to a release of land at Nevern, on 1 August 1584 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 844].
John Picton of Trellyffain, gent., released to George Owen of Henllys two tenements with lands, etc., in Bayvil and Trefvoell on 8 March 1583/4, along with a close called Park dol Robin in the parish of Nevern, a parcel of wood near the said close on the hills below Lloynygores, another parcel of wood on the hills of Henllys ucha in the same parish, and four pieces of land at Caereglysmor and Pant y llech in the parishes of Nevern and Bayvil. The witnesses were Myles Thomas, clerk; George Owen, clerk; William Bowen; John Lloyd; Ieuan Bowen; Mathias Thomas of Glastir; John Beynon; John Browne; Thomas Lewes of Pantygroes; David Mathias and Lewis Jenkin [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1185].
George Owen granted to John ap Owen Picton 30 acres of land, 3 acres of meadow, 30 acres of pasture and 2 acres of furze and heath in Nevern for £40, with an annual value of 40s [Pembrokeshire Fine Rolls, 9 August 1585]. On the same day there was a grant by John Picton and his wife Jennet to George Owen Esq. of 2 messuages, 2 tofts, 6 gardens, 40 acres of land, 6 acres of meadow, 20 acres of pasture, 2 acres of wood and 6 acres of furze and heath in Dolrobyn, Trevoell, Caereglismore, Pantyllech, Bayvil and Nevern for £26:13s:4d, with an annual rental value of 26s:8d. Together with his wife Jenet, he acknowledged that certain lands in various parishes were the property of George Owen, on 20 August 1586 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1092]. He was said, in 1611, to have owned a carcucate of land (about 100 acres) in Nevern, held by Knight's service from Hugh Lewis.
John Picton married Jenet, daughter of James Philipps of Pentypark and Jane Griffith [daughter of Edmund Griffith], son of William Philipps of Pentypark, who was a younger son of Sir Thomas Phillipps of Kilsant [Golden Grove MS, Volume 2, fol. 6 of the descendants of Kadivor Vawr (p. 96 of this volume), and p. 18, Carmarthen Record Office]. Francis Green said that Jenet afterwards married Philip Griffith [citing Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 50]. In 1595, Philip Griffith, and Jenet his wife, by Thomas Evans their attorney, sued Owen Picton, son of John Picton, for one-third part of ten messuages, 50 acres of land, 60 acres of meadow, 50 acres of pasture and 20 acres of woodland with appurtenances in Nevern, Molygrove and Newport, as the marriage portion of the said Jenet, from the dower of her former husband, John Picton [Court of the Great Sessions, Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 68]. Owen Picton, by Henry Stephens, his attorney, came to the Court and asked leave for consultation until the Monday of the next Great Session, whenever it would be. This seems to have been agreed and the verdict given to Philip Griffith and Jenet, his wife.[7] It would be interesting to know if anything further can be discovered about the fates of Philip and Jenet Griffith. If a will for either survives, it would be a useful document to see. Alternatively the surviving Manorial Records of the Barony of Cemais might provide some confirmatory dates, and seem to have been little explored.
Through this marriage, John Picton was brother-in-law to Jane Philipps who married Griffith Gwillym of Pembroke, taylor; John Philipps; Elizabeth Philipps, who married Phillip James of Llangan; John Philipps, junior; Richard Philipps of Woodstock, who married Elen Lloyd, daughter of Thomas Lloyd and Griffith Philipps. John Picton was dead by 21 August 1587 [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 50]. On that day William Morgan of Haverfordwest, yeoman, sued Phillip Griffith and Jenett his wife, administratrix of John Bowen Picton, during the minority of their children: Owen John [Picton], Grace verch John [Picton] and Margaret verch John [Picton]; and Johan [Joan] Phillips and Roland Young, gent., co-administrators with the said Jenett [Griffith], to recover £9:13s:4d on a bond dated 20 September 1585.
JOHN PICTON had the following children:
1. OWEN PICTON of Trellifen [Trellyfaint], see below.
2. JOHN PICTON, who is mentioned as a son of John ap Owen Picton in Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls No. 50; and who is probably the same John Picton, gent., who in 1636, together with Owen Picton and Owen’s wife, Elizabeth Picton, levied to Thomas Picton a fine of two messuages and 196 acres of land in Nevern [Francis Green, The Pictons of Poyston, West Wales Historical Records, 1924, Volume X, p. 45]. It has been suggested that this John Picton could have been the ancestor of the Whitechurch branch of the family; an incorrect suggestion, as discussed by Francis Green in his article on the family [West Wales Historical Records, Volume X, 1924]. He would be very young to be a witness on a fine of 1636, even if he was the eldest son of Owen Picton of Trellyfaint by his second marriage to Elizabeth Bowen, which probably took place around 1625.
It would, nevertheless, be interesting to know what became of this John Picton. Could he be the ancestor of all the Picton families of humble status, living in Southern Pembrokeshire from 1750 onwards? Can the Estate and Manor Rolls of the Lordship of Kemes throw any further light on him? One explanation might be that he is the John Picton of Whitechurch in Cemais, whose administration was granted in 1653. The impression from his administration is that he may have left no children, as only his wife is mentioned (see below for more details).
3. GRACE PICTON, mentioned in Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 50. She is probably the daughter of John ap Owen Picton, who is shown in the Tucker MS pedigree as having married to John Thomas [NLW MS 10871B; Golden Grove MS, p. 103].
4. MARGARET PICTON, mentioned in Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 50; married to Thomas Young, son of Rowland Young of Tredrissi in the parish of Nevern, as his first wife and had issue by him [who was third in descent from Margaret Picton’s great-aunt]). See the Tucker MS and pedigree of the Young/Mathias families [NLW 10871B, Protheroe MS V and the Golden Grove MS, p. 124].
5. LUCY (LLEUCU) PICTON, said by Francis Green [WWHR, Volume X, 1924] to have married William Bowen of Pontcynon [Pontgynon], in the parish of Meline. This is almost certainly a confusion with Lucy, daughter of Owen Picton, and sister of John Picton [d. ca 1587].
OWEN PICTON of Trellyfaint
Owen Picton, son and heir of John Picton of Trellyfen [Trellyfaint], was under age on the death of his father in 1586/7. It is unclear from Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 96 whether he was aged 7 at his father’s death; or was 7 years old when his custody was granted to Hugh Lewis on 16 October 1595. If the latter interpretation was correct, then he must have been a posthumous son. This appears unlikely, since there is evidence that his father had at least one other son, John Picton; and also it is difficult to comprehend some of the early 17th century references to Owen Picton and his family unless he attained his majority around the year 1600.
There can be little doubt that the fortunes of this branch of the Picton family were on the wane from the late 16th century. It is almost certain that this decline was associated with the revival of feudalism in Kemes under the Lordship of George Owen of Henllys [B. G. Charles, George Owen, A Welsh Elizabethan, National Library of Wales, 1973]. George Owen’s father had purchased the Lordship of Kemes from the Audley family in 1543, and his son succeeded to the Lordship in 1574. The regime of the Audleys, who had been absentees, had been a relaxed one, with little enforcement of manorial rights or collection of feudal dues. However William and George Owen were typical creatures of Tudor and early Elizabethan England. They were avaricious parvenus, with a hunger for land and an ability to deploy their legal training and skills to the end of self-enrichment. Henllys formed part of the Knight’s fee of Bayvil, which took in the parish of Bayvil and a small part of the parish of Nevern. The fee was divided into a number of ploughlands, a ploughland was sometimes reckoned to be about 100 acres.
Under George Owen of Henllys rights and franchises which had been in abeyance for more than a century were revived, and the jurisdiction of the local Manorial Courts enforced. “He made full use of his legal training and his researches into the early manorial sources . . . to discover evidence which could justify the extraction of a wide range of dues which had been enjoyed by earlier Lords†[B. E. and K. A. Howells, The Extent of Cemais, 1594, Pembrokeshire Record Series, 3, 1977, p. 3]. His attitude is reflected in the preamble to a Rental of the Manor of Newport: “The rents that follow are found in diverse auncient rentrolls, were not leveyed for diverse yeares past by reason of necligent officers, and therefore yt must be inquired who are now owners of those landes, and where the landes lyeth, and who doth occupy the same. For the same was not vuyed by the jurors that made the rent rowleâ€.
The attempt to revive the incidents of old tenures provoked much hostility from the freeholders of Kemes, and, to enforce obedience, Owen prosecuted many of them both in the local and in the Crown Courts. “Between 1603 and 1614 George Owen sued William Warren, William Williams, George Lewis, Richard Wilkin, William Bowen and John Norris Jones in the Court of the Star Chamber, charging them with false arrest of his steward, who was attempting to impound strays within the Lordship, and for non-payment of legal costs, corruptly appointing constables and favouring their obstructive designs, falsely entering recognizances, and forcible entry and damages on Owen’s lands at Nevern†[Francis Jones, Warren of Trewern, The Pembrokeshire Historian, Volume 5, 1974, p. 121]. He took advantage of the rising national prosperity, and the resultant competition for agricultural holdings, to increase the rents of his leaseholders, and to exact heavy fines whenever his tenants wished to alienate their lands.
The twin assaults upon freeholders and leaseholders established a familiar pattern. Freeholds were sold or surrendered to George Owen, in order that feudal dues might be settled, and in exchange for a lease-back of strictly limited duration. Lease renewals were granted on terms which ruined the tenants, resulting in forfeitures, and enabled Owen to exact divestment of further freeholds lingering in the hands of his leaseholders. This strategy undoubtedly enhanced the standards of husbandry in Kemes, and brought into earnest cultivation many areas which had been fallow for decades; but it reduced some of the proud families of the Lordship, ultimately, to the status of landless peasants.
This new feudalism in Kemes probably took its first toll on the Picton family in the time of John ap Owen Picton [d. 1586/7]. The Vairdre Book [Bronwydd MS I, No. 3] contains a Rental of the Lordship compiled in 1594, which discloses that John ap Owen Picton had sold lands in Bayvil to George Owen, and had disposed of an acre of wood at Allt Lloyn-y-Gorres in the same fashion [probably these properties formed part of the messuage and lands in Bayvil and Trefvoel granted to George Owen by John Picton on 4 September 1584; Bronwydd MS I, Nos. 844 and 1185]. A deed, dated 20 August 1586, contains an acknowledgement by John Picton and Jennet, his wife, that they were wrongly in occupation of lands belonging to George Owen in various parishes [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1092].
When John Picton died, his widow purchased the wardship of their son, Owen Picton, from George Owen [see Roll of Wards of the Lords Marcher of Kemes for William and George Owen, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, Volume 10, pp. 83ff, item 85], which wardship the Lord claimed in respect of John Picton’s tenure of Trellifen, Castell-y-garn, Blaen-coomcyney, Penygraig, Voelgoch, and lands in Nevern. But when Jennet Picton remarried in 1595, Hugh Lewis, then Mayor of Newport, obtained from the Crown a grant of the wardship of Owen Picton, in the right of John Picton’s tenure by knight’s service, of a carucate of land [about 100 acres] in Nevern from the said Hugh Lewis. Part of Nevern enjoyed a degree of autonomy within the Kemes Lordship, and had feudal incidents of its own. At the same time the young Owen Picton was sued by his mother and new step-father, Phillip Griffith, for one third part of ten messuages, fifty acres of land, sixty acres of meadow, fifty acres of pasture and twenty acres of woodland in Nevern, Moylgrove and Newport, as the marriage portion of Jennet from the dower of her late husband, John Picton [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 68]. It is this suit which suggests Jennet Philipps may have brought Trellyfaint into the Picton family, although George Owen’s evidence suggests it was in the hands of the Picton family before this. Phillip Griffith of Manorowen left a will in 1624 [SD 1624/103] and Philip Griffith of Kilgerran left a will in 1632 [SD 1632/17]. Jenette Griffith of Eglwyswrw left a will in 1619 [SD 1619/36].
The 1594 Rental from the Vairdre Book, mentioned above, shows that Owen Picton paid rent of assize of 12 pence per annum to the Lord of Kemes in respect of his tenement of Castell-y-garn, then in the occupation of Thomas Lewis Rees. In respect of each of his Mansion House and land called Trellifen, and “his lands from the two headlands of the long meadow†at Trellifen, all in Kemes supra. That he paid 4 shillings per annum rent of assize, as a bond tenant, in respect of his tenement of Penallt y Carthei Ycha, then in the occupation of Mor(r)is Harry, in Coedywinog and Bayvil. That 4 pence per annum was due from him by way of rent as a free tenant in respect of each of his parcels of land at Tregriffith and Diffryn Kibwr in Moylgrove, the former being occupied by Thomas David and the latter, called Tir y Picton, by Howell ap David. The Rental also notes that George Owen was the owner of land at Trefvoel in Bayvil which he had recently acquired from Owen Picton “through an exchange of landsâ€. It will be interesting to see if these lands can be identified on the Tithe Maps, made some 250 years later.
George Owen in his “Description of Pembrokeshireâ€, published as Volume 2 of the Pembrokeshire Record Series in 1973, records “Trellyfant is the Mansion House of Owain [Owen] Picton, as it hath been to three or four of his ancestors before, but in ancient time the lands of Hywel ap Jenkin of Nevern†[p. 91]. The coat of the Pictons is gules, three pikes nayant argent.
A Rental of the town of Newport for the same year, 1594 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 303] shows that Owen Picton held half a burgage in St. Mary’s Street, five and a half burgages on the main Fishguard road through Newport, two burgages in a lane running west from St. Mary’s Street and another to the west of Bridge Street, and land at Comdewi in Brithdir outside the town limits. Of his total of nine burgages, six and a half are described in the rental as in decay; and it is noted, somewhat menacingly, that “the custome is that the Lordes Officers maye demise and sell the decaied burgages to whom he listethe to make the most profytt thereof to the Lordeâ€. Owen Picton appears in the Subsidy Roll of 1604 for Pembrokeshire [E 179/204/507] to a value of one pound.
On 3 May 1604 James Perrot, knight, Walter Rees, knight, Cicil [Cecil], daughter of James Perrott, Owen Picton, gent., John Kiblewhite and Rowland Thomas Young, the younger, freehold tenants of the town of Newport, because they did not appear at the Court of View of Frankpledge, but defaulted, were amerced 7s each. A grant of a burgage in St. Mary’s Street, made on 3 September 1609, refers to the burgage of Owen Picton on the south side [Bronwydd MS I, No. 910]. This entry seems to be the last evidence of any Picton property in Newport, although further research amongst the Bronwydd MS may confirm this fact. In 1609 Owen Picton contributed to the subsidy for “making Prince Henry a Knightâ€, as a resident of Nevern. He appears in the Nevern section of the Pembrokeshire Militia Muster Roll for 1613.
In 1611 Hugh Lewis brought a suit against Owen Picton for £200 damages in respect of loss of benefit of wardship and marriage. As noted above, Lewis had obtained a grant of his wardship from the Crown on 16 October 1595. It appears that Hugh Lewis subsequently arranged a marriage between Owen Picton and Elizabeth Symyns; but that Owen Picton refused to contract to this marriage, and entered upon his property. He contested the claim brought by Lewis on the ground that the proposed bride was not an acceptable match, since her mother had been illegitimately and incestuously begotten. Picton pleaded that the girl’s mother, Matilda Symyns, wife of John Symyns, was the daughter of Hugh Lewis by Matilda Bowen, who was the daughter of Hugh Lewis’s late wife, Mary. John Symyns, the girl’s father, is possibly to be identified with John Symins of Martell, who died in 1589 at an advanced age. This latter John Symins married Anne (or Agnes), daughter and co-heiress of William Pryse of Martell; is known by her to have had a son, Thomas Symins, who married Margaret Gwillim of Pembroke, and a daughter, Jane Symins, wife of William Melchior. No alliance is shown in Lewis Dwnn’s pedigree of the Symins family, but in the Peniarth MS [No. 156] it is stated that Thomas Symins, son of John Symins of Martell, married Maud [often the alternative form of Matilda in the 16th century], the daughter of Hugh Lewis David Mathias. John Symins of Llanfair left a will in 1613 [SD 1613/130] and John Symyns of Martell left a will in 1612 [SD 1612/66].
Nothing useful can really be deduced from all this at present. Agnes Symins, wife of John Symins, was living in 1594, so there can be little question of John Symins having married Matilda Lewis late in life. Thomas Symins married Margaret Gwillim in 1580, and she died as a widow in 1644. Possibly John Symins of Martell had a younger son named John, who married the Lewis girl, and who is confused with his elder brother, Thomas, in the Peniarth MS. This construction is supported by an indenture, dated 15 February 1606/7, to which Thomas Symins of Martell and Margaret his wife were both parties, and was witnessed by John Symins the elder and John Symins the younger, both of Martell, the younger John being the eldest son of Thomas and Margaret Symins, born in 1591, and the elder John Symins difficult to place if not his uncle [See Calendar of Deeds and Documents, The Coleman Deeds, National Library of Wales, Volume I, DD372].
The outcome of Hugh Lewis’s suit against Owen Picton is not recorded in the Plea Rolls. This may well be because he died, as Hugh Lewis of Nevern made a will, dated 11 October 1611, which shows that Owen Picton had already married against his wishes. What is somewhat puzzling about the suit is that it did not come before the courts until 1611, when Owen Picton would have been about 30 years of age. Also, by 1611, Owen Picton had been married for some time to his first wife, Mary [Young], the daughter of Thomas Philip Young of Tregaman, his second cousin [see issue of Howell Picton; Golden Grove MS, p. 124]. Several of the Newport burgages, held by Owen Picton in 1594, were in the occupation of Owen Philip Young, a substantial merchant and brother [or son] of Thomas Philip Young.
In 1611 Owen Picton may have undertaken further alieniation of his lands. In that year he paid 6s:8d for a licence to make an agreement with Owen Jevan [Owen John] and Mary his wife, and Henry Lloyd and Margaret his wife, concerning a messuage and lands in Trefyordan Issa and Nevern [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 96]. By 1616 there is clear evidence that he was in a state of some financial embarrassment. He was sued for the recovery of £10:7s:6d, being the outstanding balance on a bill of dry goods delivered to him between 27 May 1611 and 20 July 1613 [Francis Green Collection, Haverfordwest Library, Volume 9, p. 111]. This is probably a reference to the action brought by Alderman William Thomas, an administrator of the estate of Arnold Tanke [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 107]. On 18 October 1616 he disposed of his interest in two pieces of land, of which the one near Trellifen was called Longe Meadow [Bronwydd MS I, No. 1328]. On the same date, and doubtless part of the same transaction, he executed a bond for £200 in favour of Alban Owen, son and heir of George Owen of Henllys, who had died in 1614. Payment on this bond was outstanding at the time of Owen Picton’s death around 1636; and in 1640 Alban Owen sued Picton’s widow for recovery of the bond [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 154]. It is noticeable that the amount of the bond corresponds to the liquidated value of the claim which Hugh Lewis had pursued against Owen Picton in 1611, and it may be that Picton had eventually capitulated to Lewis’s demand and borrowed from the then Lord of Kemes the sum necessary to discharge his obligation.
On 1 October 1616 Owen Picton also witnessed a deed between Sir James Perrott of Haroldston and John Rowland of Monington, yeoman, being a quitclaim of lands in Monington called Tythin y Perrott [Poyston Deeds, National Library of Wales, No. 66]. Other witnesses included Eynon Young, James Young and William Young. On 19 August 1618 he was one of the examiners of a case at Fishguard [History of St. Dogmaels Abbey, 1907, p. 192]. He was a witness to the will of Owen Lloyd of Nevern, dated 21 February 1619/20. From 1621 to 1623 Owen Picton of Nevern was Mayor of Newport [Dillwyn Miles, The Ancient Borough of Newport in Pembrokeshire, 1998, p. 41]. He was a Juror at the Inquisition Post Mortem of Rowland Walter of Roch, held at Haverfordwest on 27 September 1622. Also in 1622 he and John Codd were parties to an action for the recovery of a messuage in Shoemakers Street in Haverfordwest [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 119], and in 1625 he was a party to proceedings concerning damage to crops at Trellifen [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 124]. The reference to property in Haverfordwest is interesting.
It may be that in 1625 Trellifen [Trellyfaint] was in the hands of a tenant farmer, since in that year Owen Picton contributed to the Lay Subsidy, as of the parish of St. Dogmaels, whilst there was no Picton contributor in Nevern. There is also a record that in 1698 Evan Lloyd, of the Hendre and Cwmgloyne family, married Elinor, heiress of Owen Young of Trellyfant. This suggests the property passed from the Picton family to the Young family – perfectly logical as they had lived next door to each other in the parish of Nevern for many years. Perhaps this happened after the death of Thomas Picton in February 1655/6, as he seems to have been in difficult personal circumstances at the time of his death.
By 3 April 1626 Owen Picton’s first wife had died, and he had remarried Elizabeth Bowen, who is described as his spouse, in a fine between John ap Evan and Rowland Jenkin, and Owen and Elizabeth Picton, for payment of 10 shillings concerning two messuages and 111 acres of land in Moylgrove and Nevern. The Tucker MS and the Golden Grove MSS describe Elizabeth as the daughter of John Bowen, and the latter gives a reference p. 56. He may have been a member of the Pentre Evan/Llwyngwair family, into which Owen Picton’s aunt, Lucy Picton, had married. Alternatively he may have sprung from the stock of the Bowen families of Roblinston and Haverfordwest. In support for the Roblinston/Haverfordwest origins of Elizabeth Bowen/Picton one may note that Thomas Picton, presumably her step-son, rented the tithes of Llanhowell during the 1620s in succession to Morgan Bowen of Roblinston, as the ancestor of William Bowen of Haverfordwest. In addition there was a grant by Owen Picton and Elizabeth, his wife, of 3 messuages and gardens, 10 acres of land, 2 acres of meadow, 2 acres of pasture and 3 acres of furze and heath in Newport, to George Bowen, gent., in 1628 [Pembrokeshire Fine Rolls, 1628].
Another claim is that Elizabeth Bowen was the daughter of John Bowen, who had married Joan, the daughter of Philip Jenkin Llewellin and Margaret, daughter of Thomas Peter of Nevern. John Bowen was the son of Thomas Owen Vaughan [Fychan] and his wife Ellen, the daughter of Philip ap John [Ieuan] Owen of Bridell. As well as John Bowen they had at least two daughters: Gwenllian Bowen, who married George Thomas, and another daughter who married Llewellin Howell. Thomas Owen Vaughan was the son of Owen Mathias ap Owen of Trerickert in the parish of Nevern and his wife, Dyddgu, daughter of David Bowen Meredith. Owen Mathias ap Owen had a brother, Morgan ap Owen and they were both brothers to Sir James ap Owen of Pentre Evan and to Catherine Bowen, wife of John Devonald.[8] Both Thomas ap Owen Vaughan and Morgan ap Owen had other issue.
Margaret, daughter of Thomas Peter, who married John Bowen, was the sister to Sage, wife of Thomas Philip Young. There is, therefore, the possibility that through the mother-in-law of Owen Picton’s first wife, he may have been introduced to his second bride, with her family framework. Thomas Peter also had another daughter, Nest, who married James Devonald and was the mother of the main Devonald heir, Thomas Devonald. Thomas Devonald married Mary Philipps of the Picton castle family and they were the parents of John Devonald, who married Sage Picton.
Morgan ap Owen married Isobel, daughter of William Llewellin John and also Elizabeth, daughter of Philip ap Howell. He had a son, Rees Morgan, and a daughter, Agnes Morgan, who married John Owen Philipps. Their descendant, Mary Philipps, married Thomas Devonald, and Thomas Devonald’s son and heir, John Devonald of Graig in the parish of Llanfyrnach[9], married Sage Picton, daughter of Owen Picton and Elizabeth Bowen. This relationship would make Owen Picton and Elizabeth Bowen second cousins. It would be interesting to see if any wills survive in the St. Davids Archdeaconary Court to help exemplify this connection.
Also, Lucy Picton, sister to Sage’s grandfather, married William Bowen of Pontgynon who was the second son of Mathias Bowen of Llwyngwair, and this couple’s son (William Bowen Junior) married his first cousin, Elliw, 16th. child of his father’s eldest brother James.
p-father could possibly be Maud, daughter of Mathias Bowen of Llwyngwair and his wife, Mary Philipps, as Maud is the alternate name for Matilda. Maud married David Morris of Llangynog, Carmarthenshire, and had three daughters. Her father, Mathias Bowen of Llwyngwair, was the eldest son from the second marriage of Sir James ap Owen, knight, of Pentre Ifan to Mary Herle.
Mary Philipps was a daughter of John Philipps the Younger, son of Sir Thomas Philipps of Picton Castle. She had 13 children by Mathias ap Owen, who died in 1557, after which time she married Hugh Lewis.
References:
Heraldic Visitations of Wales 1586-1613 by Lewis Dwnn.
Golden Grove Ms. – Gwynfardd Dyfed pages D.807, 808, 810, 813; Golden Grove Ms. = Cadifor Vawr page D.855
Bartrum – Cadifor Vawr & Gwynfardd Dyfed Pedigrees from "Welsh Genealogies 300 – 1400 AD"
Major Francis Jones "Bowens of Pentre Ifan & Llwyngwair"
The Picton family parted with more property in 1629, probably as part of a comprehensive sale and lease-back, the details of which are difficult to divine. On 12 March 1629 George Owen of Henllys [son of Alban Owen, High Sheriff of Co. Pembroke in 1620 and 1643, and grandson of George Owen of Henllys (d. 1614)] granted to Owen and Thomas Picton a yearly tenancy, at a rent of £4 per annum, of a messuage called Trellifen [Trellyfaint], with two parcels of land, one at Pantyllydy and the other at Castell-y-garn in Nevern. On 3 April 1629 Owen Picton, gent., and Thomas Picton, gent. granted to George Owen, gent. a messuage and garden, 100 acres of land, 3 acres of meadow, 40 acres of pasture, 1 acre of wood and 40 acres of furze and heath at Nevern [184 acres total]. It seems clear that these transactions represented the end of the Picton family’s freehold tenure of their Mansion House at Trellifen [Trellyfaint].
A conveyance earlier in the same year, dated 1 March 1628/9, indicated the scale of other recent disposals. The conveyance involved a settlement by James Bowen of Llwyngwair, upon trust, of “lands called Rhosimaen, two parcels of land at Voelgoch, called Tir Scurlagg and Tir Sienkin Voell, one messuage called Rhos y Maen Ycha, one parcel of arable land at Voelgoch called KnwckeyDuon, four parcels of arable land lying on the north side of the highway leading from Newport bridge to Cardigan town, and two parcels of land containing 12 Welsh acres, which were late the lands of Owen Picton, gent.†[Bronwydd MS I, No. 725; 980]. One of the trustees of the settlement was James Morgan of Nevern, possibly Owen Picton’s son-in-law; the other was George William Griffith of Penybenglog in Meline, the antiquary, and son-in-law of James Bowen.
The lease of Trellifen [Trellyfaint] to Owen and Thomas Picton seems to have produced little income for George Owen. In 1633 he sued the Pictons for arrears of rent of £14 under the letting, which probably indicates that they had not paid any rent since the grant of 1629 [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 140]. Presumably the arrears were cleared, and the Pictons allowed to remain in possession of Trellifen. Owen Picton was still described as of Trellifen when proceedings were brought against his estate in 1640.
The next Picton property dealings which are recorded are also difficult to understand. In 1636 Thomas Picton, doubtless the son of Owen Picton, paid 6s:8d for a licence to make an agreement with Owen Picton concerning two messuages and lands in Nevern [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 147]. This agreement seems to have taken the form of a fine, whereby on 12 September 1636 there was a grant of 2 messuages and gardens, 50 acres of land, 3 acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture, 3 acres of wood and 40 acres of furze and heath in Nevern by Owen Picton, gent., Elizabeth his wife and John Picton, gent. to Thomas Picton, gent., for £20 in silver. The purpose of this transaction is not apparent, but it may have been a legal device to avoid attachment of Owen Picton’s property by his creditors, as Owen Picton died soon afterwards.
In the Spring of 1639, at the Court of the Great Sessions, his widow, Elizabeth Picton, sought from Margaret Owen one third of the messuages and lands in Nevern, as dower from her late husband [Margaret Owen was the widow of George Owen, the son of Alban Owen]. She was Margaret Lewis, the daughter of Sir John Lewis, and had married George Owen in 1615. Margaret Owen countered by contending that Owen Picton was not seized so as to give dower [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 152]. As already noted, Elizabeth Picton was sued, in her capacity as the administratrix of her late husband, by Alban Owen for £200 due on the bond which Owen Picton had given at Newport in 1616. The claim was heard in the Spring Sessions of 1640, and Elizabeth Picton pleaded that she had fully administered her husband’s estate, and was in possession of none of his goods whereby Alban Owen’s proof of debt might be satisfied [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 154].
In 1698 the great uncle of Thomas Lloyd, Evan Lloyd, had married Elinor Young, the heiress of Owen Young of Trellyffant. This suggests that the Young family took over the lease on Trellyffant, but exactly when after 1640 is not yet known.
According to conventional construction [e.g. Francis Green, West Wales Historical Records, Volume X, 1924] Owen Picton was around 50 years of age at the time of his death [i.e. born around 1586]. However, the evidence presented here suggests he was born around 1580, and was thus around age 56/57 at his demise. One important item of evidence to substantiate this construction is that Owen Picton, gent., brought proceedings against John Lewis of Nevern, gent., in the Autumn Sessions of 1603, on a Bill accepted by Picton from Lewis on 10 December 1598 [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 81]. It must surely be that Owen Picton was above ten years of age when he accepted Lewis’s bill. It is very unlikely that the proceedings in 1603 were brought merely in the name of Owen Picton, and that the bill of 1598 had been accepted on his behalf by Hugh Lewis, as his ward. Undoubtedly Hugh Lewis would have dealt with any such transactions under his own name. Owen Picton’s second wife was alive in 1645, as she is mentioned in the will of Grace Young of Argoed, dated 2 February 1645/6, and may well be the Elizabeth Picton, buried at Nevern on 9 April 1665 [Nevern parish register].
OWEN PICTON was the father of the following children:
1. THOMAS PICTON of Nevern, was the eldest and possibly only son of Owen Picton, by his first wife, Mary Young [Golden Grove MS, pp. 88, 124]. Mary Young’s mother was Sage Peter, daughter of Thomas Peter of Nevern, who held appreciate land in Nevern. She may have named her son after her own father, Thomas Philip Young. The year of the birth of Thomas Picton is uncertain, but it is suggested he reached his majority by the mid-1620s. One Thomas Picton held the tithes of Llanhowell during the period 1621-1625, as mentioned above, and may have obtained a lease of the tithes through the Bowen connection of his step-mother. The tithes of Llanhowell were later leased to the Prichard family, from whom the southern branch of the Picton family acquired Poyston. However, there is no evidence of any link between the northern and southern branches of the Picton family.
However, there is a reference in the will of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Pritchard, dated 25 May 1646, and proved on 10 February 1646/7 whose daughter, Elizabeth Prichard, had the Llanhowell tithes in 1660, where he refers to his “cozen Thomas Pictonâ€, who can only be of the northern branch of the family [PCC, 1646/7, PROB 11/199]. This Thomas Pritchard, who was Rector of Nevern in 1625, appears to have been one of the two sons of the Rev. Robert Prichard, Rector of Ludchurch, by his wife, Jane Warren, daughter of Mathias Warren [died 1561]. Jane Warren’s nephew, Thomas Warren of Trewern, married Elizabeth, daughter of Evan Lloyd of Cwmgloyne by Mary, a daughter of George Owen of Henllys, and had by her a daughter, Elizabeth Warren, who married Thomas Picton of Nevern.[10] Whether Dr. Prichard called Thomas Picton his “cozen†on account of this relationship, or of a more proximate connection, is not clear [see Golden Grove MS, p. 62 and Francis Jones, Warren of Trewern, Pembrokeshire Historian, Volume 5, 1974, p. 124].
Thomas Warren matriculated from Jesus College Oxford on 20 November 1607, aged 18 [born 1588/9] and was an alderman of Newport and served as mayor in 1619-1621 and in 1624. He was High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1638/9. Thomas Warren died in 1665. Besides his daughter, Elizabeth Warren, who married Thomas Picton, he had two sons, George Warren and Alban Warren. On 23 October 1665 the burgesses for the Court Leet of Newport returned that his rightful heir was his grandson, William Warren. George Warren, his eldest son, had married Anne Owen in August 1637. She was the eldest daughter of John Owen of Trecwn in the parish of Llanfairnantygof by Lettice, daughter of Sir John Philipps of Picton Castle. However, four years later, in 1641, George Warren died, still a young man. His widow, Anne Warren, remarried to Thomas Symmins of Martell on 12 February 1649/50. They had three children: William Warren, the eldest son, Thomas Warren, who settled in Carmarthen and Elizabeth Warren, who married Richard Harrington.
Alban Warren was an Alderman of Newport, and Mayor there in 1653 and 1672-1675. He married his cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Lloyd of Trerees, brother of Evan Lloyd of Cwmgloyne. He was buried at Nevern on 25 September 1687. Administration of his goods was granted on 24 November 1687 but was a mere £3:12s:6d.
As noted above, Thomas Picton was involved in a series of transactions relative to lands in Nevern in 1636. In 1638, William Young, probably the same William Young who was a cousin of Thomas Picton, and Thomas Lloyd, gave 20 shillings for a licence to grant 3 messuages and lands in Nevern to Thomas Picton. It may seem surprising that Thomas Picton was engaged in the acquisition of property after what seems like a long history of disposals by his family. It may well be that his marriage to Elizabeth Warren enhanced his financial position. The date of this marriage is difficult to plot exactly. Thomas Picton was a witness to the will of Morgan John of Nevern, dated 9 March 1654/5 and proved in the PCC on 20 November 1656, and is also mentioned as a kinsman to receive 10 shillings [PCC, 1656, PROB 11/259/f. 384]. He was also a witness to the will of George William Griffith of Penybenglog in the parish of Meline, the Welsh genealogist, whose will was proved in 1655.
According to a number of sources [e.g. Francis Jones, Warren of Trewern, Pembrokeshire Historian, Volume 5, p. 124] Thomas Picton’s wife was the widow of a Mr. Griffith of Cardigan, by whom she had at least two children, Abel Griffith and Grace Griffith. These two step-children were under age 16 when Thomas Picton made his will on 2 February 1655/6. This would mean that Thomas Picton would not have married before about 1640. The will of Thomas Picton contains a number of references which can be interpreted as evidence contradicting this assertion, as opposed to supporting it, and it is relevant to consider his testament in some detail.
Thomas Picton’s will was dated 2 February 1655/6 and was witnessed by James Morgan [probably the husband of his sister, Margaret Picton]; James Walters; James Browne; William Young [doubtless Thomas Picton’s cousin, already mentioned]; and Alban Warren, brother of Elizabeth Picton, his wife. Thomas Picton’s circumstances seem to have been somewhat straightened at the time of his death, as his estate was valued only at £3:12s:6d by his appraisors [Owen Picton (Thomas Picton’s younger brother, see later) and Bartholomew Young]. Was this tied in with the Civil War in Pembrokeshire in some way? Under its terms Thomas Picton left 6d to the poor of Nevern parish, and legacies of 3s:4d to Mawde John David; Elizabeth Picton [probably the testator’s step-mother]; Katherine Picton; Duddy (i.e. Dyddgu) Picton; Hugh Mathias and William Deyhid’s wife. Duddy Picton is doubtless the ‘Duggy Picton’ who is listed as a pauper of Nevern in the 1670 Hearth Tax return, and is perhaps the . . . . Picton [forename indecipherable], who was buried at Nevern on 5 March 1670/1. Katherine or Catherine Picton was probably the widow of John Picton of Whitechurch, who died in 1653.
Thomas Picton also left 10 shillings each to his unmarried brothers and sisters; and also to his niece, Mary Picton, daughter of his brother, John Picton, and to Owen Morgan, son of his brother-in-law, James Morgan. He left 50 shillings to “my wife’s children Abell Griffith and Grace Griffith . . . when they are 16â€, and 10 shillings each to “my brother Owen’s two children†[these are Elizabeth Picton, born 1651, and John Picton, born 1653, the two eldest children of his brother, Owen Picton of Cardigan]. He released Thomas Hayward, clerk, from his bond for 50 shillings. The residue of his goods he bequeathed to “my two daughters and executors, Elizabeth and Grace [Picton]â€. He provided for his cousin, William Young; his brother-in-law, Alban Warren; his brother, Owen Picton; and his cousin, Bartholomew Young, to be “guardians of my children during their minorityâ€, and desired that his “friends and kinsmen Mr. Thomas Wogan of Llanstinan and Mr. John Morris of Castle Morris†should act as overseers.[11]
Thomas Picton went on to say that “If my daughters prove obstinate, and match without the consent, especially of my father (-in-law), Warren; my cozen Young; my cozen Wogan and my cozen Matthias (or do worse) which God forbidâ€, then he directed that his “best deserving daughter†should receive all the profit from his land, when 21; and that his “delinquent daughter†should have only £10 instead of her half-share in his residual estate, and in the profits of the land. To his wife, Elin [Picton], he gave “for her widowhood an annuity of £3, yearly charged on Croft Vach and Gwndwn Dywatty and other pieces of land in . . . Castle Game [Castell y garn] purchased of my cozen, William Young, and Rowland Jenkin; the said annuity to be also levied on Llain Vawr, on the west side of Voel Goch, in the tenure of James Morgan, for which I have at present but a third sheafe (share)â€. He added sadly “my wife deserves better at my hands, yet her mother’s non-performance with her and me of the bargains between them hath utterly disabled me to give her any more, without gross injury to my poor children, who are to pay about £100 of my debtâ€. The will was proved on 9 May 1656 by William Young, Alban Warren, Owen Picton and Bartholomew Young.[12]
There are a number of interesting points to make on this will. (1) Thomas Picton calls his wife Elin; (2) He has both a daughter and a step-daughter called Grace; (3) While his father-in-law and brother-in-law Warren have his respect, his dealings with his wife’s mother have been troubled; (4) He speaks of his “poor children†and his wife as if their interests are mutually exclusive; (5) His wife’s mother has entered into some bargain in her own right.
These factors point to the mother of Thomas Picton’s children not being the wife whom he mentions in his will. Whilst it may be possible that his wife was variously called Elizabeth and/or Elin; that she had two daughters named Grace, and that her mother was on less congenial terms with Thomas Picton than were her father and brother, together they provide a cumulative element of improbability. Moreover, while a potential conflict of interest between a mother and her children can be recognised in the prospect of the mother’s remarriage and subsequent claim for dower, to the potential advantage of her new husband, Thomas Picton seems to have apprehended a need to protect his daughters’ position, even during Elin Picton’s widowhood. Most telling of all, perhaps, is the fact that Elin Picton’s mother had made some agreement with her daughter, presumably involving a disposition of property, but had failed to perform it. This suggests that Thomas Picton’s mother-in-law was able to deal with property in her own right, without the intercession of a husband. Thus she was a widow, yet Thomas Picton’s father-in-law, Warren, did not die until 1665.
The pedigree of the Picton family in the Tucker MS, written down in the 17th Century, simply states that Thomas Picton married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Warren. It does not indicate that she was the widow of one Griffith. Likewise, it does not mention a second marriage by Thomas Picton, so this source is unhelpful on this point. On 27 August 1665 Elinor Picton and Thomas Pugh were married at Nevern. This would seem to be Thomas Picton’s widow remarrying, ten years after her first husband’s death, and her name is clearly established as Elin(or), rather than Elizabeth. Elinor Pugh was taxed on 5 hearths at Nevern in 1670, which indicates a substantial property.
The most plausible explanation for all this is that Thomas Picton was twice married; firstly to Elizabeth Warren, by whom he had daughters Elizabeth and Grace Picton, who were probably in their early teens at the time of their father’s death; and secondly to Elin(or) Griffith, a widow with two children by her previous marriage. The will of Grace Young of Argoed, Nevern, offers some evidence in support of this construction. Her will is dated 2 February 1645/6, and was proved on 7 April 1646. It was witnessed by Alban Warren, Owen Picton and Thomas Picton. In it she mentions her niece, Ellen Griffiths, widow, to whom she left £50 in money, a pair of steers, a silver beaker and salt cellar, a feather bed and a brass cauldron, which I have in pawn of 3s:9d from William Bowen of Pontgynon [this William Bowen was married to Lucy Picton, sister of John Picton of Trellifen. His nephew, Thomas Bowen, later acquired the property of Argoed]. Grace Young also mentions her “kinswoman and god-daughter, Grace Pictonâ€.[13] This Ellen Griffith(s), widow, looks very much like Thomas Picton’s second wife; whilst the god-daughter, Grace Picton, is certainly Thomas Picton’s daughter.
These conjectures are reinforced by two further wills. Grace Young’s husband, Rees Young of Argoed in the parish of Nevern, left a will, dated 14 July 1645, and proved on 22 January 1645/6 by Phillip Bowen and Henry Myles. An inventory of his effects was apprised on 22 October 1645 by Alexander Webb, Thomas Picton and Phillip Young, which gave a value of £144:14s:0d. His wife, Grace Young, was appointed his executrix and the will was written down by Thomas Picton, n(otary) p(ublic).[14]
The Tucker MS pedigree suggests that Thomas Picton’s cousin, William Young, discharged his function as guardian of Elizabeth and Grace Picton to very satisfactory effect. They were married to his own sons, William Young and Owen Young. Thus through one of Thomas Picton’s daughters the Trellifen [Trellyfaint] property seems to have passed into the hands of the Young family. In 1697 Elinor Young, presumably a daughter of one of the above, and described as the heiress of Trellifen, married a younger son of John Lloyd of Cwmgloyne. John Lloyd’s father was a first cousin of Elizabeth Warren, first wife of Thomas Picton, and of Elizabeth Lloyd, wife of Alban Warren. A daughter of the Lloyd-Young marriage subsequently took Trellifen [Trellyfaint] into the Morris family in marriage.
A preliminary attempt has been made to try and trace a will or administration for either Elinor [Ellen] or Thomas Pugh, but with no success to date. There are burials of an Eleanor Pugh at Carmarthen on 20 October 1686 and of a Thomas Pugh at Carmarthen on 17 March 1702/3. Administration of the estate of Elinor Pugh of Carmarthen was granted on 29 October 1686 to Richard James of Carmarthen, carpenter, and Thomas Lloyd. The will of Thomas Pugh of Carmarthen, clothier, dated 13 March 1702/3, mentions his brother, John Pugh, sister Mary Pugh, and his nephews Thomas Pugh; John Pugh; Daniel John, son of John Richard, and niece Mary John. The testator’s wife was Mary Pugh, was living at his decease. An inventory of his estate was taken on 19 March 1702/3. Clearly this cannot be the Thomas Pugh, husband of Elin(or) Griffith. The children Abel Griffith and Grace Griffith were living in 1656, and an Abel Griffith of Cardigan made a will, dated 27 July 1674, and proved on 25 August 1674, which mentions his wife, Katherine Griffith, his sons James Griffith and Matthew Griffith, who was appointed overseer of the will, his grandson, Abel Griffith, Minister of the Gospel, his grand-daughter, Grace Griffith, his daughter, Lettice Hughes, wife of John Hughes, and his other grandchildren, offspring of Lettice and John Hughes [SD 1674/9; Witnesses: Arthur Bateman, Anne Lewis and James Davies]. The will also mentions a house at St. Dogmells, and his three servants, William Richard, Anne Richard (?) and Jane Jenkin and a bond with Mr. James Phillips, Esq.
The pedigree account given by Francis Green [West Wales Historical Records, Volume X, 1924], is very confusing regarding the children of Owen Picton by his two wives, Mary Young and Elizabeth Bowen. Perhaps the best relatively contemporary pedigree occurs in the Protheroe MS V, p. 160 at the College of Arms, and is in the hand of David Edwardes, written around 1688. The same source also has a good pedigree of the Young family. For convenience in the discussion here, the daughters of Owen Picton are dealt with first, followed by his further sons. As will be seen, Owen Picton left behind him an extensive family.
2. SAGE PICTON, married John Devonald of Llanvirnach [Llanfyrnach] [Golden Grove MS, p. 156]. He was possibly a son of Thomas Devonald, who at the time of the 1594 survey, held lands in Trefgynfron in Bayvil and at Tregriffith, Trevaes Ycha, Llanawan and Diffryn Whiban in Moylgrove. After the death of his father in 1613, John Devonald, a minor, was made a ward of his late father’s half-brother, whose own mother may have been a Picton descendant. He is probably the John Devonald, who on 14 March 1626/7 at Nantgwyn, granted to Thomas Picton a three year lease of a tenement, from which Picton was shortly afterwards ejected by Philip ap Evan, resulting in Picton bringing a suit for trespass in 1627. The will of John Devonald of Llanvirnach, dated 13 February 1664/5, was proved on 12 May 1665 [SD 1665/86]. He mentions his wife, Sage Devonald, alias Picton, and 11 living children. He owned land at Glandwr and Penyknwcke in the parish of Llanvirnach [Llanfyrnach], and also land at Moylgrove, Nevern, Eglwyswrw and Monington. On 4 January 1708/9 one Sage Picton was buried at St. Peter’s Carmarthen. Probably this was Sage Devonald, reverting to her maiden name in the old Welsh fashion after the death of her husband. If this hypothesis is correct, she would have been very old, and possibly living with one of her daughters, or perhaps her son, Rees Devonald. John and Sage Devonald were the parents of:
a. THOMAS DEVONALD, the eldest son. He was not a favourite with his father. He appears to have had a liaison with Mary Devonald of Llantood, who may have been his cousin. Thomas Devonald of Llanfyrnach left a will, dated 7 February 1671/2, and administered in April 1672 [SD 1672/66]. He mentions his aunt, Catherine Myles in the parish of Whitechurch in Kemes, who had 4 sheep which he willed to his son, Morris Thomas, als Devonald. He gave to his cousin, Mary Picton, one horse, one cow and all the other sheep with Catherine Myles, not formerly given and bequeathed. This Mary Picton is probably the daughter of Owen Picton of Cardigan. Thomas and Mary Devonald were the parents of:
i. MATILDA DEVONALD,
ii. JOAN DEVONALD,
iii. MORRIS DEVONALD, alias Thomas
b. JOHN DEVONALD, he inherited his father’s estate. He was to receive 1 shilling in the will of his brother, Owen Devonald, in 1697.
c. JAMES DEVONALD, of Blaenawen. He married Mary Lloyd, daughter of George Lloyd of Nevern.
d. OWEN DEVONALD, of Mynachlogddu. He left a will, dated 7 October 1697 and made his brother, Rees Devonald, his executor [SD 1697/7; will written in Welsh]. An inventory also survives. He left 10 shillings to William Picton [his uncle]. William Sandbrook [Sambrook] of St. Dogmaels is mentioned in this will and may have been married to one of Owen Devonald’s sisters, or one of Morris Devonald’s sisters. Perhaps, even, one of his sisters could have married their cousin, William Picton of Whitechurch.
e. DAVID DEVONALD, he inherited Trewenfron in the parish of Nevern, in the tenure of John Hugh. He received 5 shillings in his brother’s will in 1697.
f. REES DEVONALD, he was living at Carmarthen in 1708.
g. PHILLIP DEVONALD, he received a pair of shoes and two coats in his brother’s will, 1697.
h. JOAN DEVONALD, she received £10 in her father’s will, 1665.
i. ELIZABETH DEVONALD, she received £10 in her father’s will, 1665.
j. JANE DEVONALD, she received £5 in her father’s will, 1665. She was to receive a small sum in her brother’s will of 1697.
k. AGNES DEVONALD, she received £5 in her father’s will, 1665. She was living in 1697.
3. MARGARET PICTON, married James Morgan of Tredrissy. James and Margaret Morgan had a son, Owen Morgan, mentioned in the will of Thomas Picton [1655]. James Morgan had at least one other son, possibly by a previous marriage, who is called James ap James Morgan, alias Browne, of Nevern, yeoman, in a suit of 1659. James Morgan senior, and James his son, were two of the witnesses to the will of Thomas Picton in 1655. James Morgan senior is probably also to be identified with the James Morgan, who was one of the trustees under a settlement made by James Bowen of Llwyngwair in 1629 concerning lands formerly owned by Owen Picton [Bronwydd MS I, No. 725]; and who witnessed, and was a bondsman, for the due administration of the will of Eynon Young of Nevern in 1635.
James Morgan was the son of Morgan Thomas, who married Jane, daughter of Mathias Bowen of Llwyngwair. Morgan Thomas was the son of Thomas Mathias, who lived at Frongoch in the parish of Nevern. He was a minor when he inherited the property from his father, Mathias Bowen, around October 1598 [Golden Grove MS, p. 144].
James Morgan was living on 20 March 1657/8, when he gave a bond for £214 to George Bowen; but was dead by May 1659, and in August 1659 his widow, Margaret Morgan, and son, James Morgan, as his executors, were sued on the bond [Pembrokeshire Plea Rolls, No. 185]. A formal grant of administration was not made until the restoration of Charles II, when it was granted to his widow, Margaret Morgan, and Owen Picton of Cardigan, his brother-in-law, on 7 December 1660. Thomas Aubrey also appears in the administration. The estate had been apprised on 23 May 1659 by Owen John and George Picton, also his brother-in-law, so his death probably occurred in that month. Of interest is the fact that James Morgan, the younger, was one of the witnesses to the will of Catherine Picton of Whitechurch, wife of John Picton, on 17 June 1679. Thus James Morgan and Margaret, his wife, were the parents of:
a. JAMES MORGAN, of Nevern living in 1679. He left an administration bond and inventory in 1700. Anne Sambrook, widow, was granted administration of his estate.
4. JONETT [JENNETT] PICTON, buried at Nevern on 23 May 1664. She is listed as a daughter in the Golden Grove MS, p. 88.
5. OWEN PICTON, son of Owen Picton of Trellifen, Nevern. He became a Puritan and was appointed to a teaching post under the Commonwealth by Commissioners for the Propagation of God in Wales. Owen Picton was appointed Usher, or second master, of the Puritan school in Cardigan on 17 March 1652/3 at a salary of £20 per annum. He seems to have continued in this post through the Interregnum and, bending with the wind which returned Charles II to the throne, submitted to ordination as a priest after the Restoration. He was a witness to the will of his brother, Thomas Picton of Nevern, on 2 February 1655/6 and an appraiser of his estate. He was an administrator of the estate of his brother-in-law, James Morgan of Tredrissy, granted on 7 December 1660. He was granted a licence as a Minister on 26 July 1662 [SD/O/57-58]. He was nominated as curate of Cardigan and Verwig on 8 November 1662; and appointed Rector of Llanchllwyddog on 7 February 1662/3; but was dead by 14 September 1663, as he was succeeded at Llanchllwyddog by Dr. Jenkin Lloyd of Llangoedmore, “the most secular and shameless of all Welsh Puritan Nonconformists†[T. Richards, Religious Developments in Wales, 1654-1662, National Eisteddfod Association, 1923, p. 486]. Owen Picton married Joan Vaughan of Redwall(e)s [Fagwyr-goch] in the parish of Morvil, part of the Barony of Cemais [see: The Extent of Cemais, 1594, pp. 39-40], the daughter of Griffith Vaughan of Redwall(e)s [Tucker MS, NLW 10871B; Golden Grove MS, p. 47].[15] Joan Picton was buried at Cardigan on 12 October 1691. Owen and Joan Picton were the parents of:
a. ELIZABETH PICTON, born 11 January 1651 and bapt. 15 January 1651 at Cardigan. She died on 18 July and was buried on 20 July 1656 at Cardigan.
b. JOHN PICTON, born 27 September 1653 and bapt. 30 September 1653 at Cardigan. He is described in the Tucker MS as “servant to Mr Hector Phillips of Cardiganâ€. Hector Phillips, Esq., of Porth Eynon, Cardiganshire, was Parliamentary Commissioner for the sale of the Royalist’s sequestrated estates in the Counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen and Pembroke. He is said to have incurred great odium by the manner in which he carried out his instructions [Cambrian Register, i, p. 167]. He was a great-great-grandson of Sir Thomas Phillips of Picton Castle. Either he, or his son of the same name, was lessee from the Crown of the ‘wear’ and fishing of Kilgerran; and of the fines, emoluments etc. from proceedings before the King’s Stewards in eleven Lordships, and in the towns of Cardigan and Aberystwyth, temp. Charles II. Further work needs to be done here on the situation in North Pembrokeshire during the Civil War and Interregnum.
John Picton was a gentleman at Cardigan. He married Elinor Davies, daughter of Henry Davies of Cardigan, and his wife, Elizabeth Lloyd, only daughter of Robert Lloyd, gent. They were married on 9 November 1704 at Cardigan.
Volume 28, Part II, p. 79 of Treasury Warrents [1708-1709] states that William Nixon was appointed waiter and searcher at Cardigan in place of John Picton, who was dismissed for fraud [Out Letters, Customs, XV, pp 148, 150]. The post of waiter and searcher, as the name suggests, was the principal person employed to survey the incoming vessels for goods liable to taxation. The port of Cardigan would have been significant at this time, and was the head port for all the Welsh coastline round to Milford Haven. John Picton died, probably around April 1730, as an inventory of his goods for 18 April 1730 survives to the value of £36-10s-0d. He was buried at Cardigan on 20 April 1730. Administration of his estate was granted to his widow, Elinor Picton, on 13 November 1730.
His wife and widow, Elinor Picton, was a defendant, along with her son, Robert Picton, to a dispute in Chancery concerning the estate of her brother, Thomas Davies of Cardigan, in 1747/8 [C5/]. Other parties involved in this case were Hugh Parry of St. Margaret’s Westminster, and Jane his wife; Ann Tindall, widow of John Tindall of Carmarthen; Martha Davies of Petersham, Surrey; Barbara Davies of St. Marylebone, Middlesex; John Herbert and Nicholas Gwynne. Jane Parry, Ann Tindall, Martha Davies and Barbara Davies were sisters of Elinor Picton. Elinor Picton died at Cardigan on 14 October 1750. The litigation seems to have followed the death of their brother, Thomas Davies of Cardigan, Esq. John and Elinor Picton were the parents of:
i. OWEN PICTON, bapt. 17 September 1705 at Cardigan. He was a surety for the due administration of his father’s estate in 1730. He was buried at Cardigan on 16 September 1732.
ii. ELIZABETH PICTON, bapt. 20 March 1706/7 at Cardigan and buried on 25 June 1731 at Cardigan.
iii. JOHN PICTON, bapt. 7 November 1709 at Cardigan. Nothing further is known of him, but he was probably dead by 1752, as he is not mentioned in the will of his brother, Robert Picton.
iv. ROBERT PICTON, bapt. 21 October 1711 at Cardigan. He was a perukemaker [wig maker] of Cardigan in 1735; and took as apprentice one William Rice for £5. He was a churchwarden in 1746. He was a co-defendant with his mother in Chancery Proceedings in 1747/8. He was buried at Cardigan on 28 April 1754. He left a will, dated 30 May 1752, and proved on 8 July 1754 [SD]. This refers to his property in Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire. He left the bulk of his property to Mary Price, widow of the late Richard Price, and her children. His will also mentions his aunts, Barbara Davies and Jane Parry, sisters of his mother. It also mentions his kinsman, John Picton of Whitechurch, thus establishing the link to the Whitechurch branch of the Picton families.
v. WILLIAM PICTON, bapt. 5 May 1719 at Cardigan. He was buried at Cardigan on 1 May 1752, and his death may have been the inspiration for his older brother, Robert Picton, to make his own will.
c. BRIDGET PICTON, born 18 September 1656 at Cardigan and bapt there “the following Wednesdayâ€.
d. MARY PICTON, born 28 January 1661/2 and bapt. 2 February 1661/2 at Cardigan. She may be mentioned in the will of her cousin, Thomas Devonald, in 1671/2. She married Hugh Thomas on 26 November 1698 at Cardigan [also listed in the Golden Grove MS, p. 89].
e. ELIZABETH PICTON, born 24 February 1658/9 and bapt. 2 March 1658/9 at Cardigan. She married David Jones, who became an Alderman of Cardigan, on 6 October 1695 at Cardigan. She died on 20 December 1703, aged 45, and was buried at Cardigan. There is a tombstone to her memory in Cardigan church.
6. GEORGE PICTON, of Nevern. He was possibly the eldest son of the second marriage of Owen Picton of Trellifen. He was an appraisor of the estate of John Picton, his brother, on 28 October 1653; and of James Morgan, his brother-in-law, on 23 May 1659. He is mentioned in the will of Morgan John in the PCC, dated 20 November 1656, as being owed 6 shillings. Administration of the goods of George Picton of Nevern, gent., was granted to William Picton of Nevern, his brother, and Owen Bowen of Nevern, gent. on 26 August 1662 [alias Owen ap Owen, died 1696]. The inventory attached to this administration, taken by Marcus Moore and David Thomas, shows George Picton’s assets were valued at £8:11s:0d. There is no evidence that he married or had any children.
7. JOHN PICTON, of Whitechurch. He was an appraisor of the estate of William Myles of Eglwyswrw, clerk, along with William Owen, gent. and George Lewis, taken on 4 July 1646. The will of William Myles of Eglwyswrw was dated 16 April 1646, and mentions amongst others, Catherine Myles, his daughter. Several sheep and cattle, granted to his daughter Elizabeth Myles, were in the custody of John Picton. Undoubtedly John Picton was married to Catherine Myles. He was assessed for £3:5s:0d contribution to a ‘mulct’, a fine imposed upon Whitechurch by Parliament in 1650 [Bronwydd MS I, No. 3359]. Administration of the goods of John Picton of Whitechurch was granted on 7 January 1661/2 to his widow, Catherine Picton, Phillip Bowen of Eglwyswrw, clerk, and Thomas Jones of Nantgwyn, gent., for a sum of £100 to administer his estate during the minority of their children, Owen Picton and Mary Picton. However, it is clear from the inventory of his goods, which was compiled on 28 October 1653 by George Picton, Henry James, and James Thomas, that he had died some years previously. Catherine Picton is described as the daughter of William James in the Golden Grove MS, p. 89.
Catherine Picton, a widow, paid one shilling towards a present for Charles II on 26 November 1661; and tax on two hearths at Whitechurch and Nantgwyn in 1670. She is mentioned in the will of her nephew by marriage, Thomas Devonald of Llanfyrnach, in February 1671/2 as living at Whitechurch in Kemes. John James of Whitechurch left a will in 1673 [SD 1673/91]. Thomas ap Owen James of Whitechurch left a will in 1661 [SD 1661/26]. Catherine Picton, alias Myles, made a will, dated 17 June 1679, together with an inventory taken on 20 September 1679, which gave a value of her estate of £15:4s:7d. The will was witnessed by Philip Bowen, George Thomas and William Picton, her brother-in-law. She mentions her children Owen and Mary Picton, but also her children Elizabeth James, Jane James and Elinor James; presumably by another marriage, either before or after her marriage to John Picton. Probate of her will was granted to her daughters Mary [Picton] and Elinor [James], with power reserved for her son, Owen [Picton]. An account of her estate was made by her daughter, Elinor James, and signed on 8 February 1682/3, when she was dismissed from any further account of the estate. This shows the value of the inventory of her estate at £16:0s:0d, with funeral expenses of £1:2s:0d and payments of her debts due to several persons of £5:0s:0d. There is a reasonable possibility that John and Catherine Picton may have lived at Ty’r bwlch Farm in the parish of Whitechurch, and indeed, perhaps his father, Owen Picton, lived there and it was where John Picton was born. David James of Whitechurch left a will proved in 1754 [SD 1754/32]. John and Catherine Picton were the parents of:
i. OWEN PICTON, born between 1646 and 1653. He is mentioned in the administration of his father, 1661/2, and in his mother’s will of 1679. He is probably to be identified with the Owen Picton who was buried at Whitechurch on 6 June 1689 [Parish register transcripts, NLW].
ii. MARY PICTON, born between 1646 and 1653 and mentioned in the will of her uncle, Thomas Picton, on 2 February 1655/6. She received one horse, one cow and sheep under the will of her cousin, Thomas Devonald of Llanfyrnach, dated 7 February 1671/2. She is probably the same Mary Picton who was married at Whitechurch in 1685. According to Francis Green’s manuscript notes, Mary Picton and John John were married at Whitechurch on 11 October 1685; but in his article on the Pictons of Poyston he says the parties to the marriage were Mary Picton and James John, citing the same venue and date. The Bishops Transcripts for Whitechurch record the marriage of Mary Picton and John Phillips on 11 September 1685. It seems likely that Francis Green confused this entry with another concerning the marriage of Mary Picton and John James at Whitechurch on 29 January 1701.
8. JAMES PICTON, of Swansea. He was a younger son of Owen Picton of Trellifen. He was probably born around the year 1630. On 26 March 1652 he was appointed Master of the Puritan FreeSchool at Tenby; with a salary of £40 per annum. A few days earlier his brother, Owen Picton, had been appointed Under-Master of the Puritan School at Cardigan. He was the first of the Welsh schoolmasters to be confirmed in office under the Approbation Ordinance of 1654; the approval being dated 9 October 1654. On 1 March 1655 he obtained a five year lease of property in Pembroke from William Robin of Tenby, but he seems to have been ejected from its occupation by one Francis Rossant, and he subsequently brought proceedings in respect of the dispossession.
His career became a series of tribulations soon afterwards. He was won over to the Quaker faith in the crusade of 1657/8, and by the end of 1658 was described as “late schoolmaster†of Tenby. He was probably succeeded there by Edward Carver, who had previously been Usher to Picton there at a salary of £21 per annum, and who, according to Calamy, was ejected in 1661/2. James Owen, an informant of Calamy, is said to have been “educated first under James Picton†- but since Owen was not born until 1654 he can scarcely have been Picton’s pupil in Tenby; and regular loss of liberty after 1661 would have made it difficult for Picton to provide sustained instruction for any scholar.
James Picton brought an action against William Young, presumably his kinsman, in 1660/1 on a bond for £10, dated 8 April 1659. In 1661 he refused to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy; and his persistence in that refusal resulted in his being sentenced to imprisonment at Haverfordwest Assizes in 1662. According to one source he was initially imprisoned at Haverfordwest, and then transferred to Carmarthen Castle, where he remained a close prisoner until 1667 (Quaker Records Collection, An Account of Welsh Sufferings, 1660-1666, D/D SF313, Glamorgan Record Office, Cardiff). Another version has it that he was first incarcerated at Carmarthen in the September of 1662, and removed to Haverfordwest gaol four months later “where he remained a prisoner for many years†(J. Besse, A Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers, 1753, Volume I, pp. 748-749). According to yet another source he was almost continuously an inmate of Carmarthen prison from 1663 until 1672 (Norman Penney, Ed., Extracts from State Papers relating to Friends, pp. 345, 354). James Picton was the author of a pamphlet entitled “A Just Plea Against Swearing and against the National Worship of Englandâ€, which was published in London in 1663.
He was set free under Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. “No sooner was he set free than he went on with his old work of teaching publicly and without licenceâ€. Such contempt of the constitutional powers, almost at the door of the Episcopal Palace at Abergwili, could not possibly be tolerated. He was soon put back in prison once more; with this sensational sequel as described by the Bishop, William Lucy himself. “A writ de homine replagiando was brought, the prison doores broken open, and he, thus delivered by the rabble, keepes schoole again in despight of the statute, and hath 70 or 80 scholarsâ€. In a later letter the Bishop devoutly hopes that such a case is not known anywhere else, for he knows not how to have it amended. “It tastes of too much violence to be suffered in any commonwealth†[Tanner MS 146, ff. 113, 138-138v; also Tanner MS 314, ff. 40]. By the beginning of April 1673 James Picton had been restored to his prison lodging again, only to teach from that vantage point scholars who came in crowds to hear him under the windows of the gaol [T. Richards, Nonconformity and Methodism in Wales, p. 154; and Wales Under the Indulgence, 1672-1675, 1920, London, p. 171].
Some historians of the Quaker movement have suggested that this glimpse of ‘the man at the window’ is the last sight which posterity has of James Picton. This is clearly not so. Picton regained his liberty [he was presumably a free man by 2 July 1673, since on that date he witnessed the Quaker marriage at Tenby of William Jenkins and Elizabeth Griffith; RG 6/683] and moved to Swansea, where the Quaker cause was strong. In 1683 he visited Bristol, where, according to Besse, he “went to visit his Friends in prison, and being at prayer with them, the gaoler came up in a rage, and took him up from his knees. Next morning he was carried before the Mayor and other Officers, and for not giving sureties for his good behaviour, was committed to prisonâ€. What privations he suffered during this further period of detention can probably be best gauged from the account which the Bristol prisoners kept, and subsequently published under the title of “A Narrative of the Cruelties and Abuses acted by Isaac Dennis, Keeper, his Wife and Servants, in the prison of Newgate in the City of Bristol, upon the People of the Land in Scorn called Quakers etcâ€.
How long James Picton’s enforced residence in Bristol continued is uncertain. He had been a delegate from South Wales to the London Yearly Meeting in 1681; and was a delegate from Swansea and Llandeilo at the 1682 Yearly Meeting of the Welsh Quakers, held at Redstone, Pembrokeshire, on 17 February 1682/3. He appears to have been married in 1684 [National Library of Wales, Margam MS 6029; published in Y Cofiadur, Volume, p. 22]. He is listed in the Golden Grove MS p. 89 as being of Swansea in 1685. He next appears in the Minutes of the Yearly Meeting held at Pontymoel on 17 February 1688/9, when he attended as one of the representatives from Glamorgan. He was one of the Glamorgan representatives at the Yearly Meeting held in Breconshire on 9 February 1689/90, when he was charged with others to ensure that the burial ground purchased from James Price in Carmarthenshire was “well and sufficiently secured†to the use of the Friends. A long epistle written by James Picton appears in the Minutes of the Yearly Meeting held at Swansea on 22 February 1690/1; and again the following year he was one of the Glamorgan representatives when the Yearly Meeting was held at Haverfordwest on 14 February 1691/2. He was asked to write an account of this Meeting for transmission to the Quakers’ Yearly Meeting in London. He expressed a willingness to attend the next London Yearly meeting in person. He again represented the Glamorgan Friends at the Yearly Meeting of 1696, held at Pontymoel on 14 February 1696/7, and was charged with writing to the Yearly Meeting in London.
James Picton does not appear to have attended the Yearly Meetings of the Welsh Quakers after 1696, although an epistle from him was read at the 1701 Meeting, held at Llanidloes on 22 February 1701/2. Possibly his advancing years and the effects of past imprisonments were beginning to undermine his constitution. He attended the Quarterly Meetings held at Swansea in each June between 1701 and 1709 inclusive. A letter to him is inserted in the Meeting Minutes for 8 June 1704, but he not present at any of the Quarterly Meetings held outside Swansea - from which it would appear that his fitness for travel was no longer assured.
James Picton left a will, dated 11 October 1709 and proved on 15 February 1710/11. He gave 20 shillings apiece to the son and daughter of his brother, Owen Picton, deceased. A similar sum was given to the son and daughter of his brother, William Picton, deceased. To his kinswoman, Anne Musgrave, he left 20 shillings; to his kinsman, James Lewis, 20 shillings; to Richard and Matthew Phillips, sons of John Phillips, 20 shillings each, and the residue of his estate he gave to his kinswoman and executrix, Anne James, spinster. These kinsfolk were probably related to his wife’s family.
9. WILLIAM PICTON of Whitechurch. His early life is at present unknown and his name does not appear on the Golden Grove MS. He was one of the appraisors of the estate of Catherine Picton of Whitechurch in 1679. He signed both the testament and the inventory of her effects; and unless he took to writing later in life, is different from the illiterate William Picton of Nevern, gent., who obtained a grant of administration in respect of the goods of George Picton in 1662. He was an appraisor of the estate of Owen Bowen of Whitechurch on 3 April 1696. It would be interesting if this Owen Bowen was an ancestor of the James Bowen, who was living in the Mansion House at Whitechurch in 1786. He is mentioned in the will of Owen Devonald of Mynachlogddu, who died around 1697.
Administration of the goods of William Picton, deceased, was granted to his widow, Mary Picton, on 11 February 1696/7, on a bond given by his widow and Evan Lloyd of Whitechurch. His widow, Mary Picton, remarried in 1701 to John James of Whitechurch. The son and daughter of William Picton, deceased, received 20 shillings apiece in the will of his brother, James Picton of Swansea, dated 11 October 1709. William and Mary Picton were the parents of:
i. OWEN PICTON, probably the Owen Picton bapt. at Whitechurch on 19 September 1675 [Bishop’s Transcripts, NLW]. He was almost certainly the ancestor of the many branches of the Picton families in North Pembrokeshire and later Carmarthenshire and elsewhere [see PICTON of Whitechurch and Trelech]. John Picton of Tyrbwlch in Whitechurch, his eldest son, was eventually to inherit the property in Cardigan of the Picton branch there, which stemmed from Owen Picton of Cardigan (died 1663), via the eventual heir, Robert Picton, who died in 1752. Robert Picton of Cardigan and John Picton of Whitechurch were third cousins once removed.
ii. A daughter, living in 1709, mentioned in the will of James Picton of Swansea.
[1] For a discussion of the origin and spellings of this name, see B. G. Charles, The Place-Names of Pembrokeshire, Cemais, National Library of Wales, 1992, p. .
[2] Bartrum makes the point that there is a steady deterioration in the accuracy of the early parts of genealogies after the time of Griffith Hiraethog, that is about 1560. Errors tended to multiply because copyists normally used the latest texts available. They were generally uncritical, and seldom interested in going back to the earlier texts to review what actually had been written down. Thus an error, once introduced, tended to be promulgated indefinitely, and often became more or less standard. It is easy to understand how these events happened, if not to condone them. The difficulties of travel at the time must be taken into account. Most of the manuscripts were in private hands, and individuals were quite understandably not over-anxious to lend manuscripts which they possessed. The line of least resistance was to copy the nearest manuscript available, and it was easier to read and copy a recent manuscript than one a hundred years old or more.
[3] Again the survival of so many early deeds is entirely a stroke of coincidence. They owe their existence to the career and fate of Sir John Perrot (1529-1592). Sir John Perrot had a distinguished career, which can be followed in the pages of the Dictionary of National Biography and elsewhere. He died whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1592, awaiting execution, and his estates in Wales were forfeited to the Crown. Hence a collection of early deeds and papers relating to the Perrot, Picton, and other families connected with the Perrots, came ultimately into the custody of The National Archives at Kew.
[4] Deposited by A. T. Woods, esq., Gray’s Inn Square, London, per The British Records Association (BRA 1333), 1964. A Schedule compiled by B. G. Charles in 1964, Records of the estate of the family of Foley of Ridgeway, Co. Pembroke, mainly in that County, 1366-1869, 81 pp. This collection was formerly in the possession of Messrs Richard Furber & Son, 2 Gray’s Inn Square, WC1, of which the depositor was the last principal; but Foley of Ridgeway 10 and 11 were deposited by Mrs Sylvia R. Woods, Tadworth, Surrey in February 1994. Photocopies only were available previous to that date. This Grant is No. 10 in the Schedule.
[5] B. G. Charles in his book, The Place-Names of Pembrokeshire, National Library of Wales, 1992, p. 30 gives the following variants for the spelling of Tre-Foel in the parish of Bayvil: Tref Iorwerth Voel, 1444, 1476, 1505 [Bronwydd MS – as above]; Treyerwerth Voel, 1591, 1592 [Bronwydd MS]; Tref yerwerth voel, 1593, 1595 [Bronwydd MS]; Trevoell, 1547 [Bronwydd MS]; Trefvoell, 1584 [Bronwydd MS]; Trevoel, 1585, 1586 [Bronwydd MS], 1639 [Green vi 117]; Trefoell, 1584 [Bronwydd MS]; Y dre voel, 1572 [Bronwydd MS]; Trevowel, 1818 [FB]. Iorwerth Voel held lands in Bayvil in 1273 [BK 51-52].
He also says in a footnote [p. 27] that “The parish [of Bayvil], if it coincided with the bounds of the Manor of Bayvil, extended at one time into parts of the present parishes of Nevern and Moylgrove, but the old boundary cannot now be plotted, and some of the lost names dealt with under this heading [i.e. Bayvil] may be in Nevernâ€.
[6] This was a grant from Nicholas, son of Martin, Lord of Kemmys to the heirs of Guwaret, son of Cuhelyn, and the heirs of Llewelyn, son of Cuhelyn, of all his lands in Presselewe (Prescelli). Nicholas Fitzmartin, Lord of Cemais, died in 1282. This Charter is set out in Baronia de Kemeys, Arch. Camb. Supplement, 1862, p. 48.
[7] The actual phrase, translated from the latin is And he has it; and the same day is given to the said Philip and Jenet.
[8] Owen Mathias ap Owen married Margaret, the daughter of Richard Warren [Rhyderch Warin]. Owen Mathias ap Owen was the son of Mathias ap Owen, who had married Dyddgu ----- , an heiress. Mathias ap Owen was a brother to Sir James ap Owen of Pentre Ivan and his wife, Catherine, also wife of John Devonald.
[9] John Devonald’s ancestress, Catherine ap Owen, was a sister to Sir James ap Owen (Bowen) of Pentre Evan and also to Thomas Bowen of Trefloyne, Mathias ap Owen of Trericert, Elizabeth ap Owen, who married Henry Wogan and Jane ap Owen, who married John Mortimer.
[11] Thomas Wogan of Llanstinan was a son of Rees Wogan, son of Sir John Wogan of Boulston by Jane, daughter of Richard Wogan of Wiston and his wife Jenet, daughter and co-heiress of Llewellin Lloyd of Llanstinan. Thomas Wogan married Elizabeth, daughter of John Owen of Berllan. Their children included Sir William Wogan, MP for Co. Pembroke in 1681 and for Haverfordwest in 1679, 1685-1687 and 1689-1700, Kings Serjeant, 1698; and Chief Justice of the Carmarthen Circuit 1689-1701. John Mathias of Castle Morris is probably the John Mathias of Llangwarren, who sat on the County Parliamentary Committee during the Civil War. He was the son of Thomas Mathias of Llangwarren by his second wife, Ursula Owen, daughter of George Owen of Henllys. He married a daughter of Thomas Lloyd, and died in 1681.
[12] Bartholomew Young of Cardigan left a will in 1678 [SD 1678/154]. Jane Young of cardigan left a will in 1686 [SD 1686/55].
[13] Other people mentioned in the will of Grace Young include her niece, Grace Jones, who was to receive £30; Evan Young of Pennywern; George Owen; her brother-in-law; David Griffith; her sister-in-law, Margaret Griffith; her cozen, Elizabeth Picton, widow, who was to receive half a bushel of corn and half a bushel of rye the following May [presumably the widow of Owen Picton, who died around 1639]; her nephew, Francis Jones; her sister Elizabeth Jones, who was to receive all the messuage and land called Argoed where she was living, late belonging to her husband, Rees Young; and her nephew, William Gwynne.
[14] Other people mentioned in the will of Rees Young include David ap Evan, tailor, his sister’s son; Elizabeth Evan, his sister; Margaret Owen, another sister of David ap Evan; George Owen, his sister’s son; Evan Young, his brother’s son; David Griffith, shoemaker, his half-brother; Margaret Griffith, his half-sister and Nicholas Griffith, his half-brother. Also mentioned are his two reputed sons, Thomas Young and Rees Young, who were to receive 3s:4d apiece.
[15] The Manor of Redwalles received grant of a weekly market and a three day annual fair in 1293 [Calendar of Charter Rolls 2, 1906], probably representing a large-scale 13th century assart of relatively poor land, which had already 'failed' by the 16th century, when only four tenements of demesne were recorded. Its three gale tenants held their land by mixed English and Welsh custom, and indeed the name 'Redwalles' is probably a corruption of Rudvall, a term given in Pembrokeshire to a form of local tenure by which strip fields were amassed and grazed in common.
Picton of Newport, Nevern and Whitechurch
Revision March 2006
Last Modified April 2006
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