Welsh Journals

Hanmer dated Oct. 1763 and proved 1764 shows him to have owned no land and little money at that time. His grandson, the third William Hanmer, of Abermaen, was a labourer. As so often happened, this branch of the Hanmer family, if indeed these are descendants of the perantiqua gens', seems to have dwindled into poverty and obscurity. In 19th- century Poor Law records68 we find what may be the last trace of this particular line-a Jane Hanmer who received regular help towards the maintenance of her base child, said to have been fathered by John Nicholas Butcher'. Brecon Marriage Licences59 include one of 25 April 1725 for Ezekiel Williams of Disserth and Sarah Hanmer, widow, of Nantmel. It is not clear of which Hanmer this Sarah was the widow possibly it was the son, also Ezekiel Williams, of this 1725 bridegroom, who in May 1753 married Judith, youngest daughter of Evan Vaughan, and Frances nee Hanmer, at Llansantffraed-yn-Elfael. Later in the century, Llanddewi registers record the marriage on 12 May 1791 of Thomas Hanmer of Nantmel and Sarah Griffiths. (An Edward Griffiths had witnessed the will of William Hanmer in 1763.) In a list60 of the inhabitants of Nantmel, including Llanfihangel Helygen and Llanyre, in the middle and later years of the 18th century, occurs the name of Thomas Hanmer of' Tyth-Llwyn an able man '-presumably able to pay a parish tax or lewn. One interesting entry in the list61 of churchwardens of Llanddewi is that for 1777 — Charles Hammer (sic), Llanshafrey'. Unfortunately churchwardens' accounts do not exist for his year of office. In the same year John Hanmer, an infant, was buried his parents' names are not given in the register. D. VISITORS AT Llanddewi Hall HANMER RELATIVES (i) Frances Eyton Among the close relations who habitually visited Charles Hanmer and his family at Llanddewi Hall was his elder sister Frances Eyton of Os- westry, baptised March 1655. She married in January 1669-still very much a minor !-Oglander Eyton, son of Robert Eyton (whose father, Sir Robert was the brother-in-law of Sir Humphrey Mackworth, the mineowner) and of his wife, a daughter of Sir John Oglander, the Isle of Wight Royalist landowner. Frances was widowed early, and Robert's posthumous son by her, Francis Oglander Eyton, baptised 19 Oct. 1672 at Selattyn, lived only two months. At the time Frances herself was still only 17 Though she lived to be 62, she never remarried, but she seems to have liked to fill her house with young people. Her nieces Fanny and Bess Hanmer stayed with her for long periods, and their brothers too visited her. As for Rice, her ward, Charles writes to her in 1714, Had his own mother been living she could not have been more careful of him than you have been, and I question not that he will ever acknowledge it Frances seems to have been the most litigious of all the Pentrepant Hanmers, and to have enjoyed doing battle for Rice's rights. Like all her family, she was often in debt and badgered by her creditors, but com- manded considerable respect. Madam Eyton seems in her case to have been more than a formal title. She is touchy, sometimes tactless^and quarrelsome, occasionally within the family and certainly in business