Welsh Journals

DEPOSITED COLLECTIONS 32. TRENEWYDD DEEDS AND DOCUMENTS. The deeds and documents under review, deposited in the National Library by Mrs. Georgiana Johns of Trenewydd, Goodwick, and by her daughter, Mrs. Katherine Royston Brown, represent the fusion of a number of small but highly interesting landed families in north Pembrokeshire and west Carmarthenshire, notably the Thomases of Carmarthen and of Kilkiffeth, parish of Llanychaer, the Gwynnes of Court, parish of Llanllawer, and the Mortimers of Trehowell and of Penysgwarn in the parish of Llanwnda. A typewritten schedule of the collection is available for consultation, and in the process of cataloguing a pedigree of the associated families was compiled, based partly on the evidence of the documents themselves and partly on information generously provided by the de- positors and by the present writer's friend and former colleague Major Francis Jones, T.D., M.A., but this unfortunately proved too exhaustive to be reproduced on a single page of the Journal, and the accompanying chart is designed to show very little more than the main lines of family descent. As some measure of recompense, however, for the loss of the fuller genealogy, it has been decided in the text of the report to allocate more than usual space to the probate records of the personages most prominently featured in the collection. The documents were received in seven instalments between 1944 and 1956, and now number seven hundred and forty items, comprising title-deeds, correspondence, and a variety of manuscript and printed matter. Part, if not the whole, of the collec- tion, was at one time examined by Mr. Francis Green, the Pembrokeshire genealogist, for in very many instances he has inscribed the date of the document on the dorse. The earliest surviving title-deed is dated 8 April 1488, and contains a grant of lands at Posty (Poste) in the barony of Llawhaden. The same property, variously described as Poste, Posty Mawr, and Poste back in the parish of Bletherston (Trefelen) and generally coupled with lands in New Moat (Nova Mota) and Llysyfran (Lessewrane), figures very prominently also in the title-deeds which have been preserved from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, being associated successively with Rees ap Janckyn ap Bowen of Posty (1447), whose brother Thomas ap Janckyn ap Bowen is de- scribed as of Cilgerran, Margaret Phelipe (Margat Filpe) of New Moat (1549-50), Owen Philip, Griffith ap Thomas, and Owen Ievan, all of Llanycefn (Llannykeven) (1572-4), and finally with the family of Bedo, who appear to have been widely settled in an area in central Pembrokeshire ex- tending from Llawhaden to Maenclochog. The name of Bedo is first encountered in the present collection in 1596 when one John Griffith Thomas Bedo appears as witness to a grant and a release (November 15-16) of tyddyn pen y knowcke in the parish of Llandissilio, but it was David Thomas Bedo, described as of Vaynor, parish of Llawhaden, who acquired y Postey tnawr and other lands in the parish of Bletherston on the last day of February in 1619/20, as security for a sum ofcioo lent to Jenkin David (Rees) of Posty (No. 117). Other mortgages followed in 1621 (No. 119) and 1623 (No. 121), but none of them appears to have been redeemed, for all the properties in question, together with others mortgaged by John Phillipp of Bletherston to John David Beddoe of Maenclochog, appear in the pre-nuptial settlement (No. 397), 19 July 1658, of Mary Beadoe, spinster, only daughter and heir of Owen John Beadoe and Margarett Gibbin otherwise Beadoe of Vorlan, parish of Maenclochog, and Arthur Lewis, later of Bletherston, son and heir apparent of Lewis William of Bwlchclawdd. also in the parish of Maenclochog. Posty subsequently appears in a release (No. 80) on 1 January 1674/5, by Lewis William of Bwlchclawdd and others, tutors and guardians of Margaret Lewis (daughter of Arthur Lewis of Bletherston), made in accordance with the award of William Phellipes of Haythogg and Thomas Jones of Rhosygilwen (Rose y Gilwen), esquires, and in the marriage settle- ments of Thomas Vaughan of Vorlan in 1705 (No. 89) and Griffith Gwynne of Court in 1754 (No. 131), 1 This house, it will be recalled, was the headquarters of the French invading forces in 1797 and eventually the scene of their surrender.