Welsh Journals

FFYNONE, PEMBROKESHIRE Notes on a Country House and its Occupants by D. L. BAKER-JONES, M.A. THE Colby family is of considerable antiquity, and we have a reference to a certain Sir John Colby living in Swarston in the fourteenth century. Two hundred years later the names Leonard and Lawrence Colby occur frequently in the parish registers of Selbrington. The surname is also found in places as far apart as Yorkshire, Norfolk, Anglesey and Pembrokeshire. It appears, too, that one of the Anglesey Colbys married the American statesman Benjamin Webster. Not all the Colbys had claims to gentility, and we are told in a letter dated 16 June 1775, written by John Colby of Pantyderi to his cousin Stephen Colby at Ffynone, that some of the labouring class near Claypole Newark" also bore the Colby surname.2 In any case, one branch of the Colby family came to Pembrokeshire -English newcomers who settled in the county and later played a prominent part in its history. Their social status may well be estimated from the hearth-lists of 1670.3 Thus John Colby of Bletherston possessed three hearths and his brother Richard of Crundre only one. They were probably typical lesser gentry, when it is recalled that in the same county Lewis Barlow of Lawrenny, Sir Erasmus Philipps of Picton Castle and Sir John Stepney of Prendergast had respectively nine and ten hearths each. By 1722 Lawrence Colby, described as esquire of Bletherston, was High Sheriff of the county. About 1715, his brother John had married Anne Jones the heiress of Rhosygilwen in north Pembrokeshire,, and in this way the wealth and prestige of the family increased. One John Colby of Bangeston was a busy and prosperous attorney- at-law in Haverfordwest during the middle of the eighteenth century, and he may well be identified with the above-mentioned John Colby. In 1770 Thomas Colby of Rhosygilwen was High Sheriff, while many members of the family served from time to 1 Nicholas, County Families (1872). 2 NLW MS. 1982. 3 Trans. West Wales Historical Society, Vols. ix-xi.