Fonds GB 0210 CILWYN - Cilgwyn Estate Records,

Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams, Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams, Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams, Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams, Correspondence, including thirty-six letters from Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams to his wife ...

Identity area

Reference code

GB 0210 CILWYN

Title

Cilgwyn Estate Records,

Date(s)

  • 1509-1968 / (Creation)

Level of description

Fonds

Extent and medium

1.4 cubic metres (45 boxes, 73 volumes, 1 roll)

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

David ap David ap Hywel Ychan (d. 1568) of Cilfachwen near Llandysul, and his son, Jenkin Lloyd David ap David owned lands in the parishes of Llandysul and Bangor Teifi on the Cardiganshire side of the river Teifi and in Llanfihangel-ar-arth on the Carmarthenshire side of the river.

It was the children of Jenkin who first took Lloyd as their surname. The Cilgwyn estate had been in the possession of the Lloyd family for generations before the death, unmarried, of Admiral Thomas Lloyd in 1801. It was his rather eccentric will that served as the basis of the acquisition of the estate by the Hall (later Fitzwilliams) family. By this will he devised a third of the Cilgwyn estate to his kinsman, Thomas Lloyd of Coedmore, and the remainder to a fellow naval officer, Admiral Richard Brathwaite of Warcop, Kent, and his wife, Ulrica Eleanora, for their lives. Following their deaths this two-thirds portion of the estate was to be divided equally between the Brathwaites' two daughters, Georgina and Jane Maria. The former, however, died unmarried in 1818 so that her younger sister eventually inherited the whole of the portion of the estate devised to her parents. Nine years previous to Georgina's death Jane had married Benjamin Edward Hall (1776-1849) of Paddington.

Thomas Lloyd's will did not stipulate how the estate was to be divided between his kinsman and namesake and the Brathwaite family. The beneficiaries of his will simply divided the estate rents between them until the estate was finally partitioned in 1833. The delay in the partition is explained by the fact that for legal reasons no division was possible until Benjamin and Jane's eldest son, Edward (1807-1880), came of age. The arbitrator awarded 463 acres to Thomas Lloyd and 1,068 acres, over half of which were in the parish of Llandyfrïog, to Benjamin Edward Hall in right of his wife. The estate in 1832 carried an annual rental of roughly £1,360, including £197 for the Cilgwyn demesne.

Benjamin Crompton, a prosperous paper-stainer, had, through a number of purchases during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, built up a smallish estate comprising building ground and dwelling houses around Paddington Green. By his will, proved in 1792, he devised his Paddington properties to his second son James. James Crompton died childless and by his will, proved in 1820, he in turn devised the estate to his nephew Benjamin Edward Hall, the second son of his sister Elizabeth who had married Edward Hall (1747-1798), a London apothecary, and first secretary of the Whig Club. Edward and Elizabeth's eldest son and heir apparent, William Crompton Hall, had died an infant in 1758. Thus the two estates, Cilgwyn and Paddington, became united in the persons of Benjamin and Jane Maria Hall.

The Hall family came originally from Preston in Lancashire (apparently the Cromptons were also from Lancashire). William Hall, the father of the Whig apothecary, moved sometime before 1748 to Bristol, where he traded as a dry salter. From the profits of his trade he acquired properties in Monckton near Honiton in Devon, which accounts for the Devonshire deeds in this group. The Hall's hold on this small estate was short lived, however, since it was sold in the late 1790s in accordance with the will of Betty Hall (dated 1796), William Hall's widow. The only notable addition to the Cilgwyn-Paddington estate during the nineteenth century was the purchase of the Van estate, centered on the parishes of Llangyndeyrn and Cydweli in Carmarthenshire. This was accomplished by the purchase of properties following the Cydweli Enclosure Act, and, more significantly, by the purchase of the Van farm and other properties, including a very valuable limestone quarry, for almost £4,700 in 1851. In 1880 the Van estate measured 346 acres and carried a rental of approximately £420.

In 1849, Edward Crompton Lloyd Hall (1807-80), the eldest son of Benjamin and Jane Maria changed his family name to Fitzwilliams, possibly because of his bitter disappointment at not inheriting the Cilgwyn-Paddington estate in its entirety under the terms of his father's will in 1849. In the offending will Benjamin Edward Hall had split the Paddington estate into three 'divisions' (the Cilgwyn estate was already entailed upon Edward Crompton Lloyd Fitzwilliams), the first of which he devised to his son Edward, the second to another son, Cuthbert, and the third to his grandson William Henry Hall. In the event Cuthbert's division, following his death, devolved upon his co-beneficiaries. It seems that Edward adopted the name Fitzwilliams in the mistaken belief that the Halls were descended from a noble medieval family of that name.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century witnessed the break up of the Cilgwyn-Paddington estate (the latter was renamed the Hall Park estate in 1858 when new streets were laid out). It seems that the first parts to be offered for sale, in 1880, were the first division of the Hall Park estate and the Van estate, in order, it seems to raise £40,000 charged upon the Cilgwyn estate by a deed of settlement, dated in 1855, by Edward Crompton Lloyd Fitzwilliams to provide portions for his younger children. Unfortunately the settlement had stipulated that the £40,000 was to be raised within a year of Edward's death (he died in 1880) so that sales became unavoidable. The estate had also become burdened with the debts of Edward who, within six years of inheriting the estate had apparently 'compromised himself to the extent of £40,000 in the Carmarthen and Cardigan railway'. The sale of the first division of the Paddington estate, which carried a rental of £244, raised £29,600, but the result of the sales of the Van estate is not known. Indeed, it is unclear how much, if any part of it, was eventually sold in 1880.

In 1932 parts of the Cilgwyn estate were offered for sale in 157 lots, mostly dwelling houses, but no evidence has survived in the estate records about the dispersal of the more substantial properties on the Cilgwyn estate or about the eventual fate of the Hall Park estate.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Deposited by Colonel E. C. L. Fitzwilliams, Captain Charles G. Ll. Fitzwilliams and Edward Fitzwilliams of Cilgwyn, and Captain A. H. Hastie of Bury St Edmunds between 1934 and Feb. 2006.; 020020927 (2002 accrual)

Content and structure area

Scope and content

The 1933-1934, 1964-1965 and 1985-1986 deposits, listed as Cilgwyn Estate Records Groups I, II and III respectively, comprise estate records and family papers including title deeds, 1509-1949; rentals of the Cilgwyn estate, 1791-1931, and the Paddington estate, 1792-1921; ledgers, 1882-1936; letter books and estate correspondence, 1825-1935; personal correspondence and papers, including papers relating to the military career of Edward Crawford Lloyd Fitzwilliams, 1890-1934, during the Boer War, including diaries, 1899-1901, and the First World War (British Adriatic Mission, Northern Command, Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force), and to the medical career of Gerard Lloyd Hall Fitzwilliams in the Far East, Africa, United States and Europe, 1902-1932, and including Russia, 1917-1918, and a letter book of Edward Hall (first secretary of the Whig Club) containing copies of letters written to his brother and uncle in Kingston, Jamaica, 1783-1795; records of the borough of Adpar, Cardiganshire, including rentals, [1670]-[1696], and court leet books, 1709-1741; records of the New Quay Harbour Company, 1834-1900 and the Llandysul Market Company, 1837-1858; ships' log books, 1893-1897; and parochial papers of the parish of Paddington, 1730-1803, acquired and inherited by Benjamin Crompton as churchwarden and overseer of the poor, including land tax assessments, 1758-1791, account book, 1774-1777, of fees paid for burials in the new church, and apprenticeship indentures of pauper children, 1762-1776. -- The 2002 deposit includes family and personal papers, 1790-1960, correspondence, 1873-1939, rentals, 1850-1941, and other estate papers, 1865-[c.1953]. The 2006 deposit comprises a bundle of deeds and related papers relating to the Gelligadrog estate, 1866-1954.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Action: All Cilgwyn Estate Records deposited at NLW have been retained, apart from a number of items in the 2002 deposit that were returned to the depositor. These comprised fourteen personal and estate bank books and cheque books, 1891-1933, and six volumes of rent demand notices and counterfoils, 1932-1935..

Accruals

Accruals are possible.

System of arrangement

Arranged into four groups by date of acquisition: (I) the 1933-1934 deposit of Cilgwyn deeds and documents, Cilgwyn estate accounts, Adpar borough records, New Quay Harbour company and Llandysul Market company records; (II) the 1964-1965 deposit of manuscript volumes; (III) the 1985-1986 deposit of rentals, accounts, surveys and valuations, estate correspondence, probate records, inventories, legal bills, vouchers, personal and family papers, personal correspondence, personal financial papers, honours and appointments, genealogical papers, press cuttings, papers relating to local affairs, non-family trusts and executorship papers, Paddington parochial papers, and miscellaneous; and (IV) the 2002 deposit, arranged into six series: personal and family papers, correspondence, rentals, papers relating to the letting of estate property, estate agent's memorandum books, and other estate papers.The 2006 deposit has been added to the 2002 deposit (Group IV) as 6/16.

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Readers consulting modern papers in the National Library of Wales are required to sign the 'Modern papers - data protection' form.

Conditions governing reproduction

Usual copyright laws apply.

Language of material

  • English
  • Welsh

Script of material

Language and script notes

English, Welsh.

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

Further details relating to manorial records within the archive can be accessed online from The National Archives Manorial Documents Register.

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related units of description

A volume of estate maps, 1773, and some loose maps and plans are in National Library of Wales, Map Collections. Cilgwyn photo albums are National Library of Wales, Special Collections, 1350-1, 1432-5, 1440-3 and 1815. Records of the related Coedmore estate are held by the Carmarthenshire Archive Service.

Related descriptions

Publication note

The Cilgwyn Estate Records (Group I) are described in Owens, B. G., 'Deposited collections, 11, The Cilgwyn manuscripts and documents', NLW Journal, 3 (1943-44), p. 35.

Notes area

Note

Title supplied from contents of fonds.

Alternative identifier(s)

Virtua system control number

vtls004250331

GEAC system control number

(WlAbNL)0000250331

Access points

Place access points

Description control area

Description identifier

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

This description follows NLW guidelines based on ISAD(G) Second Edition; AACR2; and LCSH.

Status

Level of detail

Dates of creation revision deletion

June 2001, revised November 2002. -- The description of Group IV was compiled by Stephen Benham.

Language(s)

  • English

Script(s)

Sources

Archivist's note

The fonds level description was compiled by Mair James. The following sources were used in the compilation of this description: Jones, Francis, Historic Cardiganshire homes and their families (Newport, 2000); Burke's Landed Gentry (London, 18th ed., 3 vols, 1965-1973), vol 1; Jones, Francis, 'Lloyd of Gilfachwen, Cilgwyn and Coedmore', Journal of the Ceredigion Antiquarian Society, 8 (1976); NLW, Schedule of Cilgwyn Estate Papers Group 3;

Accession area