Vaughan, Arthur Owen.

Person

Vaughan, Arthur Owen.

Arthur Owen Vaughan, born Robert Scourfield Mills, (1863-1919), was born and brought up in Lancashire, but was greatly influenced by his maternal grandmother who was born in 1797 at Tremeirchion and grew up there. He wrote under the pen-names Owen Rhoscomyl and Owen Vaughan, and was an adventurer and author. He worked in America as a cowboy and in mining camps. After returning to England, he joined The 1st Royal Dragoons in 1887 leaving in 1890. He served in the Boer War, rising to the rank of captain in Howard's Canadian Scouts, previously having served in Rimington's Guides and Damants's Horse. He returned to Wales in about 1902. He organised the National Pageant of Wales in 1909, and wrote a history for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1911. He published several novels, including Old Fireproof. He also wrote on Welsh history, publishing Flame-bearers of Welsh history, and corresponded with Professor J. Glyn Davies. He met his wife, Catherine (née Geere, d. 1927), in South Africa. Following his death, a fund was established to erect an appropriate memorial for his grave, coordinated by Edward James, London correspondent of the Western Mail. After some dispute and the death of his widow, two gravestones were set up on his grave, in Rhyl, Flintshire, one to Colonel Vaughan, and one to Owen Rhoscomyl. He had four children: Rhys, who emigrated to Canada, Olwen, Nest and Emrys Llewellyn. Olwen Vaughan became an architect and surveyor (ARIBA), in Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire, specialising in historic building restoration. She amassed a collection of papers relating to him and his family, with the intention of writing a history of the family

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