1 Introduction
2 Geographical distribution of Tysons
3 Evidence at Ffestiniog
4 John Tyson in Ireland
5 John Tyson in Llanberis
6 The Tyson family: 20 years at Ffestiniog
7 Mary Tyson
8 Margaret Tyson
9 Jane Tyson
10 The Brymer family
11 Joseph Tyson
12 John Tyson son of Joseph
13 Susanna Mary Ann Tyson
14 William Turner and quarries at Machynlleth
15 The Tysons at Dinorwig
16 John Tyson’s origins
17 Tysons at Coniston
18 Copper miners and slategetters at Coniston
19 Did John Tyson come from Coniston?
20 The 1989 hypothesis
21 1994: Confirmation of John Tyson’s marriage in Wicklow
22 Who was Jane Williams?
23 Conclusion
24 Bibliography
Version 1 1986
Version 2 1989
Version 3 1995
Version 4 2001
John Buckley
5 Lonsdale Avenue
Torrisholme
Morecambe
Lancs LA4 6RX
tel. 01524 422467
email paddy.buckley@lineone.net
1. Introduction
During 1984 I had traced my wife’s family history to George Penny (1755-1813), her Great gt gt gt grandfather. He was a slate quarryman from Furness, then a district of Lancashire, but now part of Cumbria. In 1800 he had arrived in Ffestiniog to begin work at Diffwys Quarry which had just been bought by three fellow Cumbrians; William Turner (1766-1853); and the two Casson brothers, Thomas (1767-1839), and William (1761-1839). The three new owners came from Seathwaite in the Duddon valley, where Turner’s father, Henry, had been Undertaker (Agent) at the Walna Scar slate quarry, situated between Seathwaite and Coniston, from 1756 to 1777.
The early history of Diffwys quarry has been documented by Michael Lewis and Mervyn Williams and summarized in Pioneers of Ffestiniog Slate, published in 1987 by the Snowdonia National Park Study Centre at Plas Tan y Bwlch, Maentwrog. After its purchase in 1799, Diffwys soon began to prosper, and so did its owners, all three eventually becoming High Sheriffs of Merioneth. George Penny however, remained a quarryman, and he and his descendants stayed on in Ffestiniog, mostly as quarrymen, right up to the present day. His family tree reveals a connection with slate quarries during a span of over 300 years, which must be one of the longest continuous associations on record.
Another Cumbrian name, John Tyson, began to appear in the Ffestiniog parish registers after 1803. I felt instinctively that he had a connection with the other known Cumbrians, and so I began to collect every Tyson reference I could find. The following account is a summary of that search for John Tyson, starting with the first entry in the Ffestiniog parish register, and then exploring each clue as it emerged. In the process an early hypothesis was eventually discarded, and some inviting avenues proved to be dead ends. But that is often the way in family history, and in this particular research, which was taken up intermittently over many years, I thought it better to record the step by step progress rather than make a summary at the end of it all. Indeed it may never be complete; there will always be another question to answer. I am indebted to Maredudd ap Rheinallt for his help in the search for John Tyson’s grave, and his brilliance at spotting the right names in the Census Returns, to Michael Lewis for his expert help on the Ffestiniog quarries, and to Tom Steel for providing a fresh impetus after several years of stagnation.
2. The geographical distribution of Tyson
families
The IGI, (International Genealogical Index) shows that Tyson is undoubtedly a Cumbrian name, with a large clan in the Duddon valley, another in Eskdale, and a smaller group at the head of Wasdale. The mother in law of William Turner’s eldest brother John was formerly Elizabeth Tyson; and the youngest daughter of that same John married a Joseph Tyson of Seathwaite. These are tenuous links however: A much stronger one connects the Cassons and the Tysons; the mother of Thomas and William Casson was Elizabeth Tyson (1729-1809) of Row Head, born, bred and married in Wasdale. Her brother John (1734-1773) raised at least seven children in Wasdale, one of whom was John Tyson, baptized on October 21 1767. Thus he was an exact contemporary of Thomas Casson (born 1767) and William Turner (born 1766), and he was a first cousin to the Casson brothers. An early and attractive hypothesis suggesting he was the John Tyson who went to Ffestiniog was discarded when it became clear that he never left the Wasdale area and had died there in 1836. The IGI coverage of Welsh parishes is known to be very incomplete, but even so an unexpectedly large number of Tysons turned up in North Wales after 1810. Four Tyson families at Hawarden produced sixteen children between 1813 and 1836; there was a Tyson family at Llannor in Caernarvonshire, and another in Anglesey. This Welsh finding does not rule out Cumbria as the mother lode, but it does show the need for a cautious and widespread appraisal.
3. Evidence at Ffestiniog
One of the Ffestiniog local historians, Isallt, writing in Cymru page 177, stated that both the Pennys and the Tysons were from Cumberland. Up to 1800 the parish registers of Ffestiniog were dominated by names which were unmistakably Welsh and mainly local in origin. Between January 1801 and April 1810, a batch of non Welsh names appeared; 25 entries in total, all from five families; - the brothers Thomas and William Casson, William Turner, George Penny, and John Tyson, all baptizing (and burying) their children at Ffestiniog during that same brief period.
This was during the first decade in the operation of Diffwys Quarry under its new English management. It would be natural to assume that Turner and the Cassons would have working with them, men they knew and could understand, either relations, friends, or fellow Cumbrians. Against this we have no direct evidence that John Tyson ever worked at Diffwys. In 1809 he was living near the quarry at Ty Canol; in 1813 he was recorded as a farmer at Cwmorthin; in 1818 he was back at Ty Canol as a quarryman. But since he first appeared at Ffestiniog in 1803, it is unlikely that he would have worked anywhere but in a slate quarry, which at that time would most probably have been Diffwys.
The locations of the 18th and 19th century graves at Llan Ffestiniog show a strong family grouping. The Casson brothers lie side by side; the Pennys of the first two Welsh generations are buried together; so are the Tysons. The main Turner graves are at Llanfairisgaer near Caernarfon, where Turner lived from about 1810. But there is a Turner vault at Ffestiniog, with just one name on it, Margaret, their eldest daughter, named as we shall later see, after her maternal grandmother. Just behind the Turner vault are the Penny graves; in front are the graves of the Tysons. This location is very significant, indicating that the Tysons, the Turners and the Pennys had some common bond, either of friendship or origin. It is also a prestige plot close to the east end of the church, in view of every visitor.
Until relatively modern times the name patterns within a family were often repeated over several generations, and so become useful genealogical clues. One gets a feeling that a particular name ‘belongs’. So it is with John Tyson’s children, all fairly standard names, no doubt common in many districts, but to anyone who has searched the parish registers of Cumbria, the names are very familiar, and none would be out of place in a Cumbrian family of this period.
4. John Tyson in Ireland
The most significant clue turned up in the 1841 Census Returns for Ffestiniog. At the schedule for Ty Canol were entered the family of Lewis and Mary Roberts (nee Tyson). In the last column, reserved for those ‘born in Ireland, Scotland or foreign parts” there was a single letter I on Mary Roberts’ line. Or was it perhaps one of many marks made later by the enumerator? The 1851 Census Returns failed to confirm that early hope. Mary or perhaps the enumerator declared that she had been born in Ffestiniog. However the Census entries for Ty Canol in 1861, 1871 and 1881, were unequivocal. Mary had been born in Ireland about 1796/1797. She was the eldest daughter of John Tyson, and she had married Lewis Roberts in May 1823.
What was John Tyson doing in Ireland at a time when that country was fermenting a revolt against the English? The activities of the Macclesfield Copper Company may provide a reasonable answer. This Company was formed by Charles Roe (died 1781), and became prominent when copper was discovered on Parys Mountain in Anglesey. When MCC lost the Parys lease in 1785, the Company, now under the hand of Abraham Mills, looked elsewhere for its minerals. It had held a lease on Coniston Copper Mine since about 1758, had allowed it to become idle from about 1770, had restarted it in 1791, and finally surrendered the lease in 1795. In 1787 MCC bought the Cronebane mine in County Wicklow, then producing copper. In 1796 alluvial gold was discovered nearby, and this also was worked by Abraham Mills’ company. It is quite logical to expect that during the run-down of the Coniston Copper Mine, MCC would transfer some of its key workers to Cronebane. There was also a working slate quarry at Ballinabarny, just one mile north of Cronebane.
This hypothesis was first proposed by Michael Lewis (1985 Chwarel y Diffwys version 2) to explain the reputed presence in Wicklow (circa 1792/1799) of William Turner of Seathwaite. It is an attractive theory, and the fact that John Tyson was also in Ireland in 1796 supports the hypothesis. Of course Tyson could have been anywhere in Ireland, but if he were a quarryman/miner by trade, we would expect him to be in the Cronebane area. So if Turner and Tyson were together in Ffestiniog 1803-1812, and were both in Ireland in 1796, the chances that they knew each other before 1796 are that much stronger.
1798
was a year of rebellion in Ireland.
Martial law had been imposed on March 30th. The rising in Wexford began on May 23rd,
but by early July it had been crushed.
One of the regiments active in fighting the Irish rebels was the Ancient
British Fencible Cavalry, raised in North Wales in 1794. One of its officers was William Wynne of
Peniarth (1774-1834), who was so hard up in 1799 that he put up for sale his
Wern estates, which included the slate quarry at Diffwys. William Turner made an offer to buy Diffwys
for £1000 about March 1799, and signed the agreement to buy on October 25 1799,
when Wynne had returned from the Irish campaign.
(John Buckley 1985: A Society of Ancient Britons)
The political climate in Wicklow after the rebellion had been so ruthlessly suppressed, would have been fairly hostile to any English in-comer, especially to a Cronebane miner. For at the end of 1797, when the rebellion first began to brew up, Abraham Mills, the manager of the Cronebane mine, raised a small troop of yeomanry among his miners, carriers and local farmers. This was later used to help the regular forces to protect the area against the rebels, and to flush out the occasional band of guerrillas from the wooded hills of Wicklow. Although the gold mine was destroyed by the rebels, the copper mine at Cronebane continued to produce large quantities of ore; over 1000 tons in 1798 and 1800 tons in 1799.
5. John Tyson in Llanberis
The Llanberis parish register records the baptism on April 28 1799 of Joseph son of John Dayson, miner. (The phonetic Welsh variants of Tyson include Teison, Taisson, Dyson and Dayson). Thus we have confirmation that John Tyson, with a young wife and small daughter, had made the move to leave the turmoil in Ireland and to follow his trade among the hills of North Wales. About 1791 MCC had leased from Thomas Assheton Smith of Faenol, a derelict copper mine above Llyn Peris near Llanberis, and seven levels were driven into the mountain. A painting by Warwick Smith in 1792 shows the semi-circular type of wooden shute, sloping downwards sharply, which was used to transfer the crushed ore to the boats on Llyn Peris. (Snowdonia 1949 New Naturalist Series, plate xxx1, facing pg. 378). The boats were rowed across to the southern end of Llyn Padarn, the ore then being taken by road to Caernarfon for shipment to the Company’s smelting works near Swansea.
J Evans in his ‘A tour of North Wales’ described the mine in 1798:
“eighty
men working by candlelight clad only in a shirt and small clothes, with the
women and children using hammers to break up the ore and sorting it into three
qualities--- The pieces were then washed and taken to a water-driven stamping
mill. When pounded sufficiently small
the ore was carried into a reservoir by a stream of water and again purified by
decantation.”
By 1801 MCC was in decline. It had closed down its Macclesfield works, and in that same year, Abraham Mills, prospecting for minerals on Llandeiniolen Common, was accused of trespassing on Dinorwig Quarry. Griffith Ellis wrote of hard times;
“About this time there was famine and great
scarcity. The lichen growing on the
rocks kept the people of Llanberis alive.
Every morning families of six or seven children would go onto the
mountains with their bags and lichen picks, and by Saturday each family would
have collected more than £1 worth to be taken and exchanged for barley. Many tons were sent to England to make red
dye for the soldiers’ uniforms”
6. The Tyson Family: 20 years at Ffestiniog
The Tysons were still in Llanberis on May 31 1801 for the baptism of their second daughter Margaret, but by November 1803 they had moved to Ffestiniog, and remained there for at least the next twenty years. During that period, another seven children were born; - four daughters; Jane, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Ann; and three sons, Thomas and William who both died in infancy, and last of all, John, born about 1825, when his mother was almost fifty years old. (The 1825 birth year is reckoned from John’s age, sixteen years, given at the 1841 Census, a census noted for rounding down ages). His place of birth has not yet been established; he was not baptized at either Ffestiniog or Maentwrog, nor, according to the Census, was he born in Caernarvonshire. For most of the time at Ffestiniog, the Tysons lived at Ty Canol, except for a brief period, 1813-1814, when John was listed as a farmer in Cwmorthin, at that time still a peaceful enclosed valley, not yet disturbed by quarrying. Farming was probably not John’s full time occupation then, and no doubt he worked occasionally at the quarry. The period 1813-1817 was one of depression in the slate trade. Thomas Casson’s wife, Esther was reputed to have persuaded the Diffwys Quarry to stockpile their slates ready for the end of the Napoleonic war. In 1818 only two quarries were at work in the district; Diffwys and Rhiwbach, the latter being worked mainly by men from Penmachno. The last Ffestiniog reference we have to John Tyson is a laconic entry in Samuel Holland’s diary for March 10 1823: ‘Saw John Tyson upon our wharf.” i.e. Pen Trwyn y Garnedd.
7. Mary Tyson
Two months later on May 17 1823, Mary the eldest daughter was married to quarryman Lewis Roberts, with her sister Jane as witness. Mary was 27 and could write her name; Lewis was 23. They lived at the family home of Ty Canol, and by 1828 had three children. Then it seems that the marriage ran into difficulties. On January 31 1829, Mary Tyson received 1/- Charity money; in the year ending April 1829 she received £4-17-0 from the Overseer’s Account (DRO Z/PE/1/20). In the year ending April 1830, she received a total of £8-9-6 (34 weeks at 3s 6d plus 10s 6d allowance plus £2 rent), and the Overseers spent £1-12-6 “fetching Lewis Roberts”. Husband and wife were eventually reconciled; three more children were born; all three sadly died in infancy, and were buried next to the Turner vault at Llan Ffestiniog. Both parents lived to a ripe old age: Lewis dying at Ty Canol in 1885 aged 85, (the gravestone has Lewis Roberts - Llech Ddu), and Mary dying in 1889 at the age of 94 years.
8. Margaret Tyson
At the Quarter Sessions on October 16 1823, a surety bond of £10 was taken out against Evan Roberts, quarryman of Ffynnon, reputed father of Margaret Tyson’s unborn child, by Evan Griffith, farmer, Ffynnon, and William Jones, quarryman, Ty Newydd y Ffynnon. Ten days later on October 16, the bond was respited on information from William Jones, Ty Newydd y Ffynnon, that Margaret Tyson had not been delivered of a child by Evan Roberts. (DRO/Z/QS/M 1823/15 and /24) Later that year, on December 27, Margaret Tyson and Evan Roberts were married at Ffestiniog, with her sister Jane acting as witness. Both Margaret and Evan signed the register. They baptized their first child, John, on March 7 1824. Two more children were baptized; Lowri in 1826 and Robert in 1829. Evan Roberts died at the age of 35 at Ty Canol and was buried on January 16 1836. His family was not at Ffestiniog for the 1841 and 1851 Censuses.
9. Jane Tyson
A bastardy bond (NLW 15453E), dated June 12 1824, shows that Owen Jones quarryman of Pen y Bryn Ffestiniog, got Jane Tyson with child. Sureties were given by Lewis Jones, Pen y Bryn, farmer, and William Jones, Pen y Bryn, quarryman. If Jane’s child was born it was not baptized at Ffestiniog. On July 9 1825, Jane Tyson married John Jones. (One of the Welsh forms of John is Ieuan or Ewan, so there is a slim chance that Owen Jones and John were one and the same person). However the Militia List of 1827 has both Owen Jones Pen y Bryn, 29 years and John Jones Fron Dirion 27years. The witnesses to Jane’s marriage were William Williams and Elizabeth Prymer.
10. The Brymer family
From being a witness at one Tyson wedding, Elizabeth Brymer became the bride at the next, when on January 21 1826, she married Joseph Tyson, John’s eldest son, at Dolbenmaen. Their witnesses were W.E.Roberts and John Jones who had married Jane Tyson six months previously. The Brymers (also spelled Primer, Brimer and Prymer) were a Scottish family, headed by John Brymer born 1779, who had left Dundee in 1813 to become Bailiff for Sir Joseph Huddart’s Bryncir estate. When he came to Wales he was probably a widower, but married again, circa 1814/1815 to a younger woman Jane? who died in 1828. Elizabeth was probably his daughter from the earlier marriage. There is a note about the Brymer family in Hanes y Garn a’i Thriogolion yn y Gorphenol pg. 32:
“Early
in the last century we find one Thomas Roberts and his wife Catherine Powel
(daughter of Howel and Gaenor Jones) at Highgate Uchaf running a business. He was the first Relieving Officer of this
District (Dolbenmaen). He and his wife
were foster parents to George Brymer who was well brought up by them, and who
followed them in the business. George
Brymer was the son of John Brymer, bailiff of Sir Joseph Huddart of Bryncir,
and of a Scottish family. He ran the
business well for many years and he and his children set up widespread shops at
Ffestiniog, Llanberis, Bethesda and Abersoch.
Years ago he set himself aside from the business and settled at Tyddyn
Elen near Caernarfon. He possessed
strong abilities and was an above average scholar. He was a prominent man in Garn for a long while. By now the business years of Highgate have
come to an end, and the place converted into dwellings, known as Brymer
Terrace.”
Elizabeth Brymer’s marriage to Joseph Tyson lasted for only eight years. Joseph died in May 1834. Elizabeth then married Owen Jones, a quarry miner from Penmachno and by 1851 she had become the Matron of the Festiniog Hospital. Her second marriage has not been found, nor her whereabouts after 1851. Surprisingly the Scottish IGI yields two Tyson marriages in Angus, (Elizabeth’s home county) - Mary Ann Tyson in 1850, and Elizabeth Tyson in 1855. However neither entry can be made to fit the known Ffestiniog facts.
11. Joseph Tyson
The adult Joseph Tyson first appeared in the records in 1824 when he and Richard Griffith of Plas yn Dre applied for a Crown lease to search for slate on part of the Ffestiniog commons. (PRO CRES 25/29 11762)
Next year, 1825, he was involved with Richard Smith in making trials for Lord Rothschild behind Iwerddon (GR 692482) on Tal y Waenydd, where Richard Griffith had dug a decade before. Richard Griffith became the first manager of Cwmorthin Quarry in the mid 1820s, according to Jonathan Davies pg. 29. Joseph Tyson was listed as Overseer at the Moelwyn quarry, begun by Lord Rothschild in 1826. (Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog pg. 95.) The Festiniog Militia List of 1827 listed Joseph Tyson as a 30 years old quarryman living at Ben y mount. By 1828 he was still a quarryman but had moved to Bron y Ddwryd. Promotion did come eventually. By 1832 he was Steward or Agent for a slate quarry at Plas Llwyngwern, near Machynlleth, nowadays the site of the Centre for Alternative Technology. Two daughters were baptized at Machynlleth; Susannah Mary Ann on April 29 1832, and Margaret on December 15 1833.
An entry in the Ffestiniog parish papers, NLW 15454E reveals something of Joseph’s final fate. On May 6 1834, the Overseers of the Poor in the parish of Pennal in Merioneth made an order to the Overseers in Ffestiniog for the removal of Joseph Tyson, his wife Elizabeth and their five children, because the family was not legally settled in Pennal. The children were all named; Anne Jane 7 years, John 6, Elizabeth 4, Susanne 5 (sic), and Margaret 7 months. One of the requirements for settlement was a year’s residence in paid employment. Since Joseph was at Plas Llwyngwern, on the Montgomery side of the river, in April 1832, he should have established settlement rights in Llanwrin parish. Perhaps he was injured and lost his work. Whatever the circumstances, it was obvious that the Pennal Overseers did not want the responsibility of looking after his family.
The record shows that Joseph Tyson died at Machynlleth at the age of 35 years. The burial entry is in the Ffestiniog register for May 17 1834, but there is no gravestone in the churchyard. It must have been a sorrowful removal for his widow and young family. His five children were all living in different homes by the time of the 1841 Census. Ann Jane was a servant in the house of her Aunt Barbara Hughes at Cerrig y Pryfaid on the Bryncir estate at Penmorfa. John went to live with his Aunt Mary Roberts at Ty Canol. Elizabeth became a servant on a farm at Trwyn y Garnedd. Susannah became a servant to a childless couple, Pierce Jones and Catherine, living first at the quarry houses at Tai Newyddion and later at the small farm of Cynfal in the parish of Maentwrog. Margaret in 1841 was with John and Anne Williams at Blaen y Gors, but by 1851 she had been
re-united with her mother who had since re-married to Owen Jones, and was working as the Matron of the Festiniog Hospital
12. John Tyson son of Joseph
He was born in 1828 at Bron Ddwryd in Ffestiniog. After the death of his father he was brought up by his Aunt Mary at Ty Canol, where he lived until at least the 1851 Census. He was absent from Ty Canol at all subsequent Censuses, and has not yet been found elsewhere.
Local historian Ffestinfab writing in 1879, pp 82-3, has this note:
“A host of talented and good men were
produced by the Dolgarregddu (later Llwynygell) Literary Society, which was
much stimulated by the Presidency of Mr Rowland Walker, who was also a renowned
poet, one of the sons of the parish and who still lives in America. His successor as teacher was Mr W Jones,
later Manager of the Ffestiniog and Blaenau Railway. There came after him Messrs Hugh Jones Rhiw, John Tyson and
others; some still alive; some in their grave, and some living far away but
honouring their old native land”
13. Susannah Mary Ann Tyson
Two years old when her father died, she was brought up at Cynfal by Pierce and Catherine Jones. About 1851/2 she married John Evans of Minffordd, a quarryman and also a literary man, known by the bardic name ‘ap Dudwy’. He wrote articles for newspapers according to his great granddaughter, Mrs Freda Watkin. Susanna had nine children; none was baptized at Llan Ffestiniog, although four were buried there. Her gravestone records that she was born at Plas Llwyngwern and died at Abermaw in 1913 aged 81. Her eldest daughter Mary became the first lady Councillor for Merioneth; she was a JP, a leading Liberal and was friendly with Lloyd George’s family. (letter from Mrs Freda Watkin 1989)
14. William Turner and quarries at Machynlleth
Diffwys Quarry had become a commercial success, and by 1810 Turner had widespread business interests with quarries in both Caernarvonshire and in Merioneth. Michael Lewis (Other Ffestiniog Quarries to 1820) has unearthed some documents which point to Turner showing interest in quarries near Machynlleth. He was using the port of Aberdyfi to ship out slate and to bring in rails from Sirhowy Iron Works. On July 10 1812 William Turner wrote to his brother in law (and London agent) George Ford:
“You may send a
vessel to Aberdovey which shall be loaded with as many Dutchesses as there are
at ye Montgomeryshire Quarry amountg to 10000 or 12000 The Cargo shall be made up with Countesses
and Ladies”
The documents (PRO C 108/147) cover the period 1810-1813. There is no evidence to connect John Tyson with this venture; and Joseph Tyson’s foray into Montgomery was two decades later.
15. The Tysons at Dinorwig
In 1809 William Turner was invited by Thomas Assheton Smith of Faenol to become a partner in Dinorwig Quarry on the condition that he moved nearer the quarry. Turner went to live at Parciau near Caernarfon, which he renamed Parkia to distinguish it from other residences of that name. Between 1809 and 1828 William Turner’s share in Dinorwig netted him £24,873. On September 30 1825 Turner became Superintendent at Dinorwig.
Sometime between 1823 and 1832 John Tyson left Ffestiniog for Dinorwig, and took with him his three youngest children, Sarah, Ann, and John. Two other married daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, also made the journey to Dinorwig in time to be included in the 1841 Census Returns for Llandeiniolen, if not earlier. This is where John Tyson ended his days.
His wife Elizabeth was the first to die on September 30 1837 at Ty’n y Mynydd She was buried on October 4th, the parish register giving her name as Ellin, which is an error, (The GRO entry at St Catherine’s confirms Elizabeth, Dec qtr 1837, Caernarfon xxvii 225, and gives her age as 64). The MI gives her age as 62, which in view of the fact that she had her last child in 1825, is probably correct. Thus she was born circa 1775 and bore her first child at the age of 21years. She was almost certainly Irish, as it is most unlikely that John Tyson would have taken a new bride to Wicklow from England. Her tomb is most impressive; a large expensive vault, just inside the entrance gate to Llandeiniolen churchyard, and on the left. The inscription, in English, reads;
‘In
memory of Elizabeth wife of John Tyson of the Dinorwig Quarries died September
30 1837 aged 62 years’
The gravestone also commemorates, in Welsh, the death of a
grandson, John David Owen, but there is no inscription for her husband John,
nor has he any other gravestone in that churchyard. Another puzzle is the grand inference ‘—of the Dinorwig Quarries’. This does not quite fit in with John Tyson’s
only appearance in the Census Returns.
In 1841 he was living at Uwch Sardis and was listed as a labourer. Quarrymen became labourers either when they
were too old to practice their skills, or sometimes when they had been
injured. In any case labourers needed
to be fairly fit in order to tram the waste from face to tip. John was then about 68. The Pay
List for March 1832 for Dinorwic Quarry shows a payment against John Tyson
(no 136) working in Vaynol, of £5-11-0, which seems to be below average. He appears also to have been only a recent
addition to the Pay List, as his
name was an insertion in lieu of a crossed out Robert William. He was buried at Llandeiniolen at the age of
72 years on November 15 1845. (St Catherine’s Dec qtr 1845 Cae xxvii 233)
16. John Tyson’s origins
John’s age at death, 72 years, gives for the first time in this account a positive dating for his birth, circa 1773. A search in the IGI through all the known quarrying and mining counties proved a disappointment; only one likely baptism turned up, at Arlecdon in Cumberland, a place with no quarrying associations.
I was aware that Hawkshead, Torver, Coniston, Seathwaite, Broughton, and many other Furness parishes had been picked up by the IGI, but decided to check the coverage more carefully. Remembering the activities of Macclesfield Copper Company, I looked again at the IGI coverage of Coniston. It ended in 1700! I was guilty of the most elementary mistake, making an assumption without checking all the known facts. A quick trip to the Kendal Record Office to examine the Coniston parish registers revealed a vast tribe of Tysons with several described as miners or quarrymen. This had to be the mother lode!
17. Tysons at Coniston
There have been Tysons in the Coniston parish registers since 1600. Five families of Tysons were growing up, mainly at Tilberthwaite, in the first two decades of the 1600s. Between 1600 and 1700 there were 39 Tyson baptisms and 23 burials, during a century in which from 1619 to 1639 there were no baptisms recorded, and from 1659 to 1673 there was a gap in the registers. Between 1700 and 1800 there were 56 Tyson baptisms and 39 burials.
18. Copper miners and slategetters at Coniston
Miners appear regularly in the registers, the first in 1689, and then 52 more in the next 100 years, including two Tysons. Slaters and slategetters also appear in the same proportion; 45 names in a hundred years starting in 1689, including 5 Tysons. Some practised both trades.
Copper mining in the Coniston area started in 1599 when some of the German miners who had been brought to Cumbria in the 1560s by Queen Elizabeth’s chief Minister Lord Burghley, came over from Keswick. The ore was carried by pack train for 20 miles to the smelter at Brigham near Keswick. This first stage of mining came to an end on the outbreak of the Civil War in 1648. The next period of growth began in September 1756, when Charles Roe of Macclesfield Copper Company agreed a lease with Sir William Fleming for 21 years. During the next ten years over 900 tons of ore were produced, but by 1775, MCC had lost interest, probably because of the much greater resources in Parys Mountain, Anglesey. MCC renewed the Coniston lease in January 1778 and by 1783 there were 17 or 18 men at work. The Forge Houses above St Martin’s Beck, originally built by Robert Parke for Sir Daniel Fleming in 1675 at a cost of £115, and leased to MCC in 1778, were sub-let to John Ashburner for a cotton mill in 1787. In July 1795, Abraham Mills wrote to the Agent that the Coniston mine was so unproductive that MCC had decided to discontinue working. They abandoned the mine and released the rented Forge Houses. (These buildings in Coniston village were restored by the National Trust in 1992.)
During the latter half of the 18th century,
slate quarrying was a growing industry at Coniston. From 1749 to 1754 the slate merchant William Rigge made payments
to William Tyson , “for slate at Seathwaite’” (Rydal
Papers Box 21). By 1774 Thomas West
was able to record that “the most considerable slate quarries in the
Kingdom” were in the Coniston fells.
(Antiquities of Furness pg. 35
1774)
At the same period George Bownass, the Coniston blacksmith, was supplying and repairing tools to a Company of Slategetters, working quarries at Pennyrigg and Hodge Close in Tilberthwaite, and at Blind Tarn and Goatswater on the Old Man. Towards the end of the 18th century, William Rigge was exporting 1100 tons of slate a year from Waterhead, on Lake Windermere.
In 1794 the Government imposed a tax of 10 shillings per ton of slate conveyed by sea. The outcome was a slump in trade and redundancy in many slate quarries. At Coniston this must have been disastrous, because the copper mines also closed down in 1796. If MCC was employing a thousand men at its Cronebane copper mine in Wicklow by 1798 (WH Chaloner), surely there were some Coniston miners among them?
19. Did John Tyson come from Coniston?
Having argued that John Tyson ought to have originated in Coniston, is there any good evidence to back up that hypothesis? There was no baptism of any John Tyson in 1773, either in Coniston or in nearby Hawkshead. But on Christmas Day 1774, John son of Thomas Tyson of Forge was baptized. Thomas eventually had ten children, eight of whose names are common with those used subsequently by John in Wales; Sarah, Hannah/Ann, John, William, Betty/Elizabeth, Mary, Peggy/Margaret, and Thomas. John’s mother was named Mary, as was his first daughter. Thomas was a miner and he married Mary the daughter of a miner, William Storey, who had probably come to Coniston from the lead mines at Garrigill. Mary’s sister Elizabeth married a miner in 1781, one Andrew Thompson, and Thomas Tyson was a witness at the marriage.
The first nine of Thomas Tyson’s children were born at the Forge House which was leased to Macclesfield Copper Co. His tenth child, Thomas, was born in 1793, not at Forge, which had been surrendered by MCC, but at Hows Bank. Thomas senior was described as ‘fiddler and miner’.
So dates, naming patterns, and the mining tradition all fit in nicely. So too does the location. Coniston and Seathwaite are a mere five miles apart, with men from both valleys working the quarries and mines lying between them. There was every chance that John Tyson would have met and known William Turner and the Casson brothers.
Even George Penny fits into this local scene. In 1793, George’s home near Broughton Mills, (The Hill, GR 236898), was only six miles from Coniston and even nearer to the quarries. His father was a blacksmith, born in Coniston at the Forge House in 1715, son of carpenter William Penny, whose eldest son was both slater and miner. The story handed down to the descendants of George Penny was that their ancestor had come to Ffestiniog from Ireland (letter from Anne Griffith 1985). George had only four children, and none born after 1793. With quarrying and mining in such poor state by 1794 in the Coniston area, perhaps George Penny too went looking for work in Ireland. In fact if both Turner and Tyson were away from Cumbria circa 1796, it makes good sense for Penny also to be away at that time and to move to Wales with Turner in 1800 in keeping with the miner’s tradition of following the work.
20. The 1989 hypothesis
This was the scenario in 1989. John Tyson was born in Coniston in 1774 into a family with a strong mining background. By the time he became a man the copper mine at Coniston had been abandoned. So with the encouragement of MCC, he and other miners went to Wicklow to work the rich Cronebane copper mine. Over there he met and married an Irish girl circa 1796, and when the Rebellion became too much of a risk for migrant English workers, he transferred to another MCC mine near Llanberis. When that became unproductive, he moved to Ffestiniog to work for a friend and fellow countryman, William Turner. Thus John Tyson had a certain standing in the area, even though he never seems to have risen above the rank of miner or quarryman. Later when Turner became Superintendent at Dinorwig he may have brought Tyson over as a special favour. Or perhaps Tyson was just following the work.
21. 1994: Confirmation of John Tyson’s marriage
in Wicklow
In 1994 Tom Steel, the Vicar of Prescot, paid a visit to the Wicklow Heritage Centre in order to search for the ancestors of Jane Williams, the Irish wife of William Turner. Jane was said to have been born in Rockstown, a townland just over a mile north of the Cronebane mine. I asked Tom to look out also for the marriage of John Tyson. Tom, despite having obtained permission from the Castlemacadam vicar, was not allowed to examine the original parish registers, because they were being indexed by the staff at the Heritage Centre. However copies of some relevant index cards were provided for a small fee. One of these showed that on July 12 1796, John Tyson an English miner from Cronebane, was married to Elizabeth Williams, daughter of Margaret and Joseph Williams, blacksmith of Kilmacow. The northern end of the Cronebane mine is in the townland of Kilmacow, (now Kilmacoo).
Most of the Church of Ireland registers that had been deposited at the PRO in Dublin, were destroyed in the explosion at the Four Courts in 1922. Of those registers which have survived, only two, Castlemacadam and Rathdrum, cover the period 1790 to 1810. The baptism of the Tysons’ first child Mary circa 1797, was not found in the index; nor was the marriage of blacksmith Joseph Williams to Margaret; nor was the baptism of Joseph Williams.
Obviously the original registers need to be scrutinized more carefully at some future date, but at the moment it would seem that Joseph Williams might have moved into the Rockstown/Kilmacow area round about 1764. He and Margaret baptized six children in Castlemacadam parish: Mary 1765; Sarah 1768; Margaret 1770; Elizabeth 1775; Jane 1777; and Ann 1779. Their eldest? and only? son Francis was not baptized at Castlemacadam. Joseph’s trade as blacksmith links him inevitably to the mine, as there are no other centres of population that would support such an occupation. It would also seem that at least five of his children married in the parish between 1788 and 1796, and at least two remained there after the rebellion.
22. Who was Jane Williams?
Tom Steel’s primary objective was to find the baptism of Jane Williams, the future wife of William Turner. Only one suitable baptism has turned up in Castlemacadam; that on May 4 1777 of Jane daughter of Joseph and Margaret Williams of Kilmacow. Does that date fit in with what is recorded about Jane Turner? We know from her tombstone at Llanfairisgaer that Jane died on November 20 1864 at the age of 89, which gives her a birth year of 1775/1776. At the three censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861, Jane declared her age to be 60, 75 and 80 years, all showing a margin of error of plus or minus two or three years. So a birth in 1777 is quite acceptable.
There seems to be only one logical conclusion. John Tyson and William Turner married two sisters. There are two areas of supporting evidence to back up this new hypothesis. Look first at the naming patterns in the two families. In order the Tysons were named; Mary, Joseph, Margaret, Jane, Thomas, Elizabeth, William, Sarah, Ann and John. The Turners were named Henry, Margaret, Joseph, William, Jane, Thomas, Elizabeth, Agnes, Anne, John and Llewelyn. For Margaret and Joseph to come so early in the Turner sequence, is a compelling indication that Jane Turner’s parents were also called Margaret and Joseph.
The other piece of evidence is in the anomaly of Elizabeth Tyson’s impressive tomb at Llandeiniolen. It would have been impossibly expensive on a quarry labourer’s pay, and the obvious answer to the puzzle is that the vault was ordered and paid for by Elizabeth’s very wealthy sister, Jane Turner.
Llewelyn Turner maintained that his parents met at Maes y Neuadd, the Merioneth home of the Rev John Nanney, the heir to the Wynn family.
“Not
long after the rebellion, my mother came to Maesynuadd, where my father met,
wooed, loved and married her.....My mother was an ardent Protestant, also
related to a Quaker family in Ireland, and to the Irish Roman Catholic
Archbishop Murray.”
Memoirs of Sir
Llewelyn Turner
If as we now suggest, Jane was the daughter of a blacksmith, what was she doing at Maes y Neuadd? Was she a servant, a housekeeper, a cook, a guest? Had she been on a visit to her older sister, Elizabeth Tyson, then probably living at Llanberis? Her marriage to William Turner has not yet been found. It was not recorded in Merioneth, or Caernarvonshire, or at Castlemacadam. In view of Jane’s subsequent fecundity, the marriage would probably have taken place in 1802, but where? And was the meeting in Wales really their first? Try to imagine Cronebane in 1796, with a thousand men working in the mine; young, strong, lusty men, from places far away from Kilmacow. Most local young woman of marriageable age would be on a sharp look out for a prospective husband.
In 1796 William Turner would have been thirty years old. What sort of man was he? His agility was legendary. His energy seemed inexhaustible. According to his son Llewelyn;
“He was a
remarkably fine and handsome man, standing over six feet in his stockings, with
broad shoulders and deep chest and exceedingly powerful..... He was the most rapid runner they had ever
seen and could outrun his sons.”
General Gore said to Llewelyn;
“Turner, your father is the handsomest man I ever saw.”
If such a man had turned up, let us suppose as a witness at the wedding of John Tyson in July 1796, then the nineteen years old Jane Williams may well have been deeply smitten. But this tack is leaving research for the realm of romance, and we shall go no further. A lot more work needs to be done to establish with certainty Turner’s presence in Wicklow in 1796, and to explain the seeming ignorance of Sir Llewelyn Turner about his father’s Irish episode. He may not have known or even wanted to know about his mother’s humble origins as the daughter of a blacksmith. Yet he was obviously proud of the way his father had progressed by sheer hard work from being a quarryman to becoming a very successful quarry owner. There are many doubts and inconsistencies in the William Turner story. As Churchill once said:
“It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps
there is a key”
23. Conclusion
This account has illustrated, I hope, two themes that are crucial to our understanding of the lives of our ancestors. The most important was the man’s need to follow the work, just as the modern construction gangs under Wimpey and McAlpine do. The migrations of labour were quite remarkable, and John Tyson’s journeys from Cumbria to Ireland and Wales were almost modern in scope. The other compelling theme was the woman’s struggle to survive, when through sickness or early death, there was no longer any money coming into the house. Help was not entirely absent, but the various components of parish welfare were pitched at very basic levels, and the fate of Joseph Tyson’s family shows the harshness of it all.
After Joseph only two male Tysons, John born 1825 and John born 1828, survived into adulthood. If they had children, none has yet been traced. But the female Tysons were proud of their family name; they married into Roberts and Jones and Hughes and Evans; but kept Tyson as a middle name in every generation. There must be scores of their descendants in Gwynedd. So far only one has been traced.
24. Bibliography
1 Ffestinfab (W.Jones) 1879 Hanes plwyf Ffestiniog
2 Jonathan Davies 1875 Hanes Chwarelau Ffestiniog (unpublished)
3 Samuel Holland 1889 Diary NLW 4983
4 M.J.T.Lewis 1986 Chwarel y Diffwys ms
5 M.J.T.Lewis 1986 Other Ffestiniog Quarries ms
6 M.J.T.Lewis 1987 Pioneers of Ffestiniog Slate
7 Gwynedd Archives 1982 Llechi 3-Dinorwic Pay List March 1832 DO 1389
8 A.H.Dodd 1971 Industrial Revolution in North Wales
9 John & Ruth Neill 1963 Copper Mines of Snowdon; Climbers Club Journal
10 David Bick 1982 Old Copper Mines of Snowdonia pp 84-89
11 D Morgan Rees 1968 Copper Mining in North Wales; Arch Camb J pp 172-197
12 Peter Crew 1976 Copper Mines of Llanberis; Cae H Soc Trans 37 pp 58-79
13 Richenda Scott 1949 Snowdonia New Naturalist pg 378 pl xxxi
14 Rev John Evans 1804 A Tour Through Part of North Wales in 1797
15 Rev P Warner 1798 A Walk Through Wales in 1797 pg 131
16 W.H.Chaloner 1950 LCAS Trans vol 62 pp 135-56, 1951 vol 63 pp 52-86
Charles Roe of Macclesfield
17 John Rowlands 1981 Copper Mountain, Studies in Anglesey History vol 1
18 William Rollins 1981 Life and Tradition in the Lake District chapter 12
19 W.G.Collingwood 1906 The Book of Coniston pp 65-6
20 ibid 1899 Coniston Tales
21 ibid 1909 Germans at Coniston; CWAAS Trans
22 ibid 1912 Elizabethan Keswick; CWAAS Trans vol viii
23 ibid 1928 Keswick & Coniston Mines in 1600; CWAAS ns 28 pp 1-32
24 T West 1774 Antiquities of Furness pg xxxv
25 W Green 1819 Guide to the Lakes vol 1 pg 90
26 J Clarke 1787 Survey of the Lakes of Cumb West & Lancs pg 154
27 J Postlethwaite 1913 Mines and Mining in the Lake District
28 WT Shaw 1972 Mining in the Lake Counties
29 JD Marshall 1958 Furness and the Industrial Revolution rev 1981
30 AC Gibson 1857 The Old Man pp 110-115
31 R Millward & 1970 The Lake District pp 224-230
A Robinson
32 John Adam 1988 Mines of the Lake District Fells
33 Eric Holland 1986 Coniston Copper
34 Ray Bland 1979 Coniston Mines unpublished ms; Barrow RO
35 J.R.Harris 1952 Copper Industry in Lancashire and N Wales PhD Thesis
1950? Aberystwyth, or 1952? Manchester
36 Rob David 1987 Westmorland Slate Quarries; CWAAS Trans pp 215-235
37 Rydal Papers Box 21 WD/Ry Coniston Slate Quarries 1749-54
38 John Buckley 1986 A Society of Ancient Britons; unpublished essay
39 John Buckley 1986 Festiniog Militia 1827; an index, unpublished