Cylchgronau Cymru

BIOGRAPHICA ET BIBLIOGRAPHICA JOHN INGLEBY (1749-1808) 'If I have omitted Mr. John Ingleby of Halkin, Flintshire, I did not do justice to a very neat drawer. I have often profited of his services and many of the private copies of my works have been highly ornamented by his labours'. So did Thomas Pennant write of John Ingleby in his Literary Life. The relevant books of reference are silent on this prolific water-colour artist or limner who accompanied Thomas Pennant on several of his tours, recording many of the houses and views mentioned in Pennant's works. Pennant provided a clue which led to Halkin church. The Halkin register records the death of John Ingleby, limner, of the parish of Flint, on 26 Aug. 1808, at the age of 59, and his burial at Halkin on Aug. 29. This record of his age naturally led to Halkin baptisms for 1749. A promising entry appears early in the year:- John s. of Thomas Ingleby and Elizabeth, his wife, baptised 24 Feb. 1748/9. This would be conclusive but for another baptism recorded later in the year John s. of Hugh Ingleby by Ann, his wife, baptised 25 Sept. 1749. The first John was certainly 59 on 26 August 1808, but the second John could well have been entered as of that age in the register. The entry is for baptism, not for birth, and I also believe that there was a general tendency towards giving the nearest birthday in entering age at death. Unfortunately no wills have been found to establish the exact identity of the limner's parents. There may be inscriptions in Halkin church or churchyard which would settle the problem. The name Ingleby in various forms (Ingleby, Inglesby, Ingoldsby) is fairly common in Flintshire records from the end of the seventeenth century. E. D. JONES. A NOTE ON CHARLES EDWARDS Charles Edwards, the 17th century Welsh cleric and writer, best known perhaps as the author of Y Ffydd Ddi ffuant, was appointed to the benefice of Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant in the diocese of St. Asaph during the Puritan regime, but there appears to be some difference of opinion amongst writers as to whether he was still in possession of the living in 1660. In his autobiography (An Afflicted Man's Testimony concerning His Troubles) published in 1691, Edwards himself states that he remained at Llanrhaeadr until 1660, when, after the Restoration, he had to surrender the rectory as it had been granted in commendam to the new bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. George Griffith. Alexander Gordon (Freedom after Ejection, 1917, p. 257) has a note on Edwards which could lead one to suppose that he was still at Llanrhaeadr to be ejected in 1662, whilst J. C. Morrice, (Wales in the Seventeenth Century, 1918, p. 184), gives the same version of the story as Edwards himself had given in his Testimony. Dr. Thomas Richards, however (Religious Developments in Wales, 1654-62, p. 280), states quite emphatically that 'Edwards was not at Llanrhaiadr to be deprived in 1660; otherwise his name, assuredly so well known to James Owen of the neighbouring Oswestry, would have been included among the first in the Denbighshire list of sufferers supplied by him to Calamy'. Whilst looking through the Denbighshire Quarter Session rolls for 1660 I chanced to note that on 2 October 1660, Charles Edwards was presented by the grand jury for not reading the Book of Common Prayer in the parish church of Llanrhaeadr. This seems to imply that Edwards was at Llanrhaeadr during those months subsequent to May 1660 when the Common Prayer was gradually being reintroduced into church services all over the country. G. MILWYN GRIFFITHS.