Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

" Old Brecknock Chips." 34 money quickly, so that his succeeding posterity (like a good many more of the Brecon trades¬ men of those days) could append the title "gentleman" after his name, and all reference to the haberdashery business is as conveniently forgotten. John Towers was a man of a very genial and kindly disposition, and was a great favourite with his fellow burgesses (are there any popular men among the "prominent burgesses" in Brecon to¬ day?") But poor John Towers, popular bailiff and councillor as he was, had to pay the debt of Nature in due course, and he died on the 10th of April, 1587, and there used to be the following lines on bis tomb¬ stone in the Priory Church (Cappel y Cochiaid):— Oh Towers farewell thy sage advice ; Farewell thy help and ayde ; Farewell, good Towers, farewell old Frinde, that friendly would have stayd. John Towers, with all his sagacity and kindliness of disposition, was not blessed by Providence with children, but his brothers, Matthew, Richard, and William, all left families, and he was succeeded by his nephew, " Matthew Towers, gentleman," who was also bailiff of Brecon in 1G10. This Matthew married a lady from Eardisley (Miss Crump), and left five sons and three daughters. But the name was not to survive long. Matthew Towers' eldest son and namesake died [having married Cather¬ ine, daughter of William Aubrey], as also did another son, Richard, in 1634 ; and in the same year Robert, another son, died, so that only Matthew's youngest son, John, was left, and he died in the following year (1635), leaving an infant son and three daughters. Thus in three generations the family was become nearly extinct. This, the last John Towers, left an infant son and three daughters; the infant son died, and the family ended in heiresses, one of whom married John Berrow, who died in March, 1706. (To be Continued). FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24th, 1888. ANCIENT BURGESSES OF BRECON. (Continued from February 17th, 1888). Then there is another family that was long connected with Brecon and its municipal and public life—the Herberts. The name first occurs in the borough records in the year 1616, when Lancelot Herbert held the position of bailiff. This gentleman was the first of the family: his name was originally Harbottle, corrupted into Herbert: he also came from the North (Kendal, in Cumberland), and like the canny Scot, of whom it is proverbially said that once he plants his foot on green pastures he never goes " bock agin," so Mr Lancelot Harbottle evidently fell in love with the Breconshire Beacons, and made Brecon his adopted home. He was descended from the ancient family of Harbottle, of Northumber¬ land. This Lancelot Harbottle (marrying one of the Boulcotts of Herefordshire, some of whom were already settled in Brecon), being probably persuaded by his wife's brother-in-law (Thomas Bullcott, who was bailiff in 1613 and 1619), and who was then a man of authority and note, came to our town and set up a mercer's shop here, which proved a great success. Lancelot Herbert died the 14th day of September, 1617, and was buried in the chancel of the Priory Church. The Herberts and the Bullcotts intermarried. He was succeeded in his business by William Herbert (bailiff in 1645), mercer, who married Anne Wynter (belonging to the family of that name which we shall further mention in this column), and had a son, Lancelot Herbert, bailiff in 1667-72-84-90. Lancelot Herbert married, secondly, Anne, daughter of Roger Bullcott; and his daughter also married Thomas Bullcott, both described as " gentlemen." The second Lancelot Herbert died on February 20th, 1692, aged above 81 years, "having seen" (as Theophilus Jones says) " his great grandchildren married or marriageable, and about eleven families extracted from his own body, by his two wives." The third Lancelot Herbert, and the last, son of above, also a mercer, married Rebecca, daughter to Thomas Penry, of Llwyncyntefn, by whom he had issue (i) William Herbert (the last Herbert who appears as bailiff in 1696); (ii) Anne Herbert, who married John Price, mercer, another well-to-do tradesman, whose only son and heir rose to be a barrister-at-law and recorder of Brecon, but died without issue on the 26th of April, 1735, aged 54 ; (iii)) Rebecca Herbert, who married Meredith James, "gent, and town clerk;" (iv) and another daughter, Margaret Herbert, married Charles Sandys, gent. The last Lancelot Herbert had an only son and heir, " William Herbert, mercer," of whom Theophilus Jones records: "He died issueless and