Jonathan Lloyd, 1877–1954:
a lifetime of achievement
by Mary Roll-Vallanjon
Jonathan Lloyd,
1877–1954:
a lifetime of achievement
by Mary Roll-Vallanjon
(his grand-daughter)
“My story begins on 24 November 1877, when I was born at 27 Gloucester Place, Mumbles, under tragic circumstances. My father, the skipper and part owner of an oyster dredger, was knocked overboard and drowned off the Mixen Sands (also called Mixon Sands) on 24 October 1877, and my mother was taken to my grandparents’ house in Gloucester Place. I was rather a weakly child due probably to the shock my mother sustained by the loss of her husband. My father was Jonathan Lloyd, the eldest son of John and Mary Lloyd, born at Murton (Bishopston) Gower from where the family removed to Mumbles when he was a child. His father John Lloyd had come from High Pennard, Gower, and the family had originally come from mid-Wales. My mother Margaret Lloyd was born at Norton where her family, who owned and worked a lime kiln, were originally from Llanmorlais, Gower, and no relation to the family of her husband.”
This is the opening paragraph of a handwritten account discovered among family papers in 2015. The manuscript goes on to describe Jonathan’s life story, which can be summarized as follows.
When he was five years old, his mother remarried and the family moved to Swansea. There he was sent to primary school. He was very motivated to study further, and under his own initiative he applied for a scholarship to higher-grade school, which he obtained. Unfortunately however his studies had to be interrupted when his step-father lost his job. He was apprenticed as a carpenter-joiner. During his apprenticeship, and after he became fully qualified, he followed theory classes at Swansea Technical School. After passing an examination at the City and Guilds Institute, he was able to apply for a job as a handicrafts teacher.
In 1902, he got his first teaching job in East London. As well as teaching during the day, he followed evening classes to obtain a final teacher’s certificate. In 1903 he married Mary Gordge of Swansea, and their first two children were born in London. After progressing to a couple more schools in the London area, Jonathan decided to return to Wales in 1908, where he obtained a post with the Rhondda Education Authority. The family settled in Treherbert, where their third child was born in 1909 (my mother). Their fourth and last child was also born in the Rhondda, at Ton Pentre in 1912.
His account tells us about the Tonypandy riots that he witnessed first-hand, and about the impact of the First World War on the South Wales coalfield. From “teacher in charge” in 1912, he became the first headmaster of the Rhondda Junior Technical School in 1924. On retiring in 1937, he returned to Mumbles where he lived at Caswell Drive until his death in 1954.
Throughout his life, he was committed to serving the communities in which he lived as well as the pupils he taught. After his retirement, during the Second World War, he served as Quaker chaplain to the Mayor of Swansea. In this capacity, following the blitz in Swansea, he was asked by Mayor J.W. Allison to conduct a ceremony to dedicate a mobile canteen for use in Swansea, donated by Cunard Coal Co. Ltd of Halifax, Canada. He was also prison minister to Swansea prison.
Strongly rooted in Gower
Unfortunately, his own hand-written account stops suddenly, so it has had to be supplemented by delving into whatever sources are available. It was possible to trace Jonathan’s father’s family back to 1788, date of the marriage of John Lloyd to Rachel David at Pennard.
Jonathan himself mentions that his branch of the family originally came from mid-Wales. The only possible link we know of is the religious one, i.e. to the earliest Baptists in Wales on the borders of Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, or in Radnorshire. Lloyds can be traced there in the 18th century, when yet another John is recorded as having married in 1770.
The famous Baptist preacher John Miles moved to Ilston in the late 1640s, so perhaps other Baptists came with him. Although it is not known for sure whether there was any direct connection between the Lloyd family and the Ilston Baptists, it is of note that the third person’s name entered in the Ilston Book (in around 1649) was one Jane Lloyd of Paviland (near Port Eynon). Thus the name Lloyd was in Gower for a long time in a nonconformist context.
Their son John was born in Pennard around 1796, but around 1800 the family moved to Bishopston, and that is where he married Mary Rosser in 1826. John was a quarryman/ labourer. It is not known what he quarried, but one may guess it was limestone. So there may nevertheless have already been a link between the two Lloyd branches. They were after all both from Pennard in the late 1700s. It should also be noted that one of the major limestone quarries in Gower was at Ilston.
Jonathan’s grandfather John was born in 1826 at Pennard. In 1848, he married Mary Lewis of Ilston. Baptist activity in the Mumbles area is said to have begun in the 1840s. There is no indication of an earlier Baptist congregation in the area. In 1851, a new Baptist chapel was founded at West Cross, a little north of Mumbles, Oystermouth and Norton. According to the original deed, the following were among the trustees: John Lloyd (labourer of Bishopston); Thomas Lewis (labourer of Oystermouth); and William Rosser (labourer of Oystermouth).
In 1848, John Lloyd was a labourer living at Chapel Cottage, Bishopston. By 1871, he was a master fisherman living at Church Parks, Oystermouth. In 1881, he was at Gloucester Place, Oystermouth, and in 1891 he was a gardener at Woodland Place, Oystermouth. His sally into fishing seems to have been short-lived, presumably profiting from the surge in popularity of the occupation in the 1860s, and then suffering from its sudden collapse at the end of the 1870s (not to mention the loss of his son).
The ancestors of Jonathan’s mother Margaret were also from Pennard, where there were four separate Lloyd families at the end of the 18th century. Thomas Lloyd (born around 1773) moved to Oystermouth where he married Ann Jenkin of Norton in 1801. Margaret’s father William Jenkin was born in 1806 at Oystermouth. In 1831, he married Elizabeth Gwyn of Cheriton. In 1831, William Jenkin was recorded as a labourer, in 1851 as an agricultural labourer, and in 1861 as a lime burner.
Thus we can see how the Lloyd families, from living inland in Gower in the Ilston area, gradually moved towards the coast in Mumbles. From quarrying limestone, they progressed to becoming lime burners or to turning to oyster fishing. These activities were both thriving during the mid-19th century, and suffered a rapid decline thereafter owing to a combination of circumstances.
A “son of Mumbles” lives on in his far-ranging family
From what were difficult origins however, Jonathan was able to achieve a remarkable career. His children were all educated at university during the 1920s–30s. His eldest son Arnold ended his career as Professor of Education at Cambridge; his second son Trevor became Professor of Geography at McGill University in Montreal, Canada; his daughter Margaret was a teacher who moved to France just after the Second World War to live with her French husband; and his youngest son Ronald was Solicitor to the Crown. There are over 60 direct descendants of Jonathan and his wife Mary still living at end 2019, ranging from the oldest who is 88 to the newest baby expected in November 2019. Outside of the UK, they live in Australia, Canada, Denmark and South Africa.
The book gathers together all the available information concerning Jonathan’s life and that of his family while memories still endure among his descendants, for the benefit of the generations to come.
October 2019