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Photo: Collectiong Cockles at Southend, before 1885
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The population of the Oystermouth parish grew from 715 in 1801 to 4427 in 1901. Up until the nineteenth century, it consisted of separate little hamlets of Newton, Norton, Mumbles Village and Blackpill (West Cross did not exist at that time) with large swathes of farmland in between. Gradually over the last two hundred years, there has been more and more building and today, as a suburb of Swansea, the population of the Mumbles Community Council area (Blackpill to Caswell) stands at approximately 18,000.
Samuel Gammon and Massie Jenkins, local boatmen at Southend, c1930
Some of the ancestors of families living in the nineteenth-century village had been here for centuries. Indeed, many of the names of Flemish origin, such as Bydder. Clement, Gamon, Givelin, Hopkins, Rosser and Wibborne, were already present in the sixteenth-century as recorded in LL. Morgan's Antiquarian Survey of East Gower.
In addition, the Vaughans, Jenkinses and the Kifts were here in the eighteenth century and Michaels had arrived by 1800. The families of Abraham Ace from Devon and Thomas Ace from Port Eynon, the Peacheys from Bognor Regis, the Hoskins, the Hullins, the Hickson/Hixon/Hixson families and the Cottles, all by the 1830s. The 1841 census records that among the residents in the Mumbles village itself, were six members of the Ace family, ten Bennetts, four Bidders, two Claypits, thirteen Gammons, nine Givelins, six Hullins. forty Michaels, thirteen Rogers, twelve Peacheys and five Webborns and there were, of course, the Joneses, Evanses, Thomases and Williamses.
The Pressdees came from Shropshire; the Eleys from Gloucestershire and Constantine Kleiser arrived from the Black Forest in the mid nineteenth century. Many, such as the Muxworthys came from Devon in the 1870s.
They say that every old Oystermouth family is related to every other way back. e.g. Griffith Givelin married Mary Gammon, 23 June 1804; John Jenkins married Margaret Webborn, 27 June 1816; John Webborn married Eliza Michael, 11 December 1856 and William Gammon married Elizabeth Ace, 3 February 1858.
An Eley Family group
There were many old people in the village (some 200 'aged poor' celebrated the wedding of Edward, Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra in March 1863 with a feast paid for by public subscription and held in the British Schoolroom), but the longest-living person recorded was Ann Stephens of The Dunns, who lived until she was 101 and died back in 1825.
Many people have continued to come and live in this locality. Some have left - indeed now there are 'Mumbletonians' in the four corners of the world, but many locals who spent their working lives away from this corner of Wales, choose to retire and come home to Mumbles.
Many of these family names are familiar to us today.
Many of these family names are familiar to us today.
Mumbles Family names
Mumbles Family names
By Grafton Maggs
‘Skilfully plagiarised from a reader’s letter in the Daily Telegraph.’
The recording angel had the enormous task of naming every tribe in the world. It so happened that the very last area he came to was Mumbles. He was weary and sat down to rest his aching limbs in a wind-swept hollow on the top of Mumbles hill. After being fortified with a delicious laverbread sandwich, he realised what a fantastically beautiful place this Mumbles was.
Gladys Gammon and her three boys, Tom, Dick & Fred
He decided to grant names that would always be worthy of this lovely part of the world.
He spoke:
Take a dozen and call them ACE,
Twenty four and call them GRACE,
Of GAMMONS pick a triple score,
And WEBBORNS choose a legion more.
In Norton dwells a tribe of elves,
Round them up and call them DELVES,
For BALSDONS name just five and ten,
Select a gross and call them VENN.
COTTLES, COLLIERS, CLAYPITTS, EYNONS,
WILLIAMS, MOCKS, SMALES AND BEYNONS,
ROSSERS, MEYRICKS AND THE BALES,
For those who live on hills and vales.
A crew will always need a KIFT,
A HIXSON, SMITH to give it lift.
And so, to end a tiring day,
Name ten, HULLIN and fifteen WAY.
And then he said in languid tones,
Call the rest of the b****** JONES.
Thomas and Margaret Webborn and friends.
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