Maesgwyn: the servant who married a woman as old as his mother

When a lowly servant marries the lady of the farmhouse, and when she is twenty years his senior, then one could easily become curious about the match. Especially when the farm in question has over a hundred acres to its name. But when she dies within three years of the marriage, and the servant-that-once-was inherits everything and then, within months, marries again to a much younger woman – one of Dylan Thomas’ aunties – then one’s curiousity is really engaged. But when all this happens in neighbouring Llwyngwyn and Maesgwyn farms, the only Williams’ farms to survive into the twenty-first century............

The story begins with the birth of Theodocia Davies in 1840 at Llwyngwyn, a holding of almost two hundred acres, about half-way between Llangain and Llansteffan. The family were related to Dylan’s great-grandmother, Anne Williams of Waunfwlchan (for more on this relationship, see the Llwyngwyn and Maesgwyn census returns at the very end of this essay).

Theodocia's parents lived in some style, with four domestic servants and as many agricultural labourers - see the 1841 census below. Theodocia’s father died not long after the birth, and her mother, Theodocia Senior, took on the task of running the farm, and bringing up baby Theodocia and her three older siblings. They were still there in 1851, though the number of domestic servants had been reduced to two, presumably because the children were now old enough to help their mother in the home.[i]

But within ten years, by 1861, circumstances must have forced Theodocia Senior to give up Llwyngwyn. She and her children had moved to neighbouring Maesgwyn to live with her brother. Money seems to have been short here, too. There was another family living in one of the outbuildings, a fifty-three year old washerwoman and her two young children, presumably paying rent. Conditions at Maesgwyn also brought about a major change in status for Theodocia’s two sons: the young masters became servants, and they were described as such in the 1861 census. This did not happen to their twenty-one year old sister, Theodocia. Did she enjoy a favoured position in the family? [ii]

By 1871, Theodocia Senior’s brother had died and, now aged seventy, she was head of the Maesgwyn household, and running the farm. A year later, Theodocia Senior’s nephew, Evan Williams, son of Waunfwlchan, moved into Tirbach, the farm next door, with his family, including his baby daughter, Sarah. Perhaps Evan was able to help his elderly aunt because, over the next ten years, the Maesgwyn fortunes seemed to improve. By 1881, there were four servants back at Maesgwyn, including a young man, the nineteen-year old Thomas Evans, working in the house. He had been born in 1863, the son of a labourer living at Pilglace, Llansteffan. [iii]

Since Thomas was a domestic servant, he would have been in daily contact with Theodocia Junior. This was no grand house, with back stairs and discreet corridors for servants to use. At first, he would have seemed like a younger brother to her, or even a son. She was, after all, more than old enough to be his mother. Theodocia was now in her forties, and probably despairing about ever getting married. Her two older brothers, John and William, were also in their forties, and they were both single as well.

A few years later, in 1886, Theodocia Senior died.[iv] We will never know what happened over the next couple of years but, on April 25 1890, her daughter, Theodocia, married the young Thomas Evans, turning the lowly servant into the master of Maesgwyn. She is listed on their marriage certificate as a farmer, and he as a labourer, and also as the son of a labourer. Some might have raised an eyebrow but this would not have been seen as a great misalliance – stranger things had happened in deep Carmarthenshire. But tongues would certainly have been set awagging by the great difference in age between the couple. Theodocia was fifty, more than twenty years older than Thomas, and just eight years younger than his mother. [v]

At the census the following year, Thomas was named as head of the household, and was employing three servants of his own at Maesgwyn. He was twenty-eight and Theodocia was fifty-one, but she told the census taker she was forty.[vi] Her brothers, John and William, were no longer on the farm.

The marriage was a short one, just over three years, and there were no children. Theodocia died on November 20 1893, aged 53, of cirrhosis of the liver and exhaustion. In her Will, she left everything to Thomas.[vii]

Just three months after Theodocia’s death, on February 6 1894, Thomas married her young niece, Sarah Williams, whom he had known since her teenage years at Tirbach. She was now living with her parents in Llwyngwyn, where Theodocia had been born and brought up. Sarah, who was just 22, was Florence’s first cousin, and one of Dylan’s many aunties. Their first and only child, Sarah Anne, died of “Epilepsy” at eight months. [viii]

The servant-turned-master, Thomas Evans, died in 1937. He left everything to Sarah; his effects were valued at £5,000, over £150,000 in today’s terms. He also owned a house down in Llansteffan. Not bad for someone who had started off as a domestic servant.[ix]

Now it was time for another round of musical houses: Sarah moved across to live with her brother, Thomas Williams, in Llwyngwyn. Dylan and his American agent, John Brinnin, visited the family there in late 1953 – see the previous page on this site Llwyngwyn: the American and the woman who was as old as her mother. Brinnin produced his own version of the servant-master confusion, by assuming the young daughter of the house, Heulwen, was a dairy maid. Within months of the visit, Sarah had died, leaving Maesgwyn to Heulwen. Not yet twenty, she was now mistress of the household. A little later, she inherited Llwyngwyn as well, and had over three hundred acres to her name. Dairy maid, indeed! [x]

(The census returns for the two farms are at the end of these notes)

Notes

[i] Theodocia’s age is given as seven months on June 6 1841, the day of the census, and confirmed by FreeBMD as 1840. Her birth date is broadly correct at all following censuses, until the one after her marriage, 1891, when she gives it as 40.

[ii] Her brother, William Roberts, had farmed Maesgwyn from at least 1841.

[iii] Thomas was the son of Ann and Howell Evans, labourer, of Pilglace Llansteffan. They are shown on the 1871 census with Thomas aged 8. Sometime after, they moved to Tanlan, and Howell Evans is still labouring. He is also named on the marriage certificate of Thomas and Theodocia, as is her father, David Davies (deceased).

[iv] Theodocia Davies died in the December quarter 1886, aged 86. I could not find a Will for her.

[v] Theodocia had been born in 1840; Thomas Evans’ mother, Ann, was born in 1832.

[vi] They were married at the Register Office in Carmarthen. Thomas was now 27, a labourer, living at his parents’ address, Tanlan. Theodocia was 50 but she gave her age as 38 for the marriage certificate. The witnesses were Joseph Thomas and John Davies, who presumably was Theodocia’s brother.

[vii] The causes of death are taken from the death certificate which gives her correct age of 53. Her Will listed her effects as £441.

[viii] Sarah was born in 1871, the eldest child of Florence’s uncle, Evan Williams of Waunfwlchan, and his wife, Anne of Pen-y-coed. They had moved to Llwyngwyn in 1886 from Tirbach, where they had lived from at least 1872.

Evan was a cousin of Theodocia Evans (nee Davies), the first wife of Thomas Evans. Evan’s father-in-law, Joseph Thomas of Pen-y-coed, was not only a witness at the wedding of Theodocia and Thomas, but he was also an executor of her Will in 1893.

Epilepsy: from the death certificate.

[ix] The house was Morlais, on The Green in Llansteffan.

[x] Brinnin: in his 1955 book Dylan Thomas in America

Sometime after 1851, Theodocia and her family moved a few fields south to Maesgwyn farm.

In November 1855, her daughter, Anne, married David Richards of Wernoleu farm, Llangynog. He was the nephew of Theophilus Daniel, who had a lovechild, Jane b1842, with Sarah Williams of Pen-y-coed farm.

Llwyngwyn 1891

Theodocia Junior’s cousin, Evan Williams is now at Llwyngwyn, having come here in 1886 from Tirbach, with his wife, Anne, and a growing family, including Sarah, the eldest. Her aunt, Theodocia Davies Junior, is now at Maesgwyn.

Maesgwyn 1841

Maesgwyn 1851

Theodoshi (Theodocia) Harries/Thomas (below) is at Waunfwlchan in 1841, a sister of Anne Williams (nee Harries/Thomas b1815 at Maesgwyn) who is the wife of Thomas Williams of Waunfwlchan. Theodocia and Anne are two of the children of Evan and Anne Harry/Thomas of Plas Isha Llanybri. For more on these children and the Harries/Thomas name change, see Family trees at https://sites.google.com/site/dylanthomasandtheedgeoflove/

Theodocia Thomas is, of course, also the niece of William Robert’s sister, Theodosia Davies (see 1861 below), mother of Theodocia who married Thomas Evans who then married, secondly, Sarah Williams, granddaughter of Anne Williams nee Thomas.

Maesgwyn 1861

Maesgwyn 1871

Maesgwyn 1881

Thomas Evans has come to Maesgwyn as a domestic servant. Here he is with his wife-to-be, Theodocia, twenty years older than him. At Tirbach farm, five minutes walk away, is Theodocia’s niece, Sarah Williams, aged ten, who will in 1894 become Thomas’ second wife.

Maesgwyn 1891

Maesgwyn 1901

Maesgwyn 1911