John Williams

page · Updated 2026-10-24T09:41:32 · Original source

John Williams was the father of Mary (Nancy) Williams. He took over Great House Farm on his father’s death in 1908, holding the house parcel under the Thomas arrangement of 1877 and the fields under the 1916 Bute tenancy and the 1939 WGR tenancy. In 1928 he paid the last rent to the Thomases and thereafter “regarded the farm as his own”. From 1944 his son-in-law Frederick Buckler ran the farm as his manager, and in 1949 his tenancy of the fields was surrendered. He was still alive and “very ill” in the early 1950s; the date of his death is not yet known.

Method and evidence key: Main Page · title test

Chronology

  • 1877 — Mary (Nancy) Williams’s statement reports a lease dated 6 November 1877 to John Williams, but the matching Llandough instrument has not been identified. SC-20 records that the physically checked DBDT/79/1 is a 2 May 1877 lease for Pembroke Terrace, Cardiff; DBDT/18/1 and DBDT/1/3 are catalogue entries for other Cardiff addresses not yet physically checked for this enquiry. The named John Williams’s identity and the lease’s property/extent remain unresolved (1877 account; SC-20).
  • 1889–1894 — before 1908 the press records the farm under his father: “the orchard of Great House Farm … the property of John Williams”, with “Mr John Williams, junior” and “his father’s orchard” (Barry Dock News, 16 Aug 1889, p.2; EV-0279); swine fever, “Five pigs belonging to Mr Williams, Great House, have been slaughtered” (Barry Dock News, 3 Aug 1894, p.5; EV-0247). The 1894 report gives no first name.
  • 1890 — the press again records the orchard under his father: “the orchard belonging to Mr John Williams, Great House Farm, Llandough”; the prosecutor’s son reported the theft of apples (Barry Dock News, 22 Aug 1890, p.6; Welsh Newspapers Online).
  • 1903 — “John Williams, jun., Great House Farm, Llandough” admitted travelling on the Barry Railway between Grangetown and Cogan on 12 February 1903 without paying the fare and was fined £1 by the Barry magistrates: a dated record of the son five years before his father’s death (Barry Herald, 6 Mar 1903, p.3; Welsh Newspapers Online).
  • 1908 — his father dies; he takes over the farm (below)
  • 1916 — yearly tenancy of the whole farm from Bute, February 1916 (1916 tenancy)
  • 1924/1928 — HM Land Registry holds a record of 15 May 1924 (a Bute–Corbett agreement about a drain); 1928 last rent to Alfred Thomas, about £4 a year (1928). Whether the 1924 record is connected is one of the questions the family is pressing HM Land Registry to answer (Legal Review, section 2).
  • 1936 — his daughter Mary marries Frederick Buckler (marriage)
  • 1938 — Bute’s interest passes to Western Ground Rents (1938)
  • 1939 — revised WGR tenancy, May 1939; its plan shows the fields only (1939 tenancy · plan). The tenancy agreement and plan are also catalogued here as GHF-E012-07/08, location given as Leckwith Archives, Cardiff (Glamorgan Archives).
  • 1944–49 — War Agricultural Committee; Frederick as manager; tenancy surrendered (below)
  • Date unknown — death (below)
1908: Takes over the farm

Evidence: Mary (Nancy) Williams’s statement (extract) · catalogue GHF-E012-02

Certificate Death record, Mary’s grandfather, 1908

Placeholder: to be obtained
Catalogue: GHF-E014-04

Location: Not yet established from the present record

Evidence description: “In the year 1908 my grandfather died and my father took over the farm.” (Mary’s statement.) Her grandfather had held tenancies from both Bute and Daniel Thomas since the 1877 sale.

Contemporary record: the Baptist Record of October 1908 (Vol. 13 no. 139, p.27, Llandough notes) records “the death of Mr. John Williams, of Great House Farm, Llandough, which occurred on Friday, July 17th, and the burial on the 21st, aged 81” (Welsh Journals Online).

‹A + B as one›He took over both holdings: the house parcel from the Thomases (Parcel A) and the fields from Bute (Parcel B).

1944 – 1949: The War Agricultural Committee, illness and surrender of the tenancy

Evidence: Mary (Nancy) Williams’s statement (extract) · catalogue GHF-E012-09

Evidence description: “During the war my father had difficulty in farming the land to the satisfaction of the War Agricultural Executive Committee, owing to his age and in 1944 it was arranged that my husband should give up his job and run the farm as Manager for my father.” He was still alive and “very ill” in the early 1950s.

Evidence: Court of Appeal judgment, 1987

Evidence description: he fell into arrears; his tenancy was surrendered and “a new yearly agricultural tenancy commencing at February 2 1949” was to be granted to his son-in-law, Frederick Buckler.

Parcel BThe farming, the arrears and the surrendered tenancy all concern the fields held under the 1939 tenancy (Parcel B). He had no tenancy of the house parcel to surrender.

Date unknown: Death
Certificate Death certificate, John Williams (date not yet known)

Placeholder: to be obtained from the General Register Office
Catalogue: GHF-E012-11

Location: Family archive / privately held material

What it will record: the date and place of John Williams’s death. Mary’s statement says that after his death “my husband and I continued to occupy it”.

Parcel AOn his death the house parcel (Parcel A) passed to Mary; no probate or will has yet been traced.

See also: Mary (Nancy) Williams · Mary (Nancy) Williams’s statement · Master timeline · Evidence Library · Legal Review

Browse mirror index

Small print: dotted links explain a word (see the glossary); amber-shaded links list every name the records use for the same thing.