J D Davies - Historian and Author

The website and blog of naval historian and bestselling author J D Davies

Llanelli

Carmarthenshire Archives: Farce or Greek Tragedy?

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A warning: if you’re in search of a short and cheerful read, I suggest you leave this post now and click on something like Buzzfeed instead.

On the other hand, if you have a few minutes to spare to read a woeful tale of institutional failure, threatening access to – and the very existence of – some unique and irreplaceable heritage of national importance, then read on. And if, at the end of reading this, you feel as angry about the situation I’m about to describe as I do, then I’ll suggest a few things you can do to help.

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As many of you know, I’m originally from Carmarthenshire in west Wales, and over the years, I’ve made a great deal of use of its county record office. This has holdings that go well beyond the bounds of local history, and are of national or even wider importance. For example, there’s the Golden Grove Book, a priceless eighteenth century collection of early Welsh pedigrees. This was transferred to Carmarthen from the National Archives at Kew only a few years ago, on the basis that it was more appropriate for the local repository to hold it – a decision that now seems catastrophically misjudged in the light of what has transpired, as will become clear shortly. In my principal field of naval history, the record office holds a remarkable series of letters from ‘Jacky’ Fisher to Earl Cawdor when the latter was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1905; these cast considerable light on the origins of the ‘Dreadnought revolution’, and on Fisher’s larger than life personality. There are also important letters of Admiral Sir Robert Mansel from when he was commanding the Algiers expedition of 1620 – the first English naval deployment into the Mediterranean, and thus a key event in the country’s development into a global power. I made extensive use of the archives in two of my non-fiction books, Britannia’s Dragon: A Naval History of Wales and Blood of the Kings: the Stuarts, the Ruthvens and the Gowrie Conspiracy. Indeed, the latter was inspired directly by discoveries I’d made in the Carmarthen record office, such as the only known written record of Lord Macaulay’s opinion about the conspiracy. For over fifteen years, I’ve been working on a history of the Ruthvens’ descendants, the Stepney baronets of Llanelli, and the vast majority of research material for this book is held in Carmarthen. I’ve written about 70,000 words of the first draft, and many people in west Wales have expressed a desire to see it in print as soon as possible – notably the team running Llanelly House, the recently reopened and remarkably impressive seat of the Stepneys.

But the book remains unfinished, and there’s a very real possibility that it might remain so. This is through no prevarication on my part; but to complete it, I need to get back into the archives at Carmarthen in order to finish the research for the final chapters, and about fifteen months ago, the record office closed indefinitely following the discovery of mould among the collections in its strongrooms. I won’t speculate on why this happened, or go into detail about what’s happened, or not happened, during those fifteen months; those interested in finding out should take a look at this excellent blog that casts a critical eye over the doings of the local authority. Some of us felt that the authority made a serious mistake some 16-18 years ago, when it moved the record office from its previous unsuitable premises; rather than investing then in a modern, purpose-built building, as many Welsh authorities have done in the last twenty years or so, it converted a former school housed in a rambling nineteenth century building, a solution that seemed even at the time to have a distinct odour of misplaced penny-pinching about it. Ironically, too, most of the original manuscript material held at the library in my home town of Llanelli – including a lot of the sources I need to consult in order to finish my book, and other gems such as some rare pro- and anti-Jacobite poetry – was transferred to Carmarthen record office a few years ago, on the grounds that it would be stored more safely there. 

But all of that is ancient history now: my concern is with the present situation, and with what might happen to this nationally important collection of archives in the future.

And that brings me to the body responsible for the record office, Carmarthenshire County Council.

Now, if one believes the Council’s critics, this is an institution characterised by North Korean levels of transparency, Qatari-style intolerance of criticism, and Zimbabwean standards of governmental competence. On the other hand, though, I don’t live in the area permanently (unlike many of the critics), although I still have many family members living in Carmarthenshire, whom I visit regularly, and am heavily involved with the work of the excellent Llanelli Community Heritage group. Therefore, I’d be the first to admit that I have relatively little direct experience of the Council’s wider work. Besides, as someone who spent some thirty years drumming into my students the old adage that there are always two sides to any case, I was very willing to be charitable and to give the Council the benefit of the doubt; which is partly why I’ve waited for fifteen months before raising the issue, in the optimistic (some will undoubtedly say ‘naive’) belief that ‘they’re bound to sort it out some time soon’.

In this spirit, I emailed the Council on Sunday 21 June to pose the following four questions:

  1. Is it possible to obtain access to individual named manuscripts, if sufficient notice is given?
  2. Is there a timescale for the resumption of full public access to the archive holdings of the county record office?
  3. I understand that the positions of County Archivist and Records Management Officer have been dispensed with. This causes me considerable concern, given how important such positions are to the care of the records and the provision of advice and support to historians. Are there plans for filling these posts?
  4. What are the council’s intentions with regard to providing a permanent replacement for the former county record office?

As there is now no dedicated email address for the county record office, or for any archives-related issue whatsoever, I sent my email to the general contact address provided on the Council’s website, with a request that it should be forwarded to ‘the individual or department with current responsibility for the manuscript collections held at Carmarthenshire County Record Office’. In the cases of the vast majority of institutions that I contact, such an email would, at the very least, receive an automated holding response indicating that the institution in question aims to respond to all communications within a given period of time.

Not so in Carmarthenshire.

Again, the vast majority of institutions that I contact, even those in such exemplars of openness as, say, Russia or Slovakia, actually deign to send one a response at some point.

Not so in Carmarthenshire; or at least, not in the fortnight that has now passed since I sent my email.

But it seems I’m not alone in this. On 27 June, I attended an excellent study day on the landed gentry of south-west Wales at the conference centre in the National Botanic Garden of Wales, a meeting organised by Bangor University’s new Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates. Inevitably, as many of the attendees came from the Carmarthenshire area, there was heated discussion about the closure of the record office; it emerged that two other delegates had written to the Council to express their concerns, but like me, neither had received the courtesy of even a holding reply. At least the Council is consistent: it seems that the Friends of the Archives have written to every single Carmarthenshire councillor individually, and have not received a single response. Not one, out of 74 Councillors. 

So the record office remains closed, with no access whatsoever being permitted to any of its ‘hard copy’ sources. There is not even a glimmer of an announcement of a timescale for the resumption of access. Moreover, it seems that none of the archives have yet been sent away for professional cleaning to begin, fifteen months after the problem was discovered. I also have it on very good authority that at least one depositor of a major collection is seriously considering withdrawing it from the record office, on the basis that the Council can no longer be trusted to care for it properly. If that becomes the case, and if other depositors follow suit, any eventual reopening of the office, somewhere or other (see below), perhaps several years down the road, will be largely academic; its holdings will have been decimated and dispersed, and the withdrawn collections will no longer be as readily accessible to the people of Carmarthenshire and beyond.

Ominously, too, the Council seems to be airbrushing its record office from history. The County Archivist has retired and has not been replaced, several months later. The record office’s Twitter account has disappeared. Even worse is the fact that the laughably misnamed new ‘archives’ page on the County Council new website doesn’t even mention the existence of a county record office, nor the existence of original manuscripts in the county’s care, nor any provision whatsoever for historians: it’s surely the only local authority in the United Kingdom which explicitly assumes that anyone who wants to access historically-related services is interested exclusively in genealogy, and that genealogical research services can be provided either online via commercial websites, or else on a ‘drop in basis’ in local libraries. Just as there are no snakes in Ireland, evidently there are no historians in Carmarthenshire either, at least as far as the County Council is concerned.

(Maybe there are no lawyers, too, as the old website’s statement that special arrangements could be made for those requiring access to mouldy documents for legal reasons has also disappeared; but the Council’s own heavy reliance on the legal profession in the recent past would argue otherwise.)

A cynic might conclude from all this that the County Council is attempting to get rid of its record office by stealth – fail to provide one for long enough due to a so-called ‘temporary’ crisis, see if anybody complains, and somehow hope to get away with it.

Alternatively, perhaps there’s an expectation that Carmarthenshire itself will soon cease to exist in any case, if the proposed local government mergers in Wales go ahead, in which case perhaps all the Carmarthenshire archives could be conveniently shipped off to the shiny new Pembrokeshire Record Office in Haverfordwest, assuming the latter has room (which, at present, it almost certainly doesn’t).

Alternatively again, there are very strong rumours to the effect that the Council is already exploring the option of sharing facilities with West Glamorgan Archives and/or the university archives in Swansea, which is outside both the current county and the putative amalgamated one that might be set up under the reorganisation.

Now, both of these potential replacement repositories would involve journey times by public transport of at least 90 minutes for people living in the east or west of Carmarthenshire respectively, and many parts of the county have significantly worse transport connections than that. For example, Google Maps informs me that it could take someone living in the extreme north-western corner of the county some 7 hours and 9 minutes to get to Swansea. Just in time to fit in a whole 51 minutes of worthwhile research, perhaps.

Well, Carmarthenshire can’t be allowed to get away with it. I’m no lawyer, but it would be very interesting to read any legal arguments defending it against the charge of being in breach of its statutory obligations under the Local Government Act 1972 and the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, either currently with regard to the present ‘temporary’ crisis, or in the longer term if any of the worst case scenarios I’ve outlined above come to pass. Perhaps the Council genuinely believes that providing a page called ‘archives’ on its website, which is actually describing nothing of the sort, along with occasional drop-in sessions in libraries, means that it is somehow fulfilling its statutory obligation to provide an ‘archives service’; one wonders whether someone qualified to judge such matters might view things in quite the same way.

Regardless of legalities, I contend that the present situation is a disgrace on every possible level. It should be protested against by every available means, and as loudly as possible.

I’m not interested in assigning blame for how that situation came to be (although I’ve heard it said that the Council ignored repeated warnings about the conditions in the strongrooms). My sole concern is with the future of the priceless materials held in the county’s archives, and in ensuring that proper access to those materials resumes as quickly as possible.

So if this is going to be a battle, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s a battle that has to be fought.

On a purely selfish level, there’s my personal need for access to materials that are essential for the completion of a book that many Carmarthenshire people want to read, and that an important Carmarthenshire institution wants to have on sale. Then, more altruistically, there’s a need to ensure that other historians, both now and in the future, are able to have such access. There’s the philosophical, moral and legal point that these materials are a vital, priceless part of the heritage of Carmarthenshire, Wales, and Britain, and the Council has a duty to preserve them and enable – indeed, actively to promote – access to them. Finally, though, there’s the concern that Carmarthenshire could be the thin end of the wedge: perhaps the beancounters at other local authorities, keen to save money by cutting such peripheral trivia as archives, libraries, museums and other worthless cultural guff, are watching avidly to see if the County Council really does get away with it, so that they can follow suit.

From now on, then, I’m going to raise this subject loudly and often, publicise it as widely as possible, and I hope that fellow historians, authors, bloggers, and other interested parties will assist me in publicising it even more widely. I intend to write to the Keeper of Public Records and the Welsh government’s culture minister in the first instance, and to other relevant parties thereafter, and I know that several others who were present at the ISWE day are doing the same.

Unfortunately, several of the organisations best placed to campaign on this issue, notably the Friends of Carmarthenshire Archives and the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society, have only a limited or non-existent presence online, and no presence whatsoever on social media. But if you support this cause, please use the hashtag #savecarmarthenarchives on social media, where I’ve just launched the account @savecarmarchive on Twitter and Save Carmarthenshire Archives on Facebook; please follow/like these, even if this cause doesn’t directly affect you, as expressions of moral support will send out a powerful message to the County Council.

Finally, if you’re in an organisation with members who have used, or might be likely to use, the archives, or who feel that the wider issues this case raises are important, please get your organisation’s officers to write to the relevant authorities, and publicise the issue on your own websites, social media accounts, etc.

Perhaps there is one glimmer of hope, though. Control of the Council changed hands very recently, and the incoming leader’s very first speech promised greater openness and included the line ‘We have in Carmarthenshire a distinctiveness in culture, language and heritage – these are precious, and ours to retain and nurture…’.  Fine, promising, and apposite words indeed.

Personally, though, I won’t hold my breath. Just as there are said to be no votes in defence, then so, perhaps, there are no votes in archives either, at least as far as councillors standing for re-election next year are concerned.

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I’ll leave you with the words of an adopted son of Carmarthenshire: The Reverend Eli Jenkins inky in his cool front parlour or poem-room tells only the truth in his Lifework – the Population, Main Industry, Shipping, History, Topography, Flora and Fauna of the town he worships in – the White Book of Llaregyb… 

Fortunately, Dylan Thomas’s archives didn’t end up in Carmarthenshire Record Office. Unfortunately, hundreds of ‘White Books of Llaregyb’ did; and there they lie, mouldy and inaccessible, but not forgotten by those of us who care for them.

Reclaiming the Past

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Last Saturday, I attended the annual conference of Morol, the Institute of Welsh Maritime Historical Studies, in Cardiff’s glorious Pierhead building. This proved to be a stimulating and highly convivial affair, although the afternoon session was conducted against the backdrop of an almighty storm which caused flash flooding throughout Cardiff; indeed, the downpour was so torrential that it became quite difficult to hear some of the afternoon speakers. Luckily, I delivered my talk, on ‘Cardiff, Wales and Naval History’, well before the deluge began, as did Professor John Hines of Cardiff University, speaking on the archaeology of the city, and the broadcaster and writer Trevor Fishlock, who recounted some fascinating personal and historical anecdotes of the sea – notably of his passage in a yacht from Capetown to Melbourne via Antarctica. However, the talk which provoked the most response was that of Richard James of Maritime Heritage Wales, a relatively new body attempting to promote awareness and understanding of the country’s maritime past. His central point was that Wales has seriously neglected this important element of its heritage; for example, docklands have been turned over for redevelopment with little heed paid to their original role, and, in many cases, no extant interpretation of that role. This was very much the case in Cardiff, where the waterfront contains many trendy cafe-bars but no display panels explaining the history of the area. Indeed, one member of the audience observed pointedly that the much-vaunted regeneration of Cardiff Bay had involved filling in one of the most important and innovative 19th century wet docks in the world, then renaming the surviving depression ‘the Roald Dahl basin’, on the basis that the author was born, and spent the first eight years of his life, in the city; the approximate equivalent, perhaps, of renaming Edinburgh Castle ‘J K Rowling Towers’.

(Afficionados of science fiction will know the basin rather better as the site of Torchwood headquarters…)

Richard’s argument struck a real chord with me. In the conclusion of Britannia’s Dragon, for example, I complain that ‘local councils afflicted by a dearth of imagination and in thrall to rapacious developers can often think of nothing better to do with old docks than create in them largely empty marinas and populate the quaysides with blocks of ugly flats and national chain restaurants, usually providing little or no interpretation of the original heritage of the area’. True, this isn’t just a Welsh problem – I’ve referred in previous blogs to the phenomenally crass Gunwharf Quays development at Portsmouth, the dire disregard of the city’s naval heritage in Plymouth, and the completely inappropriate development proposed for the former royal dockyard site at Deptford. And yes, providing suitable, maritime-related alternatives for what are often very large sites can be difficult and expensive: the project to build a replica of the 17th century warship Lenox at Deptford, also referred to in previous posts, is a case in point, although Richard pointed out how the building and subsequent establishment as a tourist attraction of the replica famine ship Dunbrody has played an important part in regenerating New Ross in County Wexford. ‘World of Boats’, a new attraction in Cardiff docks which we explored at lunchtime, is an excellent example of appropriate, maritime heritage-related activity, but it occupies only a tiny fraction of the area – and not far away, yet another former dock is about to be transformed into ‘Porth Teigr’, full of yet more flats, shops, trendy cafe bars, and, umm, ‘the Dr Who Experience’. Yes, these are huge sites that clearly need commercial development to make them sustainable – but that doesn’t have to mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater and ignoring the previous heritage of the area.

On the other hand, it really isn’t difficult, or expensive, to provide good-quality interpretation of an area’s heritage. The week before last, we stayed in the Landmark Trust’s Saddell Castle on the Kintyre Peninsula (aka the castle in the background of Paul McCartney’s original Mull of Kintyre video). Saddell is a tiny place, but it has a good interpretation panel explaining the heritage of the village, especially of the ruined abbey which played an important part in the history of the Lords of the Isles. We also went across to the island of Islay and visited Finlaggan, the seat of the Lords, where a series of excellent display panels guide you around the site. These days, of course, it’s possible to harness digital technology, too – in the summer, we visited Lordenshaw in Northumberland, where interpretation of the fascinating Neolithic rock art can be accessed directly on mobile phones. Clearly, though, it needs initiative and direction to undertake such projects, and hopefully Maritime Heritage Wales and local organisations can provide it. There are already examples of good practice, such as the activities of the community heritage group in my own home town of Llanelli: they’re responsible for putting up over 40 blue plaques around the town, the latest of which – for the 19th century sports journalist John Graham Chambers, the actual writer of the ‘Marquess of Queensberry rules’ of boxing – has been sponsored by a certain historian and author. They’ve also put up a considerable number of large, detailed and well illustrated panels around the town, covering the history of particular areas: surely an example that other communities could and should follow.

To end on another positive note, Morol is launching a number of projects to improve awareness of maritime heritage in Wales. One, tied in to the World War I centenary, will investigate U-boat activity and wrecks in Welsh waters; another is the compilation of a Welsh maritime bibliography. I’ll be contributing to both of these projects, and, no doubt, will be blogging about their progress in the future!

The Cruel Sea

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I spent last week in my home town of Llanelli in west Wales, visiting family, taking in some rugby, and meeting with the project team at Llanelly House. I had an update on progress – the plans for the house, which will open this summer, are really exciting – and provided them with some information from my 15 years of research into the history of the Stepney family, who owned the house; more on all this in future posts. But I also took the opportunity to go down to the local seashore, which has exerted an irresistible pull on me for as long as I can remember. On previous occasions in this blog, I’ve mentioned how dangerous this particular stretch of coast has always been. The Bristol Channel has the second biggest tidal range in the world, and in the Burry Inlet, on which Llanelli stands, this phenomenon is particularly marked. The inlet, formed of the estuary of the River Loughor, is about eight miles long and three miles broad at its widest point, but the tidal range on spring tides can be nearly eight metres. At high tide, therefore, the inlet is a broad stretch of water with a depth of perhaps six fathoms in the deepest channel, but at low tide, vast areas of the inlet are exposed as sandbanks. These contain valuable cockle beds, and the sands are so firm and extensive that professional pickers can drive their vans out several miles onto the sands. (The inlet’s other claim to fame is that it was where Amelia Earhart landed at the end of her ground-breaking Transatlantic flight; a modern memorial at Burry Port harbour, west of Llanelli, commemorates the event.)

Looking from Llanelli towards the north Gower coast at low tide

The navigable channels shift constantly, and Victorian efforts to construct a training wall for the deep water channel only accelerated the silting process. At the mouth of the inlet is the Burry bar, which has always constituted a difficult obstacle for shipping. Llanelli still managed to become a busy port, ultimately possessing four docks and surviving for over 150 years; it even experienced a brief resurgence in the 1970s. At its peak, it was visited by ships of up to 5,000 tons, but the navigation of the inlet was always treacherous. Inevitably, tragedies occurred, and the most terrible of these took place on 22 January 1868. The disaster that took place on that day deserves to be better known – indeed, it’s almost forgotten in the area itself, and no memorial to it can be found anywhere on the coast of the inlet. The following contemporary newspaper report provides a harrowing account of the tragedy, and serves as a reminder of the dangers faced by seafarers of all eras.

Dreadful loss of life on Burry Bar — Llanelly.

On Wednesday night, one of the most fearful shipping casualties occurred on the Gower Coast.

Nineteen or 20 vessels left Llanelly with the evening tide on Wednesday, towed by steam tugs. On nearing the bar, the tow-ropes snapped. Sail was made with all speed, but the wind having lulled, and the breakers on the bar being heavy, in consequence of the recent gale, the vessels were not able to get clear of the heavy sea then rolling in upon the shore. Night closed upon the scene and those who had witnessed the departure of the vessels hoped they would get clear of the dangerous breakers. This hope was not realised; the ships could not beat out to sea and finally they drifted upon the sands.

The survivors say that a more fearful night they never passed. Although the wind had gone down, the waves roared and rolled with fearful violence. Some of the ships got into collision and the result was that great destruction of life and property occurred, not however, through the collision, but for want of wind. They were left to the mercy of the waves which rolled tremendously high and, on receding, the vessels thumped heavily upon the sands.

The ‘Tamar Queen’, of Plymouth, and another were brought into Llanelly in the morning, leaking badly, but of the others the following were totally wrecked: the ‘Rocius’, ‘Water Lilly’, ‘Onward’, and ‘Brothers’, all of Llanelly; ‘Mary Fanny’, of Amlwch, ‘Ann’, of Bideford, ‘Huntress’, of Workington, and ‘St Catherine’, of Fowey. The crews of the ‘Rocius’, ‘Water Lilly’, and ‘Brothers’, and five men from the ‘Onward’ were saved; but the Captain (Clement), and his son, the Pilot (Christopher Lewis), and an apprentice were lost. The body of the captain has been recovered frightfully mutilated, as well as the body of the pilot. One boy only was saved from the ‘Mary Fanny’, who jumped to the boat when the pilot was leaving her. The Captain (Williams) was heard by parties on shore requesting them to throw something to him, which they did, but being dark they were not able to see him, and in a short time he was found on shore, but life was extinct.

It is not certain how many vessels and lives have been lost; a French vessel supposed to have been lost succeeded in making her way to a French port, and took with her the pilot (Daniel Rees). We trust we shall hear of others again. We need scarcely say that this disastrous catastrophe has created a mournful sensation throughout the entire district. Many of the unfortunate mariners belonged to the port of Llanelly, and their being wrecked within sight of their homes, and within an hour or two after leaving, renders it still more distressing. A correspondent who was present at the inquest says that Captain Roberts, of the ‘Brothers’, Llanelly, stated that he believed if there had been a lifeboat on board the light-ship, all the crews of the other ships might have been saved. He heard the cries of the drowning men, but could not render them any assistance, for nothing but a lifeboat could have ventured in such a sea.

After hearing evidence of one of the pilots and one of the men belonging to the ‘Ann’, the coroner summed up, and the usual verdict on such cases was returned.The jury requested the coroner to inform the authorities at Llanelly that they consider it necessary that the lifeboat be replaced on board the light-ship, and that signals should be placed on a high point of land at Cwm Ivy Toi.

The town’s first historian, John Innes (father of the famous artist, James Dickson Innes), provides some additional detail on the strange combination of conditions which led to the doomed ships encountering a huge swell, but having insufficient wind to give them the momentum to get over the Burry bar:

The greatest and most wholesale calamity to Llanelly shipping occurred in practically a dead calm, and in consequence of too little and not too much wind. In 1868 all the docks were full of wind-bound vessels long ready for sea…they went out into the channel in threes and fours, escorted by our tugs. One tug returning warned the outgoing strings of vessels to return, but this was regarded as a joke. Once over the bar a whole fleet of craft found themselves in Broughton Bay [north Gower] in an increasing ground swell of great violence. The sails simply flapped and did not fill. The vessels collided, went ashore, and bumped on the sands. The light air died away and they were helpless. Next morning the town was a town of grief and desolation. 

At least fifty-two lives were lost, and the remains of the wrecked ships littered the north coast of Gower for a long time thereafter.

Google Earth's view of the Burry Inlet, showing clearly the treacherous sandbanks and channels
Google Earth’s view of the Burry Inlet, showing clearly the treacherous sandbanks and channels

 

 

Stepney 200

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Last Monday, 3 October, marked the 200th anniversary of the death of a lesser known but fascinating figure of the Regency age: Sir John Stepney, Baronet, sometime ambassador to Dresden and Berlin. Stepney died at Trnava in modern-day Slovakia, and in many respects his afterlife proved as memorable as his 68 years of living. He gave instructions that he should receive what was essentially an atheist funeral, but the local authorities seem instead to have given him both a Protestant and a Catholic service. His will was dominated by two principal themes: the construction of a particularly byzantine entail, the implications of which occupied and perplexed his heirs for over a century, and the arrangements for the transportation of his pet pug Carlino back to England, through the heart of war-torn Napoleonic Europe. (The dog died on the journey, but Sir John’s valets claimed the reward specified in the will by dumping the canine corpse on the doorstep of the ex-mistress he had named as the recipient.) A fashionable ‘macaroni’ in his younger days, and eminent enough to have been painted by Reynolds, Stepney was a close friend of Charles James Fox and a part of the Prince of Wales’s circle, connections that led to his appointment as an ambassador. At Berlin he had audiences with Frederick the Great, then nearing the end of his reign, and reported Frederick’s blunt opinion that the new United States of America was far too big to last for very long and was as doomed to failure as any union of European nations would be. Opinions of his ambassadorial service were mixed. Nathaniel Wraxall, who visited him in Dresden in 1778, praised the ‘hospitality and polished manners’ of ‘one of the finest gentlemen to have been employed on missions during the present reign’, but one critic snidely attack both Stepney and his mother: ‘Sir J- S-, who saunters about the assemblies of Dresden in honour of his royal master, is a gay young man, of an elegant taste, and with an estate most heavily encumbered by a dowager, who makes life too agreeable to think of leaving it.’ (The dowager Lady Stepney had a formidable temper and an eccentric personality, perhaps best encapsulated in her decision to name her favourite dog Serpent.)

Sir John’s pleasures were principally the turf (disastrously), the card tables (ditto) and women (with mixed success). He never married, but fathered three acknowledged illegitimate sons and a fourth reputed one. His most passionate liaison was probably that with Lady Almeria Carpenter, one of the great court beauties of the 1770s; unfortunately, though, she was also notoriously dim. They were engaged to be married, but it seems likely that his seduction of her, leading to the birth of the boy who became Lieutenant-Colonel Orlando John Williams of the Newfoundland Regiment, ended the relationship. She soon took up with a far more illustrious lover, the Duke of Gloucester, the most bovine of the brothers of King George III. (Stepney got his own back in due course; he seems to have become the lover of the Duchess of Cumberland, widow of another of the brothers.)

Stepney came from an intriguing and influential family, one which bore a name that remains a byword to a quarter of the world’s population: in the Indian sub-continent and Brazil, a ‘Stepney’ is still the name for a vehicle’s spare tyre. The bloodline also produced George Stepney, diplomat, poet and leading member of the Kit Kat Club during Queen Anne’s reign, as well as close friends of an eclectic range of prominent figures from Gladstone and Tennyson to Karl Marx and Dylan Thomas. John’s younger brother Tom was one of the most recognisable eccentrics in London clubland and also served as a witty Blackadder-like groom of the bedchamber to the Prince Regent’s brother, the ‘grand old Duke of York’. Their parents had inhabited one of the most spectacular Georgian houses in Wales, Llanelly House – now being restored by a dynamic project team, and due to open to the public in 2013. I’ve been working on a book about the family for about 15 years now, and hope that its appearance will coincide roughly with the opening of the great house; I’ll cover other aspects of the history of the Stepneys in subsequent blogs. As part of the ongoing research for the book, I hope to be able to visit Trnava one day fairly soon and to pay my respects properly to that fascinating old rogue, Sir John Stepney.