The Ceniarth Farm Dispute of 1900: A Montgomeryshire Farmer Challenges His Landlord

On Thursday 22 February 1900, a dispute between a Montgomeryshire farmer and his former landlord came before the High Court judge Sir Arthur Moseley Channell at Welshpool. The farmer was Evan Owen, formerly of Ceniarth Farm near Machynlleth, who was seeking compensation following the termination of a tenancy which his family had occupied for more than twenty years. His opponent was William Edward Gilbertson-Pritchard of Ceniarth Hall, a member of an established landowning family whose interests in the district extended back several generations.

What had begun as a disagreement over an increase in rent developed into a legal contest involving damage to farmland, the felling of trees, agricultural improvements and the condition in which the property had been surrendered. Both men believed that money was owed to them, and neither was prepared to accept the other’s account of what had happened. By the time the dispute reached court, each had engaged a barrister who also happened to be a sitting Liberal Member of Parliament.

The case attracted attention beyond the immediate district and provides an unusually detailed picture of the relationship between landlord and tenant at the end of the Victorian period. It also illustrates how the long agricultural depression, changing attitudes towards landownership and the development of legal protection for tenant farmers were beginning to alter a system which had governed much of rural Wales for generations.

I first encountered the dispute while researching the Owen family for my book Old Llyfnant Valley Farming Families. What interested me was not simply the unusual spectacle of a farmer taking his landlord to court, but the circumstances which had brought the two men into conflict. Evan Owen had spent much of his life at Ceniarth, and the farm was closely connected with the fortunes of his family. His decision to leave was therefore more than an ordinary change of tenancy.

The surviving account also gives us an opportunity to look beyond the familiar histories of landed estates and examine the position of the people who actually worked the land. They were often substantial and respected members of their communities, but their livelihoods remained dependent upon agreements with landlords whose interests did not always coincide with their own.

Ceniarth Farm and the Owen Family

Ceniarth lies near Machynlleth, in the western part of historic Montgomeryshire, where the agricultural landscape was characterised by scattered farms, woodland, enclosed pasture and the rougher grazing of the surrounding hills. Ceniarth Hall was the residence associated with the local landed estate, while Ceniarth Farm formed one of the agricultural holdings through which its land was worked.

The Owen family’s connection with the district began before their arrival at Ceniarth itself. Evan’s grandfather, Richard Owen, originally came from the Mallwyd area of Merionethshire and settled at Byrdir, a neighbouring farm, sometime during the 1830s. Byrdir was comparatively modest, comprising approximately 113 acres, but it provided the foundation upon which the family established itself within the local agricultural community.

Richard’s son Griffith Owen was born at Mallwyd around 1827 and succeeded his father at Byrdir during the 1850s. In February 1854 he married Ann Owen at Machynlleth, and the couple went on to raise a large family. Around 1876 Griffith left Byrdir and moved to Ceniarth Farm, a considerably larger holding of approximately 350 acres. The move represented an important development in his farming career, giving the family responsibility for a substantial agricultural business.

Evan Owen was born at Byrdir on 19 February 1858. He was therefore about eighteen when the family moved to Ceniarth, and much of his practical education as a farmer would have been acquired there. The work was principally agricultural, with sheep farming playing an important part in the economy of the surrounding hills. The holding required considerable labour, particularly during lambing, shearing and the gathering of livestock from the upland pastures.

The family also had a more personal connection with the neighbouring hall. Richard Owen’s widow, Margaret, was employed as housekeeper to the Gilbertson-Pritchard family at Ceniarth Hall during her later years. She died there in November 1883, aged ninety-two. It is an interesting detail, for it demonstrates that the relationship between the two families extended beyond the ordinary arrangements of landlord and tenant. One branch occupied land belonging to the estate, while another member of the family had worked within the household of its owners.

The Owens experienced considerable personal tragedy during their years at Ceniarth. Tuberculosis claimed several of Griffith and Ann’s children during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Two sons, Thomas Rowland and Griffith, died in 1888 and 1889 respectively, while their daughter Margaret died in 1893. Another son, John, who had established himself in the dairy trade at Folkestone, died from the same disease in January 1894.

Griffith Owen himself died at Ceniarth Farm on 19 November 1891, aged sixty-four. His widow Ann survived him by only six months, dying in May 1892. Griffith’s will divided his farming business between Ann and their children Evan and Margaret, and contained a provision intended to ensure that his children would always have a home at Ceniarth. The intention was understandable, but the family could not control the future of a farm which remained the property of another man.

Following the deaths of his mother and sister, Evan became the sole proprietor of the agricultural business. By 1893 he had inherited responsibility for a substantial holding, together with the livestock, equipment and financial obligations which accompanied it. He was not the owner of Ceniarth Farm itself, but he was an established farmer whose family had worked the land for nearly two decades.

The Gilbertson-Pritchard Family of Ceniarth Hall

The landowner who would eventually become Evan Owen’s opponent was William Edward Gilbertson-Pritchard, born on 22 January 1852. His background was very different from that of his tenant, although both families had longstanding connections with Ceniarth.

The Pritchard family had been established in the district well before the nineteenth century, and surviving archival material indicates that members of the family occupied positions of local standing. David Pritchard of Ceniarth appears in Montgomeryshire records relating to county administration during the early nineteenth century, while family correspondence and deeds preserved in later collections provide evidence of their continuing connection with the property.

The family’s position was strengthened through its association with the Gilbertsons. David Gilbertson, who had connections with Long Acre in London as well as Ceniarth Hall, married Catherine, the only child of David Pritchard of Ceniarth. Their children inherited the social and educational opportunities available to families possessing established property interests.

William Edward attended Westminster School and subsequently entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1871, graduating in 1876. In March 1881 he formally adopted the additional surname Pritchard, reflecting the family’s connection with the Ceniarth property.

His elder brother, David Pritchard Gilbertson-Pritchard, had also attended Westminster and Trinity College. He entered the Church and became Rector of Watermillock in Cumberland, but died in March 1880, aged only thirty. William Edward’s education and family circumstances place him within a social world in which landed property, professional careers and connections extending well beyond Montgomeryshire were closely associated.

The distinction between landlord and tenant at Ceniarth was therefore not merely one of ownership. It reflected the wider social structure of Victorian rural society. Gilbertson-Pritchard possessed the land and the authority which accompanied it, while Evan Owen supplied the livestock, practical knowledge and daily labour upon which the farming business depended.

The arrangement could work satisfactorily when the interests of both parties were broadly aligned. A landlord benefited from the rent paid by a capable tenant, while the farmer enjoyed continued occupation of a holding without needing to provide the capital required to purchase the land. Difficulties arose when those interests diverged. At Ceniarth, the disagreement eventually concerned not only the amount of rent to be paid, but also the respective responsibilities of landlord and tenant when the tenancy came to an end.

The Agricultural Depression and the Question of Rent

The background to the dispute was the prolonged agricultural depression which affected Britain from the 1870s onwards, a period which also altered the wider relationship between Welsh landowners, tenant farmers and estate workers. Welsh farmers were not exposed to all the same pressures as the arable districts of England, but they faced falling prices, competition from imported produce and considerable uncertainty in the livestock and wool markets.

For tenant farmers, the relationship with the landlord became particularly important. Rent represented a continuing obligation which had to be met whether the agricultural year had been profitable or not. During difficult periods, farmers frequently sought reductions or other concessions, while some landlords were prepared to allow arrears to accumulate in the hope that conditions would improve.

Other arrangements were less satisfactory. A farmer might be encouraged to undertake improvements to the property, sometimes in return for an allowance against his rent, while the question of who would eventually benefit from the work remained uncertain. If the tenant left, the landlord retained the improved holding, and disputes could arise over whether compensation was due.

Ceniarth Farm had been occupied by the Owen family since approximately 1876. By the late 1890s, Evan had become an experienced farmer whose business was closely associated with the holding. The property was of sufficient size to support a substantial livestock enterprise, but its profitability depended upon the terms under which it was let.

In 1898 Gilbertson-Pritchard informed Evan that the rent would be increased. The surviving account does not establish the precise amount of the proposed increase, but Evan was unwilling to accept it. In September 1898 he gave notice of his intention to leave Ceniarth by 25 March 1899.

It was a decision with considerable consequences. Evan was not simply changing houses. He was relinquishing the farm around which his working life had developed and which his father had occupied before him. The livestock and agricultural equipment represented his business, but the land, buildings and improvements which had supported that business would remain behind.

Had the departure taken place without further disagreement, it might have attracted little attention outside the district. Instead, work undertaken by the landlord during the final months of the tenancy brought the relationship between the two men into open conflict.

The Timber Felling and the Damage to Ceniarth

Between September 1898 and March 1899, while Evan was preparing to surrender the holding, Gilbertson-Pritchard arranged for a number of trees on the farm to be felled. The work was undertaken by Richard Owen, a timber merchant from Machynlleth who was not related to Evan. The timber had to be cut and transported from the land, an undertaking which could be particularly difficult where heavy trunks were moved across fields and rough ground towards the nearest road.

Evan alleged that the work caused considerable damage. Falling trees had, he maintained, broken sections of fencing, while the movement of the timber had damaged the surface of the fields. The condition of the fences was especially important because Ceniarth was a working livestock farm. Boundary fences were necessary to contain sheep and prevent animals from wandering into neighbouring land.

According to Evan’s evidence, the damage had resulted in the loss of between twenty-five and thirty sheep. He also claimed that repairing the fencing had cost £48, a substantial expenditure for a farmer who was already preparing to leave the holding.

These were allegations advanced as part of the legal proceedings, rather than facts which can be regarded as independently established in every particular. Nevertheless, they explain why the dispute became so serious. From Evan’s perspective, work authorised by his landlord had interfered with the agricultural business which he remained responsible for conducting until the tenancy ended.

The question was not simply whether Gilbertson-Pritchard had been entitled to sell or fell his own timber. It was whether the manner in which that work had been carried out had caused damage for which his departing tenant should receive compensation.

The distinction was important. Landowners frequently derived income from woodland attached to their estates, but agricultural holdings were also working businesses. The removal of trees could therefore bring the commercial interests of a landlord into direct conflict with those of a tenant whose sheep and fields were affected by the operation.

The damage to the fencing and land became one of the principal matters which Evan Owen placed before the court.

A Claim for Compensation

Following his departure from Ceniarth in March 1899, Evan brought proceedings against Gilbertson-Pritchard, seeking more than £121 in compensation.

His claim was not confined to the timber damage. It also concerned sheep which had been sold to the landlord under the arrangements governing the tenancy, together with expenditure upon the farm itself. Evan maintained that he had undertaken improvements during his occupation, including the repaving of the farmyard. He also claimed to have used purchased manure to improve the agricultural land, rather than relying solely upon the more conventional methods of dressing or treating the soil.

The use of manure was an important point because the value of agricultural improvements was becoming increasingly recognised in law. If a farmer had spent money improving the productive capacity of a holding, the benefit might remain after he departed. The incoming tenant and ultimately the landlord could enjoy the results of expenditure undertaken by someone else.

The Agricultural Holdings (England) Act 1883 had established statutory rights to compensation for specified improvements, subject to conditions concerning the nature of the work and, in some cases, the landlord’s consent or prior notice. It applied in Wales despite the reference to England in its title.

The legislation did not mean that every expenditure automatically entitled the tenant to recover its full cost. Different forms of improvement were treated differently, and disputes could still arise over whether work had been authorised, whether it had improved the holding and what value remained when the tenant departed.

At Ceniarth, the arguments over manure, repaving and other agricultural expenditure therefore belonged to a much wider question about the rights of tenant farmers. Evan was seeking payment for what he regarded as improvements made at his expense, while Gilbertson-Pritchard was not prepared to accept the claim as presented.

The landlord responded with a counterclaim exceeding £88. He alleged that Evan had left the farmhouse, agricultural buildings and other parts of the holding in an unsatisfactory condition, requiring expenditure to restore them to proper repair.

The two claims presented sharply different accounts of the same tenancy. Evan considered himself entitled to compensation for improvements and damage, while Gilbertson-Pritchard maintained that the farmer had neglected responsibilities which properly belonged to him. The matter was ultimately brought before the court at Welshpool.

The Hearing at Welshpool, February 1900

The case was heard on Thursday 22 February 1900 before Sir Arthur Moseley Channell, a judge of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. Channell had been appointed to the bench in 1897 and was an experienced lawyer by the time the Ceniarth proceedings came before him.

The legal representation was unusually distinguished for what might otherwise have appeared a local agricultural dispute. Evan Owen was represented by Ellis Jones Griffith, the Liberal Member of Parliament for Anglesey, assisted by Edmund Gillart of Machynlleth. Gilbertson-Pritchard was represented by Samuel Moss, Liberal MP for East Denbighshire, assisted by John Rowlands of Machynlleth.

Both leading counsel were practising barristers as well as parliamentarians. Ellis Jones Griffith had been elected for Anglesey in 1895 and was already established on the North Wales and Chester legal circuit. Moss had represented East Denbighshire since 1897 and would subsequently become a County Court judge.

Their involvement is an interesting feature of the proceedings, although it should not be taken as evidence that the dispute itself had become a contest between political parties. Both men were Liberals, appearing in their professional capacities on behalf of opposing clients.

Evan’s case centred upon the loss and damage which he claimed to have suffered during the final months of the tenancy, together with the agricultural improvements for which he believed compensation was due. He maintained that the timber operations had damaged the fencing and farmland, and that the resulting difficulties had contributed to the disappearance of a considerable number of sheep.

A number of neighbouring farmers appeared as witnesses on his behalf. Their evidence supported his claims concerning the condition of the land and the work undertaken during the tenancy. The involvement of neighbouring farmers was significant. Such men were familiar with the practical requirements of maintaining an agricultural holding, including the condition of fences, the movement of livestock and the work necessary to keep fields productive. Their evidence would have been particularly relevant to a dispute in which agricultural practice was as important as the legal terms of the tenancy.

Gilbertson-Pritchard’s defence took a different approach. Rather than accepting that Evan had improved the property, it maintained that the farm had been allowed to deteriorate. The landlord called two witnesses, one of whom was Edward Evans, a local farmer. Evans alleged that both Evan and his father Griffith had neglected Ceniarth, and that the condition of the holding was worse when Evan left in 1899 than it had been when the family arrived in 1876.

It was a serious allegation, since the Owens had occupied the property for more than twenty years. The comparison with 1876 was intended to demonstrate that the deterioration was not merely the result of the timber operations or events during the final months of the tenancy.

The second witness was John Micah of Pantglas, whose family had a history of disagreement with Evan Owen.

An Earlier Disagreement Resurfaces

John Micah’s appearance is particularly interesting because of an incident involving his son William some years earlier. In September 1893, William Micah had been sent to recover a dead pig from Ceniarth wood. On his return he encountered Evan Owen on the road leading towards Ceniarth Hall. A disagreement followed concerning an allegation that servants at the farm had been responsible for the animal’s death.

The argument became physical, and both Evan and William subsequently appeared before the Machynlleth magistrates. The proceedings resulted in penalties against both men.

Seven years later, John Micah appeared as a witness for Gilbertson-Pritchard. He claimed that Evan had managed the farm poorly and that he had previously commented upon the unsatisfactory condition of its fencing.

The earlier disagreement is relevant because it shows that the relationship between Evan and the Micah family had not always been harmonious. It does not, however, establish that Micah’s evidence was false or that he was acting out of personal resentment. The testimony has to be considered as part of the competing accounts presented to the court.

It also reminds us that agricultural communities, although often closely connected through marriage and cooperation, were not necessarily free from disputes. Questions concerning livestock, boundaries, damage and responsibility could generate considerable ill feeling, particularly when neighbours had different accounts of the same incident.

At Welshpool, the evidence of local farmers was being used to establish whether Ceniarth had been properly managed and which party was responsible for its condition when the tenancy ended.

The Judgment

The outcome was less decisive than either side might have hoped. According to the account preserved in my earlier research, Evan Owen was awarded just over £71 against Gilbertson-Pritchard. The landlord, however, succeeded in part with his counterclaim and was awarded just over £32.

The result was therefore not an outright victory for either man. Evan recovered a substantial proportion of the compensation he had sought, but the court also accepted that Gilbertson-Pritchard was entitled to recover money from his former tenant.

The surviving summary does not establish exactly how the judge calculated the individual elements of either award. In particular, it is not yet possible to say how much of Evan’s award related to the damaged fencing, the alleged loss of sheep, the repaving of the farmyard or the value of manure applied to the land.

There is also an uncertainty concerning legal costs. My earlier account contains differing descriptions of the costs awarded or payable by the parties, and the original court report would need to be examined before the precise arrangement could be stated confidently. This is important because the apparent difference between the two monetary awards does not, by itself, tell us what Evan or his landlord ultimately received after expenses.

What the judgment does establish is that the court found sufficient merit in aspects of both claims to make awards in their favour. Evan had not succeeded in recovering the full amount which he demanded, but Gilbertson-Pritchard had not persuaded the court to reject his former tenant’s claim altogether.

For a farmer who had left a holding occupied by his family for more than two decades, the proceedings represented a significant attempt to recover money which he believed was owing to him. For the landlord, the counterclaim demonstrated his determination to hold the departing tenant responsible for the condition in which the property had been surrendered.

The case reveals the practical difficulty of separating the interests of landlord and tenant when an established agricultural tenancy came to an end.

The Law and the Changing Rights of Tenant Farmers

The Ceniarth proceedings took place during a period when agricultural tenancy law was undergoing considerable change. Before the legislation of the late nineteenth century, the position of many tenant farmers was heavily dependent upon the terms of their agreements and the willingness of landlords to recognise expenditure upon improvements. A farmer might spend years improving the productive capacity of a holding, only to find that he possessed limited means of recovering the remaining value of that work when he departed.

The Agricultural Holdings legislation of 1875 and 1883 sought to address these difficulties. The 1883 Act was particularly important because it provided a statutory framework for compensation in respect of qualifying improvements and procedures by which landlords and tenants could pursue competing claims.

Such legislation did not remove the possibility of disagreement. Indeed, the Ceniarth case demonstrates how difficult it could remain to determine responsibility for repairs, agricultural improvements and damage to land.

The dispute was heard only a few months before Parliament passed another Agricultural Holdings Act in August 1900. That legislation came into operation on 1 January 1901 and was therefore not in force when Evan Owen’s case was heard. Its passage nevertheless provides useful historical context.

The new Act extended and revised the existing arrangements for agricultural compensation and placed greater emphasis upon procedures for resolving disputes, including arbitration.

One of the more interesting connections is the participation of Evan Owen’s barrister, Ellis Jones Griffith, in the parliamentary debate on the Agricultural Holdings Bill on 6 August 1900, less than six months after the Welshpool proceedings.

Griffith criticised proposals which, in his view, gave insufficient protection to tenant farmers against unreasonable landlords. During the debate he observed that if all landlords were reasonable, legislation directed against them would not be required.

His remarks were made in the context of a national parliamentary discussion rather than a reference to the Ceniarth case. There is no evidence that the dispute involving Evan Owen directly influenced his position. Nevertheless, the connection is striking. A barrister who had represented a Montgomeryshire farmer in a compensation dispute in February was participating in parliamentary arguments over agricultural tenants’ rights later that same year.

The debate reflected a wider recognition that the traditional relationship between landlord and tenant could not always be left entirely to private agreement. For generations, landed estates had exercised considerable influence over the agricultural economy of Wales. By 1900, that authority was increasingly being challenged through changes in legislation, the organisation of farmers and the altered economic circumstances of rural landownership.

Ceniarth was one example of those developments being experienced at the level of an individual holding.

Evan Owen After Ceniarth

The court case did not restore Evan Owen to the farm which his family had occupied since the 1870s. He had already left Ceniarth in March 1899 and moved with his wife Elizabeth to Penrhiwceiber, a mining community in South Wales.

The move was not entirely into unfamiliar surroundings. Evan’s elder brother Richard had settled in the district and was employed in the coal industry, while members of Elizabeth’s family also had connections with the South Wales coalfield. Evan and Elizabeth established a shop in the village, exchanging the uncertainties of upland farming for a different kind of commercial life.

The change illustrates a wider feature of Welsh society during the late nineteenth century. The agricultural depression encouraged movement away from the countryside, and many members of rural families sought opportunities in the expanding industrial communities of South Wales and England.

Evan’s departure was distinctive because he had been the established tenant of a substantial farm rather than an agricultural labourer in search of work. Nevertheless, the underlying pressures were familiar. Agriculture no longer offered the same degree of security which earlier generations had expected.

In 1907 Evan and Elizabeth returned to Machynlleth, where they took over the tenancy of the White Horse Hotel. The venture was not an entirely happy one. Evan encountered further difficulties and was declared bankrupt in February 1911. Elizabeth later held the tenancy of the hotel, while Evan worked for a period as an insurance agent.

Evan died at the White Horse Hotel on 21 December 1920, aged sixty-two. Elizabeth survived him until May 1925, when she also died at the hotel. Both were buried with members of the Owen family in the Nonconformist cemetery at Machynlleth.

Their later circumstances provide a reminder that the legal dispute of 1900 was only one episode in a much longer life. Evan had been a farmer, shopkeeper, hotelkeeper and insurance agent, and his fortunes had varied considerably over the years. The court case remains the most conspicuous surviving episode of his farming career, but it should not be allowed to define him entirely.

What the Ceniarth Dispute Reveals

The dispute between Evan Owen and William Edward Gilbertson-Pritchard is significant because it allows us to examine the relationship between two men whose interests were bound together by the ownership and occupation of one farm.

Gilbertson-Pritchard belonged to an established landed family whose position rested upon inherited property and the authority associated with it. Evan Owen was a working farmer who had inherited an agricultural business from his father and spent much of his life maintaining a substantial holding.

The distinction was considerable, but the interests of the two men were not entirely separate. The landlord depended upon the productive occupation of his land, while the tenant depended upon the security of his tenancy and the terms under which the farm was let.

When Gilbertson-Pritchard proposed an increase in rent, Evan chose to leave. When timber was subsequently felled upon the holding, a disagreement developed over the damage allegedly caused. The termination of the tenancy brought further disputes concerning repairs, manure, improvements and the respective financial responsibilities of both parties.

The resulting litigation was not simply an argument about a few broken fences or the condition of a farmyard. It concerned the value of agricultural labour and investment, the obligations arising from tenancy and the extent to which a farmer could claim compensation for expenditure upon property he did not own.

The wider historical setting is equally important. By 1900, the long agricultural depression had placed considerable pressure upon rural Wales, and the relationship between landlords and tenants was changing. The law increasingly recognised that a farmer might retain a financial interest in improvements after leaving a holding, while landowners continued to possess legitimate claims concerning repairs and the preservation of their property.

The judgment at Welshpool reflected those competing responsibilities. Neither side recovered everything it sought, and the case ended with monetary awards in favour of both parties.

For me, the importance of the Ceniarth dispute lies in the unusual detail which survives of an otherwise ordinary agricultural disagreement. Through the evidence of Evan Owen, his landlord and the neighbouring farmers who appeared as witnesses, it becomes possible to recover something of the practical world in which Montgomeryshire’s tenant farmers lived.

Their concerns were immediate and familiar. Rent had to be paid, fences maintained, livestock protected and land kept productive. Yet behind those everyday responsibilities lay questions of ownership, legal rights and economic power which reached far beyond the boundaries of any individual farm.

The Ceniarth proceedings brought those questions into a courtroom in February 1900. The dispute may have been settled in monetary terms, but it remains a valuable record of a period when the traditional arrangements of rural Wales were being steadily reshaped.

More than a century later, it deserves to be remembered not as a simple story of a farmer defeating his landlord, but as an unusually revealing episode in the history of agriculture, landownership and working life in Montgomeryshire.

Sources and Further Reading

The principal source for this essay is my original research into the Owen family of Ceniarth, published in Old Llyfnant Valley Farming Families. This research drew upon family records, census returns, civil registration, wills, contemporary newspaper reports and the proceedings arising from Evan Owen’s dispute with William Edward Gilbertson-Pritchard in February 1900.

• Westminster School Archive, biographical entries for William Edward Gilbertson-Pritchard (born 1852) and David Pritchard Gilbertson-Pritchard (1849–1880), recording their schooling, family connections and association with Ceniarth Hall.
• National Library of Wales, Richard Bennett manuscript extracts concerning the Pritchard family of Ceniarth, including Catherine Gilbertson’s correspondence from 1886, MS 11878B. Related correspondence appears among the D. C. Lloyd-Owen manuscripts, MS 6024C.
• Agricultural Holdings (England) Act 1883, concerning compensation for qualifying improvements; and Agricultural Holdings Act 1900, which came into force on 1 January 1901.
• Hansard, House of Commons, 6 August 1900, Agricultural Holdings Bill debates, including contributions from Ellis Jones Griffith.
• Dictionary of Welsh Biography, biographical material concerning Ellis Jones Griffith, together with parliamentary and contemporary references concerning Samuel Moss.

The precise itemisation of the court’s awards and the allocation of legal costs still require confirmation against a complete contemporary report of the Welshpool hearing. The amounts and allegations in the narrative reflect the earlier family research; disputed claims are not treated as established facts.