              Copyright
Helen Forder
2004
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| Benjamin
Hall II ... continued |
page 2 |
My
father', said Lord Llanofer, 'was
determined to convince his tenants that Welsh
sheep would eat turnips; so, on the top of a
hill, on the very highest point of his estate, he
had a very fine field of turnips. It was walled
round, and a strong fence was put on the top of
the wall, with a kind of chevaux de frise, to prevent those very nimble
quadrupeds, the Welsh sheep, from getting over
and destroying the crop.
Well, the turnips grew, and winter came; the
sheep began to flock about the roads, and the chevaux de frise was taken down. Over jumped
the Welsh sheep (a laugh), and of course in a few
days the field was filled with them.
Lord Llanover continued, 'My father was
apprised that this was the case, and he pounded
all the sheep. That was a very heinous offence
for a landlord to commit towards his tenants, but
he put a very high price upon the damage that had
been done. They complained very much about it,
but he begged to assure them that the business
did not concern them; that it could not be their
sheep that were pounded; for he had it upon the
word of honour of Welshmen that their sheep would
not so much as look at a turnip. (Laughter.)'
From The
Times, November 3rd, 1857.
|
Benjamin
Hall II died at his home in London on July 31st,
1817, his health having 'long been declining in
consequence of his anxious attention to his
Parliamentary duties'.
He was buried in Llandaff Cathedral on 15th
August, 'attended by
nearly all the gentlemen residing within a
circuit of 20 miles, and a great concourse of
other persons ...'
He was the first Welsh industrialist to enter the
field of politics in opposition to the interests
of the landed gentry. |
| In his will
he left the mansion at Abercarn to Charlotte, his
wife, for the remainder of her life. She
remarried in 1821 but little is known of her
second husband, Samuel Hawkins of Court Herbert,
Glamorgan. At the time of their marriage he gave
his address as Coram Street, Russell Square,
London. |
Mrs.
Hawkins stayed at Abercarn until about 1826, but
some time after that she moved first to Hampshire
and then to Brighton where she died on June 8th,
1839.
There, in St. Nicholas Church, is a tablet to her
memory which reads : |
Sacred to the memory of
Charlotte
the beloved wife of Samuel Hawkins, Esq., of
Shidfield, Wickham, Hants.,
daughter of Richard Crawshay, Esq., of Merthyr,
Glamorgan
and widow of Benjamin Hall, Esq., M.P., of Hensol
Castle in the same county.
She died at Brighton June 8th, 1839, aged 55
years.
|
I
am grateful to Dr. Peter Davies for permission to
use material from his article in the Guildford
Gazette, Spring 2003.
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