              Copyright
Helen Forder
2004
|
THE DEATH OF LADY
LLANOFER
(from the
Pontypool Free Press. January 1896.) |
DEATH OF LADY LLANOFER
Interesting Memoir
of the Deceased Lady |
We very much regret to announce
the death of Lady Llanover, which took place
somewhat suddenly at her residence at Llanover on
Friday afternoon last, at the advanced age of 95
years.
Down to a few minutes before her dissolution her
ladyship bore not the slightest indication that
there was anything the matter with her. She had
spent the day in bed, and at three o'clock Miss
Price served her with luncheon. Suddenly it
became apparent that her ladyship had grown
unconscious. Mrs. Evans, her maid, was
called and the state of unconsciousness
continued, and the Rev. John Prys was sent
for. He quickly came, but only in time to
see the venerable lady pass away. The Hon. Mrs.
Herbert, of Llanarth, her ladyship's only
surviving daughter, arrived on Saturday at
noon. The three sons of the last named,
namely, Colonel Ivor Herbert, of the Grenadier
Guards; Major Bleiddyn Herbert, of the 17th
Lancers, and Mr. Arthur Herbert, of the
Diplomatic Service, arrived on Saturday with
their mother. For the last 20 or 25 years, owing
to her advanced age, she was seldom heard of and
much more seldom seen. To the present
generation of Welsh men and women she was
personally an utter stranger, but the mere
mention of her name called forth a host of
memories of a past when the lady of Llanover was
a personage of very great importance indeed. As
the wife of a great landowner, Sir Benjamin Hall,
once member of Parliament for the county,
afterwards Lord Llanover, Privy Councillor, her
position among the gentry of Wales was one of
great distinction and commanding influence, but
her fame was a thing apart from the celebrity of
her husband, either as a generous landowner or a
great politician. Lord Llanover was
immensely popular for his own manifold qualities,
but his personality, great as it was, did not
eclipse the equally great personality, in Wales
at least, of Lady Llanover. So far back as fifty
years ago the name of Lady Hall, "Gwenynen
Gwent", [the Bee of Gwent] as she
then was known, was familiar throughout the
length and breadth of Wales, and revered to a
point almost of adoration for the intense
sympathy she manifested with all things
pertaining to Wales and the Welsh. At a time when
it was fashionable to sneer and snub Wales, its
people, its language, its literature, its
traditions, and its customs, she, although not of
Welsh parentage, raised her voice in vigourous
protest against the perpetuation of so suicidal a
policy, and carried her protest to the length of
instituting what was practically a crusade in
favour of rehabilitating the national customs of
the Cymry in popular estimation, and of calling
forth among the Welsh people themselves fresh
enthusiasm for all their national
characteristics. She soon came to be regarded as
a kind of living patron-saint of Welsh
literature; with her, enthusiasm for all things
Welsh became a passion, whose ardour continued
with but slight diminution to the day of her
death.
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