GWYN, FRANCIS (1648? - 1734), politician

son and heir of Edward Gwyn of Llansannor, Glamorganshire, and Eleanor, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Popham of Littlecott, Wiltshire, he was born at Combe Florey, Somerset, in 1648 or 1649. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 1 June 1666, aged seventeen, and became a student of the Middle Temple in 1667. He was called to the Bar but later forsook law for politics and between 1673 and 1727 he sat in fifteen parliaments representing several constituencies, including Cardiff, 1685-7. A Tory and an intimate friend of Rochester, he held important offices and was secretary at war, 1713-14. He was appointed chamberlain of Brecon, 15 October 1681. By his marriage with Margaret, third daughter of Edmund Prideaux, he acquired the Ford Abbey estates in Devon. He died at Ford Abbey 2 June 1734.

He was succeeded by a son, FRANCIS GWYN, who died childless, and on his decease the Llansannor property passed to ANTHONY GWYN, a cousin. After him the family of Gwyn, a branch of the Herberts, became extinct.

Author

• Walter Thomas Morgan, (1912 - 1990)

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• W. R. Williams, The parliamentary history of the principality of Wales, from the earliest times to the present day, 1541-1895 (Brecknock 1895)
• FosterAlumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford
• G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum Morganiae et Glamorganiae (1886)

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: Francis Gwyn

Additional Links

• VIAF: 58035152
• Wikidata: Q5481184

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-RUU/1.0/