LAWS, EDWARD (1837 - 1913), historian of Pembrokeshire,

was the eldest son of admiral John Milligen Laws (born 1799) of Marchfield House, Binfield, Berks., and Mary (1815 - 1899), daughter of Charles Delamotte Mathias (1777 - 1851), of Lamphey Court and Llangwaran, Pembrokeshire. His parents were married on 25 June 1836 and he was born on 17 April 1837 and christened in Lamphey church on 4 July. He was educated at Rugby and Wadham College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 28 May 1856. His wife, who died on 8 May 1897, was Georgina Elizabeth Laws, eldest daughter of the Rev. W. Nantes of Frome Vowchurch, Dorset. For some years he held a commission in the 35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment, before settling at Tenby where he was a notable public figure for half a century. He was a member of the town Council (1897) and mayor of the borough (1900), a J.P. for the county of Pembroke, and chairman for a long period of the Tenby bench. In 1899 he was high sheriff of Pembrokeshire. He devoted much of the ample leisure, which he enjoyed as a gentleman of means, to the study of the history and archaeology of Pembrokeshire. His chief works are the county history, Little England beyond Wales, 1880; Church Book of St. Mary the Virgin, Tenby, 1907; in collaboration with his adopted daughter Emily Hewlett Edwards, A Short History of the Civil War as it affected Tenby and its neighbourhood, 1887, and a number of articles in Archæologia Cambrensis, 1882-1906. With assistance from Henry Owen (1844 - 1919), before the work was completed, he produced an ‘Archaeological Survey of Pembrokeshire,’ 1908. He died 25 July 1913 after an accident while driving his horse and trap, and left one son, Edward Lucian Laws.

Author

• Dr Bertie George Charles, (1908 - 2000)

Sources

• The Tenby Observer, May 1897, 31 July, 18 September 1913;
• The Guardian (Pembs.), 1 August 1913;
• Church book of St. Mary the Virgin, Tenby (Tenby 1907), 93;
• Burke's Landed Gentry, s.n. Mathias;
• William R. O'Byrne, A Naval Biographical Dictionary. Comprising the life and services of every living officer in Her Majesty's Navy, from the rank of Admiral of the Fleet to that of Lieutenant, inclusive. Compiled from authentic and family documents (London 1849), 1849;
• Foster, Alumni Oxonienses

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20732961

Published date: 1959

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