PARRY (and JONES-PARRY) family, Madryn, Llŷn.

Madryn was not the original home of the Parrys. The first of the family in Wales was GEOFFREY PARRY (died 24 April 1658), an officer in the Parliamentary army, a zealous Puritan who hailed from Paston in Salop, and married one of the daughters of Cefn Llanfair in Llŷn (J. E. Griffith, Pedigrees, 224); their son was the first LOVE PARRY (1654 - 1707) - there were as many as six of the name in the family descent - a great Churchman and benefactor of the church of Llanbedrog.

It was his grandson, the third LOVE PARRY (1720 - 1778), who brought Madryn to the family, and moved there to live, by his marriage with Sidney, great-granddaughter of Jane, sister of Owen Hughes, the rich Beaumaris attorney who had bought Madryn from William Madryn, the last of the old family (see article Madryn). Their son, another Love, did not grow to man's estate, and in 1780 his sister Margaret married her cousin THOMAS PARRY JONES -PARRY (1762 - 1835) of Llwyn Onn, near Wrexham. This gentleman brought new life to Madryn by his comprehensive care and his wide-awake business methods; he was at the head of the movement, helped by his ambitious fellow brother-in-law G. Ll. Wardle, to build a road from Portinllaen to the Traeth Mawr, and of the unsuccessful effort to make Portinllaen into a packet-station for Dublin.

His son was Sir LOVE JONES -PARRY (1781 - 1853), 'old Sir Love,' Member of Parliament for Caernarvon Boroughs in 1837 and chairman of quarter sessions for years.

His son was

SIR THOMAS LOVE DUNCOMBE JONES-PARRY (1832 - 1891), M.P.

Born 6 January 1832. He came into great prominence in 1868 when, as a Liberal, he captured the Caernarvonshire seat from the sitting member, the son of the 1st lord Penrhyn; in 1874 he lost the seat to him; in 1882 he was elected Member of Parliament for the boroughs, and again in 1885, but lost in July 1886. Already in that year he had suffered another disappointment, by being passed over by Gladstone in appointing a lord-lieutenant of the county, a disappointment not altogether assuaged by his being made a baronet. He was neither a fluent speaker nor an expert politician, but he had a store of common sense and a broad homely wit, examples of which are commonly quoted when Llŷn men gather together. His interests were somewhat more varied than those of the ordinary squire; he had a bardic name, he was very friendly with the poet Talhaiarn; he had a good deal to do with preparing the way for the Welsh settlement in Patagonia; and he had a very high regard for Joseph Morris, a respected Independent preacher and foreman of the workmen on the Madryn estate. Sir Love died on 18 December 1891.

Author

Published date: 1959

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

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