LLOYD, Sir JOHN CONWAY (1878 - 1954), public figure

Born 18 April 1878, in Dinas Mansion, Brecknockshire, the only son of Thomas Conway Lloyd and his wife Katherine Eliza Campbell-Davys of Neuadd-Fawr, near Llandovery. His mother died when he was only four years old and he lost his father in 1893. He was educated at Broadstairs School, Eton, and Christ Church, Oxford. On a journey to the continent in 1899, he met Marion Clive Jenkins at Florence and married her at Farnborough on 17 February 1903. They had three sons and two daughters. In the autumn of 1903, they settled at his old home, Dinas, and he began to take part in the public life of Brecknockshire. He was a J.P. from 1900 and chairman of the Quarter Sessions in 1934; a member of Brecon Town Council from 1909; and a member of the County Council from 1913. He was made sheriff of Breconshire in 1906 and he was knighted in 1938. He began to take an interest in the militia during 1909. He was promoted to the rank of captain in the 3rd Regiment of the South Wales Borderers in April 1914 and he went, at the beginning of 1915, to France. He was wounded in May and was awarded the Military Cross. In 1919, he was appointed deputy provost marshal, with the rank of colonel, in the Army on the Rhine. Within a short time, he was able to resume life at Dinas, but he had to leave when the house was requisitioned by the Army in 1941 and he moved to Abercynrig.

He represented the County Council on several public bodies, e.g. the courts of the National Museum and the university colleges in Aberystwyth and Cardiff. He was a member of several committees and he was appointed chairman of the county Education Committee in 1950. He worked hard in 1936 to persuade the government to classify the A40 road as a trunk road. In 1946, he sought, without success, to maintain the separate identity of the Brecknock Constabulary; when it had been united with the Montgomeryshire and the Radnorshire constabularies, Lloyd became chairman of the new body until 1953. During World War II, he was a conscientious controller of the Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) in his county. Despite his English education, he developed a considerable interest in the history of his county and he tried to form an antiquarian society in 1924. At the time, he failed to obtain sufficient support and, in its place, a museum was established. When the funds proved insufficient to convert the English Congregational chapel in order to display the exhibits, he persuaded Lord Buckland to donate £300 for the completion of the work as well as an annual donation for 7 years to help with the running costs. Lloyd was made secretary of the Museum and he obtained many items for the collection. He established the campaign to restore the historic buildings at Tretower. In 1952, he prevailed upon the County Council to raise a more worthy monument to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd at Cefn-y-bedd than the one raised fifty years previously by S.P.M. Bligh, but he did not live to see the unveiling of the monument in 1956.

He died 30 May 1954; his remains were cremated and the ashes were buried in the grave, at Mailleraye-sur-Seine, of his youngest son, John Richard, who lost his life when his aeroplane was shot down near Rouen on 22 June 1940. He lost his eldest son, Thomas Clive Conway, on board the Thetis on 2 June 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the war.

Author

• Evan David Jones, (1903 - 1987)

Sources

• Brycheiniog, 1 (1955), 7-8; 4 (1958), 1-52

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20748856

Published date: 2001

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