There’s little sign that 86 year old David Owen is winding down. The man who was Foreign Secretary in James Callaghan’s Labour government and who then went on to be a founder of the SDP party will be 87 in a few weeks time.  Yes, he retired from a House of Lords last year but is still a prolific writer and gives regular radio interviews offering his opinions on modern politics.  

It wasn’t my intention to research David Owen and his Cardiff connections.  It was rather an accident. My attention had drawn recently to an unusual grave headstone at Cathays Cemetery.  It is unusual in it’s design.  Cathays Cemetery, the third largest Victorian in the country, still contains many examples of elaborate headstones despite a harsh clearance scheme that took place in the 1960/70s aiming to make cemetery maintenance easier.  There are still examples of Celtic crosses, obelisks, pedestals with urns, angels, broken columns signifying a life cut short and a couple of polished granite globes.  There is however only one example of a sword and belt draped around a cross.  It is the headstone of Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen.

Even this elaborately carved headstone may have suffered as a result of the clearance scheme.  Comparing the present headstone with a historical picture shows the kerbing is no longer present and the headstone itself is lower than it originally was.  Maybe this was as a result of the clearance scheme or just sinkage into the ground.  The elaborate sword and belt carving and cross too has suffered some damage over time.  The sword’s hilt is sadly no longer present.

Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen it turns out was Lord David Owen’s grandfather.  Not that David Owen ever knew his grandfather sadly.  Lieutenant Owen died during WWI as a result of an accident.

Having found that connection I did some research and ordered David Owen’s biography ‘Time to Declare’ (1991).  David Owen was born in Devon in 1938 but has a lot of Welsh blood in him.  His biography details how he spent time in South Wales when his father was away involved in WWII.  My intention here isn’t to repeat all his South Wales family history but to tease out his interesting connections to us here in Cardiff, starting with his grandfather. 

Lieutenant John Aubrey Owen (1876-1917) – Grandfather

John Aubrey Owen was born on 12 Jun 1878 at at 14 Park Street, Temperance Town, Cardiff to William Frank Owen, a coal merchant, originally from Cardiff and Selina Maud Owen nèe Rees originally from Bridgend, Glamorgan.  By 1881 the family were living at 9 Crwys Road, Cathays, which is now a hairdressers.  He was baptized on 18 Mar 1885 at St Augustine, Panarth and in 1891 the Owen family were living at 24 Pembroke Terrace, Penarth.  John joined the merchant navy as a boy sailor at the age of 16, working on the four masted ships sailing out of Cardiff docks.  In the 1891 census he is recorded as living at 10 Belle View Terrace, Penarth, aged 22, and a sailor. 

On 8 Nov 1905 John married Gwendoline Mary Morris, the daughter of a Congregational minister.  They may well have met each other as teenagers when they both lived on Pembroke Terrace, Penarth.  After getting married they settled in Cwmgwrach, in the upper Neath Valley and had two sons.

John’s career soon progressed in the merchant navy, gaining his First Mate’s certificate in 1905 and then his Master’s certificate in 1907.  John was employed by Messrs Evan Thomas Radcliffe and Co, Cardiff, one of the more prosperous and better-known of Cardiff-based shipowning companies.   John had had been in command of three of their steamers by the time the First World War arrived where he served in the Royal Naval Reserve and was made a temporary lieutenant in February 1917.  He served on H.M. Trawler ‘John Pollard’.  He however sadly died from a fractured skull on 27 Oct 1917, after falling from the upper deck of his vessel into the stoke hold, while the ship was docked in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.  He was aged 39.  He is buried in Cathays Cemetery (grave S 509A).  Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.

David Lewis (1797-1860)  G-G-G-Grandfather – Mayor of Cardiff

Researching the Owen family history is made a lot easier, not only by David Owen’s autobiography, but by there being a very comprehensive family tree on Ancestry put together by another Owen family member.   In that family tree it details the life of David Lewis (1797-1860).  He married Margaret Aubrey, which is where the Aubrey name passed down through the family comes from.  In 1841 he lived on Quay Street, Cardiff.

His lengthy obituary in the newspaper in 1860 details how he was a victualler, landlord of the Ship and Dolphin in Church Street, and afterwards became Master of the Ship on Launch, in Quay Street which was the favorite resort of the Cardiganshire seamen when they visited Cardiff.  He also speculated in coal and had a rope making business and donated money to the Wesleyan Chapel in Charles Street.  In 1854 he was Mayor of Cardiff.  He is buried at Llandaff Cathedral.

Alderman William Llewellyn (1850- 1923) – Maternal G-Grandfather

William Llewellyn was both a liberal politician and shopkeeper.  David Owen writes that ‘Alderman William Llewellyn, was chairman of Glamorgan County Council and chairman of the Bridgend Bench of Magistrates.  A staunch Liberal, he was a moving spirit in first the Mid-Glamorgan then the Ogmore Divisional Liberal and Labour Party, of which he also became chairman.  He had started life as a grocer and provision merchant in Ogmore, having moved there from Llantrisant. Over the years The Gwalia, as his shop was called, grew until it was described as `a mecca of the valley and neighbourhood’.  The shop used to be in Ogmore Vale but has been moved and many of you will have been there.  Gwalia Stores closed in Ogmore Vale in 1973 but was then moved and rebuilt at St Fagans National Museum of History in 1991.  The ground floor is set up as it would have been during the 1920s.

Dr Edgar Llewellyn (1890-1964) – G-uncle

Alderman William Llewellyn had eight children, or more accurately his wife Mary did.  One was George ‘Gear’ Morgan Llewellyn (1877-1951), David Owen’s maternal grandfather.  He was a blind church minister and lived at Llandow in the Vale of Glamorgan and a big influence on David Owen’s life.  David spent time living there as a child when his father was away in WWII.

Another son of Alderman William Llewellyn was Dr Edgar Llewellyn and it is he that has connections with our area.  He became a GP in Splott and had his surgery on Splott Road. He was Cardiff Commissioner of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade and the works’ doctor at Guest Keen steel works, and also became a Cardiff Councillor. 

In his autobiography David Owen recalls the following:

The brother whose career most closely paralleled my own was Edgar. He was a family doctor in Splott which is an area of Cardiff dominated by the steel-works.  He was a great character and adored by his patients His unique way of sorting out their ailments was, according to my mother, to go into his surgery and announce, “Those buggers who are ill can move to the right-hand side of the room and be seen now: those who are not can wait on the left and see me later or chance their luck tomorrow.’  After the war he became infuriated by the politicians on the City Council and so decided to join his wife who was already a Ratepayer Councillor. He was elected in 1951. A photograph of him in a pony and trap, bedecked in a massive rosette, electioneering shows the first combination of doctor-politician in the family’s history. His wife Jenny, who had first stood and won as a Ratepayer in 1946, was a strikingly good looking woman and a considerable character.  She was the first person in eighteen years to beat the Labour candidate in her Ward. She stood again in 1949 and won and then lost her seat three years later. The wish to be an independent in local government and to stand against party politics was later mirrored by my mother and, some will say, by me too.

‘

What started as a bit of research into the grave of John Aubrey Owen at Cathays Cemetery turned up many interesting stories about the history of Cardiff. Fascinating stuff is histoy.