CORBETT
,
JOHN STUART
(
1845
-
1921
),
solicitor and antiquary
;
b.
16 May 1845
, eldest son of
John Stuart
Corbett
and
Elizabeth
, daughter of
James
Evans
of
Gortha (Rads.)
; the father had come to
Cardiff
in
1841
as
agent to his relative
, the
2nd marquis of Bute
. He was educated at
Cheltenham
, admitted a
solicitor
in
1867
, and practised in partnership in
Cardiff
; he held the office of
clerk
to the
Llandaff bench of magistrates
. In
1872
he m.
Blanche
, the elder daughter of
James Williams
Evans
,
vicar
of
Costessey
, near
Norwich
, the son of a former
rector
of
Llandough
, near
Cardiff
. In
1890
, on the death of his brother
James Andrew
Corbett
(
infra
), he was appointed
solicitor
to the
Bute estate
; he held that position until his retirement in
1917
. His tenure of the office coincided with the period of greatest prosperity in the
South Wales
coalfield, and with ‘
the war of the railways
,’ when the
Bute estates
were managed by that dominating personality,
William Thomas
Lewis
, the
1st lord Merthyr
(q.v.)
.
Corbett
's chief recreations were
painting
and
gardening
, but after
1890
he devoted much of his leisure to
historical studies
, chiefly on the lordship of
Glamorgan
(collected under the title
Glamorgan
and published, with a memoir, in
1925
); those
historians
who have studied the same subject acknowledge the care and accuracy of his work. He d.
9 March 1921
.
His brother
James Andrew
Corbett
, (
1846
-
1890
), who preceded him as
solicitor
to the
Bute estate
, was responsible for a careful edition,
1887
, of the
Booke of Glamorganshire's Antiquities
by
Rice
Merrick
(
Rhys
Meurug
, q.v.)
.
Bibliography:
-
Cardiff Records
, 1898–1911
;
-
J. S. Corbett
,
Glamorgan Papers and Notes on the Lordship
and its members
, 1925
.
Author:
Henry John Randall, F.S.A., (1877-1964), Bridgend
