OWEN
,
EDWARD
(
1853
-
1943
),
journalist, barrister, and antiquary
;
b. at
Menai Bridge
,
Anglesey
,
9 Mar. 1853
, only son of
Edward
and
Sarah
Owen
, a former
deputy chief constable
of
Anglesey
, he was educated locally, and at a private seminary in
Dublin
. He was the first
Welshman
to enter the
Civil Service
by public examination and was appointed to the
India Office
c.
1873
, where he remained until his retirement in
1913
. During his stay of over sixty years in
London
, he spent almost all his leisure evenings working in the
British Museum
and the
Public Records Office
. He contributed regularly to the
Trans. Hon. Cymm. Soc.
and
Arch. Camb.
; the former society published his
Catalogue of the MSS. relating to Wales in the British Museum.
, Parts I-IV. In
1896
, his work on changes in land tenure in mediaeval
Wales
appeared as an Appendix to the
Royal Commission
's
Report on Land in Wales
, followed by the publication (
1910
) of
Ancient tenures of land in North Wales and the Marches
jointly with
A.N.
Palmer
(
DWB
, 727-8)
of
Wrexham
. When the
Royal Commission on the Ancient Monuments of Wales
was established in
1908
, he became its first
secretary
and
editor
of its volumes and inventories, and continued as such until about
1927
. He was
Reader in Welsh Mediaeval Antiquities
at the
University of Liverpool
(
1921-43
),
hon. M.A.
1921
; and he received the
Cymmr. Medal
in
1923
. He d.
8 Nov. 1943
aged 91 and was buried three days later in
St. Seiriol
's Churchyard,
Holyhead
, where his first wife and young daughter had been buried many years before.
Bibliography:
-
Transactions of the Anglesey Antiquarian
Society and Field Club
,
1943
, 19-20;
-
Western Mail
,
11 Nov. 1943
;
-
Who's who in Wales
(1921)
.
Author:
Hugh Owen, M.A., F.S.A., (1880-1953), Llanfair-pwll, Anglesey
