Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

IN CEREDIGION, 1951, Mr. David Jenkins published a petition of 12 June 1826 from the inhabitants of the Hundred of liar relating to the controversy between the inhabitants and an Englishman named Augustus Brackenbury. In the next number Professor David Williams gave a detailed account of the enclosure disturbances connected with Brackenbury, and expressed the hope that his article would stimulate further research into the subject.1 Whilst working at the Public Record Office the present writer discovered, amongst the Home Office papers, a long and valuable letter from Brackenbury to Lord Viscount Sidmouth. The value of the letter lies not only in that it supplements Professor Williams's article, but also in that its writer refers to enclosure disturbances in Cardigan- shire before 1820. From 1815 violent opposition to the enclosure Acts of 181 22 and 18153 was fairly common. Large-scale rioting broke out the commissioners working under the Acts were threatened ;4 and soldiers had to be called in to aid the civil power. The attacks on Brackenbury were, therefore, part of the long and violent resistance of the Cardiganshire peasantry to all enclosures. The letter is also valuable in that it shows that the attacks on Brackenbury were even more frequent than is stated in Professor Williams's article. They continued after the attack on his house on the night of 1 1 July 1820, into the autumn of that year, and into the first half of 1821. In the spring of 182 1, however, Brackenbury seemed at last to have had an opportunity of revenge, but his hopes were dashed. With some justification he could write of himself as an example in the 19th Century of a Subject of this Realm, without the means of prevent- ion or redress, deprived of a valuable Property by open and lawless force.' DAVID J. V. JONES Llansantffraid, Mont. 11 Rhyfel y Sais Bach', CEREDIGION, Vol. II (1952). 252 George III, c. 61. 355 George III, c. 81. 4Public Record Office. Home Office Letters and Papers. H.O. 42/145. Copies of the Depositions of John Hughes and William Vaughan, 18 July 1815. sH.O. 42/149. Letter from A. Thomas Jones Gwynne, 28 April 1816.