Does anyone know, or know where to find out the extent of Welsh-speaking communities in North Shropshire in the 17th and 18th centuries? My ancestors there all had Welsh names, ie Jones, Williams, Lloyd and Morgan. Only a couple of them came from Wales after 1800, and most of them were already in Shropshire before that date, in and around Ruyton, Baschurch, Shotatton, Loppington, Welshampton and Worthen.
I'll never really know who was the last Welsh speaker in my family but I would be interested to know more.
Thanks for any help
Mike (Jones)
Hello Mike,
Looking at my own family on the Census for Wales for the years 1891/1901 and 1911 the section on the extreme right hand side asks for the language spoken. They lived in and around Ruabon, Denbighshire in those years and spoke both Welsh and English. They were mostly mining families and had worked at some time in the late 1800's in Lancashire and in Staffordshire in the coal fields. I assume they would have had to speak English to get those jobs. There is no language question on the 1881 Wales census.
In the same area in the 1950's there was a marked use of Welsh (and still is by some including my own family) in the Ruabon area of Denbighshire but having been born and brought up in the Oswestry /Wem area of Shropshire, I don't recall much Welsh being spoken generally.
If any of your family is on the Welsh census rather than the English one it may give you some clues. If you don't know the area there is no great distance between Ruabon and Oswestry, possibly 15 miles.
Hazel
Another thought, Mike. The English census is only interested in whether you are a lunatic etc. not what language you speak! Hazel
It's a shame that the language question was confined to the Welsh census - it would have been fascinating to track the number of Welsh speakers in the border counties over time.
My great great grandparents moved to NE England in the 1860s. Their birth places were Shropshire and Staffordshire, and yet they were both Welsh speaking. I was told the story that my great grandfather who was raised to speak only English, always new that his parents should be avoided...if they were speaking together in Welsh.
On the census when they were living in Staffordshire, their birth places were given correctly, but on the census after they moved to Gateshead, the enumerator appears to have not asked them where they were born, and presumed that it was Wales.
My Grandmother Alice Simmons was born in Edgmond. She spoke Welsh as well as English. She died in 1968.
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My mum lived in the Candy valley, nr. Oswestry. I am not sure what parish their particular house was in, either Llansilin (part in England), Trefonen or Oswestry. She said there was on family that lived at a house called Henblas, that spoke Welsh and had a strong Welsh accent. This was in the 1960s-70s.
The parishes in Denbighshire were very Welsh, my gt-gt-gt-grandfather, who was born in 1833, nr. Llansilin, and died in 1907, only spoke Welsh. His son, born in 1876, spoke both Welsh and English; and the son's wife spoke English, Welsh & Scotch!
Anywhere in Denbighshire on the English border will have has Welsh speakers all through the 19th C. However, as you traverse down the west of Shropshire, you will find much lower levels of Welsh language in the 19th C. - This is Montgomeryshire.
As for places to the east of Oswestry, I don't think there will have been much Welsh use. Though I don't have any evidence. It is my understanding that the use of Welsh in this area will have ended i the period 1534-1600s.