Agnes Davies - Hotelier and matriarch

Radnorshire Prices and Davies'

 

research incorporating the surnames Arthur, Beaumont, Bound, Drew, Evans, Hope, Ingram, Jones, lewis, Lloyd-Jones across Radnorshire and Breconshire

 

Radnorshire no longer exists, having been incorporated into the new county of Powys in 1974

 

The two proud Radnorshire families of Price and Davies were united by the marriage of James Percy DAVIES and Emmeline Mildred PRICE in 1922 at the Bethania Chapel in Elan Village.

 

The Prices in particular were distantly connected to what were called 'people of note' including many leading landowning families such as the Olivers of Rhydolog, and the Lewis-Lloyds of Nantgwilt. Sadly by the 1920's these associations were a thing of the past. Millie's parents were RB Price from a farming family at Aberceithon and Fanny Laura Drew from the Llanbadarn Fawr area. She has an ancestor named Zophar Drew who was a Carpenter who lived at Woodhouse.

 

The Davies' were of more modest stock. James' mother Agnes Maria DAVIES owned and ran the Elan Valley Hotel and before that a hotel in Llandrindod Wells with her husband Rhys James DAVIES who sadly died at a young age. Her father had been one of the first policemen in the county, hailing from Llanbadarn Fynedd. One of Agnes' brothers Arthur Grant DAVIES emigrated to Canada and became a mayor of Strathcona, overseeing its incorporation into the City of Edmonton.

 

James Percy Davies was in Canada visiting cousins at the outbreak of the First World War. He enlisted with Canadian forces and left Canada for the Western Front. Canadian records provide a treasure trove of information - in Percy's case even a copy of the X-ray taken following a shrapnel wound.