Welsh Journals

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In 1946 Herbert was living at Plas Wigwam, Cwmsymlog, where, according to the Welsh Gazette, 'At Christmastide he extends warm hospitality to the Carol-singers in the grand old style of his ancestors at Gogerddan'.108 Two years later, at the age of seventy-six, he begged his brother George, who was now life-tenant of Gogerddan, to allow him to rent Royal Oak as he intended to sell Plas Wigwam, 'being too lonely and very sick'.109 He died shortly afterwards and was laid to rest in the churchyard at Penrhyncoch. (e) John Pryse Howell Lovedon Pryse, son of Sir Lewes Pryse (1864-1946) John Pryse Howell Lovedon (Jack) Pryse (b. 1897), the son of Sir Lewes Pryse, lived a highly colourful life. He was married in 1918 to the widow of Oscar Wilde's eldest son, Major C. S. Holland, with whom, it is averred, he made a living by 'card-sharping' on ocean-going liners plying to South American ports. After the termination of his marriage in 1922, he lived for some time in Park Lane with a young man from the Gogerddan estate. Being unable to pay their accommodation bills, in 1923, Jack and his companion fled to a cottage at Cwmsymlog in the mountains to the east of Aberystwyth. Shortly afterwards, Jack procured a pack of beagles from Captain Otho Paget for which he was unable to pay. In order to help him out of this embarrassing predicament, Major Herbert Lloyd-Johnes of the Pembrokeshire Yeomanry, together with other Yeomanry officers and several local farmers, agreed to take over the pack of which Jack was to be huntsman. Jack, however, was infuriated when the consortium refused to pay him for the hounds for which he, of course, had not paid a single penny. One Saturday evening in September, Lloyd-Johnes and two friends called upon Jack to discuss the matter. Upon arrival they were given whisky, after a glass of which the three men were virtually immobilised. They revived at 4.00 a.m., Jack Pryse's wish to throw them in the nearby river having been frustrated by his young companion's refusal to help, and managed to return to Aberystwyth some hours later when the local inhabitants were dutifully making their respective ways to chapel and church. It transpired later, after one of the victims had been hospitalised for three weeks, that the whisky had been drugged with morphine. Shortly afterwards, Jack and his companion fled the country on the proceeds of the Talybont Flower Show, spending the next ten years travelling in Belgium and Spain, in both of which countries Jack was imprisoned for fraud on various occasions. Jack Pryse died in Spain in 1934, his remains being returned to England for burial in the cemetery at Tenby.110 108 Welsh Gazette, 31 October 1946. 10* Herbert Pryse to G. R. Pryse-Saunders, 31 July 1948 (N.L.W., T. G. G. Herbert MSS., un-numbered). 110 Mrs. F. Loxdale, grand-daughter of Sir Pryse Pryse, is not convinced that the body interred at Tenby was that of J. P. H. L. Pryse (Personal communication: Mrs. F. Loxdale). A full transcript of the 'morphine affair' was placed by Major Lloyd-Johnes in the hands of Mr. David Jenkins, Librarian of the National Library of Wales, to whom I am grateful for allowing me to see it.