Welsh Journals

KILDARE STUCLEY MEAGER (1894-1964) CERAMICS CONNOISSEUR AND SCHOLAR JOHN OWEN WILSTEAD Meager is a well-known name in Swansea. However, the family can trace its ancestry back to Bodmin, Cornwall in the eighteenth century. It was here that William Meager was born in 1768. He grew up to become a ship's carpenter. He worked at the Devonport dockyard, and in 1811-12 decided to emigrate to America. Hardly had the voyage commenced, when Meager's ship was forced into Milford Haven for repair of storm damage. While he was there, William heard of an opportunity to join a Mr. Edmund Richards in a small ship repairing business in Swansea. A partnership was established, and their yard was called the Globe Dry Dock. William Meager prospered, and after his death, George and William, two of his sons continued the business. In 1851, the brothers built another dry dock called the Phoenix dock, situated off the Strand, just east of the Pottery bridge. One of the children of George Meager was David Villiers Meager who was born in 1859. He became a distinguished barrister-at-law, and practiced on the South Wales circuit. He was also adopted as the Conservative candidate for Swansea West in the General election of 1910. Villiers Meager married Mary Mildred Edwina Stucley Lucas, who was a member of a prominent Devonshire and West Wales family. They had two sons, George Francis Villiers, and Kildare Stucley, and one daughter, Kathleen Mildred, who married the Rev. Latimer Davies, Vicar of Oxwich, and later Rector of Ilston and Pennard. Kildare Meager was born at Swansea in January 1894. He was educated at Cheltenham, and was articled to his profession just before 1914 with a firm of architects at Conduit Street, London. With the outbreak of war in August 1914, Kildare joined the colours, and was commissioned as a junior subaltern in a Cavalry regiment. He served in France, but later was invalided out of the forces on medical grounds. He returned to his old firm to complete his articles and qualified as an architect. He practiced his profession for many years at chambers in Heathfield Street, Swansea. Kildare Meager married his first cousin, Gladys (née Lucas) in February 1930, and their only child Margaret was born in 1933. At the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, Kildare Meager once again returned to the Army, and was commissioned into The Welch Regiment on home service, where he was awarded the M.B.E., military division. In the post-war years,