Welsh Journals

BIOGRAPHICA ET BIBLIOGRAPHICA IVOR JAMES (1840-1909; D.W.B., 423) A biographical note by Prys Morgan This note is merely an appendix to the biography of Ivor James, the first registrar of the University of Wales, by Sir William Llewelyn Davies in the Bywgraffiadur.1 A number of essential details about James' life have come to light since then, which help to make his career more comprehensible. Ivor Barnold Robert James, as he chose to call himself, was born plain 'Ivor James', on 21 September 1840, at the 'Britannia', in the little village of Rock, in the parish of Bedwellty, Monmouthshire. He was the son of Robert James, at that time a 'purveyor of beer' at the 'Britannia', and of his wife, Mary Arnold.2 It was through his mother that James later claimed to be a descendant of the Arnold family of Llanthony and Llan- fihangel Court.3 Robert James was not a native of these parts, nor was he to stay there long. Soon after 1850 he returned with his family to his native parish of Llansamlet, near Swansea, to be a schoolmaster. It was in Llansamlet that Ivor, his two brothers and one sister, were brought up.4 Robert was the son of Dafydd James, of Talchoba Ifan farm, between Llansamlet and Skewen, a staunch Congegationalist at Maes yr Haf chapel, Neath, for many years, though he ended his life a member of Bethel, Llan- samlet, where his son, Robert, was secretary from the 1850S to 1877.5 Robert James kept various small schools in the village, usually associated with the Anglican parish church and the owners of the local works or coal pits, such as the Smith family of Gwernllwynchwyth. These schools, in which Robert was helped by two young women, came to an end about 1872. Robert at some earlier stage of his varied career had lost one arm, but with the one arm he had left he beat the children mercilessly. When the School Boards came into being he left schoolmastering and took up another job. What is important is that although he was a Congregationalist, his work associated him strongly with the Anglicans of the village. One of his sons became an Anglican vicar, another a doctor; Ivor James became an Anglican, and intended a career in the law. The sister (later Mrs. Annie Stephens of Calcutta) was for a while a schoolmistress in Llansamlet.7 Like his brother, Ivor had at one time intentions of taking Anglican orders, but he went to London in the 1860's and tried his hand at journalism. Ivor, after some years as a journalist in London (during which time he cultivated his antiquarian tastes by studying documents at the British Museum and Public Record Office), went up to Cambridge in 1868 as a pensioner at Queen's College. He read law, and entered the Inner Temple in January 1873.8 Just after 1870 he returned to Swansea to practice as a lawyer, and he married (about the same time) Margaret Elborough Pruen, daughter of Dr. Henry Pruen, rector of Ashchurch, Gloucestershire. In the early 1870's at Swansea he soon became a keen enthusiast for establishing a university college in the town, and he also got to know the young Viriamu Jones, who in 1883 was to become the first principal of University College, Cardiff.9 Ivor lived at Bishopston, near Swansea, and two sons were born to him, Henry Pruen James, who lost his life in the great storms in the West Indies in 1899, and a younger one, John Arnold Ashmead Pruen James, born 1875, who, after serving as curate of Davenham, Cheshire, died at Bath, 1924. His wife, Margaret, died at Bishopston 1883. There is a memorial to the family in the nave of St. Teilo's parish church, Bishopston. He continued with his antiquarian interests there, and among his manuscripts at Aberystwyth are papers on the history of Bishopston, and the neighbouring village of Pennard.10 Ivor James' public career and his literary and antiquarian interests are well known. He was disappointed in 1883 when the university college was founded at Cardiff not