| Notes |
- Arthur Owen’s name suggests that his parents were admirers of the Welsh poet and Anglican clergyman Goronwy Owen (1723 - 1769), one of the 18th century's most notable figures in Welsh literature.
Arthur was born into a clergy family in 1875 two years after his parents’ marriage and was their first child. His father, an Oxford graduate born in Smethwick, Birmingham, was - or was soon to become - the vicar of St Paul’s, Castlechurch, in Stafford, a church originally built to serve the growing population in the Forebridge area south-east of the city centre and opened in 1844 with seats for 600. Arthur’s mother, Emily, was the daughter of a distinguished medical family. Her father, Dr John Greene, was a surgeon and she had eight siblings, one of whom, Anna, married her husband’s brother David Owen, the eminent ophthalmologist.
In 1881, at the age of 6, Arthur was living with his parents and younger brothers Lloyd, Hugh and Thorold (a Viking name) at St Paul’s Vicarage, a large, red-brick house adjacent to the church on what is now the Lichfield Road. It still stands and is, at the time of writing, the St John Ambulance training centre for Stafford.
By the time of the next census in 1891, at the age of just 16, Arthur can be found living in Shifnal, Shropshire, in the home of Richard and Catherine Bekenn. Catherine (née Greene) was one of his mother’s sisters and Richard, her German-born husband, was a mining engineer. That is why Arthur was there, as a teenage apprentice to his uncle.
Seven years later, in April 1898, Arthur married Minnie ‘Trissie’ Ford at the family church in Stafford, where his father conducted the wedding. Minnie was the eldest daughter and second child of a wealthy colliery owner and industrialist, Charles Ford, the son of a well-known Methodist preacher. He lived in some style at Rowley Hall in Stafford. The family home is now a private hospital. The scale of his financial success can be illustrated by the fact that, when he died in 1923, Charles left the equivalent of £10 million at 2025 values. We also know that, in his will, he gave Arthur the option to purchase the leasehold of his factory and fixtures in Queens Rd, Sheffield, so the relationship between Arthur and his father-in-law must have been at least cordial.
Children started to appear soon after the wedding. Arthur and Trissie’s first son, Arthur Vernon Owen, was born in 1899. It is obvious where the baby’s first name came from. His middle name, Vernon, was given in memory of Minnie’s mother’s younger brother Vernon Wright, born in Shanghai, who died or was killed at the age of 22. Minnie and every one of her four siblings were given ‘Vernon’ as one of their middle names.
Within two years, in 1901, Arthur and Minnie were living at 3 Park Road, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, 18 miles north of Arthur’s childhood home, right in the heart of the ‘Potteries’. He was describing himself at this point as a china manufacturer and employer. Stoke was the epicentre of his chosen industry. Josiah Wedgewood (1730-1795), the celebrated potter and founder of the Wedgwood company had established his business in Burslem, just down the road from the Owen’s home, 140 years earlier.
We do not know how Arthur found his way into the china business, but there is one very big clue. Ten years later, on the 1911 Census, his father-in-law, Charles Ford, described himself as a retired china manufacturer.
Financially, at this early stage, Arthur and Minnie were doing reasonably well. They had a cook and a nurse to help them look after young Arthur in Hanley.
1901 is also the year in which the couple’s second child was born, Charles Langley Owen, who would go on to become a doctor. Three more sons would follow in quick succession: Albon (1904), David (1907) and Tristram (1910).
By the time David was born, the family had moved to Dore, a village near Sheffield on the edge of the Peak District and not far from Chatsworth House. On the 1911 Census, when Tristram was one year old, Arthur gave his occupation as ‘manufacturer of domestic woodware and toys’. In a trade directory for the same year, he expanded this: ‘bread platter, electric table standard & toy manufacturer, gas & electric block maker’. He had clearly diversified from china manufacturing! Why had the family gone to Sheffield? It cannot be a coincidence that this is where Minnie’s father’s factory was. It seems likely that Arthur had gone into business with his father-in-law.
All seemed to be going smoothly, and then World War One intervened. Conscription in Britain during World War One began with the passing of the Military Service Act, which received royal assent on January 27, 1916. This Act made all single men and childless widowers between the ages of 18 and 41 liable for compulsory military service. It represented a major departure from Britain’s previous reliance on volunteer enlistment. Arthur, who was 41 in 1916, may or may not have waited to be forced into uniform. The facts are unclear.
There is a faded and therefore ambiguous document dated both 16 November 1915 and 28 August 1916 which shows Arthur Goronwy Owen, aged 40 years and 9 months, being recruited into the army. On it, he writes ‘Yes’ in response to the question, ‘Did you receive a Notice and do you understand its meaning, and who gave it to you?’ He may, therefore, have been forcibly conscripted. A later document dated 25 September 1920 confirms that Arthur served as a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps and was awarded the Victory Medal and the British War Medal. According to army records, he was 5’ 8” tall.
As for where he served, the only clue we have is a record of his initiation into the Freemasons while he was a Sergeant in the army. It is dated 12 July 1918 and places him in Bangalore, India, aged 43. He may therefore have been abroad on active service when his father died in 1917. Arthur resigned from the Freemasons less than two years later on 31 January 1920 (Membership registers 1910-1921 Colonial & Foreign K Lodges 2653 to 2873).
There are records indicating that the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), initially known as the Army Service Corps (ASC) during World War One, did send units to India, including Bangalore. The first ASC units were sent in May 1916, arriving in June 1916, to support logistical and supply operations during the war, particularly when it became clear that the Indian equivalent, the Supply and Transport Corps, was insufficient for the demands of campaigns such as Mesopotamia. Bangalore housed Army Service Corps units as part of the military cantonment, with the Corps responsible for the distribution of supplies, transportation, and maintenance of barracks.
By 1919, Arthur was back in Sheffield where a trade directory lists him as a bread platter manufacturer. Two years later, at the age of only 46, he had retired to Whydown, Bexhill-on-Sea with Minnie, who was by now 52. Sons Arthur (21) and Charles (19), both students, were living with them. On the 1921 Census, Arthur Senior gave his occupation as ‘toy manufacturer, retired’. To the many and varied skills to which he laid claim during his life, we must not neglect to add his entry on the 1939 National Registration, where he appears as a ‘mechanical engineer, retired’.
We don’t know much about how Arthur and Minnie filled their time during their retirement on the sunny south coast of England, but they do appear to have had fun. There are records of two cruises, both in 1932. In the Spring, they visited the Caribbean (Kingston, Veracruz, Havana, the Azores) on a ship called the ‘Atlantis’. At the end of that same year, they travelled on the ‘Antenor’ from Liverpool to Marseilles, Port Said, Colombo, the Strait of Malacca (Malaysia/Thailand) and China. On both cruises, they travelled first class.
Arthur Goronwy Owen of 12 Richmond Road, Bexhill died on 1 March 1944 at The Bexhill Hospital. His estate was worth £9,544, the equivalent of £541,000 in 2025.
Of his five sons, we know that Arthur became a solicitor in London, Charles a doctor, Albon a naval officer (at least during the Second World War), David a chartered civil engineer and Tristram a barrister. David married the niece of the Right Reverend Geoffrey Fisher, the 99th Archibishop of Canterbury.
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1875 - 1944 (69 years)
Census
