Ivy Cottage in Buttington, Louisa Lloyd’s family home. The boy on the horse is her nephew Derwent Lloyd, b1893
The Lloyd family of Wrockwardine
The connection
Will is descended from the Lloyds via Louisa Lavinia Lloyd 1849-1922, his paternal great grandmother. We have traced this line to John Hughes b1767.
The name
Lloyd is a Welsh first name and surname. It comes from ‘llwyd’, the Welsh for 'grey’. Anyone who has been to Blaenau Ffestiniog in the rain will know how many shades of grey there are.
Louisa Lloyd, right, with a friend. It is good to see ancestors of this vintage in non-staged snapshots – yes, they did smile.
Louisa’s daughter Gertrude b1878 with husband Harry Phillips. Their descendants include the Phillips, Foden and Mumford families
Odds and ends
In 1851, the Lloyds (including Louisa, aged 1) were living in New Village, Bilston, Staffs, where 2x gt grandfather Thomas Lloyd was an iron worker. The town had an ironworks as well as a coalmine and a limestone quarry. Public health was dreadful. Read more in The Lloyd Story.
• It is always worth following every branch of the family when doing research. According to the 1881 census. 2x gt grandmother Martha Hughes b1812 was born at Shrewsbury Old Abbey. Previously she had said she was born in Wrockwardine. Which is right, we wonder.
Highlights
Louisa had two long-term relationships. She married William Richardson in 1870. We have been unable to find a marriage to Henry Prossor: the connection could have been a common-law one.
• Louisa had two girls, Amelia and Gertrude, before meeting Henry Prossor. Amelia was the daughter of William Richardson, Louisa's first husband but there is doubt over the identity of Gertrude’s father. Louisa had five children by Henry: Henry, Herbert, Frank, Marie and Charles.
• What goes around comes around. In the 2000s, Will’s nephew’s work took him to Telford and his children went to school in Wrockwardine, where Louisa had been born 150 years earlier.
The detail
Want to know more about the Lloyds? We’ve put together this family history file.
Louisa, above, and Henry Prossor let out their spare rooms at 34 Kensington, Liverpool. The lodgers included a Mr McManus, a salesman who pinned up his contact cards next to the lavatory.
Will puzzled for years over the identity of this woman, Florence Lewthwaite, whose snap was in the family photo box. It turned out she was the granddaughter of Louisa via Amelia, her daughter by her first marriage
A letter from Annie Lloyd, dated 1916. Old correspondence is invaluable to place people in your tree – and it is interesting in its own right. This one talks about Derwent Lloyd joining the Royal Naval Air Service