Griffith family, of Carreglwyd and Berw.

Family

Griffith family, of Carreglwyd and Berw.

The ancestors of the Griffith family of Carreg-lwyd had been settled in Anglesey since at least the fourteenth century, when Gwilym ap Gruffydd of Penrhyn in the parish of Llandygai, Caernarfonshire, and sheriff of Anglesey in 1396, married Morfydd, daughter and heir of Grono Fychan of Penmynydd (d. 1382). William Griffith Fychan, their son, and chamberlain of North Wales in 1440, was the first to use Griffith as a surname. William Griffith (1515-87), rector of Llanfaethlu, Anglesey, purchased the Ty'n-y-pant estate for £700 which was later renamed Carreg-lwyd.

John Griffith of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, and Carreg-lwyd, Anglesey, William's son, was secretary to Henry Howard, 1st earl of Northampton (1540-1614), and added much to the Carreg-lwyd estate. Another John Griffith (c. 1732-1776) married Mary (c. 1727-1799), daughter and heir of Richard Trygarn, Caernarfonshire, bringing the Berw and Trygarn estates to the family.

In 1838 Richard Trygarn Griffith (c. 1788-1866) of Carreg-lwyd and Berw married Emma Mary (d. 1899), daughter of Captain Digby Thomas Carpenter of Hawke House, Sunbury. The marriage produced an only daughter, Maria Emma Elizabeth Conway Griffith (1840-1917). In 1880, she married Sir Chandos Stanhope Hoskyns Reade, 7th baronet, but died childless, and was succeeded in the Carreg-lwyd and Berw estates by her cousin, Major Frederick Carpenter (1851-1937). He died without surviving issue, and was succeeded by his nephew, Major Frederick Noël Carpenter (b. 1881).