Morriston

Mary Harris

Mary was the first of the adult children to die and she also produced the first grandchild - William Harris Taylor, born in 1861.  At that time Mary was living next door to her sister Jane in Tyrcenol Road.  The picture, left, is of Chemical Road where the Taylors later lived.

James Taylor, a tinplate shearer, made his will in 1913 and named his three sons as executors.  In 1920 he changed his will, nominating his nephew William Francis as executor instead and leaving trinkets to his three grandsons who served in WW1: William had a chain, David a clock, and Thomas a watch.
WILLIAM JANE MARY JOHN RODDA THOMAS EDWARD LAVINIA
David Taylor, born in 1885, was the first grandchild, the eldest great-grandchild of the Harrises.  He is a second cousin of my grandfather.  My grandfather (born 1925) was always told by his father never to work in the mines, and yet here is this cousin David who was a coalminer below ground in the 1901 census of Llandeilotalybont aged just fourteen.  He later served in WW1 and received a clock as a result from his grandfather.

My grandfather and his sister remember visiting the Jenkins family at their farm in Gorseinon.  On one occasion, their father, the coal factor, his vehicle pulled into the yard and ran over one of the Jenkinses chickens.  We had a photograph of the family but it wasn't till last year that the connection was made.  Maud Jenkins, wife of Will, was born in 1901 and died in 1994, the daughter of William Harris Taylor.

Only one descendant of the Taylors has been traced: Joyce, the daughter of Will and Maud Jenkins.  The youngest daughter Martha married a grocer, Charles Walker, who lived at Bishops Castle in Shropshire, and is thought to have left a family.

UPDATE: The author went on a tour of both South Wales and North Wales, and of the internet. I have resuscitated the Taylor tree, and photographs have been yielded. .