| Description | Probably the most interesting in the whole collection. Firstly they settle why Williams Evans the father and Charles the son are often described as "of Vaenol" - they were agents to the interests of the Allanson and his assigns to whom a substantial annuity of about £550 was charged upon the Vaenol estate rents in the complicated will of Sir William Williams in 1695. It is indeed difficult to know exactly what were the dividing lines between the claims of the Allanson, the Wrey family (Sir Bouchier W. and others), and the Smiths who eventually succeeded to the estate. However, Charles Evans is incorrect in saying that on the death of Chichester Wrey about 1756 the interest of Charles Allanson in the estate was also determined; for as late as 1836 (see Vaenol rental of that year, Bangor 5302) at least £510 of the Vaenol rental was paid to [the second] Lord Headley as representative "of the late Charles Allanson" (for the family connections, see Lodge's Peerage, 1908, p. 941).
The case arose out of a misunderstanding between Allanson and his agent over the rentcharge of 1752-3 (see docts. 24, 25); several futile efforts were made to adjust the differences, with the result the the Exchequer judges were asked to give a verdict on the question (this has not been preserved). it would be well, in order to get a right perspective of the persons in this case, to read the long note in Pedigres, 368, and the letters of the father William Evans in Penrhos 380-389. W.E. had been Allanson agent at Vaenol for about 20 years up to his death in 1748, when he was followed as agent by his son Charles, 1748-1756.
Note : it is not without interest that two persons who had interests in the Vaenol devolution became High Sheriffs in North Wales: Sir Bourchier Wrey (Caernarvon, 1708); Charles Allanson (Anglesey, 1756-7). See Breese: Kalendars, pp. 43, 59; Morris Letters, i, 411. In the records of the Caerns. Quarter Sessions, under 1732, William Allanson of Vaenol appears as a non-resident freeholder; he was the father of Charles, and owned the esate of Bramham Biggin in Yorks; his sister Elizabeth was the maternal grandmother of George Winn, first Lord Headley whose family drew the Allanson rentcharge from the Vaenol estate as late as 1836 (cp. G.E.C. : Complete Peerage, vi, 429, and Bangor MS. 5302). |