I am collecting here all the information retrievable from the web concerning the family of my paternal grandfather, Leonard Williams, after whom my father (Leonard Forster) was named and who was his godfather. (There is a form in these matters!) I am doing this in the hope that some other descendent of Dewi Heli and Anna Loveday who is trawling the web for information about them will stumble upon this site and will be moved to supply me with information not available to me. There is reason to believe that Leonard Forster was not the only irregular offspring of LLBW and I would be glad to know about any others!

This comes from the on-line DNB:

WILLIAMS, DAVID (Dewi Heli; 1799-1869), solicitor and Liberal Member of Parliament for Merioneth; b. 30 June 1799 at Saethon in the parish of Llanfihangel-Bachellaeth, Caerns., son of David Williams and Margaret his wife. He was articled to his brother John Williams (high sheriff of Merioneth, 1841-2), then a solicitor at Llanfyllin, Mont., and practised at Pwllheli and Portmadoc, becoming also controller of the Madocks estate. In course of time he acquired much property, forming the estate associated with the house called Castell Deudraeth, Merioneth, formerly called Bron Eryri, where his brother John formerly resided. David Williams had literary interests and contributed to some Welsh periodicals; letters which he wrote to Ebenezer Thomas (Eben Fardd) and John Thomas (Sitn Wyn o Eifion) are preserved in N.L.W. Cwrt Mawr MS. 404. He was clerk of the peace for Merioneth, 1842-59, one of the deputy-lieutenants for Merioneth and Caernarvonshire, high sheriff for Merioneth, 1861-2, and for Caernarvonshire, 1862-3. He contested Merioneth as a Liberal in 1859 and 1865, unsuccessfully, but he won the seat in 1868. He m. 25 Sept. 1841, Annie Louisa Loveday (d. 16 June 1904), daughter of William Williams, of Peniarthucha, Mer., barrister-at-law, and they had a large family; the eldest and the youngest sons are briefly noticed below. He d. 15 Dec. 1869, and was buried at Penrhyndeudraeth. David Williams was succeeded in the Deudraeth estate by his eldest son (Sir) ARTHUR OSMOND WILLIAMS (1849-1927), 1st baronet, Liberal Member of Parliament for Merioneth, 1900-10. Born 17 March 1849, he was educated at Eton, was justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant for Caernarvonshire, chairman of quarter sessions for Merioneth, constable of Harlech castle, lord-lieutenant of Merioneth, 1909-27, and created a baronet in 1909. Sir Osmond Williams d. 28 Jan. 1927, in Australia. He had m., 3 Aug. 1880, Frances Evelyn Greaves; their elder son, OSMOND TRAHAEARN DEUDRAETH WILLIAM (1883-1915), served in the South African War, was a captain in the newly-formed Welsh Guards in the first Great War, and was killed in action in the battle of Loos, 1915.

[It seems that Evelyn Greaves was the sister of Hilda Greaves who married a Williams-Ellis and was the mother of Clough Williams-Ellis.- tf]

The youngest son of David Williams was Leonard Llewelyn Bulkeley Williams (1861-1939), physician in London and writer. Born 2 Oct. 1861, he was educated at Marlborough, at the University of Glasgow (where he took his medical degrees Blaenorol [1023] Nesaf ), and in France and Germany. He wrote articles to medical and scientific journals and was the author of numerous books dealing, mainly, with medicine, Paris, Spain, and the Spanish language; for titles of some of his publications see Who's Who, 1939, and the obituary notice in The Times, 21 Aug. 1939. He d. 20 Aug. 1939. The Laurence Gotch who married his daughter seems to be Gotch junior of Gotch Saunders & Surridge. Laurence Gotch had at least one son.

[The Trevor Williams who was one of the founders of the Gramophone company was one of the children of Dewi Heli]

This is from the library where AHAW's papers are stored. Alice Helen Alexandra Williams was born in Castle Deudraeth, Wales, in 1863, the youngest daughter of David Williams MP. During the First World War, she worked for the French Wounded Emergency Fund and helped set up the Signal Bureau in Paris to give advice to those searching for the injured, the missing and refugees. For this work, the French government subsequently awarded her the Medaille de la Reconnaissance Francaise. During the war, she was keen supporter of the Women's Institute movement, became the president of the Deudraeth group and contributed to the building of the first institute hall at Penrhyndeudraeth through a donation of land and fundraising. Women's Institutes had begun in the early part of the century for rural women under the influence of the Agricultural Organisations' Society. During the war, they had come under the control of the Board of Agriculture, until 1918 when their care was passed to a Central Committee of the new National Federation of Women's Institutes. Williams was elected first to this as the Honorary Secretary and then to the Executive Committee which superseded it in October of that year. When this position was abolished to make way for that of paid General Secretary, Williams once more took the role until she resigned to devote more time to her other position of founding editor of its journal, Home and Country in October of the following year. She retired as editor in 1920. In addition to her work with the Women's Institute, she was also responsible for the foundation of branches of the Lyceum Club in Berlin and Paris. In 1919 she was the founder and the first chair of the Forum Club in London. She was also a painter in watercolours and a member of the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs in Paris and of the Union Internationale des Aquerellistes. Additionally, she was a writer specialising in poetry with a number of published plays and pageants such as 'Aunt Mollie's Story' (1913), 'Britannia' (1917), 'Britain Awake: An Empire Pageant Play' (1932) and 'Gossip' (1935). She was made a bard under the name of Alys Meirion in 1917 and received a CBE in 1937. She died on the 15th August 1957, aged 94.

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