GWYN, FRANCIS (1648?-1734), politician;
son and heir of Edward Gwyn of Llansannor, Glam., and Eleanor, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Popham of Littlecott, Wiltshire, he was b. at Combe Florey, Somerset, in 1648 or 1649. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 1 June 1666, aged seventeen, and became a student of the Middle Temple in 1667. He was called to the Bar but later forsook law for politics and between 1673 and 1727 he sat in fifteen parliaments representing several constituencies, including Cardiff, 1685-7. A Tory and an intimate friend of Rochester, he held important offices and was secretary at war, 1713-14. He was appointed chamberlain of Brecon, 15 Oct. 1681. By his marriage with Margaret, third daughter of Edmund Prideaux, he acquired the Ford Abbey estates in Devon. He d. at Ford Abbey 2 June 1734.
He was succeeded by a son, FRANCIS GWYN, who d. childless, and on his decease the Llansannor property passed to ANTHONY GWYN, a cousin. After him the family of Gwyn, a branch of the Herberts, became extinct.
Bibliography:
- D.N.B.;
- W. R. Williams, Parl. Hist.;
- Foster Alumni Oxon.;
- G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum
Author:
Walter Thomas Morgan (1912-90), Aberystwyth
