HASSALL, CHARLES (1754-1814), land agent and surveyor;
b. 1754, said to have been of Irish descent. He achieved some prominence in West Wales in the latter part of the 18th cent. and early part of the 19th. He came to Pembrokeshire as agent to the Llanstinan and Slebech estates of William Knox, c. 1784, but is dismissed. In 1791 he was appointed surveyor of the South Wales Association for the Improvement of Roads, and compiled reports on the agriculture of the counties of Pembroke and Carmarthen for the Board of Agriculture. The former, published in 1794, is a valuable monograph on conditions of the times. Hassall resided at Eastwood, Narberth, and took part as a volunteer in lord Cawdor's march to Fishguard when the French landed in 1797. Hassall was the first to meet Thomas Knox in the latter's retreat from Fishguard, saw therein an excellent opportunity to get even with the Knox family, and was instrumental in causing Knox to resign his command of the Fishguard Volunteers. He was major of pioneers in the invasion scare of 1803 and secretary to the Pembrokeshire Agricultural Society in 1806. A capable agriculturalist, he was on friendly terms with lord Milford, lord Cawdor, Greville, and the Foleys, whilst Sir Thomas Picton condescended to fight a duel with him over a quarrel which originated in a ball-room. Hassall had a son George who d. in childhood in 1793 and a daughter Oriana, who d. in 1809 aged twenty. He d. at Lampeter, Cards., on 16 May 1814 and is commemorated by a tablet in Narberth church.
Bibliography:
- D. Salmon, W. Wales Hist. Records, xiv;
- E. H. Stuart Jones, The Last Invasion of Britain, 1950;
- Felix Farley's Bristol Jnl., 28 May 1814;
- Henry Owen, ‘Yn Amsang ein Tadau.’
Author:
Commander Edwyn Henry Stuart Jones, R.N., Wells, Somerset
