Johnes, Thomas Graham (1748 -1816)

Thomas Johnes, of Hafod, was the eldest son of Thomas Johnes, of Llanvairclydogen and Croft Castle in Herefordshire, and Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Richard Knight, of Croft Castle. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, Eton College and Edinburgh University. After a tour in Europe, he was elected, in 1774, Member of Parliament for Cardigan, sat for Radnorshire from 1780 1796, and for Cardiganshire from 1796 1816. He married Maria Brough, of Monmouthshire, on 26 August 1779, and inherited his father's large estates in May 1780, but his wife died 1 April 1782. He went to live on his estate of Hafod in Cardiganshire in 1783, and set about a major programme of improvements, rehousing the peasantry in model cottages, setting up a school and employing many of them planting trees and improving the land. He married his cousin, Jane, daughter of John Johnes, of Dolau Cothy, in 1783, and they had an only daughter Maria Anna, "Marriamne", born 30 June 1784, on whom he doted, and who was a talented amateur botanist and entomologist, but who early developed an incurable wasting disease. Always extravagant, he sold his Monmouthshire estates in 1785, and started rebuilding Hafod, his wife laying the foundation stone in June 1786. In 1793 he became Lieutenant Colonel of the Carmarthenshire Militia, and in 1794 designed an octagonal library for Hafod, and Sir John Sebright Baronet of Beechwood in Herefordshire gave him 180 manuscripts from the library of the great Welsh scholar Edward Lhuyd. He set up a private press on the estate and printed a translation of Froissart, an enthusiasm which he shared with his wife. His house was accidentally burnt down in 1807 when he lost all his collection of Welsh manuscripts and most of his library.