In the mid-18th century, a Roberts family were farming an area of poor, marshy land near Rhuddlan. There was little more to Rhyl in those days than the few roughly built cottages of farmers and fishermen. These Robertses owned the leases on the lands to the East of what is now the High Street and Vale Road. Roughly the land bordered by those roads, Pendyffryn Road and Russell Road as far East as Rhyl High School: all just fields in those days. That farm was known as “Storehouse”.
They also had the farm “Tre Llewelyn”. Gone now, but it was the fields either side of Trellewelyn Road in Rhyl.
Without further research, we don't know a huge amount about those early ancestors; just the odd birth, death and marriage date. We know they lived in Rhyl and that Rhyl was just a few cottages. The land by the sea was either mud and marshes or dunes and windswept mounds of sand. There were no sea defences, no quays or landing stages, and no bridge. To cross the River Clwyd or moor a ship, you had to travel up the estuary to Rhuddlan.
Rhuddlan was also the nearest church. Edward Roberts and Margaret Hughes were married there in 1759 by licence. Getting married by licence rather than the usual way, by banns, shows they were comparatively wealthy and of good social standing. The register entry for their son Thomas the following year says they lived at Tre Llewelyn. Whether Tre Llewelyn was originally one farm, we don't know. On the later tithe map of 1839, two farms are marked: Trellewelynbach and Trellewelynfawr. (Bach means small, and fawr means large). In this tithe apportionment of 1839, Tre Llewelyn Fawr was occupied by John Roberts and owned by George Griffith esqr. This John Roberts (born about 1806) isn't one of the Johns in our tree below and I haven't quite linked him in yet. He appears in the 1841 census at Tre Llewelyn but moved after that - we can follow his family through subsequent censuses.
Edward and Margaret had two more children I've found: John (b. 1764) and Mary (b. 1768). I haven't found much on Mary but John is our ancestor and we know more about him. He married Mary Davies in Llansanffraid Glan Conwy by licence in 1787. They had several children, but John sadly died shortly after his youngest, Mary, was born in 1802. His wife, Mary, was left to raise the family herself because, as far as I can tell, she didn't remarry. It is her name that is on the tithe records for Storehouse in 1839. She certainly must have had suitors with all that land; she must also have been a strong woman to manage the farm for those years. She died in 1840 aged 76.
To recap, Edward and Margaret Roberts were farming Tre Llewelyn in the late 1700s. Their son, John and his wife Mary were farming Storehouse certainly by the 1830s and Tre Llewelyn was farmed by, we presume, a related Roberts. We now move on to the next generation.
As Rhyl began to prosper from the early 1800s, the family were well placed to do well from the town’s growth. Although not the landowners - only owning the lease - they would have had influence and opportunities. The Chester and Holyhead Railway was opened in 1848 and ran straight across their farm, and the station was literally across the road.
John Roberts lived and farmed at Storehouse from being a boy until the estate was divided up and sold for development in 1859. John was known locally as John Roberts-Storehouse and was one of the original Rhyl Improvement Commissioners. He was an overseer of the poor, which means he was on the committee that governed the workhouse and his name crops up regularly in newspapers of the day. He had a large family with his wife Anne after having an Illegitimate son with a woman, Sarah Rogers, in 1830. That child didn't survive, and it's curious that a record of marriage to Anne eludes me. Another brick wall to break down!
I'll quickly outline what I know about the families of John Storehouse's children.
Mary was John Roberts-Storehouse's first (legitimate) child. She grew up and married Robert Jones, a shipbuilder. That Jones family had initially had a shipyard in Rhuddlan, but subsequently opened a yard at Foryd, Rhyl. It was located on the East side of the Foryd on the seaward side of the old bridge.
His next child was William who was a sailor and married Margaret Knight from Salford. They lived for a long time in John Street, Rhyl (I don't think the street was named after his father).
The next child, Edward, was born in April 1849. There is no trace of him after that and he doesn't appear with the family on the 1851 census so I assume he died in infancy.
Jane, born in 1852, grew up to marry Rev. James Redfern who became Vicar of Oswestry. The Redferns look to be a large family so there will be many distant cousins to discover there.
We find John, born 1854, residing together with his, now elderly, father at his brother-in-law and sister's house at Voryd in 1881. He was at this time a clerk to a timber merchant. He disappears of the radar after this, possibly emigrating, I don't know.
Anne married Henry Millward. This family had a successful Drapers business at Abergele and at High Street, Rhyl.
Thomas, I think, was also a draper and moved to London.
Edward, although older than his brother John-Storehouse, didn't take on the family farming business. Instead, he became a mariner. We have no details of his early life before he married in 1818. These were the times of the Napoleonic Wars but suggesting he was involved with that is a wild guess. I have no evidence at all. He did marry in Liverpool though, so there's circumstantial evidence of a maritime connection.
By 1830 he was Postmaster, lived at the Post Office in Rhyl, and was Agent to the Steam Packet. This was a decade before the penny black was first printed and the first steam packet service to Rhyl began between 1822 and 1829. He was reportedly the captain of one of those early vessels so he was there at the very start of Rhyl's growth.
Edward's family lived for a long time at Maritime Cottage which, I think, was on the Storehouse estate. He sold that (or at least the lease) together with the Packet Hotel and some other property in about 1848. He appears on the 1861 census at 26 West Parade, Rhyl. He was probably still alive when his son Edward married in 1869 but I can't find him on the 1871 census.
I've discovered five children of Edward and Elizabeth Roberts:
Jemima married Charles Jones also from Rhyl. A joiner when they married, he quickly progressed in life and became a Customs Tally Clerk in Toxteth Park near Liverpool. Charles and Jemima had three children: Edward Roberts Jones, Jane and Jemima Roberts Jones. Jane and her mother Jemima dies within a few days of each other in November 1844, whereas daughter Jemima survived another few months until March 1845. Edward grew to adulthood and by the age of 23 was master of his own ship. He was lost at sea in a storm in 1863.
Charles Jones remarried and went on to have several more children.
John started life as a ship's carpenter, but by 1851 he was living with his sister Jane at Voryd and was master of a boat, a "flat", employing 3 men. I've not yet traced him beyond this date.
Jane married another Master Mariner, John Davies. He eventually gave up the sea-life and became a railway porter with the newly arrived railway. They moved to Crewe and had a total of 8 children.
Skipping on to Mary, this is a work in progress. She was born in 1830 and was living at Maritime Cottage in 1841 but that is as far as we've got. There are a lot of Mary Robertses living in North Wales at this time, I just need to find her!
Going back to Edward, this is our ancestor. Edward must have done well academically and became Managing Clerk with an eminent solicitor in Saint Asaph. He qualified as a solicitor in his own right in 1863 and some time later set up his own practice in his home town of Rhyl. He was married to Sarah Kerfoot relatively late in life in 1869.
Edward and Sarah had seven children. I'll discuss their family on a separate page.