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Abergavenny and its surrounds have been the birthplace or home to a number of people who have made a significant contribution to Wales, Britain or at an international level in past or present times. Here are a selection of them. Please click below for details.

John Barnie l Alexander Cordell l John Fielding l Nicky Grist l Bert Isaac l Matthew Jay l Robert Jones l Dr David Lewis l St David Lewis l Lady Llanofer l Lord Llanofer l Sir Harry Llewellyn l Harry Meadows l Catherine Merriman l Malcolm Nash l Anna Pavord l Owen Sheers l Sarah Snazell l Ann and Franco Taruschio l Matt Tebbutt l Alison Tod l
Ethel Lina White l Raymond Williams

MATTHEW JAY (10 Oct 1978 - 25 September 2003)
Singer/songwriter Matthew Jay, who died at the age of 24, was described by a Sunday Times reviewer as "one of the brightest songwriting talents." Matthew released his critically acclaimed album Draw in 2001 and headlined a nationwide tour of Britain.
Graham Matthew Jay grew up in Abergavenny after his family moved from Plymouth, and he went to King Henry VIII Comprehensive School.
After leaving school he moved to Nottingham, where he was signed up to the Food music label. His parents, Hilary and Tony, are local folk musicians who have worked as a duo and as The J Ceilidh Band. Matthew was taught to play the bass guitar by his father at the age of eight "as soon as his fingers could reach the strings", and then joined his parents' band.
Please Don't Send Me Away was the single from his debut album Draw on which he also played acoustic and electric guitar. Also playing on the album is Matthew's older brother, Eddy. During his British tour, Matthew appeared in cities such as Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Liverpool and Leeds. In summer 2001 he toured the USA and Canada as support for Dido, Travis, Doves, Starsailor, to promote his debut album. Among the dates were appearances at Toronto, Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis. He had also supported the Stereophonics. An album of Matthew's songs - available only online from www.matthewjay.com was released in August 2004 and it's hoped that more material wll be released in September 2005. For more details and full biography of Matthew please visit www.crookedsmile.com

OWEN SHEERS:
Author and poet Owen Sheers, the winner of the English section of the 2005 Welsh Book of the Year Award, was born in 1974 in Suva, Fiji, where his father, David, was working. He spent some of his childhood there and in London. His family returned to Abergavenny when he was nine. Owen's mother, Eryl was born in south Breconshire.
Owen went to Llandewi Rhydderch Primary and Harold Road Junior schools before going to King Henry VIII Comprehensive School.
He studied at New College, Oxford, and then took a Masters degree at the University of East Anglia. He received an Eric Gregory award for poetry (1999) and won the Vogue talent contest for young writers.
Owen has worked in television as a researcher and assistant producer on Channel 4 and S4C's The Big Breakfast and as a presenter for BBC Wales.
As part of his acting career, he has starred as Wilfred Owen in Classic Theatre's 2002 production of Not About Heroes by Stephen MacDonald. He appears regularly as a speaker at the annual Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival. For the New Millennium edition of The Times Magazine, David Bailey photographed leading artists and scientists together with the person they expected to carry the discipline forward. Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, selected Sheers as the poet to watch.
His first collection of poetry, The Blue Book, published by Seren in 2000 was short-listed for both the Forward Prize Best First Collection 2001 and the Welsh Book of the Year 2001. Owen's first book, The Dust Diaries, was based on the life of his great-great uncle Arthur Cripps, a missionary in Zimbabwe, and was published in 2004. An updated paperback edition came out in 2005. The Dust Diaries won him the prestigious Welsh Book of the Year in 2005. The book was also shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaajte Prize.
His collection of poetry, Skirrid Hill, was published by Seren in October 2005, and has been made a set text on the WJEC and AQA A level syllabuses. He has worked on a play about the World War II poet Keith Douglas with the actor Joseph Fiennes and director Josie Rourke.
Owen's first novel, Resistance was published as a hardback in the UK (Faber, 2007), and in paperback (March 2008). In the US it is published by Nan Talese/Doubleday 2008). It is being translated into eight languages. His collaboration with composer Rachel Portman, The Water Diviner's Tale, an oratorio for children, was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms 2007. Owen is currently in New York as a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.

MATT TEBBUTT
MATT TEBBUTT: Presenter of the BBC2 afternoon TV programme Market Kitchen. His first solo cookbook ‘Matt Tebbutt Cooks Country’ was published in September 2008.
Young British chef Matt Tebbutt returned to home to Wales in 2001 after an absence of eight years and with his wife Lisa has transformed the former Foxhunter pub at Nantyderry (once the stationmaster's house) into a top restaurant which is winning wide acclaim.
The Foxhunter is named after Olympic champion Sir Harry Llewellyn's famous horse (see below). Born in High Wycombe in 1973, Matt Tebbutt moved to South Wales at the age of six months and so considers himself an honorary Welshman.
After his early schooling in Wales, he studied geography at Oxford Polytechnic. An ambition to become a pilot led him to join the University Air Squadron, but having learnt to fly, he decided against joining the RAF in favour of a career as a chef. He took a diploma course in London at the noted Leith's cookery school, and then trained with many of the UK's leading chefs, including Marco Pierre White, Sally Clarke and Alistair Little. Inspiration over the years has also come from Franco and Ann Taruschio, (see below) former owners of the Walnut Tree, where both Matt and Lisa have dined since they were children.
Matt has been featured on two series of the ITV1 Wales cookery programme. 'Food for all Seasons' in which he visits local suppliers and then creates dishes back in the Foxhunter kitchens using a selection of their produce. Matt's recipes are also featured in 'The Gastropub Cookbook' by Daily Telegraph columnist Diana Henry.
Lisa, also from Monmouthshire, has a background in accountancy and manages the business side. The couple have two young children, Jessie and Henry. The Foxhunter has won the Best Newcomer in Wales - Good Food Guide 2003; the AA Restaurant of the Year for Wales 2004; Taste of Wales (Cymru y Gwir Flas) Dining Out Gold Award 2005; the Perfect Pub Best Food Award by the Daily Telegraph in 2007; AA Notable Wine List 2008 & 2009.

SARAH SNAZELL (1965-1999)
Abergavenny-born artist Sarah Snazell, who died at the age of 33, has been described as "one of the most original and talented figurative painters to have emerged from Wales in the past decade".
The tribute came last year from art lecturer Anne Price-Owen in the Welsh magazine Planet. The magazine pictured Sarah's paintings, Losers Weepers and Doppelganger, on its front and back covers. Doppelganger, was recently bought by the Brecknock Museum Art Trust for show at the town's art gallery.
And the Contemporary Art Society for Wales, for whom Anne Price-Owen, of the Swansea Institute of Higher Education, was the 1999/2000 purchaser, bought one of Sarah's paintings, Blind Man's Bluff. It will be on show at venues throughout Wales. Her painting, Lost For Words, was featured on the cover of the book, One Woman,
One Voice, which features contributions by leading Welsh playwrights, and was published by Parthian
Press in 2000. Another Parthian Press book, New Welsh Drama II, published in 2001, had her painting Cribyn on its cover.
Sarah was a pupil at King Henry VIII School, and took a foundation course at Newport College of Art before she went on to Leeds University to take a BA Honours and a Masters degree.
She worked mainly on giant canvases in oils, often using the Black Mountains around Abergavenny as a backdrop. The first painting Sarah exhibited at the National Eisteddfod was Five Ways (1994). She also won two major awards in successive Royal Cambrian Academy's 'Young Painter of the Year' biennial exhibitions, and was further honoured by being made the youngest member of the academy.
After her death, Sir Kyffin Williams, president of the academy, paid tribute to Sarah, and described her as a "true talent, and a lovely person ".
He said, "In the academy we felt strongly that we wanted to look to the future and we saw that future in Sarah."
Sarah, who lived in Leeds where she founded the Jackson Yard Artists' Studio, had been planning a solo exhibition at Abergavenny's Hill Court Gallery before her death. Her partner Hugh Doherty, mother Nesta, brother James and her sister Rachel, arranged for Sarah's wishes to be carried out and a memorial display was held there.

ALISON TOD
If you go to a high society wedding or enjoy a day out at Ascot races, chances are that you'll see a number of couture creations by milliner Alison Tod adorning the heads of the rich and famous.
Since she returned to her home town of Abergavenny in 1990 to launch her own business, Aristohats, at the Old Workhouse, Alison 37, has made a name for herself as one of Britain's top milliners. Her innovative hats are for sale in more than 150 shops and stores worldwide including Harrods.
In February 2001, she made a dynamic catwalk debut as part of London Fashion Week at the Victoria and Albert Museum when she sent male models including international rally champion Nicky Grist down the runway to model her latest creations.
When ex-US president Bill Clinton visited Hay-on-Wye in May 2001, a fashion show featuring Alison's hats, was held during a dinner in his honour.
Alison, who was brought up at the Boathouse, Llanfoist, sees the catwalk as her canvas. One of her hats, part of a pre-Raphaelite collection, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum's permanent collection and another of her distinctive creations is at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff.
After attending Abergavenny Convent and then King Henry VIII School, she took a foundation course at Newport Art College, studied for her degree in Cheshire and took a business studies course at Lampeter.
Alison worked in London for Kangol, at the time the milliner of choice for Diana, Princess of Wales. And she was awarded the Welsh Designer of the Year title for two consecutive years.

NICKY GRIST
Nicky Grist, who lives in Abergavenny, is one of the most successful co-drivers with 21 world rally victories. He has now founded the Nicky Grist Co-Driver Academy to help young co-drivers. He is most closely associated with driver Colin McRae (who sadly died in a helicopter crash on Saturday, September 15th, 2007). The British duo first joined forces in 1997 and powered their way into the headlines before splitting in October 2002. Since then, Grist has since commentated for ITV1 Wales and Channel 4 on the Network Q Rally in Wales. In recent years, Grist has again co-driven for McRae in various guest drives in the WRC and other rallying events.
Grist's talents have been developed over more than a decade in the co-driver's seat on world rallies for many teams including Subaru, Toyota and Mitsubishi. He has co-driven alongside other such aces as Juha Kankkunen and Armin Schwarz. Ford provided Grist with his first professional contract for the world championship in 1990.
In 1992 Grist made his Safari Rally debut alongside Mikael Ericsson, beginning a long-term association with the championship's toughest rally and his personal favourite. In 1993 he paired with Kankkunen just days before the Rally Argentina - and the pair won the event. They got together again for the final three rallies of the season - storming to victory in Australia and finishing third in Spain before taking victory on the RAC Rally in appalling winter conditions. Grist stayed beside Kankkunen for the next three seasons, winning in Portugal in 1994. But after Toyota was excluded from the championship towards the end of 1995, their 1996 season was restricted to three events - the best result a fine second in Finland.
In 1997, Grist joined Subaru as McRae's new co-driver and the pairing was an instant success - they shared five victories (Kenya, Corsica, Sanremo, Australia and GB) and the runner-up position in the championship. In 1998 the British duo added three more wins (Portugal, Corsica and Greece) before a high profile move to Ford saw them in the new Focus in 1999. Early-season victories in Kenya and Portugal took Grist's world championship tally to 14. He increased that to 19 with wins alongside McRae in Spain and Greece in 2000 and in Argentina, Cyprus and Greece again in 2001. His tally makes him the second most successful co-driver in the history of the WRC

CATHERINE MERRIMAN
Catherine Merriman, the novelist and short story writer, has lived in a village just outside Abergavenny since 1973. She is much involved in the town's life: she was a founder member of Abergavenny Women's Aid, for instance, and worked for the group as a volunteer for 11 years.
All her writing has been done here, and the area features in her third novel, State of Desire. 'Abercwm' is unmistakeably Abergavenny, and local landmarks can be spotted throughout the book. She currently tutors in creative writing at the University of Glamorgan.
She is married with two children. As well as working to foster literature generally in Wales - she is a Fellow of the Welsh Academy, on the editorial board of the New Welsh Review, and a frequent adjudicator for national literature competitions - Catherine has also participated at many local events, giving readings and talks.
Novels: Leaving the Light On (Gollancz/Pan 1992); Fatal Observations (Gollancz/Pan 1993 ); State of Desire (Macmillan/Pan 1996); Broken Glass (Pan 1998) Story Collections: Silly Mothers (Honno 1991 ); Of Sons and Stars (Honno 1997); Getting a Life (Honno 2001)

MALCOLM NASH: Malcolm Nash's career for Glamorgan County Cricket Club spanned 17 years. Born in 1945 in Abergavenny he attended Hereford Road Junior, Abergavenny, and Wells Cathedral School, playing for the Abergavenny Cricket Club during the summer holidays.
He also played hockey and represented Wales at U23. He played for the Home Welsh X1, Monmouthshire, South Wales, the Druids, Abergavenny and Swansea.
He has many family associations with the Abergavenny Cricket Club which was established in 1834 and is one of the oldest cricket clubs in the world. His father, E G (Ted) Nash and older brother Colin both played for the club, and from 1971 until the 1980s, Ted Nash was club president.
Malcolm Nash, pictured right (photograph is copyright of Glamorgan County Cricket Club) joined Glamorgan in 1966 and was awarded his county cap in 1969. He was a left-arm, medium-pace seam bowler and a left-handed batsman. During his Glamorgan career he took 991 wickets and scored 7,120 runs with twenty-five 50s and two centuries. He served as captain in 1980 and 1981, and ended his playing career with Shropshire.
Malcolm Nash will always be remembered for being on the receiving end of Garfield (now Sir Garfield) Sobers' world record of six sixes in an over during the match with Nottinghamshire at Swansea in 1968. Nash was not bowling his usual style - he had been asked by his captain to experiment with slow left arm bowling as the visitors were nearing a declaration. Nash views this as just one moment in a long career. The following year Glamorgan won the championship.
In later seasons, Nash also dismissed Sobers several times with his normal seam bowling. Nash himself once hit four consecutive sixes off Somerset's Dennis Breakwell. He took up an appointment in Canada in 1991 and from 1996 spent four years promoting junior cricket in Canada. This was so successful - the number of schoolchildren involved reached 4000 - that he was invited to the United States where now he promotes junior cricket in California.

JOHN BARNIE
John Barnie was born in Abergavenny in 1941, the son of Ted and Melva Barnie who for many years kept a sweetshop in Frogmore Street. He was educated at St Michael's Convent Junior School and King Henry VIII's Grammar School before going on to Birmingham University where he obtained a PhD in 1971.
After 13 years teaching at the University of Copenhagen, John returned to Abergavenny in 1982 before moving to Aberystwyth where he now works as editor of the cultural magazine Planet. A poet, fiction writer and essayist, John has published 14 books, including The King of Ashes (Gomer, 1989) which won a Welsh Arts Council Book of the Year award. Much of his poetry and fiction is based on his early experience of Abergavenny and the surrounding countryside. The Confirmation (Gomer, 1992) contains a novella which fictionalises his experience of growing up in the town in the 1940s and '50s; while Abergavenny (Gregynog Press, 1997) is a short personal essay on what the town means to him. The Wine Bird (Gomer, 1998) contrasts fictional lives led in Abergavenny in the 20th century with the imagined people of Friars Point, a Black hamlet in Mississippi. Mississippi features here and elsewhere in his writing because of a lifelong interest in the blues. His book Y Felan a Finnau (The Blues and Me; University of Wales Press, 1992) was the first book in Welsh to explore the meaning of the blues.
A guitarist, John has performed with the blues and poetry trio The Salubrious Rhythm Co. - with poet Nigel Jenkins (harmonica) and jazz pianist Jen Wilson; as well as the bilingual quartet Y Bechgyn Drwg/The Bad Boys (with Nigel Jenkins, Twm Morys and Iwan Llwyd). The natural world of the Black Mountains and the banks of the River Usk is another theme in John Barnie's poetry. This translates into wider environmental concerns in essay collections such as No Hiding Place (University of Wales Press, 1996). His latest books are Ice (Gomer, 2001), a futuristic story in verse, and At the Salt Hotel (Headland, 2003) a collection of poems.

ANNA PAVORD
Abergavenny-born author Anna Pavord, is one of the gardening world's most celebrated writers. Her book The Tulip was a world-wide best seller. She has been the gardening correspondent for the Independent since its launch in 1986 and has also worked for the Observer where she contributed and commissioned features for the magazine. She is an associate editor of Gardens Illustrated.
Anna Pavord was born in Victoria Cottage Hospital in 1940. Her mother, Christabel Lewis, had been brought up on the family farm, The Pant, and her father was a teacher who is still fondly remembered by many. She has written a number of gardening books. Her first, Growing Things was written for children and was published in 1982. Her next, Foliage appeared in 1990 and was one of a series of gardening books commissioned by the National Trust. The Flowering Year was published in 1991 followed by Gardening Companion the next year.
In March 1994, The Border Book was for a long while in the top ten list of gardening titles and The New Kitchen Garden was published in 1996. Then in 1999 came The Tulip which topped the non-fiction best-selling list in the UK and the USA for some time. Her most recent book is Plant Partners. She also contributes occasionally to other magazine such as Country Life. She is a member of English Heritage's Parks and Gardens' Panel and chairman of the National Trust's Gardens' Panel.
Anna Pavord recalls her days growing up in Abergavenny with great affection. She went to Park Street Infants then onto Castle Street and to the Girls' High in Harold Road.
For the past 29 years she and her husband, a marketing consultant to the food industry, have lived in West Dorset in an old rectory with an acre and a half of garden. After reading English at university, her first job was with the BBC which she joined as BBC2 was being launched. For seven years she worked as a production assistant and then director on Line-up, a daily, live TV and media show.
She returned to television to make Flowering Passions, a series of 10 programmes which she researched, wrote and presented for Channel 4. Audiences reached 4 million and the programme appeared for almost the whole of its run in Channel 4's top ten lists, below Roseanne and above Cheers. Her first radio work was The Garden Show for Radio 2. She has contributed to Kaleidoscope and fronted a Kaleidoscope special on Flora Britannica. She wrote and presented one of the programmes in the Radio 4 series Better Than Sex and made several series for Radio 4, Transplantations and The Green Detectives. She has also written several Proms pieces for Radio 3.

ANN AND FRANCO TARUSCHIO: Details to follow

PATRICIA AND CHARLES LESTER: Details to follow

HARRY MEADOWS:
Walk into Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey and you will see a memorial created by the Abergavenny-born artist/designer/craftsman Harry Meadows, a nationally known calligrapher and illuminator.
The memorial, which is more than six feet in length, takes the form of hand-cut, Westmorland slate infilled with colour with the quotation "My story is of war and the pity of war". The slate is green to symbolise the fields of Flanders; the lettering is in red - to represent the poppies and blood - and off-white to represent the vellum used by poets. It was commissioned in the 1980s and was unveiled by the then Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Click here to see the memorial.
Harry Meadows, who was born in 1931, went to Hereford Road Boys' School and then King Henry VIII Grammar School. He studied at Newport College of Art and the University of London, Institute of Education.
He was senior lecturer in the faculty of art and design at the Gwent College of Higher Education, formerly Newport College of Art.
He has been commissioned to produce various pieces by the Craft Advisory Committee, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Museum of Wales, the Arts Council for Wales and the National Eisteddfod of Wales among others. One of his pieces is at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. His exhibition, Touch of Gold, was on display at Abergavenny Museum from July to September 2001.

BERT ISAAC (1923 - 2006)
Artist Bert Isaac was born in Cardiff in 1923. He moved to Abergavenny, Monmouthshire in the 1980s. He exhibited paintings and prints regularly in the U. K. and overseas. His works are included in many public and private collections including the National Museum and Gallery of Wales, the Contemporary Art Society of Wales, Urawa City Gallery of Modern Art in Japan, the Universities of Oxford and London, the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, the Brecknock Museum in Brecon, the Museum and Art Gallery in Newport and the Museum of Modern Art, Machynlleth.

He is a former lecturer in Art and Design in Education, University of London, and a founder member of the Welsh Group and of the Watercolour Society of Wales, an Honorary Artist-Member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and a senior academician of the Royal West of England Academy. He was a winner of a gold medal of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. In June 1999, he was awarded the M.B.E. in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.
Bert Isaac designed and contributed drawings to a number of books, of which The Landscape Within has a written text by him and a folio of prints published by The Old Stile Press, Llandogo. His exhibition Remembered Places at Newport Art Gallery was reviewed by Dr. Peter Wakelin in Modern Painters. Bert Isaac was the subject of an essay by Dr. Sheila Paine published in Planet magazine in summer 2001, and his summer exhibition was held at the Hill Court Gallery.

RAYMOND WILLIAMS: 1921 - 1988
Raymond Williams has been described as one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century. He was an academic, novelist, critic and socialist who pioneered the study of popular culture saying that it was just as relevant as the highbrow form. He was born in Pandy, near Abergavenny, the son of a railway signalman, and attended King Henry VIII School, Abergavenny, before winning a place at Trinity College, Cambridge. His studies were interrupted by World War II and he joined the army serving as an anti-tank captain in the Guards Armoured Division, 1941-45. After the war he returned to Cambridge and then worked in adult education.
In the 1950s he helped to launch the New Left Review. He became a lecturer at Cambridge, and from 1974 to his retirement in 1983 was the Professor of Drama. In addition to his academic and political books, he also wrote novels, setting his books in the countryside where he grew up: Border Country, Second Generation, The Fight for Manod, The Volunteers, Loyalties and People of the Black Mountains.
In January 2006, Border Country was reprinted by publishers Parthian as one of the Library of Wales series promoted by the Wales Assembly Government aimed at rediscovering literary classics from Wales. The list of 20 books in the series has been drawn up by historian and culture writer Professor Dai Smith, the former head of English-language programmes at BBC Wales. He rates Border Country, (1960) as one of the ten best novels in the English language - and the finest novel written in 20th Century Wales about 20th Century Wales.
Raymond Williams' other books include Culture and Society 1780-1960 (1958), The Long Revolution (1961), Keywords (1976), Communications (1962), Second Generation (1964), Orwell (1971), The Country and the City (1973), Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974), Marxism and Literature (1977), The Volunteers (1978), Problems in Materialism and Culture (1980), Culture (1981), Writings in Society (1983) and Loyalties (1985). In addition, there were plays, pamphlets, and innumerable reviews.

ALEXANDER CORDELL: (1914 – 1997)

George Alexander Graber

SIR HARRY LLEWELLYN (1911-1999)
Show jumper Sir Harry Llewellyn will chiefly be remembered for the gold medal he won with Foxhunter in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Sir Harry who also finished second in the 1936 Grand National also won a team bronze at the 1948 London Olympics, again with Foxhunter. The pair won 78 international events. Foxhunter died in 1959 at the age of 19, and there is a memorial to him on top of the Blorenge mountain.
During World War II, Sir Harry saw action in Italy and Normandy and was awarded the OBE. He was chairman of the Sports Council for Wales between 1971 and 1980.

ETHEL LINA WHITE: (1876-1944)
Author Ethel Lina White was born in Frogmore Street, Abergavenny, and was one of the best known crime writers in Britain and the USA during the 1930s and 40s. One of her most famous books, The Wheel Spins, was adapted as the acclaimed 1938 Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes.
Yet today Ethel Lina is almost unknown in her hometown, which, considering the film title, is somewhat ironic. Recent years, however, have seen a revival of interest in her work. A stage adaptation of The Lady Vanishes starring Victor Spinetti toured Britain from March to July in 2001; and our society has put up a blue plaque at her birthplace in Frogmore Street.
Some of her work has been likened to those of Edgar Allen Poe for their tense atmosphere. Another of her books Some Must Watch was the basis for the classic 1946 film chiller, The Spiral Staircase, directed by Robert Siodmak.
Ethel Lina was a daughter of the builder and inventor William White and his second wife Charlotte Eliza, who both came from Clifton, near Bristol. The family first lived in the Merthyr Road or Brecon Road area and moved to Frogmore Street before settling in an innovative house built by her father which incorporated his own patented damp-proofing process. She moved to London after the end of World War I, and died in Chiswick in 1944.

JOHN FIELDING (better known as John Williams, 1857-1932) Photograph supplied by The Royal Regiment of Wales (formerly South Wales Borderers) Museum, Brecon.
John Fielding who was awarded the Victoria Cross after the battle at Rorke's drift in 1879. is associated with Cwmbran, but he was actually born in Merthyr Road, Abergavenny, on May 24, 1857, the second son of Irishman Michael and Margaret Fielding (nee Godsil).
When John was five, his father, in search of work as a labourer moved the family to Cwmbran. John left school at the age of nine and started work at a nut and bolt works. He joined the army - enlisting at Monmouth in May 22, 1877, in the 24th Warwickshire Regiment of Foot, and it is not known why the Williams alias was used. He was posted to B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th regiment.
The citation said that in the famous battle at Rorke's Drift against 3,000 Zulus: "Private John Williams, his close friend Private Joseph Williams and Private William Horrigan, were posted to a distant room of the hospital. In the battles, Privates Williams, Hook, Robert Jones and W Jones, were the last four to leave. Private John Williams hacked out a hole in a wall and manage to move two patients to temporary safety.
This other room was being defended by Private Alfred H Hook, the hospital chef. Private Williams managed to block off one hole. It was only due to the quick thinking of Private John Williams and his bravery, assisted by the courage of the other hospital defenders, that most of the patients were brought to safety. The British Third Column appeared. When he had finished his share of the fighting he had two rounds of ammunition left. In 1914 he became the recruiting agent for the South Wales Borderers. John Fielding House, a residential home named after him at Llantarnam, Cwmbran, was opened in 1973.

ROBERT JONES: (1857-1898) Photograph supplied by The Royal Regiment of Wales Museum, Brecon (as above)
Born in Penrhos, Clytha, near Raglan, on 19 August, Private Robert Jones was serving with the Second Battalion of the 24th Regiment of Foot when he became one of the 11 soldiers to win the Victoria Cross in the battle of Rorke's Drift. Jones used his bayonet to defend a doorway into a hospital ward until it was almost filled with dead and wounded Zulus.
Despite suffering four assegai (spear) wounds and being struck by a bullet, he helped evacuate six patients through holes in the walls during a desperate retreat through the blazing building.
Following his army service Robert Jones settled in Herefordshire and worked as a farm labourer. When he was 41, he borrowed his employer's shotgun to go crow shooting and Jones was later found dead with gunshot wounds. A verdict of "suicide whilst temporarily insane" was recorded after a coroner heard evidence that Jones suffered nightmares following his hand-to-hand struggle at Rorke's Drift. Although suicides were generally excluded from burial on consecrated ground, Private Jones's VC meant that his body was allowed to be interred in Peterchurch Churchyard, Herefordshire, but the coffin was brought into the churchyard over a wall, and his headstone faces away from all other tombs to signify how he died.
In 1998 a newspaper article suggested that it was time his headstone was reversed, but this would mean overturning the coroner's verdict. His Victoria Cross was sold at auction in 1996 to a private buyer for £80,000, defeating a bid by the Royal Regiment of Wales Museum.

AUGUSTA HALL (LADY LLANOFER) (1802 - 1896)
Augusta Waddington was born at Llanofer on March 21st 1802, a daughter of English landowners who had moved to Wales. At 21 she married Benjamin Hall (of 'Big Ben' fame - see below). They later became Lord and Lady Llanofer.
Lady Llanofer and her husband were fervent supporters of Welsh traditions, promoting its language, music and culture against the tide of increasing Victorian Anglicisation. By 1837, the Llanofer estate had become a centre for Welsh bards, musicians and academics. She promoted the use of the triple harp as the national instrument, and published an illustrated volume on the Welsh national costume. Her tenants and employees were expected to speak Welsh, and had to wear Welsh costume made from flannel woven mostly at the Gwenffrwd woollen mill on her estate where she had established a flock of Black Welsh Mountain Sheep.
Lady Llanofer adopted the bardic name of 'Gwenynen Gwent' (the Honey Bee of Gwent) and won a prize at the 1834 Eisteddfod in Cardiff. The influential Welsh cultural society, 'Cymdeithas Cymreigyddion y Fenni' (The Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Society) was formed in 1833 and she became an active member.
Between 1834 and 1853, the annual Abergavenny Eisteddfod became the largest in Wales, attracting visitors from as far afield as Sardinia and Denmark. A hall was even built in Tudor Street to stage the event. Lady Llanofer was patron of the Welsh Manuscripts Society and of Llandovery College. She wrote her famous book 'The first Principles of Good Cookery' and was a teetotaller who bought every pub in the area (apart from one, The Goose and Cuckoo) and turned them into tea houses.
A society to mark her life was formed in 2002; the president is Elizabeth Murray, her great-great-great granddaughter (see 'Links' page).

BENJAMIN HALL III (LORD LLANOFER) (1802-67):
Lord Llanofer was the son of Benjamin Hall II and Charlotte Crawshay, who was the younger daughter of Richard Crawshay, the ironmaster of Cyfarthfa, who owned the Abercarn estate.
He was a prominent public figure and was an MP from 1831 until 1859, initially for the Monmouth Boroughs and then Marylebone. He was created a baronet in 1838 and in 1855 became the first Parliamentary Commissioner for Works.
The Houses of Parliament were built during his term of office and as he was an exceptionally tall man, it is said that the hour bell, known as 'Big Ben', in the clock tower was named after him. He was raised to the peerage in 1859, taking the title of 'Baron Llanofer of Llanofer and Abercarn'.

ST DAVID LEWIS: (1616-1679),
The priest and martyr was born in Abergavenny, the son of the headmaster of Henry VIII Grammar School. David Lewis was brought up as a Protestant and became a Catholic in Paris as a young man. He studied in Rome where he was ordained as a priest and then became a Jesuit. In 1647, he returned home and, for more than 30 years worked on the Hereford-Monmouthshire border. His great uncle was the noted Catholic monk, Father (David) Augustine Baker, (1575-1641).
Due to anti-Catholic feeling because of Titus Oates' 'Popish plot', David Lewis was arrested at Llantarnam, brought to Abergavenny and imprisoned at Monmouth. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Usk on August 27, 1679. He was beatified in 1929 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. There is a memorial to St David Lewis in Our Lady and St Michael's RC Church. A plaque marks Gunter House in Cross Street where a secret RC chapel was discovered in 1907 during alterations in an attic room in the right hand gable. The chapel's reredos mural is now on display at Abergavenny Museum.

DR DAVID LEWIS (d.1584)
Dr David Lewis lived at Llandewi Rhydderch, and was the vicar's son of St Mary's Priory Church in Abergavenny. He achieved fame by becoming an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. He held the position of Judge of the High Court of Admiralty and was the first principal of Jesus College, Oxford. His tomb which he designed himself was placed before his death in what is now the Lewis Chapel at the Priory Church. Its decoration refers to the different facets of his life. He is depicted as being dressed in his full robes, and the front panels of the tomb are filled with oak leaves referring to the 'Hearts of Oak' of which ships are built.