The Williams / Buckler Family

SOURCE PENDING. No document or named speaker yet supports the reported Williams-family connection with the Marconi wireless experiments at Lavernock Point in 1897. The historical Marconi–Lavernock experiments themselves are independently documented; the specific Williams-family connection has not yet been proved on this site.

PRIMARY-EVIDENCE REQUEST. The Wiki is seeking contemporary correspondence, household papers, photographs, Post Office records or other independently attributable material capable of supporting the reported family connection. Until such evidence is located, this remains SOURCE PENDING, not a documentary fact.

Independent context: Amgueddfa Cymru records the May 1897 GPO trials linking Lavernock Point and Flat Holm. Museum Wales collection record →

Evidence description: the family dates its occupation of the house to 1667, and records the family as tenants of the Bute Estate by the 19th century.

‹A + B as one›Parcel reading. Before 1877 there was no separate Bute–Thomas division: house and fields were one Bute holding. The 1667 claim is centred on the house, which later became Parcel A.

Evidence description: her grandfather took tenancies from both Bute and Daniel Thomas after the 1877 sale, with the Thomas tenancy providing for the freehold to pass to him when quarrying ended. He died in 1908.

Parcel AParcel BParcel reading. Two landlords, two parcels. The Thomas tenancy, with the promise of the freehold, covered the house land sold to Thomas (Parcel A). The Bute tenancy covered the fields Bute kept (Parcel B).

See John Williams, tenant of the whole farm from 1916.

‹A + B as one›Parcel reading. John Williams‘s 1916 tenancy treated the farm as one holding. Mary (Nancy) Williams’s c.1974 witness statement (Mary (Nancy) Williams testimony) says the house (Parcel A) was held under the grandfather’s Thomas arrangement, not under this tenancy; the 1928 Williams freehold split is consistent with that; the 15 May 1924 HMLR agreement is an earlier unresolved candidate. ^🕒

Evidence description: Mary (Nancy) Williams married Frederick Buckler in 1936 (marriage certificate) and they had seven children (obituary). See Mary (Nancy) Williams and Frederick Buckler. Press report of the wedding at Llandough Church: Western Mail, 5 Aug 1936, p.10, “Llandough Bride”, Mr. Fred Buckler of Barry and Miss Mary Doreen (Nancy) Williams of Great House Farm (EV-0230, snippet only). Possible daughter: per Branwen Buckler (voice testimony), Aunt Mary was born in the 1950s; a Western Mail report of 27 Nov 1959 names a “Mary Butler, aged five” at Great House Farm (EV-0229, snippet only; whether “Butler” is Buckler is unconfirmed).

Parcel AParcel reading. The married home and the family’s life were in the farmhouse, Parcel A. Frederick’s farming, and his 1949 tenancy, were of the fields, Parcel B.

Evidence description: the account says that Frederick’s eldest son, known in the family as “Buckee” and an older brother of William (Billy), sold what the account describes as the family land parcel, and that:

• the sale was done through a solicitor;
• the family, including Frederick and Mary, were told only after it was done, and given scant details;
• it caused a falling-out between the son and Frederick;
• it was the reason the son’s household left the farm, when the cousin (born September 1964) was about four;
• it was well before the 1987 case; the cousin does not know the exact timeline or of any debts behind it.

Parcel unclearParcel reading. Best guess Parcel B. Mary held Parcel A and never signed it away, so whatever the son sold was most likely a claimed interest in the fields, or a release of his father’s claim to them.

Evidence description: a deed dated 29 March 1961, contents not yet known, is on the WA231076 first-registration file.

Parcel unclearParcel reading. Unknown until a copy is obtained. Because it sits on the WA231076 file, which was built on the 1982/83 merger of both parcels, it could concern either. ^🕒

Evidence description: in January–February 1965 Frederick negotiated with WGR, which would not let him the fields. On 2 March 1965 WGR offered Mary a weekly tenancy of the house and garden at £2; she did not sign, and the estate treated her occupation as adverse from then.

Parcel BParcel AParcel reading. Frederick’s negotiation was for the fields (Parcel B). The offer to Mary was of the house and garden (Parcel A): an attempt to bring her into a tenancy of her own parcel. It failed.

What it will record: Frederick’s death in 1967, aged 56.

Evidence description: on 31 December 1969 WGR conveyed to BP Pension Trust.

‹A + B as one›Parcel reading. The conveyance itself is missing, but it appears to have passed the farm as one, although WGR had never obtained possession of, or any signature for, Parcel A. ^🕒

To find: copy of the 29 March 1961 deed (HM Land Registry) · WGR and BP conveyancing papers 1964–69, including the missing 1969 conveyance and BP’s abstract of title: any Buckler party other than Frederick, Mary or William · a solicitor’s file or deed of 1964–67 in the eldest son’s name · General Register Office entries for the eldest son’s birth (Buckler, about 1936–41, Cardiff or East Glamorgan) and Frederick’s 1967 death. ^🕒

Evidence description: after Mary’s death on 26 March 1983 her son William inherited her estate and defended BP Properties Ltd v Buckler. BP won in the High Court (heard 10 July 1986, judgment 24 July 1986) and the Court of Appeal on 31 July 1987. Demolition of the farmhouse began on 6 December 1988.

Parcel AParcel reading. What William inherited and defended was the house, garden and yard (Parcel A), and it was the farmhouse on Parcel A that was demolished. BP ultimately relied on a registered title that brought both parcels together in 1982/83; the disputed question is the historic root for the Parcel A component.

Evidence description: William, born at Great House Farm around 1948–49 and the middle one of seven children, died on 29 May 1990 at Llandough Hospital. The previously stated funeral and burial details are inconsistent with the corrected death date and remain to be verified against the obituary and relevant records.

Parcel AParcel reading. Born in the farmhouse on Parcel A. These are personal records; they concern the land only through that.

Evidence description: [SOURCE PENDING] unsourced reports of gentry connections, a link with the Welsh boxer Jim Driscoll, and a long custom of taking in lodgers at the farmhouse, including a tradition connected with Marconi’s time in the Penarth area.

Parcel AParcel reading. The lodgers were taken in at the farmhouse, on Parcel A. Mary’s statement records that a lodger of 1950–52 was present when the family’s papers went missing. ^🕒

Mary’s grandsons are researching the title and pursuing complaints and legal routes. See The restoration campaign and Records Access Chronology.

Parcel AParcel reading. The campaign’s case is about Parcel A: that BP’s 1982/83 title merged both parcels on a Parcel A title with no root, resting on failed attempts to make Mary’s occupation look permissive.