Alex Jones Coming Home

Travelling from London to Wales in search of her ancestry

is Alex Jones, presenter of...

# One

# One... #

Hello and welcome to the One Show.

Beginning her career on S4C, the girl from Ammanford, West Wales,

has taken on every imaginable challenge.

From the dance floor of Strictly Come Dancing,

to hanging on a sheer cliff for Sport Relief,

Alex is not afraid to get stuck in,

displaying sheer courage, which she hopes to find in her own ancestry.

As a family, we are pretty determined. Mum especially.

But I'm thinking maybe going back through different generations,

maybe that's where I've got it from.

Because if I decide to embark on a project,

I have to see it through right to the end.

And it'd be quite interesting to see

whether that's something that's come down from perhaps generations.

So now Alex Jones is Coming Home.

On this journey, Alex discovers some wayward ancestors...

So, in the time that he'd been away,

-so his brother-in-law had basically taken everything?

-Yep.

..learns the price of loyalty to the Crown.

-£1,000 fine!

-You wouldn't like to pay this today.

-No!

Well, think of it then.

And in trying to prove her family's connection to the sport of kings,

is overcome with emotion.

That's amazing.

Oh!

Alex's journey begins in the town of Llanelli in West Wales.

As she will shortly discover,

it was home to generations of her ancestors who lived and worked here.

She is heading for a visit to one of the town's oldest buildings -

Llanelly House.

A recently restored early 18th-century Georgian town house.

It's here in this grand building

that she has arranged to meet with genealogist Mike Churchill Jones.

-Hi, Alex.

-Hiya, Mike.

-Welcome to Llanelly House.

Thank you very much.

We've got many reasons, thanks to your ancestors, to be in Llanelli.

And we've been researching your family tree.

And this is what we've come up with.

You can help us turn it over.

-Oh, my God! There's quite a lot, isn't there?

-There are quite a few.

Straightaway, there's a wonderful surprise for Alex,

Mike has traced her family ancestry in West Wales back over 350 years.

And the longest line is going back

to your eight-times great-grandfather,

Edward Mainwaring.

-1642?!

-Yeah, around about then.

Mike, you've been working on this for a long time, haven't you?

As Alex will later learn,

the Mainwarings were a prestigious family here in Wales.

-This is very Welsh then.

-Very Welsh.

I thought that would be the case, really.

Well, the tree is not entirely Welsh, one of Alex's

ancestors married a Herman Johnson, who was a sailor from Finland,

whose story Mike has also been researching.

There's also another story that Alex would very much like to be able to

prove, that her great-great grandfather,

Henry Hughes, was a professional horse jockey.

But what Mike has discovered is something very different.

-Henry Hughes.

-Mm-hmm.

He was your second great grandfather.

He was born in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire.

-And he died just up the road, in 1950, in Llanelli.

-OK.

He was a collier and a doubler in the tinworks.

This was not really the news Alex was hoping to hear,

but Mike will continue his investigations.

Alex is off to learn something of a man of the church.

The family tree showed Alex's eight-times great-grandfather,

Edward Mainwaring.

And she is here to learn something of his father, Roger Mainwaring,

who lived in the 17th century under the reign of this man,

King Charles I.

Hiya, Gerald.

Historian and author Gerald Morgan has been busy researching

the Mainwaring family,

and it appears Alex's nine-times great-grandfather, Roger Mainwaring,

held high office, in fact, he was a...

-Bishop?!

-You are descended from a bishop.

-Wow!

-How did that happen?

-Now, that's a shock.

I knew there was miners and butchers and farmers, but not a bishop.

Well, he became a friend of the King.

He was a vicar in London.

He was invited to preach before the King and to publish his sermons.

Three times he preached these sermons

saying to people that the King had every right to tax them

without the consent of Parliament,

that because he was King, essentially,

he could do what he liked.

-Parliament was furious.

-I'm sure they were.

Whilst Roger Mainwaring may have been encouraged by King Charles I

to write these sermons,

it was initially a fearless act to defy Parliament and back the King.

There's no doubt that the King had told Roger to get these

sermons printed. He wanted to make this publicity.

But when he saw that he'd set Parliament off,

and that Parliament was outraged,

he withdrew a little and said,

"Well, this is going too far. This is going too far."

-I'm going to get into trouble here.

-Yes.

And so, Roger was thrown into prison by Parliament.

He was brought before the House of Lords,

and then the House of Commons,

to apologise for what he'd done. And he had to do this on his knees.

I'm not going to ask you to get on your knees.

-It's a bit confined here.

-And we're not in the House of Lords.

But I'd like you to read this part of the apology that he had to

make to the Lords and to the House of Commons.

Wow!

So, he said, "I do here, in all sorrow of heart

"and true repentance, acknowledge the many errors and indiscretions which

"I have committed in preaching and publishing those two sermons of mine.

"I do, from the bottom of my heart, crave pardon of God, the King,

"and His Honourable House, the Church,

"and this Commonwealth in particular."

That was pretty humiliating, but on top of that, £1,000 fine.

-£1,000 fine?!

-You wouldn't like to pay this today.

-No!

Well, think of it then.

But, of course, as soon as Parliament broke up,

the King issued a pardon for Roger Mainwaring.

And gave him additional offices in the church,

in addition to what he had.

But Charles I's pardon of Roger Mainwaring would not last.

Bad news comes. 1640, Parliament is recalled.

The King can no longer survive without the help of Parliament.

But Parliament is no longer willing to help him.

And the first thing they do is to throw Roger Mainwaring

back into prison, where he'd spent time before.

He's stripped of his offices. He's no longer bishop.

For his support of King Charles I and the Royalist cause,

Roger Mainwaring had paid a heavy price.

He lives a pretty rotten life. He was living in poverty.

He was only able to survive with the help of friends.

So when he lived in poverty then, where was he at that point?

As far as I know, he was in Carmarthen with his family.

With friends and family there.

And the family of Mainwaring, as I'm sure you know,

hung on in West Wales until the present day.

-This is a very common name, isn't it, Mainwaring?

-Yes.

Oh, it's one of those names that is just as Welsh as Jones or Davis.

That's right.

And in 1653, as the Civil War had come to an end

and Parliament was victorious, he died in Carmarthen

and was buried in Brecon, but he was given a place of honour

because he was an ex-bishop at least,

in being buried close to the high altar

in what was Brecon Priory church

and it's now the cathedral.

Alex's story now moves forward over 200 years.

This specially restored cottage is typical of rural Carmarthenshire

and gives a flavour of domestic life in 19th-century Wales.

And it's to the domestic life of Herman Johnson and Ann Brabyn,

Alex's four-times great-aunt and uncle that the story now turns.

Herman was a sailor from Finland who gave up his homeland

for a life at sea.

Records show that Herman and Ann set up home and furnished it

at a cost of £69 11s.

On his return from a sea voyage in 1896,

Herman received news from home concerning Ann,

as historian Hedd Ladd Lewis can reveal to Alex.

"He received a letter telling him that his wife had died." Oh!

-On June 6th.

-Yeah.

-So while he was out at sea, he lost Ann Brabyn then?

-Yes.

So he had lost his wife.

She'd passed away,

and not only does he return to Llanelli to find that his wife has

passed away, but he also returns to find that he is minus his house

and minus his personal possessions.

But what had happened then?

Whilst Herman was still at sea, and a long way from home,

Ann's two brothers decided to help themselves

to the contents of their home.

But what happened when Herman eventually made it back to Llanelli?

"So Johnson went at once to his brother-in-law's at Llanelli

"and found that the two Brabyns

"had entered into possession of his own goods.

"Even his trunk had been broken into

"in which were two insurance policies,

"both on the life of William Brabyn, the premiums of which had been

"paid by plaintiff, and also the lease of his house."

So in the time that he had been away,

-so his brother-in-law had basically taken everything?

-Yeah.

Now then, the two brother-in-laws were living in Herman Johnson's

house with Ann.

-And Ann had passed away.

-Right.

-Herman was away at sea.

And during that time then, of course, the two brothers had broken

into his trunk and they had also removed several items of furniture.

-Well, the little rascals!

-Now then. Oh, yes.

The case would eventually come to court, to the Glamorgan Assizes

where Ann Brabyn's brothers tried to defend their actions.

The brothers being questioned in court and asking why

they had broken into Johnson's trunk,

-and this is part of the reply.

-OK.

"Brother Nicholas said he broke into Johnson's trunk to see

"if he could find any money to pay his wife's funeral expenses,"

-which makes sense, doesn't it?

-Yes.

"And he took out the other articles to place them in a place of safety."

Hm, dodgy.

"The idea of a man breaking open a trunk in his own house and given

"the goods in it to his neighbours to take care of so they might be..."

In inverted commas, "..in a place of safety was rather rich

"and the judge and court laughed loud and long."

-Well, yes, it doesn't hold much water, does it?

-No, it doesn't.

But the interesting thing here is that the judge laughed.

The judge rightly found the Brabyn brothers guilty.

Obviously, it had amused the whole community,

so there's a very sad part to it.

But there is also a sort of an amusing side to the story as well...

Absolutely.

..when you look at the reaction of the judge and the court.

But it's all right for the judge laughing.

He probably had a house and possessions

-and a trunk that was closed.

-Exactly.

Now, Alex is at Ffos Las racecourse, just outside Llanelli.

She's here on the trail

of her great-great-grandfather Henry Hughes,

someone she always believed to be a professional jockey,

But why is proving this story so important to her?

It's because of her grandfather, Denzil,

now 88 and currently not in the best of health.

This was Denzil as a young man.

But earlier still in his life, aged just six, his father died.

And it was his grandfather, Henry Hughes,

that Denzil turned to, as Alex explains.

He didn't know his dad because he died at such a young age,

so he put a lot of weight into what his grandfather used to do.

He was the only man that he had a sense of.

Growing up, Denzil had been told by his grandfather Henry

that he had been a horse racing jockey,

something Alex would dearly love to prove.

So Alex is hoping Mike has some good news.

Henry's 1891 marriage certificate showed he was a collier

in the pits of South Wales,

but ten years later, the census reveals a different story.

What the 1901 census tells us that N Henry Hughes was...

Horse jockey grooms master.

Wow!

So just as Henry had always said, he was a professional jockey

and grooms man.

Mike has even found evidence of one of his races.

First of all, this is the Weatherby's annual calendar

-for jockeys, steeplechase jockeys.

-Right, OK.

-1894.

And if you read down the list, you will find Henry Hughes.

-So this answers a lot of questions for me.

-That's fantastic.

-Yeah.

-Wow.

-I can also show you that he was in fact entered in races.

-We found him in a few races. The year was 1896.

-OK.

The course was Plumpton. It was Friday, January 31.

-We find him down here. He was on a horse called Moglet.

-Yes.

And he finished...

-second.

-Second, brilliant.

-So he was a proper jockey competing.

-A bona fide jockey, yeah.

That's amazing.

I mean, I wonder really where he would have trained, you know?

Between working at the colliery and then going into horses,

cos he must have been pretty good

to be able to compete in races like this.

Alex's grandfather was not well enough to come to the racetrack

today to share this story with his granddaughter,

but clearly Alex is looking forward to telling him.

I can't wait to pop over there and see my grandfather

and just tell him exactly what happened.

He'll be thrilled.

Henry Hughes lived a long life, dying only in 1950.

And clearly, Alex's grandfather knew him very well.

And there was another story he shared with him -

that whilst working as a groom for the Anthony family

here in Carmarthenshire, he helped them to train a local horse

called Glenside who would later go on to win the Grand National.

But was there really a horse called Glenside

who won this prestigious race?

If anyone can help, it's Grand National historian Jane Clark.

-Well, first of all, do you know the name of the horse?

-Yes.

-My grandfather has told me many times that it was called Glenside.

-Ahh.

-The horse.

-Well, I can tell you something about Glenside.

First of all, he was a bay gelding.

-He was foaled in 1902 in Ireland.

-Right.

He was bought by a Mr Harries, who was a Welshman

from this neck of the woods,

and he raced Glenside in small steeplechases in Carmarthen

-and in Tenby, and he won a race in Tenby in 1909.

-Right.

And he was trained on the farm of a family called

the Anthonys, who were great riders.

-Jack Anthony, one of them, won three Grand Nationals in fact.

-No way!

But he helped to train the horse and then

when Glenside had won this race at Tenby,

he passed to another owner for the princely sum of £150.

-Wow, that was a lot in those days.

-In those days.

It sounds nothing now.

So Glenside left the stables here in Wales

for life under a new owner in England.

But did he later go on to win the Grand National?

Jane has managed to unearth a newspaper account of the 1910

Grand National for Alex to read, and it appears

even in the pre-race build-up, Glenside was showing good form.

So this has been written by a journalist in the first person.

He says, "I contented myself with a modest half-crown on Glenside

"who, by the way, was the cleanest jumper in the canter past the stands.

"Every horse except Glenside rapped the top of the hurdle

"and several bent it over badly.

"28 magnificent horses mounted by the finest jockeys in the land

"crowded at the start of this perilous 4.5 miles,

"and at the first jump,

"they were awaited by ambulances for man and beast.

"Very prudent, very proper,

"very necessary in this wonderful race for gold." Oh, that's fantastic.

It really paints the picture, doesn't it?

And how did Glenside do then in this particular race?

-Well, he was doing very well up to a certain point.

-Right.

On the second circuit, his stable companion, he accidentally knocked

Glenside over and brought him down at the fence onto Becher's.

Oh, no.

So he had been going pretty well and hopes were high,

but they were all dashed, I'm afraid.

Aw, that's such a shame, isn't it?

After all that, Jenkinstown was the eventual winner that year.

-Oh, right. OK. And was Glenside badly injured, or...

-No.

-..was he OK?

-He was fine. His pride hurt, that's all.

-Yes.

So Glenside, it seems, didn't win the Grand National

as Henry Hughes had claimed, but he was at least a runner

in this famous race over 100 years ago.

However, this is not the last chapter in Glenside's story,

as Alex will later discover.

Alex is clearly enjoying her homecoming, and has now returned

to Llanelli where they are staging a big history event in the town.

Oyez! Alex Jones is in Llanelli researching her family's ancestry.

Alex is certainly being made to feel right at home.

But there's not time to linger because next she is off to

learn something of her grandmother, Eileen Bassett's side of the tree.

Generations of the Bassetts worshiped here at this chapel

in the village of Felinfoel, near Llanelli.

These earlier ancestors may be long gone,

but records of their lives still remain in the chapel,

as historian Hedd Ladd Lewis has been finding out.

And what I have here is the church register.

If we turn to this particular page here...

-I can see right at the top there is a Bassett straightaway.

-Yeah.

-Anthony and Catherine.

-Mm-hm.

And Anthony would have been your five-times removed grandfather.

-Right. Gosh, that's a long time ago.

-So 1794.

This was one of the earliest sites for Welsh nonconformism,

a movement that split from the established church

to form self-governing chapels.

And the Bassetts played a prominent role

in this Welsh religious revolution.

Your family has a connection with this particular cause,

Baptist cause, going right back to the beginnings

of the Baptist movement in this particular area.

Yeah, which is a real significant point in history, isn't it?

Oh, yes, because we know the nonconformist movement

plays such an important part in Welsh history.

For generations of Alex's Bassett family,

this chapel was at the very heart of their community,

including her three-times great-grandfather, Daniel Bassett.

-He was well known in the community. He was a mine owner.

-Right.

He owned a colliery and he also owned a public house called

the Dimpath, which is still in Felinfoel.

See, being in relation to my grandmother,

I'm not surprised at any of this because she likes a good time

so it makes complete sense that her great-grandfather would have a pub.

As records show,

unfortunately Daniel Bassett was not afraid to take on a fight

with the elders of this esteemed chapel.

If I translate what is written,

it says that he was asked to leave for taking to law

the brother Samuel Williams who was the secretary of the church

for libellous action.

The bottom line is, is that your great-grandfather,

three-times removed, was actually removed from the chapel.

He's noted as "diaelwyd".

-So he was kicked out?

-He was asked to leave, yes.

-Right.

-Because he had taken one of the other members to court.

He had taken him to law.

And as a result, he was asked to leave.

So we have another part of your story here where they're actually...

-The law does play a part.

-Right.

They're not very well behaved, are they? That side of the family.

We are not sure exactly why, but it does say here that

-he obviously had insulted the church secretary.

-Right, yes.

And had obviously a "tafod enllibus".

-So libel.

-Libel.

He had libelled the church secretary.

Well, that's not a good person, is it?

If you're going to pick anybody, don't pick that person.

-Without a doubt.

-And then he was outed from here.

-He was out.

-But he died in 1871.

-Right.

And he is actually buried in the graveyard here...

-Oh, is he?

-..behind the chapel.

Because I knew that Mamgu has spoken a lot about Felinfoel and, you know,

she grew up here being the youngest of 11,

but I didn't realise that they still had relatives that were buried

here because as far as I knew,

they had all moved out into different areas of Llanelli.

I'm just surprised that he was kicked out, effectively,

but was still allowed to be buried here.

He probably owned a plot, you see.

-He probably owned a plot.

-That's the Bassetts - thinking ahead.

-Planning ahead.

-THEY LAUGH

Now, Alex is unexpectedly heading back to Ffos Las racecourse,

near Llanelli.

Earlier, she learnt the story of Glenside,

and of her great-great-grandfather Henry Hughes' claim

that this horse, who he had helped to train,

had gone on to win the Grand National.

Alex now knows Glenside didn't win this great race in 1910.

But what became of him after this disappointment?

Historian Jane Clark has been doggedly researching this story.

Earlier on, Alex, we were talking about Glenside

and the 1910 Grand National when he was going pretty well,

-but then met with that unlucky mishap.

-Yes, unfortunate.

Since running the 1910 Grand National,

Glenside had lost an eye

and contracted a serious respiratory condition,

but still was about to run in the 1911 Grand National.

Amazingly, 100 years later in 2011, film of this race was unearthed

which Alex can now view for the very first time.

We have managed to get hold of some footage of the 1911 Grand National,

-which is very, very, very rare.

-Right.

It was sold at auction

and the person who bought it wasn't sure what it was until we sort of

unearthed it and found out

-that Glenside ran in the 1911 race as well.

-No way!

Oh, gosh, we've got moving footage.

-So you will be able to actually see.

-That is fantastic.

-Is this what you've got on here?

-Yes.

-So why don't you enjoy it yourself?

-Oh, gosh, that is so fantastic.

Thank you, Jane. Gosh, it's such old footage.

It gives you a real picture as well of what the Grand National

would have been like back in those days.

A newspaper report from that day helps to set the scene

for this remarkable footage.

On March 24th, 1911, on a clear spring day,

A large crowd had gathered early, before 6:00am,

to watch this great spectacle.

As the horses paraded in the ring, one of the favourites, Rathnally,

walked about with confidence.

Glenside, by contrast, was evidently suffering

the effects of a recent cough.

All 26 horses lined up under starter's orders

and as the crowd cheered, they were off.

Here they come. Look, they're all coming around.

-It's fantastic.

-There they are.

You can see them going over Becher's Brook there.

-Gosh.

-You can see quite a few falls as well.

-Ooh.

Despite the good conditions, halfway through the race,

many of the horses had fallen.

But amongst those still running were Rathnally,

and despite his respiratory problems,

one very determined chestnut horse called Glenside.

26 runners, and by the start of the second circuit,

only eight of them were actually standing.

Oh, it's unbelievable that you have managed to get hold of this footage.

I don't know if you can see the big hole in one of the fences.

-One of the horses fell on the first circuit.

-Right.

And then on the second circuit, two horses went for that big gap,

trying to jump it, and they collided with each other,

-and both of them came down.

-Uff.

As the race continued, they were yet more fallers.

Oh, gosh, look, the jockey has been thrown there.

There's a jockey trying to get back on his horse.

He's already fallen off it and he's trying to remount.

Now Glenside is a chestnut horse with a big white face,

and you can see him.

-That's Glenside there.

-Oh, no!

Of the horses who lined up at the start, only two were still running -

Rathnally, a firm favourite described as

"the fittest horse on the course",

and leading Glenside, the one-eyed asthmatic chestnut horse.

Cheered on by the crowds, the finish line was in sight,

but feverish and spent, his heart beating,

could Glenside clear the last fence?

What happened next?

-He wins the race!

-No, he didn't! He didn't win the race!

That's amazing!

-Ahh.

-Now, you didn't believe that, did you?

-No.

He was the only horse in the whole race not to fall or refuse

-or be brought down.

-Brilliant.

-26 runners and only one horse didn't fall.

-That's amazing.

-My grandfather all this time, he was right, look.

-Absolutely.

-So well done, you are a National winner.

-That's amazing.

That is the best news ever. He's going to be so thrilled.

And the thing was, because his dad died when he was so young,

you know, his grandfather lived a long life,

but he sort of fixated on him because he didn't know

anything about his dad and he would just be over the moon with this news.

-Oh, well, you've got to dash back and tell him.

-Thank you so much.

That is so precious. Thank you.

All these stories obviously mean so much to Alex

because they mean so much to her grandfather, Denzil,

who in turn had been told this story by his grandfather, Henry Hughes,

who helped train Glenside.

Seeing that incredible footage of him

winning the 1911 Grand National was just the icing on the cake.

I can't wait to pop over there and see my grandfather

and just tell him exactly what happened.

He will be thrilled.

On this journey, Alex has learnt a huge amount about her ancestry,

which she's looking forward to sharing with her family.

I honestly didn't know what to expect when we started out,

but it has been a journey of discovery.

I knew nothing about my family,

so I feel really privileged to have had this information.

I think a highlight of seeing that footage was just unbelievable,

and being able to go home and tell my parents

and my grandparents, more importantly for me,

about what we found out today will just be something really special.

So thank you.