Better Late than Never

There's a cartoon in the current issue of Private Eye of a young lad writing a comment at the end of an article in his father's newspaper.  As Dad points out, the printed page isn't the internet, it doesn't do comments. Anyway a few days ago I purchased an old copy of Cronicl Powys, the Powys Family History Society's journal.  It contained an article called "The Mantles of the Ithon Valley" and since my grandmother was a Mantle from said valley - although she was soon removed to the mining village of Fochriw - it was something I wanted to read.

Having read the article I felt a bit like the boy in the Eye cartoon.  I wanted to leave a comment, one I'm sure would have been of interest to the author and to anyone else interested in the Mantles of Radnorshire.  The author, who notices that there are no Mantles in the 1670 Hearth Tax, believes that the family "probably arrived in the Ithon valley between 1670 and 1680."   I'm not so sure that there were no Mantles in the Hearth Tax, there were certainly Mansells and as a Bufton was wrongly transcribed as Buston, well who knows.  But in any case the Mantle family were certainly in Llanbister a good 80 years or more before the author's estimate of their arrival.

Proceedings in Chancery between 1596 and 1616 involved a Thomas Mantle of Llanbister, who was accused of defrauding Sir George Carew of various local rents and leases.  This Thomas Mantle made a will in 1617 which mentions his sons John, Richard and Griffith, daughters Mauld, Margaret and Johan and various properties belonging to the family in Llanbister and Llanddewi Ystradenni.  It also mentions a mill in Stottesdon in Salop, which may give a clue to where they came from before they entered Radnorshire.  Later on in the 17C we find wills or bonds for a William Mantle (1637), Griffith Mantle (1661), Gwenhwyfar Mantle (1661) - all of Llanbister - and William Mantle of Llanddewi (1695).

I wonder why local societies don't make more use of blogs and the opportunity they afford for timely comments and follow-ups.  Of course, as the editor of Cronicl points out, their magazine is archived at the NLW,  whereas a blog can easily disappear into the ether at the whim of its author or host.