A Story from Two Plaques

A Story from two plaques Major I.Jackson

As one walks around a cathedral or other Church building it easy to pass by the plaques and tablets on the walls without really seeing them.

However, if one takes time to look they often tell a fascinating story.

I was looking around Chester Cathedral, when my eye caught the familiar Anglesey names of Bulkeley and Panton. I was fascinated as I unravelled the story that they told.

Jones Panton had inherited the house and large estate of Plasgwyn on the death of his older brother. Their father, Paul Panton of Bagillt, had gained the house by his marriage to Jane Jones, the heiress to the estate.

Jones Panton had a large family and it is his second daughter, Jane Elizabeth, whose story unfolds on this memorial.

The first thing we notice is that she married into the Bulkeley family, at least that is what the name of her husband suggests. I have not yet, however, been able to form a family history for the Reverend Bulkeley

Williams. The living of Beaumaris Parish was in the hands of the Bulkeleys strengthening the connection between the two land-owning families.

So, if she came from Anglesey and lived in Beaumaris why is she commemorated in Chester? The clues are in this memorial plaque and another a couple of feet to its right.

​It is clear that an infant daughter, only five days old at the time of her

death, is the key to the story. Death in childbirth is sadly a common occurrence in this period of history. As the nearby memorial is to her two maiden aunts I can only presume that Jane Elizabeth came to Chester to be with her aunts for the birth of her child. I think from the wording on their memorial that the aunts were not unused to midwifery. It is interesting to note that Jane Elizabeth bore the names of both these aunts.

With thanks to Rev Lorraine Reed of Chester Cathedral for her help in photographing the memorials.