• 2 Neath Borough police buttons
• Neath & District Sports Supporters Club button hole badge
• SB Emergency Hospital Scheme button hole badge
• Great Coronation Recruiting Campaign 1911 medal
•  150th Anniversary of Robert Raikes, founder of Sunday Schools medal
• 3 Sunday School for regular attendance medals
• gold ? medal 'presented to J Richards by the Eagle Tinplate Co. for services done in the Great War
• small bags of screws nuts, attatchments etc, also loose in the tin. Ref: DC06-case

1911C – 5 Savour’s Court, The Green, Neath (next to Lake’s Court)

Mary Ann Richards 67 (Monmouth) 
John Richards 24 (Neath, Glamorgan)
Lucy Hawkes 30 (Birmingham) - Married (John's sister)
John Hawkes 6 (Neath, Glamorgan) (John's nephew)
Source Ancestry

James is also known to have lived in number 9 Ethel St - source pocket watch with inscribed address

The photo is possibly Mary Ann Richards circa 1891 - with John dressed as a girl ? 

James Richards - have searched the 1st 3 pages (60 results) for JR b abt 1836 in Northumberland on ancestry - no joy. At the time I would have thought him married and living with Mary Ann Richards the family living in Birmingham or Neath or somewhere between with children Elizabeth age 3 and Lucy age 1.

Mary Ann Jones & Richards - can't find - have searched for Elizabeth too 

Family legend has it that the Richards family may have come over from Ireland at the time of a potato famine. Family legend also has it that there is a close relationship with the actor Ray Milland. At present I'm unable to trace my great grandparents in 1881 so it may be worthwhile chasing back Ray's family tree to see if I can find a common ancestor or connection so let's go ....................  

 Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones (not Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones as has often been stated). His birth was registered in the March Quarter of 1907[3] in Neath, Wales, and he was the son of Elizabeth Annie (née Truscott) and Alfred Jones, though some sources[4] still state 1905 as his birth year. In the 1911 census the family were living at 66 Coronation Road, Mount Pleasant, Neath, Wales. Of his parents, Milland wrote in his 1974 autobiography Wide-Eyed in Babylon, "My father was not a cruel or harsh man. Just a very quiet one. I think he was an incurable romantic and consequently a little afraid of his emotions and perhaps ashamed of them... he had been a young hussar in the Boer War and had been present at the relief of Mafeking. He never held long conversations with anyone, except perhaps with me, possibly because I was the only other male in our family. The household consisted of my mother, a rather flighty and coquettish woman much concerned with propriety and what the neighbours thought."[5]..............

I did read the autobiography a while back and there wasn't a lot in it about his early years - I'm not sure what happened to it so I've ordered another one which is due next week.  

Alfred Jones 35 (born abt 1876 Pontypool, Monmouthshire) - Sheet Millman
Elizabeth A Jones 26 (abt 1885, Cardiff, Glamorgan)
Alfred Reginald Jones 4 (abt 1907, Neath, Glamorgan)
Beryl Jones 1 (abt 1910, Neath, Glamorgan)
Enid Jones 3 mths (abt 1911, Neath, Glamorgan)

Thomas Evans 65 Head (abt 1946, Cardiff, Glamorgan) - Tinworker
Maria Evans 65 wife (abt 1946, Cardiff, Glamorgan) - Tinworks Shearer
Elizabeth Truscott 16 niece (abt 1885, Cardiff, Glamorgan)
*****Margaret Durbin 2 adopted (abt 1899, Neath Glamorgan)*****
William James 72 (abt 1829, Aberavon Glamorgan)

Margaret Durbin - known as Maggie married Clifford Snow, brother of Gertie Snow my grandmother. This is a complicated one. If Maggie Durbin was adopted into the family and Elizabeth Truscott was a niece then that makes them first cousins. Maggie Durbin was my grandmother's sister-in-law so I think that makes my mother Ray Miland's 2nd cousin possibly. I spent 5 miles on the bike trying to work it our yesterday and I still don't know. 

Interestingly there are Durbin's living next door, Mary Durbin (wife - but no husband listed) and Elizabeth Durbin, daughter age 8 months. It looks like the father is not at home so Maggie was maybe put up for adoption. It's a difficult one that because the family (next generation down) keep pretty quiet about what went on there even 110 years later. 

He'd be age 25 - his wife Elizabeth A Jones (supposedly nee Truscott) would have been 16 - in 1901 - top return is listed as Alfred John Jones Royal Horse Artillery which ties in with RM's story of his father being in the cavalry - on census he is listed as being born in Newport, Monmouthshire, same as Elizabeth Richards daughter of Mary Ann Jones age 21.

CHECK MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE OF ALFRED JONES & ELIZABETH TRUSCOTT 1906 - 1902 ?

Alfred Jones' father is listed as James Jones, (Carpenter), and he is listed as living at Morgans Road, Melincrythan, Neath.

Reggie age 3

the book arrived and the autobiography "Wide Eyed in Babylon" states.......

My father was not a cruel or a harsh man. just a very quiet one. I think he was an incurable romantic and consequently a little afraid of his emotions and perhaps ashamed of them . To me, he was rather a tall man , very handsome, with black hair and eyes the colour of sherry. His nose was aquiline and thin, and he wore a fierce cavalry moustache; he had in fact been a young hussar in the Boer War and had been present at the relief of Mafeking. He never held long conversations with anyone, except perhaps with me, possibly because I was the only other male in the family. The household consisted of my mother, a rather flighty and coquettish woman much concerned with propriety and what the neighbours thought, my three sisters exactly one year apart, and Mary Catherine, our housekeeper and laundress. She was also the maid, the cook, and our comforter and shield. I think she was a relative of sorts on my father's side, but it was a relationship never spoken of, shadowy and secretive.
I know that my grandfather, a huge black bearded man, had been married twice, a state which in Wales is looked upon rather like leprosy. On top of that his mother had been a Spaniard, which in our county made us all rather suspect. In all he had ten children, two girls by the first wife and eight sons by his second. My father was the seventh son. He was christened Alfredo, which he never admitted. My father's half sisters were Emma and my wonderful Aunt Luisa. Each of my father's brothers had four or five children, so you know that Wales is just crawling with my relatives.

Later on in the book Aunt Luisa reveals to Ray that his father was born upstairs in the Nightingale Inn in Monmouthshire because the grandfather was delivering a new wagon he had built to some millers in Usk.  

Q - Was MARY ANN JONES, James Jones' first wife - according to the 1891 census she is 33 years older than her eldest child so is she the mother of Emma & Luisa and these two girls stayed with the father while she started a new family with James Richards. The ages look to be about right.   

CONFIRM LOCATION OF EAGLE TINPLATE WORKS, MELYN

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