Captain William Kenyon
(1815-1884)
5 April 1861

Volume 3, page 44, sitting number 2875. 

Born on 20 February 1815 at Ruyton of the Eleven Towns in Shropshire, William Kenyon was the fifth son of the Honourable Thomas Kenyon and Louise Charlotte née Lloyd. His paternal grandfather was Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon of Gredington.

He gained the rank of Captain in the 2nd Bombay Cavalry in the service of the East India Company. He was later a Captain in the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry and a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 1st Battalion Shropshire Rifle Volunteers .

On 9 October 1845 he married Frances Catherine Slaney, youngest daughter and co-heir of Robert Aglionby Slaney, a successful barrister who was several times elected the MP for Shrewsbury. The marriage produced six sons and five daughters.

William appears on the 1861 census living at 46 Curzon Street in London. He gave as his profession ‘Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace, Captain of Yeomanry Cav[alry].’

On 19 May 1862 his father-in-law died, leaving an estate valued at £100,000 to be shared between his three daughters. To comply with the terms of the will, four months later on 23 July 1862 William charged his surname by Royal Licence to Kenyon-Slaney.

When the census was taken in 1871 the family were living at Hatton Grange in Shropshire.

William Kenyon-Slaney died on 10 December 1884 at 2 Lower Berkeley Street, Portman Square, London. He left an estate valued at £7666.

According to one obituary, he ‘was educated at Rugby and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Merionethshire and Shropshire, and served as High Sheriff of the latter county in 1871’ (Evening News, 12 December 1884).