Miss Ellen Kennard
(1840-1917)
23 April 1861

Volume 3, page 132, sitting number 3218.

Born Ellen Kennard on 21 April 1840 at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, this is the youngest daughter of the ironmaster and financier Robert William Kennard (1800-1870), who served in Parliament as the Conservative MP for Newport (Isle of Wight) from 1857 to 1868.

She appears on the 1861 census living at 37 Porchester Terrace, the house opposite Silvy’s studio, with her parents, her three siblings and the family’s nine servants.

On 1 December 1864 she married George William Griffiths Thomas of Ystrad Mynach, Glamorganshire.

The couple appear on the 1871 census living at St George’s super Ely, a small village on the western outskirts of Cardiff. For his profession, Mr Thomas gave ‘Landowner and Magistrate.’ Also present on the night of the census were the couple’s four young children, their governess and ten servants. Two more children were later added to the family.

Mr Thomas died, aged 42, at The Heath, near Cardiff on 8 December 1885. He left an estate valued at £83,216.

His widow appears on the 1901 and 1911 censuses living at Thames Bank, a large house at Whitchurch in Oxfordshire. She died there on 5 April 1917, aged 76, leaving an estate valued at £142,060.