Thomas Pennant was born in 1726 at Downing Hall in
Flintshire. It was a small house with a large garden and this
started an early interest in nature. His early schooling was
in Wrexham and then he went to school in London and on to
Queens College Oxford. Whilst at Oxford he went on his first
tour and afterwards went on to travel on the continent.
Most travellers of that time depended upon their own resources
but Pennant was quite willing to entrust his travel
arrangements to others. The biggest influence on him was
Edward Lhuyd and, like Lhuyd, Pennant sent ahead questions to
prominent people in local society to first ascertain the lie
of the land.
Pennant was non Welsh speaking and to overcome the problem
of not being able to understand local people he relied upon
his friendship with John Lloyd – a schoolmaster and historian
from Caerwys who went with Pennant on all of his journeys
through Wales. Indeed, so great was his reliance upon John
Lloyd that there remains some question as to how much of
Pennant’s work was recorded by him and how much by John Lloyd.
Pennant’s work was enriched by another companion, Moses
Griffith, who was employed by Pennant to illustrate his books.
Griffith’s sketches were accurate in detail and this helped to
sell many of Pennant’s books.
Pennant journeyed through Wales going from one large estate
to another. This let hin inspect the contents of many of the
libraries of the large landowners, but also prevented him to a
large extent from meeting many of the ordinary people.
Pennant’s ‘Tours’ are presented as a continuous journey but
were in fact compiled from many separate individual
excursions.
He wrote his autobiography, called A Literary Life, in 1793
and died in 1798.
The Williams Wynns of
Wynnstay
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