Mark Penry Fenton Garnons-Williams (1867 - aft. 1911)

Mark Penry Garnons Williams is an interesting character. I am told by the family that he was very much the 'black sheep', who was sent to Canada after he was sent down from Oxford in the 1880s. I have a record that he entered Oxford in 1886, and the 1901 Canadian census gives 1888 as the year of arrival in Canada. He appears to have abandoned his Canadian family in the 1900s, and moved to New Zealand, possibly via Australia. In his will, his father left £2000 to each of his younger sons, except Mark, to whom he left £1000, "as he had already expended considerable sums on his advancement".

I have seen a notice in The Sydney Mail of 20 Jan 1909, which reads: "If MARK PENRY FENTON GARNONS WILLIAMS will communicate with Messrs. John TUDOR and SON, of Brecon, South Wales, England, he will hear something to his advantage. Information with regard to the same will be gratefully accepted.", so presumably his family in Wales were aware that he had gone to the antipodes. The modern family have sent me a descendancy, which shows him as having married Marion Maude Price in New Zealand. The only marriage I can find in the New Zealand BMD registers of someone of that or a similar name is to Martin George Williams in 1905. Did his papers identify him as M G Williams, and he adopt new first names? His son Leonard started being known as Leonard Hugh Garnon-Williams in 1946, shortly after Marion died. Did she know her husband's history, and let her son know before she died? If not, how and when did Leonard come to the conclusion that his father was Mark Penry Fenton Garnons Williams?

It seems the family name of this person is Garnons Williams: "In 1864 the Rev Prebendary Garnons Williams (christened Garnons as there was a fear that the family name was dying out) inherited Abercamlais and the estate from a young bachelor cousin at about the same time that his grandfather, the Archdeacon of Brecon died. Garnons Williams and his wife Catherine Hort had 10 children and the sons collectively decided that they would take Garnons as part of their surname (for this reason it is not hyphenated)" - see: Family History at Abercamlais [1]