David Vaughan Clay fell overboard and was drowned at sea when his ship was off the River Plate in S America. His family’s gravestone in Ramah Churchyard, a few minutes’ walk from Tegfan, gives the bare facts.
The wonderfully informative ‘Welsh Mariners’ Index‘, with its sparse tables of dates, numbers and names of ships can provide some context to this tragic death. There are nine local mariners listed with birth dates between 1813 and 1880 who share the regionally unusual surname of ‘Clay’.
- William Clay (born 1808)
- James Clay (born 1813) survived a shipwreck and lost everything but the clothes he was wearing
- William Clay (born 1826) supposed drowned. His ship was last heard of 11th November 1871
- James Owen Clay (born 1833)
- Thomas Griffith Clay (born 1837)
- William James Clay (born 1840) presumed drowned. His ship left Cardiff for Montreal in September 1871 and was last heard of 11th November of the same year
- David Vaughan Clay (born 1848) drowned and remembered above
- Peter Vaughan Clay (born 1854) supposed drowned when his ship was sunk by an enemy submarine 11th August 1917
- William James Clay (born 1880). Did he live in Mount Pleasant, Bryn Henllan?
A hard life with so much family suffering.
Tegfan, Dinas Cross 