| Description | Edward Taylor Massy was born, according to his own account, in Chester on 04 Jul 1807. He was one of that Massy family which held an Irish peerage and he himself owned land in Ireland, particularly in County Limerick. When and why he came to Pembrokeshire is not clear although there was some family connection between him and Jonathan Haworth Peel of Cotts in Prendergast parish, who was Sherrif of Pembrokeshire in 1826. Edward Taylor Massy's first children were born at Cleddau Lodge in Camrose parish, just across the river from Cotts, in the mid and late 1830s, but in the 1841 census he and his family are living at Cotts. He continued to live there until his death on 27/07/1882. The name was changed to Cottesmore sometime between the 1841 and 1851 censuses. His eldest son was Edward Hugh Harmon Massy who was listed as a 4 year old on the 1841 census. He was in fact baptised at Camrose Church on 09/09/1836. Edward's five other sons were Haworth Peel, Villiers Tuthill, Xavier Peel and Arthur Wellington, aged 8, 7, 6, and 4 respectively on the 1851 census, and George Eyre, aged 9 on the 1861 census. He had also six daughters; Ellen Catherine, Catherine Elizabeth, Annette Jane, Mary Georgina and Gertrude, aged 13, 12, 11, 9, and 11 months on the 1851 census, and Constance Jane aged 7 on the 1861 census. Despite bearing her husband all these children (plus at least one who died in infancy) in 18 years Edward's wife Helen outlived him dying on 25/07/1888 aged 75.
The Massys were all Churchgoers and pillars of Pembrokeshire Conservatism. Lieutenant-General Hugh Royds Stokes Massy, Arthur Wellington Massy's son, was Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1946. It was not until his death that the Massy connection with Cottesmore came to an end. The story of the Massy family after the Great War is not represented in these papers which are mostly about the Irish lands and affairs of Edward Hugh Hamon Massy who died in Ireland in 1909 |