The book is bilingual and was translated into Welsh by Einir Wyn of Abersoch.
Mike is a volunteer with Liverpool charity Shoestring which now runs Glyn Melin house in Abersoch where Hedydd and Heulwen – the Misses Isambard Owen of the title – lived. The house is now used to provide respite and holidays for families and children.
What’s in a name?
The book was researched and written by Mike with the support of the Llanengan and Talsarnau Heritage Groups and designed by martdesign of Pwllheli.
‘What’s in a name?’ asks Juliet in Shakespeare’s famous play. In the case of the sisters, their surname holds the story of two remarkable Welsh women and their equally remarkable family history.
It is a surname which came into being in 1853 when Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the great Victorian engineer, became godfather to their father – and, as was common in those times, plain Herbert Owen became Herbert Isambard Owen.
It is a name which disappeared from history in 1988 with the death of his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Clemence Heulwen, for neither she nor her sister, Mabel Angharad Hedydd, married, and died childless.
It is a name which, although it lasted for less than 150 years, covered one of the most important periods in Welsh history, a period that Welsh historian Kenneth O Morgan called the ‘rebirth of a nation’.
In an attempt to uncover the history of Glynmelin House where Heulwen and Hedydd lived for 25 years, a journey unfurled from the house to a bridge built in Caernarfon in 1836 to the California Gold Rush of the 1840s and on to a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied France.
The book chronicles a story about the defence of the Welsh language, its history and culture; the founding of the University of Wales and its first School of Medicine; of the building of its railways; and of maritime pioneers. It is a story of the importance of the heritage of family and place in Welsh history.
A fascinating family
Sir Herbert Isambard Owen, knighted in 1902, qualified as a doctor and became Dean of St George’s Hospital London, a prominent member of the British Medical Association and a founder of the Cardiff School of Medicine and the University of Wales.
He was the physician and friend of Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, the nephew of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and they shared an interest in Celtic culture and the Welsh language.
He played a leading role in ensuring that the Welsh language was included in the new elementary schools’ curriculum at a time when the British Government was intent on excluding it.
See this week’s north feature for the full story, in shops and online now