Mary Ann Arnold was born Mary Ann Williams on 1st March 1857, at Beech Farm, Glascoed, the daughter of Elizabeth Williams and Richard Arnold.
Mary Ann, was one of 12 children. Her mother, Elizabeth Williams, married Richard Arnold on 9th April 1857, several weeks after Mary Ann’s birth. Whilst the father was not named on the birth certificate, this was normal for an unmarried mother. DNA testing has since proved what Mary Ann always maintained, that Richard was her biological father.
My father had been told that Mary Ann was born on 1st March 1858 – I assume by his father. This caused us some problems initially in finding her birth certificate; she was registered in 1857 as Mary Ann Williams. Perhaps Mary Ann was trying to hide something she would have preferred people not to know. She was always known (apart from on her birth certificate) as Mary Ann Arnold.
Mary Ann married James Pitt at Pontnewydd, Cwmbran in 1879. James was active in union and chapel life, working as a shearer at the Foundry. Around 1890, they became entrepreneurs, opening a grocer’s shop at Mill Road and then later at Fowler Street, Pontnewynydd. I was told that Mary Ann was the main shopkeeper. James also worked as an insurance agent, which involved weekly trips on the steamer to Weston-Super-Mare to travel to the insurance office.
Mary Ann and James had eight children. The first, Annie was born in 1880, married Fred Brown and moved away to the Rhondda and then Bargoed. By the time their youngest son, Ernie, my grandfather, reached secondary school age, they were doing well enough in life to send him as a day pupil to West Mon school in Pontypool. He went on to become the first Head teacher of Grofield Secondary Modern school in Abergavenny.
They must always have considered Glascoed to be home. Their two children, Eva and Stanley, who had died in infancy, were buried at Mount Zion Baptist chapel in the village.
Their grave at Mount Zion Chapel, first used when Eva died as a baby in 1885, became the final resting place of their parents. James died in 1929, and Mary Ann six years later, in 1935.
