Dear Pat,
Many thanks for your thought-provoking email.
Unfortunately the Inscription provides no more detail - there is
a presenters name, but it is illegible. I will get in touch with those who
now have it and see if they have ever been able to read the name.
It was not recorded as being Methodist. That was put in
because Phillippa was Methodist in Australia.
"Castle Green" is quite clearly written (in a good hand) and
has not been damaged by water or age, and Phillippa's name is quite clear.
In Victoria, Australia, where there were also a number of
different streams of the Methodist Church, Phillippa was with the Wesleyan
Methodist churches. While that may mean something to do with her belief it
may also be for social or any number of reasons.
May thanks for your knowledge of Swansea, and of the proximity
of both a castle and a chapel to where Phillippa lived.
The information regarding the marriage of Phillippa's mother to
William Hughes came originally via one of the listers, and was confirmed
from the parish register via the West Glamorgan Archives. The marriage was
in the Parish church at Neath. I believe that that does not necessarily mean
that either or both were not Methodist.
There is another matter which I find interesting or unusual, in
that there has been so much change of dwelling for these people. Phillippa
Pye Legge, the mother, was born in Carmarthenshire according to the 1851
Census, Phillippa, the daughter, was not born in Glamorgan, 1841 Census,
and according to what she told her family, was born in Montgomeryshire.
Later, there are the different addresses for mother and daughter, in an era
where I had had an idea that the daughters of the relatively well-to-do were
quite "protected". Do you have any thoughts regarding this?
Once again, many thanks for your thought -provoking email,
Rosemary