Whitchurch and Llandaff Living Issue 68

yn glas
A story of a mystery Whitchurch house - and a grand story!
Nigel Lewis charts the intriguing story of the Vachell family
By Nigel Lewis
The Vachell family were wellknown
in Cardiff in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, and the
earliest reference is of Charles
Vachell.
In 1796, he was hauled up before
the Cardiff Quarter Sessions for
trading as a druggist without
permission. I think a druggist back
then was quite different to anything
we might consider today. He was a
pharmacist!
He claimed exemption on the
grounds that he had been a ship's
surgeon in the navy, and for three
years, had been fighting in the
French Revolutionary Wars. It
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obviously worked because the
Vachell family became very well
known as druggists in Cardiff for
many years thereafter.
Charles Vachell prospered; he
married and had a big house in
Crockherbtown (now Queen Street)
and had three children - Charles
Jr, William (who was born in 1789),
and another sibling. Charles Jr
and William developed the family
business in the town centre with
their father.
Later, Charles Jr became Mayor
of Cardiff and built houses on
a new swanky street, just off
Crockherbtown. He called it Charles
Street, after his father. Others in the
family built houses there too.
William, however, planned a
different route. He stayed in the
family business as a druggist and
married Mellicent in 1813. They had
five children, with their son Fredrick
Charles born in 1828. It seems that
all the others died young, with
Mellicent dying too in 1831. William
married again to Ann, and had a
son, but they too sadly died.
Like so many successful men
at that time, William decided to
retire to the country - to leafy
Whitchurch. He sold his business
to Griffith Phillips, who later moved
to Whitchurch himself and also
became Mayor in due time, but
that’s another story!
We first find a record of William in
Sketches: Nigel Lewis