Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy

Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy

The following handwritten inscription appears on the back of the frame; "Gwylltiaid [sic] Cochion Mawddwy (Very old picture bought at Dolbradnath [Dolbradmaeth?] worked with a needle). After the Wars of the Roses, hordes of felons and disbanded soldiers infested the country & prayed on the inhabitants. The Gwylltiaid [sic] Cochion Mawddwy (or the red-haired banditti of Mawddwy) were so great a terror to the neighbourhood that a commission was given to Lewis Owen, vice chancellor of North Wales to bring them to justice. Having hanged some of them he was murdered by the others on his way from Dolgelly to Shrewsbury in 1555 when the whole banditti were afterward rooted out – [Viche?] Pennant”. Evan Reese was a Machynlleth slate manager who published 'Improvements In & Connected With School Slates' in 1892 and seems to have been active in business into the 1920s. W.R. Hall was Town Librarian in Aberystwyth between 1918 and 1931. The picture was discovered in Old College in March 2015 but was probably presented to the University in the 1920s or 30s.