Richard Hoare Jenkins
1788 – 24 April 1856
Roll No. 476
Richard Hoare Jenkins of Llanharan House was the son of Richard Jenkins and became High Sheriff of Glamorgan in 1831.
Llanharan house was built in 1750 by Rees Powell and purchased by Jenkins in 1795.
Around 1800 some major improvements were made to the house with the addition of a three-storey circular stair hall which included a dramatic geometrical staircase.
Jenkins was immortalised in a painting of the Llanharan Hunt after he established a pack of hounds there in 1804.
He bred hounds with distinctive markings, remarkable for their size and often almost white in colour. The pack was one of the first to be fed on biscuits.
Under 'Squire' Jenkins, 'the beau ideal of a country gentleman', and John Harry his huntsman, the pack gave legendary sport from Port Talbot to Cardiff
Jenkins was enrolled as a Freeman of Llantrisant on 20 October 1832.
A year earlier and Jenkins was involved in one of the most controversial periods of social unrest in Welsh history.
As High Sheriff he oversaw for the trial following the Merthyr Rising of June 1831.
It was under his orders that colliery Richard Lewis, better known as Dic Penderyn was charged with stabbing Private Donald Black of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders in the leg with the bayonet.
The people of Merthyr Tydfil doubted his guilt and 11,000 signed a petition for his release.
The Home Secretary Lord Melbourne, well known for his severity, delayed the execution for two weeks, but refused to reduce the sentence despite pleas. It seems the execution occurred solely because Lord Melbourne wanted at least one rebel to die as an example.
Dic Penderyn was hanged outside Cardiff goal on the gallows in St Mary’s Street at the age of 23. After his death he was treated as a martyr across Britain.
Hoare Jenkins said that he found this execution 'the most difficult of his civic duties" as High Sheriff.
Following the death of Hoare Jenkins in 1856 the house and the estate was passed to a Colonel John Blandy-Jenkins.