POWELL, Sir JOHN (1633-1696), lawyer and judge

Born in 1633, son of John Powell of Pentre Meurig, Llanwrda, Carmarthenshire. He was educated, as a boy, by Jeremy Taylor; he was probably the John Powell who matriculated as of Jesus College, Oxford, in 1650; B.A. 1653; M.A. 1654. Admitted to Grays Inn in 1650; he was recorder of Brecon, 1683-90; Puisne Justice of Brecknock, 1685-6; knighted and appointed Judge of the Common Pleas, 1686; removed to King's Bench, 1687. In June 1688 he was one of the judges who acquitted the seven bishops, and was dismissed from the Bench; he was restored to the Bench in 1689. He died 7 September 1696, and was buried in Laugharne parish church. He has been confused with Sir John Powell of Gloucester (1645 - 1713; D.N.B.).

His son THOMAS (1664 - 1720), of Broadway, Carmarthenshire and Coldbrook, Monmouthshire, was attorney-general of the Carmarthen circuit, 1695-1715, Member of Parliament for Monmouth, 1705-8, and for Carmarthenshire, 1710-15. He was created a baronet in 1698, but the title became extinct on the death of his son HERBERT in 1721.

Author

• Professor Glyn Roberts, (1904 - 1962)

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• William Spurrell, Carmarthen and its neighbourhood (Carmarthen 1860), 84-6
• Transactions of the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society and Field Club, xvii, 29-30
• Richard Fenton, Tours in Wales 1804-1813 (1917), 69
• W. R. Williams, The parliamentary history of the principality of Wales, from the earliest times to the present day, 1541-1895 (Brecknock 1895), 46-7
• W. R. Williams, The history of the Great Sessions in Wales, 1542-1830, together with the lives of the Welsh judges (Brecknock 1899), 141

Published date: 1959

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