Friday 4 August 2017

CE Vulliamy, Local Author and his Family

I sometimes look at a blog called Bear Alley, which specialises in old comics and obscure authors - and in the entry for the 22nd April, I found something of local interest.
CE Vulliamy was born in Glasbury in 1886. He wrote crime novels in the 1930s under the pen name Anthony Rolls, and books on many other subjects as well. Although he had no academic training, he worked as an archaeologist and historian, and also wrote historical biographies. He also wrote Jones: A Gentleman of Wales under the pen name Twim Teg.

Steve at Bear Alley says:
"Colwyn Edward Vulliamy was born in Glasbury, Radnorshire, Wales, on 20 June 1886, the son of Edwyn Papendick Vulliamy and his wife Edith Jane (nee Beavan), and baptized on 18 July 1886 at Llowes, Radnorshire. The surname derived from a clockmaker named Francois Justin Vulliamy (1712-1797), born in Pay de Vaud, Switzerland, who moved to Paris and then to London. Justin Vulliamy set up shop in Pall Mall in partnership with Benjamin Gray, watchmaker to King George II, and married Gray's daughter, Mary."

Edwyn became a landowner in Glasbury, and helped to build "a local church" in 1883, probably at Glasbury. The church at Llowes where Colwyn Edward was baptised is much older.
He was educated privately, studied art, and started writing. His father died in 1914, with the estate split between him and his mother.
His war record is complicated - Bear Alley goes into it in some detail (his research is always impressive), and it was while he was serving in the near East that he became interested in archaeology.
He wrote more crime novels in the 1950s under his own name, one of which, Don Among the Dead, was filmed as A Jolly Bad Fellow in 1964.
He died in Guildford in 1971, aged 85.
His son John Sebastian, an architect, married Shirley Hughes, the children's author and illustrator. He died in 2007.
Their son Ed Vulliamy is also an author and children's illustrator.

5 comments:

Emma Balch said...

How interesting! Thanks Lesley.

johnp said...

Here's the film you mentioned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-L6epXnd6E

I've just ordered Cailico Pie as well :)

Cheers

Eigon said...

Thanks!

Eigon said...

NB - the film is A Jolly Bad Fellow, and not some of the things labelled in an Indian language that come up on YouTube!

johnp said...

The film has some echos of a certain poisoning case in Cusop!

Caligo Pie is his autobiography, with many name and location changes.

I'm not sure which of the Vulliamy's from Glasbury House featured in Kilvert's Diary, probably his father Edwyn, who also supervised the building of All Saints in Cwmbach after his own father had died, please read.
https://www.jlb2011.co.uk/walespic/churches/glasbury3.htm

Please check your typing reL the link as it is correct for 'A Jolly Bad Fellow (1964)' or search with that title in youtube or google.

Please note the name of the detective Armstrong near the end of the film :)

Good Luck