ABSTRACT
Ivor Armstrong Richards was born at Hillside in Sandbach, Cheshire, on 26 February 1893, the youngest son of William Armstrong Richards and Mary Anne Haigh. Hillside was a "fair-sized house" with a large garden and stables. 1 The Richards side of the family was from the Gower peninsula in South Wales. Richards' father told him that an ancestor had gone to America on the Mayflower, perhaps as a crew member, and returned to England. During the eighteenth century the family was probably in the business of quarrying limestone from the Welsh cliffs. Richard Richards (b. 1760) had a son Richard (r788-r856), a master builder who married Catherine Davies (1782-1858); they had three sons and two daughters. The eldest son, William (r8II-73), the critic's paternal grandfather, was an architect who designed many of Swansea's public buildings; he was married to Emma Jane Armstrong (1825-83), the daughter of an army officer, also of Swansea. The second son, Richard (r817-95), was a builder and property speculator. Evan Matthew (r82r-8o), the third son, joined a pewter company in Birmingham, became a partner in the firm of Booth, Richards & Co., and was then involved in commercial silver smelting and steel at Landore; he was city councilor, twice mayor of Swansea, and Liberal M. P. for Cardigan (r868-74). It was altogether "a wellknown and powerful Swansea family."2
