History of the Baker Gabb Family: The Baker Family of Abergavenny

Archaeologia Cambrensis By John Skinner, Cambrian Archaeological Association: ""

BAKER OF ABERGAVENNY SIR The following notes on the pedigree of this family in connection with the town of Abergavenny and the Herbert Chapel were compiled at the suggestion of your Local Secretary in view of the Annual Meeting of the Association in 1876 and are now placed at your service Without going back to the time of Owen Glyndwr and others through whom we claim descent I will begin with my ancestor Richard Baker after whom I am named He was born in the year 1497 and died in the year 1551 and is commemorated by a curious brass in the Herbert Chapel erected by his son William Baker and in the same brass and same inscription is also commemorated a son of William Baker

Archaeologia Cambrensis By John Skinner, Cambrian Archaeological Association: ""

departed this life in peace the former aged 54 on the 7th January 1551 the latter 7 Oct aged 41 and in the year of our salvation 1598 To both To the father of a numerous family who deserved well of his country William Baker with the respect due from a son to his father and with the greatest affection for his son hoping to be partaker of the same happiness in the resurrection of the just among the eternal spirits in the kingdom of Heaven intending for himself a tomb between them being full of years and wearied of anxiety Because of his grief for a renowned father and his son he has placed and dedicated this such as it is sacred to their memory Then follows a Latin verse The William Baker who erected the above was steward to Lord Abergav

Archaeologia Cambrensis By John Skinner, Cambrian Archaeological Association: "

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Archaeologia Cambrensis By John Skinner, Cambrian Archaeological Association: "

family for eighty years and hopes to have the lease renewed on reasonable tearmes by reason of the cheapnes of corne and scarcitie of money Heury Baker had amongst other children a son named Charles Charles Baker who was also a student of the law was born in 1617 and when nineteen years of age became a Roman Catholic whereupon he was sent to the English College at Rome and became a priest 1642 He came back to England in 1648 and carried on his duties as priest for thirty one years in times of bitter persecution He took the name of David Lewis in order to conceal his own and was commonly called the father of the poor He was apprehended on the 17 Nov 1678 in the parish of St Michael Llan tarnam and committed to Monmouth Gaol He was tr

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Owen Glyndwr, (born about 1359)
a Welsh nationalist leader. He led a rebellion against Henry IV of England, taking the title ‘Prince of Wales’ in 1400, and successfully led the Welsh defence against English invasions in 1400-02, though Wales was reconquered by the English in 1405-13. He gained control of most of the country and established an independent Welsh parliament, but from 1405 onwards suffered repeated defeats at the hands of Prince Henry, later Henry V.

ST DAVID LEWIS, (1616-1679),
is remembered as one of the Catholic Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Career as a priest
In 1647 he returned home and, for over thirty years, worked in South Wales, with his base at the Cwm, a hamlet located in Herefordshire, which is sheltered between the high ridges of the Welsh Black Mountains to the west and Malvern Hills to the east. At the Cwm, the Jesuits maintained two remote farmhouses, which also functioned as shelters for hunted Recusant Catholic priests. Lewis used the name Charles Baker.

The priest and martyr was born in Abergavenny, the son of the headmaster of Henry VIII Grammar School. David Lewis was brought up as a Protestant and became a Catholic in Paris as a young man. He studied in Rome where he was ordained as a priest and then became a Jesuit. In 1647, he returned home and, for more than 30 years worked on the Hereford-Monmouthshire border. His great uncle was the noted Catholic monk, Father (David) Augustine Baker, (1575-1641).

Due to anti-Catholic feeling because of Titus Oates' 'Popish plot', David Lewis was arrested at Llantarnam, brought to Abergavenny and imprisoned at Monmouth. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Usk on August 27, 1679. He was beatified in 1929 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. There is a memorial to St David Lewis in Our Lady and St Michael's RC Church. A plaque marks Gunter House in Cross Street where a secret RC chapel was discovered in 1907 during alterations in an attic room in the right hand gable. The chapel's reredos mural is now on display at Abergavenny Museum.

Dr David Lewis,
lived at Llandewi Rhydderch, and was the vicar's son of St Mary's Priory Church in Abergavenny. He achieved fame by becoming an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. He held the position of Judge of the High Court of Admiralty and was the first principal of Jesus College, Oxford. His tomb which he designed himself was placed before his death in what is now the Lewis Chapel at the Priory Church. Its decoration refers to the different facets of his life. He is depicted as being dressed in his full robes, and the front panels of the tomb are filled with oak leaves referring to the 'Hearts of Oak' of which ships are built.

Augustine Baker -source-

Born David Baker at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, December 9, 1575, his father was William Baker, Steward to Baron Abergavenny, and his mother was a daughter of Lewis ap John (alias Wallis), vicar of Abergavenny. His parents were church papists, meaning that although outwardly they conformed, they remained Catholic by conviction.

He was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Broadgate's Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, afterwards becoming a member of Clifford's Inn, and later of the Middle Temple. In 1598 he was made Recorder of Abergavenny.

The Life and Spirit of Father Augustine Baker Monk and Priest of the English Benedictine Congregation By James Norbert Sweeney: "