Andrew RT Davies and Jacob Rees-Mogg discover that their ancestors come from the same Welsh village
When challenged to name the leader of the Welsh Conservatives last week, Jacob Rees-Mogg could not do so.
But he has since discovered that he and the man he could not name – Andrew RT Davies – have a closer bond than they could have imagined, as their ancestors hail from the same Welsh village.
Both men met for drinks at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s office during the week in order to patch up their differences, and made the discovery.
“It turns out we may be cousins as we are both descendants of the Reeses from Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan,” Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Telegraph.
“Obviously Rees is a common name but Wick is a small village. John Rees who became John Rees-Mogg was born there and Andrew tells me his grandmother was descended from a Wick Rees so it is genuinely possible we are related.”
The Welsh Conservative leader also told the BBC that he had a “very convivial meeting” with Jacob Rees-Mogg.
“My family hail on my mothers side from the same village,” he said. “Families do sometimes drift apart.”
‘Respect’
Jacob Rees-Mogg had previously mentioned his Welsh ancestry in the House of Commons last year.
“My mother’s father was a Welsh speaker, so this is not the Rees bit of me but the Morris bit of me that very much values Welsh heritage and culture and, of course, its continued use as a daily language,” he said.
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s inability to name the leader of the Welsh Conservatives had made waves last week, with First Minister Mark Drakeford describing his response as “contemptuous”.
During an interview with James O’Brien on LBC the Welsh First Minister said the Leader of the House of Commons lacked “respect” for the Welsh Tory leader.
Mark Drakeford said: “Well it’s contemptuous isn’t it, as it was in his dismissal of the views of the leader of the Conservatives in Scotland. The leader of the Welsh Conservatives is actually Andrew RT Davies. He’s a political opponent of mine but he’s the leader of the opposition in the Welsh Parliament.
“He’s an individual who himself suffered very badly from coronavirus from the end of last year. I think political relations ought to be conducted on the basis of respect, and there was anything but respect in the way the Leader of the House of Commons answered that question.”
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They are not welsh only incomers kick all English party’s out of wales 🏴
Incomers? Dim o gwbl. One’s from Cymru, t’other’s from South Toryville and lives in a cupboard in the Palace of Toffminster.
Are you a Russian bot? Just curious.
Grayham is a national treasure- leave him and his regular musings alone please 🙏
I can see it now. In the past, RT’s family were probably tenant farmers on land owned by the Rees -Mogg family. Same type of relationship they have today. Master and servant.
Oh, most certainly. Their ancestors being from that area of SE Wales were likely medieval collaborators who like in many conflicts around the world would inform on their fellow countrymen & women for money or status before fleeing. A good example is stand up comic Jack Whitehall. He’s as funny as a root canal surgery, but you’d think he and his father were 100% Ango-Saxon English with their accents. You’d be so wrong. Their ancestor came from Monmouth and fled Wales during the Chartist Rebellion after his great great etc…. grandfather told English overseers who the leaders of the riots… Read more »
I’ve challenged you previously on this false claim about the fate of the leaders of the Chartist Rising at Newport in 1839. All three were sentenced to be hanged drawn and quartered, but the sentence was commuted to transportation for life to Australia, but all eventually received full pardons.
So no one was hanged, drawn and quartered for their part in the Newport Rising, and the last person to receive such punishment was a David Tyrie in 1782, well over half a century before the events at Newport.
Padi Not the first time history has been modified for dramatic and prejudicial effect in these and other columns.
The irony. Both men are obviously not Welsh of heart or mind, especially Rees-Smugg, but their ancestry is rooted in Wales and as much as they deny Wales sovereignty or right to exist politically and as a people their heritage is irrefutable. Who’s the foreign one now Jacob Rees-Smugg. You are not even English lol. 😆🏴
Historically the success of Tudor ascendancy was due to assimilation of the Welsh into their court, referred to as Anglicisation of the Gentry. Always beware of Welsh people who want to be more English than the English, quite a few of them around!
Indeed so, hence the Act of Union 1535- 1543. And although ethnic & Welsh language cleansing occured centuries before , the English establishment used this act as a political weapon to divide & conquer Wales. Their goal like any oppressors was to create a society that was unable function through the medium of Welsh. To turn neighbour against neighbour. And anyone who dared retain their native culture & language were ridiculed until they could not tolerate it no more, this used to disgusting success by Westminster with their WelshNot campaign of terror and abuse of our children. In a we… Read more »
Ironically the English are always ready to support an underdog, provided it does not represent a direct threat to them. Protests in support of indigenous people are fine provided they are not perceived as a threat to their own power base. Wales and our culture is too close for comfort!
Which campaign of terror on the part of Westminster was that fella? Even the commissioners who wrote the the Blue Books report were highly critical of that kind of treatment, and the report was published in 1847 over two decades before Forster’s Education Act of 1870 set the framework for the elementary education of children between the ages of 5 and 12. However, this didn’t make education free, or more pertinently for this discussion, compulsory. Nor did the act specifically demand that education be provided in English only, as is widely believed and promoted in some circles. I’ve read the… Read more »
Padi, from my own research and reading of history in connection with family genealogy, I’d say you’re right about all of that. I also found it interesting that it was parents who wanted their children to learn English, simply because they thought it would help them to “get on”. In much the same way as people around the world today want to learn English.
And he still doesn’t know his name.
Wick? … They both get on my wick!
Interesting how when the unionists feel the Union is threatened they suddenly find or refer to some sort of connected ancestry – trying to find a bond. We are all connected in someway or another all the way back to the first family to come out of Africa thousands of years ago. However, over that time we’ve built up different cultures and nations which need respect and Rees-Mogg’s ilk have shown Wales no respect for centuries. So it’s time to move on, time for independence.
The serf, cap in hand addresses his liege Lord and asks where he should bend over.
Quite amazing………….in 2022!
No way ARTD can be descended from the same lot of reptiles as JRM ! Unless they were creating hybrids in ponds around Wick
I always suspected that Jacob Rees-Mogg was a crypto-Welsh fanatic. His great-great-great-great Uncle led the Merthyr Rising, and his second cousin from Bethesda started Meibion Glyndwr. On many occasions I’ve spotted Jacob at international matches dressed in a dragon suit, with cans of Brains strapped to his belt. Actually, I made that up, but then making things up is how the Tories operate and live their lives.
Davies is too big and fat and the Rees’ have sharper incisors than Jacob. Typical couple of welshname traders for England… Look at all their Gareth’s.. even Southgate wants to be from Llandaff. Gareth ap Roy.