Dear mother do not fret

While Silvanus was to make a slow but steady recovery, the couple’s nine year old son William Arthur died on October 8, 1877.

How isolated must sixteen year old George have felt, so far from home, when he wrote this letter on the day that William was buried at St. Cattwg's Church, Port Eynon. 

Llandudno

October 9^th

Dear Mother,

I cannot help grieving for poor Willie but it gives me joy to think that he is now with the angles in Heaven, and that we may meet again in Heaven in our father’s good time.  Dear mother do not fret for it is His will that he should go to a happier and a better place to be with Christ himself.

                   This lovely flower so young so fair

                   Call’d Hence by early doom

                   Just came to show how sweet a flower

                   In paradise would bloom

Oh may we all meet him in the skies

I remain

          Your affectionate son

                   George Bevan

The parish church at Port Eynon was founded in the 6th century by St Cennydd, St. Cattwg's missionary in Gower.  The present building dates from the 12th century.

The statue of a lifeboatman looks out to sea from the churchyard, a memorial to the three crew members of the Janet who were lost on New Year's Day 1916 when the lifeboat capsized attempting a rescue of the steamer Dunvegan.