Family and Education

s. of John Panton of Henllan. m. Eleanor, 3da.

Offices Held

Sec. and adviser on Welsh affairs to Thomas Egerton I from c.1593-1617; to surv. crown lands in N. Wales in reversion c.1593; recorder, Denbigh from 1597.

Biography

Of an ancient Welsh family, Panton’s immediate ancestors lived in the parish of Henllan, adjoining Denbigh, where Panton himself was assessed for taxes at 30s. in Elizabeth’s reign. From about 1593, however, his life revolved around his work for Egerton, who, it must have been, arranged Panton’s honorary admission to Lincoln’s Inn without the obligation to ‘continue in commons’ while in attendance on his master.2

Panton’s father had left him lands in Henllan, Llanynys and Llannefydd and a house in Denbigh. To these Panton was able to add further lands in Henllan which his ‘cousin’ Thomas Myddelton had acquired for £200 in 1592. Other purchases extended his estate northwards into Llandulas and Abergele, Denbighshire and eastwards to Nannerch in Flintshire. Four years before his death Panton bought from the Crown the estate of Ystrad in Henllan. His one outstanding failure was his bid for a moiety of the crown manor of Dinorwic, Caernarvonshire: it was granted him in 1597, but the title was challenged in the Exchequer by William Williams of Vaynol and others, and evidently proved defective. He also over-reached himself in his plan for a house in Henllan which should outshine those of his neighbours: only one wing was completed, which still lies in ruins.3

Returned to Parliament twice for Denbigh Boroughs through his local standing, Panton was eligible to attend a committee on Newport bridge appointed 29 Nov. 1597. He can hardly have taken his seat in the Commons in 1601, as the postponed election took place only three days before the end of the Parliament. He died at Westminster on 12 Mar. 1619. His will, dated 27 May 1618 and proved 27 Mar. following, divided his estates, subject to a life interest for the widow, between his three daughters, all under age. Though his brother Foulke, who deputized for him as recorder of Denbigh, and others of his family retained some standing there, it was not until the eighteenth century that a Panton again achieved any sort of eminence, in the person of Paul Panton, agricultural pioneer and patron of Welsh literature.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. C142/378/120; PCC 12 Parker; J. Williams, Denbigh Recs. 64-5; Surv. Denbigh, ed. Vinogradoff and Morgan, i. 28, 65; Williams, Eminent Welshmen (1852), p. 244; Arch. Camb. (ser. 2), iv. 211; Williams, Ancient and Mod. Denbigh (1856) ch. xxii; E179/220/166-9, 186-7; Williams, Parl. Hist. Wales, 80; PRO ms cal. pat. 35 Eliz.; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 388; L. Inn Black Bk. ii. 39
• 3. Chirk Castle mss F12450, 177, 204; C142/378/120; Denbigh Recs. 167-8; Cal. Wynn Pprs. pp. 101, 109-10; PRO ms cal. pat. 39 Eliz.; Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 281; Exchequer, ed. E. G. Jones (same ser. iv), 64, 78; Pennant, Tours (1833), ii. 142.
• 4. D’Ewes, 565; C142/378/120; PCC 12 Parker; Denbigh Recs. 126-7, 144.