Lewis Weston Dillwyn

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Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855), eldest son of William Dillwyn (1743-1824) and Sarah Dillwyn (née Weston), was born in Walthamstow. His father, a Pennsylvanian Quaker had returned to Britain in 1777 during Philadelphia's worst period in the American War of Independence and settled at Higham Lodge, Walthamstow, Essex, UK. William Dillwyn was a vociferous anti-slavery campaigner and toured England and S. Wales in his work for the Anti-Slavery Committee. On his tours of S. Wales he arranged to buy the lease of the Cambrian Pottery, Swansea, Glamorganshire from George Haynes, appointing Haynes as manager. In 1802 Lewis W. Dillwyn was sent by his father to Swansea to take control of the pottery. Although he had no previous experience of ceramics manufacture, he was enthusiastic and the quality of the pottery made there was improved under his management. In 1814 the pottery took over the workforce of the Nantgarw Pottery and began to make porcelain.

Lewis Weston Dillwyn however was also renowned for his published works on botany and conchology, including his work The British Confervae an illustrated study of British freshwater algae, published 1809. Dillwyn is credited with discovering several species of the Conferva genus. Among the botanical illustrators of The British Confervae are the artists William Jackson Hooker, Ellen Hutchins and William Weston Young.

In 1817 he retired from the pottery. In 1818 he became High Sheriff of Glamorgan and was elected to the First Reformed Parliament in 1834. He was Mayor of Swansea in 1839. Dillwyn was also one of the founders of the Royal Institution of South Wales and its first President and in 1840 he published a short history of Swansea. He married Mary Adams the daughter of Colonel John Llewelyn of Penllergare, Llangyfelach in 1807. They had six children, one being the noted photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1814-1892).