The Welsh Connection

From the later eighteenth century, a branch of the Vachell family left Berkshire and established itself in south Wales. Charles Vachell, a former naval surgeon, opened a chemist's shop in Cardiff in the 1790s; his son, also Charles (c.1783–1859), expanded the business, invested in property, and became a prominent Whig politician, twice serving as mayor of Cardiff and acting as alderman and chief magistrate of the town.

From this base the Welsh Vachells developed into a civic and professional dynasty. Successive generations combined commerce and local politics with medicine, science, and philanthropy. Most notable is the botanist Eleanor Vachell (1879–1948), daughter of the Cardiff physician Charles Tanfield Vachell; she became a leading authority on the flora of Glamorgan and the first woman to sit on the Council and Court of Governors of the National Museum of Wales. The family's influence also extended into the Vale of Glamorgan, where a Cardiff-based Vachell branch acquired property at Llantwit Major through marriage into the Wilkins family and held an estate there into the early twentieth century.

These Welsh Vachells are consistently described in the sources as originating from a Reading family of that name, making it highly probable that they share common roots with the Vachells of Coley, even if the precise lines of descent have yet to be reconstructed in full. The Welsh connection thus represents a collateral offshoot of the wider Vachell kin, carrying the name from a small manor near Reading into the civic, scientific, and cultural life of modern Wales.

Further reading:

• "Charles Vachell," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online).
• Llantwit Major History Society, "Vachell."
• Catherine Duigan & Sally Whyman, "Eleanor Vachell (1879–1948) – Botanist and Civic Leader in Wales," Natur Cymru.