A Local Hero

It’s easy to forget that Tenby was an important spot for many notable people in the early nineteen century. Many have blue plaques around the town but one man who has been overlooked is William Lyons who died here in 1849. If you look carefully at the bottom of the windows in St Anne’s Chapel in St Mary’s you can see a note of him and his extensive family, so who put it there and why isn’t the Lyons family better known in the town? In 1878 when the Museum started his surviving daughters gifted his important shell collection to us. We’ve had a generous grant from the Royal Society to ensure that William and his family are made better known and work is currently underway in researching his family, how and when he collected so many shells. Another notable local, Charles Norris, created a wonderful illustration of some of the items in that collection.