Joseph Jenkins - Return and Controversy

Return and Controversy

On returning to Wales, he entrusted the diaries to his daughter Elinor (Nell) who stored them in the attic of her home, Tyndomen farm, near Tregaron. They came to light some 70 years later when a great-granddaughter, Frances Evans, recovered and protected them, permitting her uncle, Dr William Evans to read and edit the contents. Destruction of the diaries had been favoured by some family members who were concerned by their potential to arouse adverse reflection on reputations, especially that of Joseph's wife, Betty, whose alleged infidelity and at least one specific physical assault on him by her and others: . . . my ribs and breastbone were fractured . . . I have an ugly black eye with about a dozen other different wounds. were consistently blamed by him as the cause of his leaving home. However, no conclusive evidence has emerged that Betty was other than a loyal and capable wife—and one who may herself have had good reason to find fault with Joseph's own personality and behaviour. E.g., in Pity the Swagman, Bethan Phillips argues that Joseph drank excessively while at home, though he generally abstained in Australia, and that he became disliked by neighbours for actively supporting landowners and their politicians at a time when they were oppressing many tenant-farmers–who were consequently promoting liberal candidates.