Grave of Mary and Ethel Taylor
Mary and Ethel Taylor (d.1899)
Sisters Mary Jane and Ethel Taylor, aged 10 and 8, drowned in a reservoir on the day their brother Archibald died in a distant hospital.
Their father, also called Archibald, was a printer. The family lived at Tŷ Gwyn Cottages, on Sychnant Pass Road. Mr and Mrs Taylor left the girls with a neighbour before leaving Conwy for Liverpool, where their son Archibald, aged 18, was gravely ill. Young Archibald died on Sunday 3 September 1899.
On the same day, the girls and four boys broke through a double fence around Hofel Wen lake, near Mountain Road, Conwy. The small reservoir had been created by the London & North Western Railway to supply water for steam locomotives.
As the children played with a toy boat and picked blackberries, Mary slipped into the water, which was less than two metres deep. The clay bank was too steep and slippery for her to climb out. As she struggled, she grabbed Ethel’s legs, pulling her sister into the water. After one of the boys raised the alarm, a sailor plunged in and recovered the lifeless bodies.
The parents, already mourning, received news of the girls’ deaths by telegram. Mr Taylor returned to Conwy by train on the Monday morning. He was accompanied by three daughters and a son when the girls’ funeral took place at St Agnes’ Church two days later. Mrs Taylor was absent, probably for Archibald’s burial at Anfield Cemetery.