© R McConville

McConville Family Website

The Percivals

The Percivals of Altrincham

Dunham Massey includes the villages of Sinderland Green, Dunham Woodhouses and Dunham Town as well as Dunham Massey Hall, now owned by the National Trust.

Gallery 5

Dunham Massey Hall

Dunham Massey

Meaning of the Name

Percival is derived from the personal name Perceval, first found as the name of the hero of an epic poem by the 12th-century French poet Crestien de Troyes, describing the quest for the holy grail. The origin of the name is uncertain; it may be associated with the Gaulish personal name Pritorix or it may be an alteration of the Celtic name Peredur.

The earliest records we have of our links to the  Percival family go back to John Percival, a tailor, who was born in 1823 in Dunham Massey and christened on 4th May 1823 at St Mary’s church, Bowdon. His parents were Joseph and Mary Percivall but we have no more information about them.

On 20th January 1845 John married Mary McLanaghan, born in 1822 in Altrincham, but again we have no further information. We do know that they had eight children, all born in Altrincham

William  born  1845

Robert    born  1848

Fanny     born  1852

Henry     born  1855

Alice       born  1858

John       born  1860

Mary      born  1863

Florence born  1857

Robert Percival, my Great Grandfather, married Annie Williams from Moelfre on the Island of Anglesey and they had seven children, all born in Altrincham.

Margaret born 1876

Gertrude born 1877

Mary        born 1880

Robert     born 1890

William   born 1891

Joseph     born 1893

Austin      born 1897

Gertrude was my Grandmother and married Andrew McConville in 1896. Margaret, known in the family as Maggie, spent time as a child on Anglesey with her grandparents, Margaret and Owen Williams, and in 1898 she married Owen Jones. The 1901 census shows that they were living in Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf. By the time of the 1911 census they had moved to Hen Efail, Marianglas where they lived until Owen’s death in 1925. A year later, Maggie married Robert Parry, a plasterer, on the island, and in 1939 they are recorded living in Benllech, where Maggie ran Benllech Isaf as a guest house and I recall many happy memories of holidays spent there during and just after the war. Maggie died on 4th February 1961 and she is buried at St Eugrad’s church in the tiny hamlet of Parciau at Llaneugrad with her first husband Owen Jones and her youngest son Joseph (known as “Joe Boats”) who died in 1975.