ANGLESEA or Anglesey(i.e., the Angle’s Island), the Mona of Tacitus, an insular county of North Wales, separated from the mainland of England by the Menai Strait, over which Mr Telford’s magnificent suspension bridge was thrown in 1826, followed by the renowned tubular railway iron bridge in 1850. The island contains 193,511 acres. The surface is for the most part flat, and the soil but moderately fertile. The exports consist of barley; oats, cattle, sheep, and hogs; and a considerable trade is carried on in butter, cheese, hides, tallow, wax, and honey. It contains valuable minerals, and furnishes (though not so abundantly as formerly) copper, lead, silver, marble, asbestos, limestone, marl, and coal. The chief copper mines are at Parys, and were first worked in 1768; and those of coal are at Mal-traeth and Tredfaeth. The stones for the towers of the tubular bridge were quarried at Penmore, 4 miles north of Beaumaris. There aro no manufactures of importance. The herring fishery in some years gives employment to a part of the inhabitants; and other kinds of sea-fish are abundant. Anglesea was anciently famous as the seat of the Druidical pontiff, and a Druidical college; and a number of (so-called) Druidical remains—such as the cromlechs atPlasNewydd— are still to be seen. In 61 a.d. Suetonius Paulinus attacked the Druids in this their safest retreat, and they were utterly subdued by Agricola in 78. About 450 Caswallon, prince of Cambria, chose this island for his seat of government, and it continued to be the residence of the princes of North Wales till, the final subjugation in 1277. At present the northern form of Welsh is spoken by the peasantry, but in the towns English is very generally understood. The county is divided into 6 “hundreds,” and 76 ...parishes. The number of inhabitants in 1861 was 38,157; and in 1871, 35,127. This decrease is ascribed to emigration, occasioned by the depressed state of the mining trades and lack of agricultural employment. The county returns one member to parliament, and one is also returned by the boroughs of Beaumaris, Holyhead, Amlwch, and Llangefni.
ANGLESEA, Arthur Annesley, Earl of, lord privy seal in the reign of King Charles II., the son of Sir Francis Annesley, Lord Mount√Norris, and Viscount Valentia, in Ireland, was born at Dublin 10th July 1614. He was for some time at the university of Oxford, and afterwards studied law at Lincoln’s Inn. In the beginning of the civil war he sat in the parliament held at Oxford; but afterwards became reconciled to the opposite party, and was sent commissioner to Ulster in 1645, to oppose the designs of the rebel Owen Roe O’Neal. He was president of the council of state after the death of Cromwell, and was principally concerned in bringing about the Restoration. He succeeded to his father’s titles in 1660, and in 1661 was enrolled in the English peerage as Lord Annesley of Newport-Pagnell, Bucks, and Earl of Anglesea. During Charles’s reign he was employed in various important affairs, was made treasurer of the navy, and for some time held the office of lord privy seal. Annesley was a person of great abilities and of very extensive learning, and was well acquainted with the constitution and laws of England. In his lifetime he published, several works, chiefly of a polemical and political character. He died in April 1686.
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