A 16th-century Welshman who fathered 43 children with five women has been remembered as the 'great patriarch' of a tiny Anglesey village. William Ap Howel, who died in 1581 at the age of 105, produced his vast brood over 81 years in the parish of Tregaian, which had a population of just 80.
According to church records and travel writings from the period, Ap Howel was a small, cheerful man who lived modestly on a diet of milk and spent his leisure time fishing and fowling. His first wife, Elen Williams, bore him 22 children; his second, Katherine Richards, added ten; and his third, Ellen Williams, had four. He also kept two concubines, Jonet ferch William and Lecky Lloyd, who contributed two and five children respectively.
At his funeral, around 300 descendants were said to have attended, including children to the fourth generation. His eldest daughter Alice, then 72, had already produced 'numerous offspring' of her own. The local church, St Caian's, had a font 'hardly large enough for immersion', reflecting the challenge of baptising so many infants.
Despite his extraordinary fertility, Ap Howel remains a minor figure in the history of human reproduction. The Moroccan ruler Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif is recorded by Guinness World Records as having fathered 1,042 children, while academics at Vienna University have suggested the figure could be as high as 1,171.
