were installed. Many of these alterations were funded by the St Asaph Cathedral Act 1814. Shipley died at his home, Bodrhyddan Hall, near St Asaph, and was buried at Rhuddlan. Family life Shipley married Penelope Yonge in April 1777. His wife was the daughter and co-heiress of Ellis Yonge, and her maternal great-grandfather was Sir John Conway, 2nd Baronet. The Conway family owned Rhuddlan Castle and a sugar plantation on St Kitts. The marriage made the Shipley family of the wealthiest in north Wales. They had five sons and three daughters before his wife had died in childbirth in November 1789. His eldest son, William Shipley (1778–1820), was Whig MP for Flint Boroughs from 1807 to 1812 and for St Mawes from 1812 to 1813, but was killed in a shooting accident before his father's death. His grandson, also William, adopted the name Conway after the Dean's death. His second and third sons, Mordaunt and Robert-John, died young. His fourth son, Conway Shipley (1782–1808), joined the Royal Navy, and served in the battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794, later commanded the corvette HMS Hippomenes when it captured the French privateer Egyptienne, and was killed in action commanding the frigate HMS Nymphe in the blockade of the River Tagus in 1808. His fifth son became a clergyman and was the only one to survive his father. His eldest daughter, Penelope, married Dr Pelham Warren, a physician and later FRS; the second, Anna Maria, married Colonel Charles Dashwood; and the third, Amelia, married the Revd Reginald Heber, later Bishop of Calcutta. References Nigel Aston, ‘Shipley, William Davies (1745–1826)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 18 July 2011 Obituary, The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 96, Part 2, 1826, p. 641 New monthly magazine, Volume 21, 1 April 1827, p. 166, Trial of the Rev William Davies Shipley, The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 56, 1784, p. 843-4 1745 births 1826 deaths Deans of St Asaph