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There is a good possibility that the name "Cloward" has Welsh roots in the name "Lloward" which is pronounced "Cloward". The name appears as a first or last name. Before 1700 the Welsh used a patronimic system of naming. Thus, "William ap Lloward" means "William, son of Lloward. As the population moved into the 18th century, the custom of a formalized last name was forced upon the welsh from the English and William ap Lloward would have become William Lloward, which could have been changed hear in the US to what it sounded like " William Cloward". Please see the email below from a friend, Paul Newman, in Wales.
I have found what I believe to be a reference to the Cloward family
(including coat of arms) at Chirk Castle (see attached picture taken
from outside in the early 1990s when it was not surrounded by
scaffolding, as at present), which is on the Welsh/English border,
between Llangollen and Oswestry and about forty miles due west of my
home in Trentham.
My wife and I went for a short stay just over the border a couple of
weeks ago (at the end of her Easter holiday) and on our way home visited
Chirk Castle for the first time in about ten years. This property is
owned by the National Trust and as well as renovations, there were parts
that are now open to the public that I do not remember from before. In
particular, the staterooms have been restored to illustrate their
condition approximately 500 years ago. It is not permitted to take
pictures inside the rooms but I have attached a picture of the entrance
to the staterooms taken from the courtyard within the castle walls.
The Middleton family, who held the Castle from Tudor times until it was
passed to the National Trust (and have only just moved out, which is why
more rooms are open to the public), decorated one of the staterooms with
the arms of the families they were related to (many of whom were local
families). I noticed that one of them looked similar to the coat of arms
that my mother claimed belonged to her family: 'Ellis'. The legend
underneath the arms said "Lloward Bran". The local people pronounce the
first name as if it was spelt 'Cloward' and the second word means 'crow,
or 'raven' in Welsh and, indeed, the coat of arms includes three crows
in silhouette. My distant relation Thomas, Baron Howard de Walden,
rented Chirk in the 1940s because he believed his family once owned it,
perhaps he was right. What I think to be more certain is that your
wife's family originally come from this area.
Paul
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