It is amazing how ancient manuscripts, apparently hidden or mislaid in antiquity, can come to light centuries later. Sometimes they are discovered bound into later books or even used as part of the binding. My favourite story relates to Cologne cathedral which was left incomplete in medieval times, but in 1814 Georg Moller came across a medieval architectural drawing of the proposed north tower and in 1816 Sulpiz Boisseree found and purchased from an art dealer in Paris  a medieval drawing of the proposed front elevation of the South tower and a ground plan of the church. These discoveries caused great excitement and led to a movement for the completion of the cathedral. Work began in 1824, using the original drawings, and was completed in 1880.

Earlier this year, workmen engaged on restoring some of the ancient timbers in the tower of Stottesdon church in Shropshire made an exciting find. Stuffed into an aperture, perhaps to keep out the weather, was a stained leather wallet which contained several leaves of parchment. Although not of national significance, this manuscript proved to be a testament written in the 1540s by Margaret Watmough of Chorley, Stottesdon parish.

If only! Whilst the story about Cologne cathedral is true, the account of the discovery at Stottesdon is as fictitious as the testament of Margaret which appears below. Nevertheless, all the characters mentioned in the testament actually existed and the account of the advent of the Watmoughs in Shropshire may be close to what actually happened. The relationship between the earliest Watmoughs is speculative, but the account attempts to bring to life what may have happened all those years ago. I have added some notes at the end of this post indicating  the known historical facts.

 The Testament of Margaret Watmough of Chorley 1543

I feel that my life is drawing to its close, so much so that I have called Matthew the notary over from Cleobury Mortimer and have drawn up my will. Matthew is an inquisitive fellow and wanted to know where the Watmoughs had come from and when they had arrived locally. As a local girl I knew much of their history and Matthew thought it was important that my memories were recorded as we are now one of the major families in the parish. As I thought perhaps my account would be of interest to the children I agreed to dictate to Matthew what I knew, and he has written it down in his beautiful handwriting.

 I was born at Stottesdon some 13 years before the Great Battle. At least that’s what we always called it in my family. I mean of course the Battle of Bosworth Field at which Henry Tudor defeated Richard, and became Henry VII. My parents were well to do tenant farmers at Stottesdon, of what we called the yeomen class. We lived quietly enough in the family, far away from the goings on in London and elsewhere, yet even we heard tales of  how unpopular King Richard had became, and there were warnings of war.

I don’t recall who the original owner of our farm was, but in 1475 most of Stottesdon parish came into the possession of Gilbert Talbot.  We didn’t see much of him – he had possessions all over the place but he did visit the parish from time to time. He was a great friend of Lord Thomas Stanley of Knowsley (later First Earl of Derby) who had vast possessions in Lancashire, and when I was about six years old, Lord Stanley made a visit to Stottesdon. At that time he was a widower, although he was later to became the third husband of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor. My parents said that there was talk in the village that both Talbot and Stanley were already supporters of the Tudor cause, some years before the battle in which they both helped Henry to defeat Richard.

Lord Stanley brought with him on his visit, his third son James who was then in 1478 a gangly lad of about 15 years of age. Lord Stanley was keen that James should learn the ropes and it was agreed that James should remain with Gilbert Talbot as his squire. As the third son of a powerful Lord, it was to be expected that James should have some servants of his own, and there were three of these, drawn from his father’s estates in Lancashire. One of these was an Edmund Watmough from Prescot, just north of the river Mersey. Edmund was about 21 at that time and seemed happy enough trotting around after James Stanley whom my parents described as an arrogant little puppy.

Lord Stanley went off back up north and Gilbert Talbot moved between his various manors in the north of the county and in Worcestershire. We didn’t see him that often for several years.

Then came the Battle in 1485. I won’t even try to explain what took place, but I do know that Gilbert Talbot went haring off to Newport on the Shropshire/Staffordshire border to join the standard of Henry Tudor and his loyalty to the future King was never in doubt. With Gilbert Talbot went his nephew, the young Earl of Shrewsbury and a mass of their retainers from their estates. In all they contributed some 2000 men to Henry Tudor’s cause. By this time, James Stanley had returned to his father’s estates up North, but his servant Edmund Watmough had joined Talbot’s retinue and was one of the men who assembled at Newport.

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Lord Thomas Stanley  First Earl of Derby    Copyright  free picture from Wikopaedia

Lord Stanley’s loyalty was to himself and his family, so folk around here say. He’d done well under King Richard, but he had married Henry Tudor’s mother and she was a real schemer, so much so that Richard had made Stanley responsible for keeping her fingers out of politics. Stanley arrived with his brother William at Bosworth, ostensibly in support of King Richard, but wouldn’t make a verbal commitment to fight for him, so Richard seized Stanley’s eldest son Lord Strange as a hostage.

As we all know, it was the intervention of the Stanleys against Richard at a critical moment, that swung Bosworth in Henry’s favour. Seeing the treachery of the Stanleys, King Richard gave orders for the immediate execution of Lord Strange, but luckily for Strange, those orders were ignored. It is said that after the Battle, it was Lord Thomas Stanley who placed the crown on Henry Tudor’s head.

 The Stanleys and the Talbots both did well out of the Battle. Gilbert Talbot got a knighthood and the gift of the manor of Grafton in Worcestershire, his main seat thereafter. Whether Lord Stanley saw fit to reward any of his retainers, I don’t know, but Sir Gilbert Talbot was generous to those who had fought well. Heaven knows he had enough land to give away by this time. So he offered to Edmund Watmough a perpetual tenancy of a 30 acre farm in Stottesdon called Lower Chorley Farm. That is where I now sit dictating this account to Matthew who is beginning to desire me to cut a long story short.

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Lower Chorley Farm   Stottesdon      Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

Edmund married soon afterwards to Joan and they settled down at Lower Chorley Farm. They were not, however, blessed with children and by 1490 it was clear that there would be no heir to take over the farm. Unwilling to let such a valuable tenancy go out of the family, Edmund wrote to his widowed father John at Prescot and asked if any of the family up there would make a suitable heir. It so happened that William the youngest son of Edmund’s cousin John at Prescot was keen to leave home and seek pastures new. This son – William Watmough, born about 1472 had two older brothers. One was Alexander. I forget the name of the other. William was not likely to inherit much in Prescot so the prospect of a farm in Shropshire was an exciting one for him.

 It was arranged that Edmund’s father John should bring young William down to Stottesdon. Edmund’s father had little reason to return home, so he too stayed on and died aged 67 in 1502 at Lower Chorley Farm. William, a strapping and good looking youth, became Edmund’s adopted son.  He was grateful to Edmund and his wife and looked after them in their old age. In due course Edmund passed away aged about 62 and William became the tenant of the farm in 1519.

So where do I fit into the story? Well of course I married William Watmough in 1493 and came to live at  Lower Chorley Farm. We were blessed with three sons and a daughter who survived to adulthood.  The eldest, Humphrey took over the farm when my William died in 1537. Humphrey died a while back and I live here quietly with Thomas , my grandson, and his wife and children. So that’s the story, or at least it’s my understanding of it.

 What we know for certain of the early Watmoughs at Stottesdon is derived partly from the will of Margaret made in 1544. In this she refers to Joan Reynolds her daughter, to Richard Watmore her son, to John her son and to Thomas Watmore, son of Humphrey, although she doesn’t explain her relationship to the latter. Unfortunately the will her husband William made in 1537, has been lost.

 When William Watmer, Margaret’s great great grandson explained his pedigree to the Heralds on their Visitation of Kent in 1619, he appears to have missed out a generation as he shows a Thomas rather a Humphrey as son of Margaret. William Watmer gave the father of William Watmough  (Margaret’s husband) as a John Watmough of Eccleston, Prescot, and John’s father as a Richard Watmough. 

From surviving records we know of the descent of Margaret’s children Humphrey and  Richard. We know nothing further of Joan or John, but the latter has to be the ancestor of the Watmores of Neenton, as they do not descend from the other two sons.

 A list of early Stottesdon wills has survived which  includes that of John, relict of Elizabeth, made in 1502,  and that of Edmund, relict of Joan, made in 1519. The wills themselves have been lost. Who John and Edmund were is unknown, but it seems highly likely that they were part of the Watmough family of Prescot.  There is no trace in the Stottesdon parish registers which are extant from about 1560, of any possible descendants of John or Edmund.  

All the information about Gilbert Talbot and about Lord Thomas Stanley is based on verifiable records. One of Lord Stanley’s sons did act as a squire to Gilbert Talbot, although we don’t know which son it was. There is no evidence , however, that Lord Stanley ever visited Stottesdon himself.  It is quite feasible that Stanley’s son brought servants with him, although of course we don’t know if one of these was Edmund Watmough, nor do we know if this Edmund fought at Bosworth Field and  was the son of the John Watmough who died  at Stottesdon in 1502.

 Matthew, the notary of Cleobury Mortimer, is fictitious. 

Lower Chorley Farm certainly existed at the time of the events in the story. It is probably the finest house at Chorley in Stottesdon parish and it might have been the Watmough family home. 

I am deeply indebted to Geoffrey Whatmore for his account of the ‘facts’ of the story which he sets out in ‘Wat’s Brother-in-Law; to John Whitmore of Malvern who discovered that a son of Lord Stanley was a squire to Gilbert Talbot, and to Chris Potter of Ludlow for his transcription of the will of Margaret Watmough. This transcription can be read in an earlier post.

The chart below sets out the speculative relationships as given in the fictitious story.         

One  of the earliest settlements of the Watmough family in Lancashire was at Blackrod, a small town between Bolton to the east and Wigan to the west. An enormous number of Watmough children were baptised at the parish church of St Katherine’s, Blackrod, over the centuries, but quite a number of these were to families coming into the town from elsewhere. A correlation of the families of Blackrod, Bolton and Wigan is called for but this would be an enormous task. I have thus focused on  Watmoughs who stayed in Blackrod  for many generations and I have been fortunate in coming across the results of research carried out by Gerald Kerry into his wife’s Watmough ancestors from Blackrod. Gerald has placed on the net details of his wife’s tree which extend form the earliest time down to the present day. Gerald has most generously agreed to let me make use of these charts for this post, and I have supplemented his work by information provided by Geoffrey Whatmore in his book ‘Watmough People’ by by details I have myself discovered on the internet.

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St Katherine’s church, Blackrod     Copyright: Paul Bennett   Photograph reproduced from the Geograph website in accordance with the site licence which can be read at this link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The earliest Watmoughs traced at Blackrod by Geoffrey Whatmore were Hugh Watmough, a tenant of Henry and Clemency Norris, the principal landowners, in 1507, and William Watmough who was a witness in 1535 at a manor court hearing in the adjacent parish of Wigan. A Hugh Watmough married a Dorothy at Blackrod in 1693 and a James Watmough married a Catherine at Blackrod in 1611. How these individuals relate to the family described below, is not known.

The earliest known member of the Watmough line which remained at Blackrod for centuries, was James or Jacob Watmough, born about 1565 and who died at Blackrod in 1611. He married a Catherine and their known children were Hugh born about 1589, who married an Elin, Henry born about 1595 and  Jacob baptised on 22 June 1606.

Hugh, son of James/Jacob and Catherine,  married an Eline. Their known children were James born 1611 and died the same year; Katherine born 1612, Elizabeth born 1613, Hugh born 1616 and James born 1621. The Hugh born 1616 appears to have had three children – Hugh 1648, Elline 1649 and Elizabeth 1654. We can go further on this line.

Henry, son of James/Jacob and Catherine married Anne Lowe on 26 May 1622 at Bolton. The chart of their descendants runs to many pages so I shall  restrict myself to just their immediate descendants.

Henry was parish clerk at Blackrod, but presumably there must have been doubt in some quarters about his orthodoxy as the  following  memoranda in the parish records indicates:

 28 day of July 1658Memoranda that the day above said, wee the inhabitants  of Blackrod whose names are here subscribed  doe consent and agree the Henery Watmough the elder shall continue Clarke. He behavinge himself respectively to the minister and the inhabitants and that one of his sonnes shall succeed him behavinge himself as the above said Henery or his sonne in the said office shall take for his pay the benefit of the void burials without the church of such that live out of the townJohn Holt    Pastor Roger Steppard  Church WardenThomas DilworthHugh LongworthJames HollandRichard NightgallAlexander VauseRalph vauseAlexander HodgkinsonThomas DutsonThomas Dootson 

I am most grateful to Gerald Kelly for the above transcript.

Henry and Ann’s known children were James born 1623 in Wigan, Thomas born 1627 in Wigan and Anne who was buried in 1673.  Henry was buried on 13 May 1674 at  Blackrod.

On Henry’s death it was his son James born 1623 who took over as parish clerk at St Katherine’s Blackrod. The parish records  for 1678  include an inventory of church furniture and there is mention of James Watmough, Clarke, in connection with this.

 Elsewhere in the parish records is a ‘Petition to the Lancashire Magistrates Quarter Session – James Watmough Honest to be licensed to brew ale for the parochial chapel and wayfairing men’. 

James Watmough, born 1623, married first to an Ann and their known children were Hugh 1661, Alice died 1669, Henri 1659, Ann 1652, James 1664 and Robert died 1668.  James’ second wife was an Alice.

In 1704, for some reason James sold the Watmough family pew in St Katherine’s  to a Richard Holland who may have been his son-in-law. Gerald Kelly has made the following transcription of the transaction:

It was probably the James Watmough born 1664, son of James and Ann who together with Matthew Hall, wrote a manuscript which criticised the Quakers. James sent a copy to  Henry Mollineux, a eminent local Quaker and they met to discuss it.  Henry conceded that James Watmough’s arguments were ‘pretty well spelled and cunningly contrived’ but Henry nevertheless published in 1714 his own 200 page pamphlet entitled, ‘Popery Exposed by its Own Authors’  in which he slated Watmough and Hall – ‘two Romish champions’ for ‘their hot and rash onsets and attempts against the people called Quakers’.  I am indebted to Geoffrey Whatmore for this information.

Turning back to Thomas Watmough born at Wigan in 1627, son of Henry and Ann, he married an Elin and their known children were Thomas 1652 Wigan, Eleanor 1656 Blackrod, Ann 1661 Blackrod and Katherine 1661 Blackrod.

Much later on, one of the descendants of the Watmoughs of Blackrod emigrated to the State of Victoria in Australia. This was Peter Watmough who was baptised on 24 January 1808 at Bolton. He married Ann Crompton  in 1828 at Bury and he died on 6 April 1877 at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.

A history of the church of St Katherine’s at Blackrod can be read at this link:

http://www.stkatharine.net/history.php

I thought that a map would be useful showing the locations of of some of the main Watmough, Watmore and Whatmore families past and present. The map shows definite links between family via a continuous line, and speculative links via a broken line. The dates beside each place name are approximate. For places with early dates, the family may have been there long before the date suggested, but this evidence is not available. In some cases - e.g. the Wolverley to Middlesborough link,  the actual link goes via other places but to show these would have cluttered the map unduly. The Wolverley - Middlesborough link was via Sedgeley.  The Wolverley  - Mansfield link was via Ogley Hay. Minor migrations have been omitted from the map.

Migrations to Birmingham and London have not been shown on the map as so many family branches have links with these cities. 

The map itself is reproduced from the ‘National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland published by Virtue and Compamy of London about 1868.

There were Watmoughs at Burnley in Lancashire since very early times and from  their use of ‘Alexander’ and ‘Lawrence’ as Christian names, it seems very likely that they were closely related to the branch of the family at Prescot, from which I descend.

Geoffrey Whatmore, our family historian, spent a lot of time looking through the available records of the early Watmoughs who lived at Burnley and he uncovered some fascinating information. This is set out in his book ‘ Watmough People’ ( please contact me at rhyswhatmore@btinternet.com  if you are interested in acquiring a copy) and in his history of the family ‘Wat’s Brother-in-Law’ which is available on CD ROM (for details go to www.genfair.com and look under ‘Suppliers’ for ‘Whatmore Family History’.)  

A few days ago Geoffrey sent me a fictitious ’testament’  which he had just written about the Watmoughs at Burnley. Whilst the ‘testament’ is fictitious, the people and the incidents described are all real and Geoffrey’s story brings to real life those ordinary folk who struggled to survive in Burnley nearly five hundred years ago. Geoffrey readily agreed that I could place the ‘testament’ on this blog and I feel sure that you will enjoy it just as much as I did.  I suggest that you read the ‘testament’ in conjunction with my earlier post of  ‘11 August 2008 - ‘Alexander Watmough and the Riot on Broadhead Heath’.

 The testament of a widow of Burnley

I remember the day, like a sword in my heart, when Towneley’s little rat-faced steward rode up to Broadhead Moor to demand a fee from our family’s coal diggings. His lands, maybe, but our coal, discovered and sweated for by generations of the Watmoughs. The bogs are the Lord’s but the coal is ours, and he has no right to it.

So great, so merciless the fee and the fine with it, that we could not, should not pay. So we must depart from this place, where we have laboured for so long, and leave the mine to Towneley, who has done nothing to earn it.

Before we go I, Grace Watmough, widow of Hal, will write this down, since I am not permitted to speak of it. Many times I have been arraigned as a harridan and a scold and told to hold my tongue. Once they shaved my head, but the hair grew again – red as the sunrise. So, if I cannot speak, I will write, in the words that Father Hugh taught me, from the new Bible in English, though there was much that seemed contrary.

Old print of  Burnley church  reproduced from ‘History of the Parochial Church of Burnley’ by T.T. Wilkinson  published in 1856 by Longman and Co. London

My tale begins some ten hard years ago and more, to 1513 when Henry Clifford, Marshall of Skipton, called a muster by knight’s fee of Burnley men to march with him to Flodden to punish the Scots. For cattle raiding, they said, but seeking vengeance and rich booty, more likely. A herald arrived with banners, a haughty, plumped-up knave in a gilded surcoat. All the young men of the town were to go, with my brothers – Alexander, Rob, dear gentle Lawrence and my Goodman Hal with the rest of the company of archers.

Fools! They marched away in high excitement, proud before their friends, deluded by glory. How little they knew. I broke my fingers fitting goose feathers to their arrow flights.

Then the long silence. We heard nothing, no word; folk walked very quietly, with good wives hugging their worries to their breasts. Till one day a travelling pedlar from Clitheroe came by and said there had been a fight and the Scots were slain. Only weeks later a pathetic bedraggled band returned up the trackway from Haggate, so weary, so few  of the men who marched away. Alexander was with them, thank God, but no Lawrence, no Rob, nor Hal, my lovely yellow-haired husband with the blue eyes of his Viking ancestors. The battle was won, they said and the Scots destroyed, but they saw only killing, and bloody limbs and so many fine men cut down.

The tale came out only slowly, and some would not speak of it. Hal and his archers stood fast and sent a storm of arrows into the Scottish ranks, and turned the fight some said. But I had only ears to hear of Hal, who was pierced through the breast by a long Scottish spear. Alex who was with him told me so. His body lies with his friends in a stinking ditch by the Til Beck. No glory, no gain to us who made the victory, just the sound of widows weeping and a dumb anger at those who forced us to fight. I call a plague on those earls and princes who destroyed our sons and wrenched the bowels from our community.

During that sad and starveling winter, with so many empty hearths, the town lost heart for a while. The summer’s harvest went unreaped. It was Alexander who gave us hope and stirred us to work again. Since Rauffe was gone his window set up a new chandlery. There were ditches to be cleared and rutted ways. Alice Watsdaughter trained orphaned children as weavers. New walls were built across the fell side, trailing like white fingers across the heather, though there were some mighty boundary contentions between peevish farmers.

Above the town the diggings were grass-grown and fallen in: the coal too deep for ladders to reach. Alex it was who devised a new way, with ropes and wheels called pulleys, to build beams across and a machine called a windlass. Neighbours worked willingly with us, and more coal was cut, we built bullock carts to bring fuel to the fires, and we prospered – for a while. But God and his angels, it seemed, were busy elsewhere.

Old Father Hugh left us when the King abolished the chantries in the church, and the chapel on the high fell at Holme was deserted. There was a feeling, just a whisper in the south wind, that the old ways were changing. A new priest came amongst us, Friar Benedict, he of the crimson cassock who proved quite as ready with a quip as a psalm. The friar spoke of new ways of worship, we should pray to the King, not the Pope, and in our own tongue. All men were equal in the sight of God. Was this not heresy? Many feared for their souls in peril, but there was much plain sense in his vision, although there are not many who dare share it. Ever since the great gathering here that they called the Pilgrimage of Grace folk have been uneasy. They know not to whom to kneel or to whom to pray.

Meanwhile, our Lord Richard died. He who had cared for us – sometimes. It was to him that we looked for bread that hungry year. When the plague came to Wycoller down by the well it was Lady Margaret who ventured into the hutments when others had fled and brought solvents and possets for the sores. They died anyway within three days.

Now this pea-pod of ours by the Ribble is being twisted and forced out of shape. We have a new Lord, Thomas Towneley, from whom we feel the lash of a vain and selfish man. Our greedy governor has one passion only, to rebuild in stone his father’s house, and it is we who must pay for it. The old oaks by the Haggate brook are cut down to provide panelling and teams of carts churn up the ways to bring stone from the Syke quarry.

My pig-headed people can be hard to govern, but they will work if they see sense in it, though unwillingly for the extra days the Lord demands. Often fractious and quick to take offence, they grow resentful, jealous of their rights and customs. For sure, the new hall gives employment to joiners and masons but what he pays in wages he takes back in taxes. We stay poor as bats in the church.

When the Lord Thomas erected a new corn mill, none would take their grain there, out of sheer cussedness, as my friends were apt to do. Disputes grew from small matters: cattle grazing in the Saxfield, dues from heriots, rentals, work days for the manor. He slapped a fine on  John Cartwright, just for playing cards one winter night when there was nowt else but a smoky fire and rushlight.

Folk were sore provoked when our arrogant Lord sought to block the byway to the church, to build new stables there. With Alex leading them a crowd gathered in anger to force a way through, joined by Frair Benedict, who proved a doughty fighter, laying about him with his staff and putting the constable’s men to flight. He had influence too. When the affair was heard before the Duchy Court by a Halmote judge our trespassing Thomas was bested and we kept the pathway open. We won, just one time, the good people of the town, but the holy angels still had their backs turned from us.

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Burnley church  Copyright: Phillip Tomlinson and reroduced here by his kind permission  Further piuctures of this magnificent church are available at this link: http://www.stpetersburnley.com/page12.htm

Brian, the tanner’s son, was cutting peat on the Chat Moss when the whole side of the brae slid down upon him, soil, mud and rock in an unstoppable deadly avalanche and he disappeared into the morass. So he was lost to us, a sweet and sinless boy, and for what? Neither Father Hugh nor Friar Benedict could tell me.

Though I sometimes dwell in sadness I should tell of better times when our labours were rewarded and the pit prospered. The new hoist brought rich seams of coal and there was at last fuel for the fire and ale in the pot. Alex built a new house for us and became prominent in the counsels of the town. Many a time he supported his neighbours against our greedy Lord who rested sore after the affair of the church pathway.

So he bided his time, Lord Thomas, and then struck at us with his demand for the lion’s share of the coal – coal that we scratched up on our hands and knees. When his creature appeared at the mine head that day with the King’s warrant edged in gold Alex would have none of it, chained the gate and sent him packing.

And why not? More than fifty years before, grandfather William Watmough found coal when he was seeking iron on the moor. Since then Henry his son mined it and now Alex by his energy and ingenuity had created an industry for the town. The charge would take all our earnings and we would work as slaves while Towneley sat in his mansion with hands as soft as whey.

Perchance, Alex should have sought to parley, but Lords do not speak with common folk. Instead, passionate as always, he called his neighbours and those who earned a living with him at the mine and told them of the threat to the fuel. So when a bailiff and constable arrived to enforce payment or surrender the mine he was met by a crowd of furious townsfolk. I was there, Jacob the tanner and his sons, with Ethan the miller’s son, who had already had a brush with the Towneleys, and Friar Benedict, ready as ever to lay about him with his staff.

The bailiff was haughty and hard words were spoken, the people much riled, not to be driven by lofty commands. There was a scuffle, and the bailiff was unhorsed and fell on his arse in the mire. The young ones pissed themselves in glee. I daresay a few old scores were paid off, though not much harm was done. But the puffed up prig had no belly for a fight and the craven crew retreated down the fell.

Afterwards, some dolts damaged the coal beds so that, if we could not have the coal the Lord and his vassals should not have it either. And this was wrong, but crassly stupid as they were, it took but a spark to start a fire.

There was a long standoff. No coal, no fee, and the town froze that winter. At last came the summons and Alex and his neighbours were called before the Duchy Court where when it came to the trial, the judge was his old adversary our Lord Thomas himself.

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Burnley church: Copyright Phillip Tomlinson and reproduced here by his kind permission

There the charge set out that Alex of ‘his devious and cruel mind that he craftily and subtly influenced his neighbours to resist the King’s warrant’, which surely blackened the character of the accused before the trial started. A trial? It was a travesty. At the hearing Towneley’s man, no doubt seeking to excuse his cowardice, showed his bruises and gave false testimony. He claimed that Alex struck at him with a sword but this cannot be true, for I know that Alex left his father’s sword at Flodden and there was no other.

Though Alex spoke out stoutly the case was lost and the Watmoughs forfeited their ancient right to take coal from the moor. The fine so vindictive and our living gone we cannot afford to pay.

Now we must leave these hillsides where the bones of our fathers lie and seek a new life in a new world. We go with Alexander to join our prosperous cousins in Prescot where they say the land is kinder and there is coal. So, with trust in God, if not in treacherous man, and with hope for the future, we will begin again.

May dear Jesus and St Christopher keep vigil on our way.

I was surfing the net a few days ago when I came across a pamphlet about a member of the Watmough family. The title of the pamphlet was ‘A Brief Sketch of the Services of John G Watmough During and Subsequent to the Campaign of 1814 and 1815 when an Officer in the United States’. The pamphlet was published by and printed for a Committee of his friends, at Philadelphia in 1835.

Having never heard of John G Watmough and being woefully ignorant about American history, I decided to read the pamphlet and find out more. This post is the result.

The pamphlet can be downloaded at this link: http://www.archive.org/details/briefsketchofser00phil

 John Watmough’s line can be traced back to a Captain Edward Watmough was born about 1729 in Nova Scotia in what is now Canada. He married Maria Ellis on 30 January  1749 at Boston, Massachusetts. He died  at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A colony was established in what was later called Nova Scotia as early as 1604 but was abandoned in 1607. In 1621, James I of England changed the area’s name from Acadia to Nova Scotia and in 1629 large groups of Scots settled at Charlesfort near Port Royal and at Rosemar on Cape Breton Island. The British and the French battled for control over the area during the remainder of the century but the British encouraged  further settlement and gradually established complete control over the area. The date of the Watmough family’s arrival in the area is unknown.

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Map reproduced from ‘ Pictorial Fieldbook of the War of 1812′ by Benson J Lossing  published 1869

One of the children of Captain Edward Watmough and Maria was James Horatio Watmough born in 1754 in Novia Scotia. He married Anna Carmick on 4 March 1784 at Christ Church, Philadelphia. He died on 23 Jan 1812 at Philadelphia.  James Horatio Whatmore was the ward of Henry Hope - the owner of an Amsterdam and London banking firm. The famous ‘Hope’ diamond was named after a later generation of the family. In 1784 Henry Hope bought the Whitemarsh estate near Philadelphia as a wedding gift for James Horatio Watmough. The property was formally deemed to James Horatio Watmough on 23 July 1807. James renamed the property ‘Hope Lodge’ in honour of his benefactor. One of the finest ‘Georgian’ style house in North America, Hope Lodge is open to the public. Details of the house and its association with the Watmough family can be read at this link:   http://www.ushistory.org/hope/history/watmough.htm

A video about the house can be viewed at this link:  http://www.ushistory.org/hope/more/wmv.htm

James Horatio Watmough was a wealthy Philadelphia merchant who had travelled to the West Indies, Great Britain  and Ireland.

James Horatio Watmough and Anna were the parents of John Goddard Watmough, the subject of this post. John Goddard Watmough was born on 6 December 1793 at Wilmington, Delaware. but he will have spent much of his time at Hope Lodge.  He married Ellen Coxe on 16 May 1820 and they had seven known children. These were: Edmund Coxe 1821; James Horatio 1822, Mary Ellen 1824, Anna 1826, Pendleton Gaines 1828, Catherine 1829 and an unnamed child who presumably died soon after birth.

Ellen died before 1832 as on 15 November in that year John Goddard Watmough remarried in Washington DC to Mary Matilda Pleasanton. They do not appear to have had any children.

Fort Erie   Photograph from Wikopaedia     Copyright: Ernest Mettendorf who has generously shared his photographs for others to enjoy

John Goddard Watmough was well educated, having attended Princeton College where he graduated in Classical Studies. He also undertook postgraduate work at the  University of Pennsylvania  in Philadelphia.

John was not yet 18 when the ‘Second War of Independence’ broke out and he at once applied for a commission in the regular army. Whilst waiting for the result of his application, John joined a detachment of volunteers raised for the defence of Delaware. When this detachment was ordered to return home as its services were no longer necessary, John received a commission as a lieutenant in the Second Regiment of the United States Artillery. The company to which he was attached received orders to march for the Niagara frontier. Their destination was Fort Erie.

The ‘Second War of Independence’ had begun when the United States had declared war on Great Britain on 12 June 1812.  It was the end product of a series of long-standing disputes – the main one being the impressment of American soldiers by the British. There were also disputes over the North West Territories and the border between Canada and the USA, and the attempted blockage of the French by the British had also caused tensions.

Following the arrival of the American troops at Fort Erie there were several weeks of  battle – sometimes one side and sometimes the other being the victors, but on 2 August 1812, the British Army appeared in full force in  front of the walls of the fort. Several days of intense bombardment followed and in the evening of 13 August, Lt. Watmough who was stationed on the advance battery, was wounded by a piece of shell. He was taken to the hospital, but refused to stay there for long and returned to the fighting.

The major battle at Fort Erie was during the night of 15 August when there were attacks made on the Fort at several points by three columns of British troops. The battery where Watmough and his senior colleagues Captain Alexander Williams and Lt. Patrick McDonough were stationed was attacked by a column of a thousand men and the two Captains were both killed, leaving Lt. Watmough as the most senior officer at the battery.

Driven to the edge of the parapet, Lt. Watmough received a blow from the butt end of a musket  which knocked him down into the ditch outside the fort. In evidence given at a subsequent court-martial, Lt Watmough redcalled: ‘… the enemy repeatedly called out on charging, to “surrender” – called us “damned Yankees” and even “rascals” I believe they called the men and repeated “no quarter, no quarter”. It was about this time that I received the blow on my side that knocked me over into the ditch’.

Recovering his wits, Lt Watmough made his way back into the fort. He saw that the enemy were in possession of the bastion but that a gun on an adjacent blockhouse had been abandoned. With the aid of Corporal Farquar, Lt. Watmough reloaded and fired the gun several times onto the bastion. The British now turned their full attention on Lt Watmough as he continued to fire the gun. Eventually he was struck in the chest by a musket ball, but as he lay wounded he saw the bastion blow up and soon afterwards received the news that the British had been driven back at all points. The battle had been won by some 1834 Americans opposed by some 5000 British!

 Lying in hospital near Buffalo, Lt. Watmough heard news of the disasters at Washington and sought and received permission to return to Philadelphia. His bed was placed in a one horse wagon which made its slow way to Watmough’s home city.

Once he was back in Philadelphia, Lt. Watmough reported for duty and was attached to the staff of General Gaines. Despite his wounds and the wishes of  his Doctor, Lt. Watmough now set off in the middle of Winter with General Gaines, for New Orleans, but arrived too late to be able to contribute to the  victory there on 8 January.

Congress Hall, Philadelphia      Photograph from ‘The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia’ by Frank Cousins and Phil M Riley published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1920

On 15 August 1814, John Watmough was brevetted First Lieutenant for gallant conduct in the defence of Fort Erie.

After further military adventures Lt. Watmough eventually resigned his commission and returned to private life in the winter of 1816.

Lt. Watmough served in the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses from 4 March 1831 – 3 March 1835. He was High Sheriff of Philadelphia in 1835 and 1836 and Surveyor of the port of Philadelphia  from 1841 – 1845. He did not retire from public life until 1854. Lt Watmough died at Philadelphia on 27 November 1861 and is buried in Christ Church Cemetery.

A very large number of Whatmores can trace their tree back to Thomas Watmore of Curdale Farm at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. The farm is still there with the farm house, which Thomas would have known, nestling into the hillside.  It is an unusual building with a terrace in front of the main rooms with arches underneath leading to cellars. A history of the farm can be read at this link:

http://www.cleoburymortimerhistory.co.uk/curdalefarm.htm

We can be reasonably certain that Thomas of Curdale was the Thomas baptised at Neenton, a few miles to the north, at Michaelmas 1586. His father was another Thomas who married Margery Smalman in on 25 September 1575 at Neenton. Thomas of Curdale’s line thus leads back to the William Watmough from Eccleston – the supposed ancestor of all the Shropshire and West Midlands Whatmores.

Thomas of Curdale married a Joan Tomasson in 1612 and at Curdale Farm they raised a large family of children. Although Thomas was a yeoman farmer he did not own Curdale Farm, but was the tenant, and despite his social status, Thomas could not write his own name, making his mark instead on official documents.

We know that Thomas of Curdale was still living at the time of the Civil War (1642 –1651) as we known that he married in 1652 to Elizabeth Edgeley, following the death of Joan, his first wife. It is highly likely that at least some of Thomas’s sons were obliged to go off to war – probably supporting the Royalist cause since the local landowners, the Blounts of Mawley Hall were Royalists. The Blounts’ estates were later confiscated by parliament because they had supported the King.

 Curdale Farm - the Farmhouse   Copyright: Rhys Whatmore   Photograph taken and reproduced by the kind permission of the owners

A local tradition tells that Cromwell’s soldiers were denied the use of the forges at Cleobury Mortimer for the repair of their arms and the shoeing of their horses, and as Thomas’s son George was a nailer, he may have been one of those at Cleobury who refuse to provide facilities for the Parliamentarians.

All of Thomas’s children who were of an age to fight in the Civil War, survived it Thomas’s son Thomas continued to run the farm after his father’s death, but the other children lived elsewhere

  By 1658, the activities at Curdale were expanding and a tan yard was established and it seems likely that the pond in the farm yard to the south of the house is the remains of an artifical mere created for the tanning industry.  Towards the end of the century the tanning industry went into decline and it seems the tannery at Curdale had gone by 1719, as a survey map of that date shows only dovecotes, hop yards and orchards surrounding the farm house.

 Curdale farm - the pond which probably supplied the tannery  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore   Photograph taken and reproduced by the kind permission of the owners

Thomas, son of Thomas of Curdale, died in 1699 and the Watmore association with Curdale Farm came to an end, although the Watmores continued to thrive in Cleobury Mortimer town and the surrounding district.

The known children of Thomas of Curdale and Joan were:

A son who died in infancy in 1612

Thomas born 1618  died 1699

John born 1620  died 1700

George born 1622 died 1701

Ales born 1629 and married John Winwood, yeoman, in 1655. She died in 1668. Their children were Arnold 1656; John 1660 and Martha 1664.

Humphrey born 1625

Ann who died in 1669

Thomas, yeoman, son of Thomas and Ann, born 1618 and died 1699, continued to run the farm after his father’s death and married an Ales.  Thomas also worked for the local vicar, the Rev. Goodwin. Their children were Thomas 1650; William 1662; John 1653; James 1655; Joseph 1656; Mary 1660; Joyce 1661 and Hilary 1665.

John, son of Thomas and Joan, born 1620 and died 1700, married Elizabeth Nicholls. This is my own line of descent. Their children were: John 1652; Thomas died 1729; Francis 1654; William 1656; Jane died  1661 and Elizabeth 1665.

 George, son of Thomas and Joan, born 1622 and died 1701, married Elizabeth Newall. None of their male children lived long enough to have offspring of their own.  George and Elizabeth’s children were Joyce 1651, George 1652, Elizabeth 1661, Edward 1655, James 1665, Jane died 1675 and Thomas 1668.

Humphrey, son of Thomas and Joan, born 1625 and who is recorded as paying Hearth Tax in 1672, married first Joyce Newall who died in 1684, and then Margery Winwood. Humphrey was a carter and possibly also a builder. We know that he supplied timber to the local vicar.   The children of Humphrey and Joyce were Hester 1650, Joyce 1651 and Humphrey 1654.

This account is based on that provided by Geoffrey Whatmore in ‘Wat’s Brother-in-Law’ Details of this CD ROM can be found at www.genfair.com. Look under ‘Browse Suppliers’ for ‘Whatmore Family History’

If your ancestor was an agricultural labour you would not expect him to be mentioned in the local newspaper unless he had been involved in criminal activities, so when a friend at Shropshire Archives told me that she had found a James Whatmore of Hampton in Chelmarsh parish, Shropshire, mentioned in the issue of the ‘Shrewsbury Chronicle’ for 25 July 1856, I wondered what on earth he had been up to. This James Whatmore was born at Bewdley in 1795 and died at Hampton in Chelmarsh parish in 1877 and was my  great great great grandfather.

The news item turned out to be a report of a court action brought by Mr Martin (plaintiff) against Mr James Randall (defendant) for the sum of  £20  2s  9d of which £2  6s  8d had already been paid into the court.

Mr Martin kept an Inn and a malthouse at Hampton Loade. Mr Randall was a woolstapler at Kidderminster.

The Unicorn Inn at Hampton Loade which was run by John Martin in the 1850s

Copyright: The Unicorn Inn and reproduced here by kind permission of the Manageress

Mr Randall had taken on a farm at Hampton Loade for three years, from Mr Whitmore’s agent. [This would be Mr Whitmore, the local magnate who lived at nearby Dudmaston Hall. There is no connection between this Mr Whitmore and the Whatmore family]. It had been Mr Randall’s intention that his son John William Randall should look after the farm.

It was claimed that it had been agreed that Mr Martin should supply malt and other necessities for the farm which he had done to the value of £10  11s 9d. It was further claimed that on Mr Randall’s behalf, Mr Martin had hired a threshing machine for three separate seasons at a total cost of £8.  Mr Martin was also claiming £1  13s  1¹₂d for the use of the ferry  boat for Mr Randall, his servants and his cattle. He had further supplied beer to the value of £1  3s to Mr Randall’s servants and had paid 15s 4¹₂d  as tax for a dog owned by Mr Randall.

There was some argument in court about who had ordered the malt and authorised the other expenditure and about who was responsible for the debt.

To quote directly from the news report:

‘James Whatmore, a labourer, said that he had been engaged by the defendant to work on the farm at Hampton Loade and to look after the sheep,. The son was on the farm but defendant said that he would not look after them. Defendant used to pay the wages and he did so for some months. After then, the son sometimes paid. Witness worked on the farm about 12 months, when he left. After being away a year he went again and the wages were paid sometimes by Miss Randall and sometimes by defendant. In December 1854 the stock and furniture on the farm were sold. In answer to Mr Huddleston [Counsel for the defendant] witness said the sheep were marked J W R by order of the son who had the mark made. Could not say how the carts and wagons were marked’

Mr James Randall, defendant, explained to the court that he had taken the farm from Mr Whitmore’s agent but had had nothing to do with the running of the farm until November 1853 when his son had run away. Mr James Randall denied ever asking Mr Martin to supply malt. He said that Mr Martin had never told him that his son owned him money. Mr James Randall claimed that the debts were his son’s.

The Hampton Loade Ferry   Copyright: David Stowell      Picture from the Geograph website and reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be viewed at this link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

To cut short a long newspaper account, the jury after a brief consultation, returned a verdict for the plaintiff, deducting the 15s 4¹₂d for the dog tax.

In reading this account one is unsure who displayed the greatest naivety – Mr Martin for supplying goods and incurring expenditure without securities, or Mr Randall Senior for trusting an apparently untrustworthy son.

The Unicorn Inn is located near the river Severn on the west bank and still exists today. The 1851 census shows the occupants as John Martin Innkeeper, aged 35 born Wrockwardine, his wife Mary Ann aged 30 born Glazeley, 4 children, 2 servants and 2 travellers.  1851 James Whatmore was living close by, also on the west bank. It is possible, however, from the references to the use of the ferry, that the farm referred to in the court case was on the east bank of the river. Although the name Hampton Loade is given for the location of the farm and the Inn, technically Hampton Loade  is on the east bank and the hamlet on the west bank is called Hampton (previously ‘Hempton’). The confusion was not helped by the decision to name the station built in the nineteenth century on the Severn Valley railway line, ‘Hampton Loade Station’, even though it is located on the west bank.

The ‘Hampton Loade’ ferry still exists, the last working ferry in Shropshire on the river Severn . It is well worth a visit as is a trip on the steam operated Severn Valley Railway which runs from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster

About three miles north of Ludlow is the village of Bitterley where a branch of the Whatmore family was established by William Watmore and his wife Catherine (nee Butcher). This William is believed to be the one born at Detton Mill in 1736. He married Catherine Butcher by licence at Hopton Wafers in 1761. They seem to have moved to Bitterley to live, then spent some time at Stottesdon before returning to Bitterley where Catherine was buried aged 76 in 1809 and William in 1819 aged 83.

William and Catherine had four known children – two baptised at Bitterley: William Junior in 1764 and Sarah in 1769, and two baptised at Stottesdon: Thomas in 1771 and John in 1776. Two of the three brothers, Thomas and John, moved to Ludlow. Their sister Sarah is probably the Sarah Watmore who was a witness at the marriage of William Haines and Ann Bromley at Bitterley in 1786. What became of Sarah later on is not known.  It was the elder brother William who continued the Watmore line at Bitterley.

Bitterley church   Painting by John Homes Smith      Copyright: Shropshire Archives and reproduced here by their kind permission

William Watmore (Junior) married Mary Inton at Ludlow in 1786. They had four known children – Thomas baptised in 1787 at Bitterley about whom nothing further is known, James baptised in 1790 at Stottesdon (his father being described as a pauper) who must have died before 1794, Sarah baptised in 1791 at Bitterley who may have married Edward Prosser in Ludlow in 1813, and James baptised on 30 March  1794 at Bitterley – who remained in the area.

James Whatmore (he has an aitch in the censuses) married Ann Prince of Bitterley on 13 February 1821 at Bitterley church. Ann appears to have had an illegitimate son, Charles, who was baptised at Bitterley in 1815. James, who was a coal miner, was living with his family at Snitton in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, but by 1861 the family had moved to nearby Caynham.

The Bitterley parish registers record the baptism of five children to James and Ann, but the IGI gives details of two further children who were baptised at the Old Street Primitive Methodist Chapel in Ludlow – Martha in 1832 and Jane in 1837 and these children are with James and Ann in the 1841 census. These baptisms are, however, not in the printed transcript of the Chapel register. Between these two baptisms is that of Marianne at Bitterley in 1835. Why she was not also baptised at the Methodist Chapel is a mystery – but perhaps she was not expected to live and Bitterley church was close at hand.

It is not known what happened to Sarah, the eldest child of James and Ann, who was baptised in 1821. She was not at home at the time of the 1841 census.

The next child of James and Ann was Ancelena, baptised in 1823. She married John Malpas, a coal miner of Bitterley, in 1842 at Bitterley church. John and Ancelena continued to live at Bitterley where the censuses indicate they had eleven children including twins born in 1870 – Mary and Martha.

John Malpas died between 1869 and 1871 and in 1874 Ancelena remarried to John Harding who was blacksmith at Farden. He died before the 1901 census as at that time Ancelena is shown as a widow aged 78, living at Farden.

Thomas Whatmore, the eldest son of James and Ann, was baptised on 11 November 1827 at Bitterley. He married a Jane (probably Jane Clarke) and worked as a coal miner at Bitterley. They had three sons, John, William and Thomas, and a daughter Ann, but what happened to

them in later life is not known. Thomas Senior died when he was in his

thirties and his wife Jane remarried in 1871 to Benjamin Martin, a Bitterley farmer who was a widower with two children.  Benjamin and Jane had two children both born at Bitterley.

William Whatmore, the other son of James and Ann, was born about 1840 at Clee Hill (census information). He married a Mary Ann from Pink House in Staffordshire, They lived at nearby Knowbury and at Bitterley, William working as a brickmaker. They had one known child –

 Sarah Ann Whatmore who was born about 1872. In 1901 Sarah Ann was working as a cook at Prescot House, Upper Swinford, unmarried , aged 29. William died before the 1891 census and his widow supported herself by working as a seamstress.

 Churchyard cross at Bitterley       Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 Of the remaining children of James and Ann, Amelia, baptised in 1830, was buried one year later at Bitterley. Martha, baptised at Ludlow in 1832 married Benjamin Edwards in 1850 and lived at Caynham, near Bitterley. She died in 1889. The censuses record seven children born to Martha and Benjamin, five sons and two daughters. Marianne, baptised in 1835 had an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte Whatmore, born about 1859 at Bitterley. Charlotte latter moved to Rochdale and there in 1884 she married David Tomlinson, a chimney sweep from Macclesfield.  In 1901 they were at Rochdale and had two sons and two daughters. Charlotte’s mother Marianne married Benjamin Matthews from Bitterley. Marianne and Benjamin lived at Caynham where they had five sons.

Jane, the youngest daughter of James and Ann Whatmore was working as a dairy maid at Brimfield, Herefordshire in 1861, but what happened to her later on is not known.

While it is possible that the Robert Waltersmaghe who served as a juror in 1305 at  Selkirk was an early member of our family, as far as we know the Watmoughs, Watmores and Whatmores rarely ventured into Scotland. Families move to seek new employment opportunities and for the northern family of the Watmoughs, these were usually to the south. It is thus a puzzle to imagine what could have attracted a  James Watmore, born about 1795 in Kent, to make the long hike northwards and settle in East Lothian, to the east of the city of Edinburgh.  It is true that there were coalfields in that county, but not at Haddington, an agricultural centre, where James Watmore chose to settle.

James was in East Lothian by 1821 as he married Lilias Darling on 9 June 1821 at Yester. Lilias was a local girl, born about 1802 at Pathfield, Midlothian (the county in which Edinburgh  is situated). James was working as an agricultural labourer in 1841 but by 1851 he and his wife had moved into Edinburgh where he worked first as a port merchant and then as a shop porter. Both James and Lilias appear to have died between 1861 and 1871.

James and Lilias had several known children. These were Andrew born about 1826 at Gifford; Janet born about 1826; Thomas born about 1826; James born 29 June 1828 at Salton, Haddington; Marion born about 1832; Margaret baptised 5 August 1832 at Gladsmuir; Mary born about 1835 at Whitekirk; and  Lilias baptised 27 March 1842 at Gladsmuir.

We know little of what happened to these children apart from Andrew,James and Lilias.

Gifford in East Lothian, showing Yester church where James Watmore and Lilias Darling were married in 1821  Copyright: Kevin Rae Photograph from the Geograph website and reproduced here in accordance with the site licence which can be read at this link:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Lilias (daughter of James and Lilias)  married James Miller on 20 September 1866 in Edinburgh. James, born about 1843, was from Kirkwall, Orkney and in 1861 he was lodging with the Watmore family in Edinburgh and working as an apprentice cabinet maker. What happened to John and Lilias after their marriage is currently unknown.

Andrew Watmore, (son of James and Lilias)  born 1826, worked on the railway and seems to have done well. He moved from being a Railway Porter in Edinburgh, to Railway Agent at Kirknewton, Midlothian and in 1901 was living at Kirknewton and is described as ‘Retired Station Master’. Andrew married a Margaret Pennycock on 10 January 1851 at St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh. They had six known children; Elizabeth 1851 Edinburgh; James 1852 Edinburgh; Thomas 1856 Edinburgh, Andrew 1858 Edinburgh; Andrew 1862 Edinburgh; William 1865 Edinburgh; and Ralph 1870 Edinburgh.

Train approaching Kirknewton Station   Copyright: Richard Webb  Photograph from the Geograph website and reproduced here in accordance with the site licence which can be viewed at this link:

Margaret Watmore (nee Pennycock) died in 1870 and Andrew remarried on 2 June 1871 in Edinburgh to Catherine Marion Wight. Andrew and Catherine had two known children: Marion Wight 1871 Edinburgh and Lily Darling 1873 Edinburgh.

Two of the children of Andrew and Margaret worked on the railways. Thomas (born 1856) became a Railway Agent at Bothwell in Lanarkshire. He married an Annie and their children were Rachel 1887 Leith and Andrew 1890 Leith. It appears that Thomas died between 1891 and 1901 as in the latter year, Annie was running a stationer’s shop without her husband, at Leith.  William (born 1865) was working as a Railway Checker by 1901 and living at home unmarried. Another son, James, born 1852, married an Annie and worked as a merchant for dried fruit and stewed goods, in Edinburgh. Their children were Annie 1881 Edinburgh; Maggie 1883 Edinburgh; Alice 1884 Edinburgh and Elizabeth 1886 Edinburgh.

James Watmore (son of James and Lilias) born 1828, married Catherine Stenhouse on 12 January 1855 at Haddington. James was working as a coachman in 1861. He died on 13 December 1875 at Gifford, Haddington. They had a large number of children. These were:

 Robert 1858 Haddington, who married first an Annie and then an Elizabeth Pryde in 1884 at St Cuthbert’s Edinburgh. His children by his first wife were Annie 1881 Salton; James 1885 Temple, Midlothian and Catherine Stenhouse 1887 Carrington Midlothian. His children by his second wife were Robert 1889 Ratho, Midlothian and George Pryde 1887 Prestonpans and who died in 1893

Margaret 1859 Haddington; Lilias Darling 1863 Haddington; Andrew 1868 Haddington and who died the same year; Janet 1869 Haddington and who died the same year; Janet Henderson 1872 North Berwick; James 1855 Haddington and who died the same year; James 1861 Haddington; Thomas 1862 Haddington who married Isabella Wilson in 188.; Catherine Stenhouse 1870 Haddington.

Alexander Stenhouse born 1865 Haddington and who died 4 January 1939 in Edinburgh. He married first to Margaret Jones in 1892 in Leith and then to Cecilia Hepburn in 1896 at St Giles, Edinburgh

Unfortunately this post has been very much a chronology with very little other content, but I hope, nevertheless, that it will be of some interest. If anyone knows any more about this branch of the Watmore family please write to me at rhyswhatmore@btinternet.com

Sometime ago I posted an extract from my father’s war memiors which described how he had narrowly escaped being killed when German bombers attacked the troop ship he  was on. I thought that readers might enjoy a further extract - this time about a wartime trip into Iraq.

If anyone would like a copy of the complete memoirs on CD ROM, please send me a CD ROM sized jiffy bag with your address and a 55p stamp, with a note saying what you are requesting. My contact details can be found at www.genfair.com Look under ‘Browse Suppliers’ for ‘Whatmore Family Publications’ .

One day I had to report to an Officer at a Jordan Crossing, I don’t remember which crossing it was, whether it was the Allenby Bridge crossing, or one further up north. So I expected it would be a day’s job, convoy work as per usual, with an officer in charge, and I left by motorbike with the usual amount of equipment and clothing, and crossed the width of Israel to get to the Jordan. I got a move on and   it must have been towards mid morning when I arrived at the river and drove  down the steep incline to the crossing.  There was a long string of the oldest, most ramshackle and antiquated vehicles as you could ever see.  They were certainly not army vehicles.  There was one army vehicle at the rear containing boxes and what looked like cooking equipment. 

An officer came along, furious, saying that I had delayed the convoy and asking where had I been, and my explanation that I had had to get across the country had no effect on him at all. He informed me that I was responsible for the feeding of the Arab and Jewish drivers of these vehicles, and also for the re-fuelling of these vehicles and that I would be an outrider for the convoy and responsible to him.  We were going to

Baghdad or to the outskirts of Baghdad.  The Officer drove to the front of the convoy and we started off.

The River Jordan   Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

Most people know where Baghdad is, somewhere alongside the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, which is east of the Jordan.  This meant crossing the country of Trans-Jordan, and driving through Iraq, which was apparently in a state of insipid rebellion against its masters, whom I think had been put in position by the British after the First World War.  You can imagine my feelings, faced with an estimated four or five day trip with minimum equipment and a load of responsibility I shouldn’t have had. Later on somebody told me that the trip was a punishment for the officer, for using vehicles or petrol without permission. It was just something pushed on me without any option, and I wasn’t very pleased as you can imagine.  A lot of these vehicles looked as though they were tied together with bits of string. 

Anyhow, we set off, across the Jordan, this long column of private vehicles, Arab and  Jewish, and up the other side and on to the main road and into Trans-Jordan. This was a country set up by the Allies in the First World War as an Arab Kingdom.  It had it’s own police force and army.  The army was trained by English Officers, and it was very efficient.  In fact years later when the Arabs were trying to clear the Jews out of Palestine it was this Jordanian Army that did most of the systematic fighting and held the Arabs together, and prevented the Jewish Irregulars, or Army, from gaining a full victory.  The heroism of these Jewish civilians fighting a war against these well-managed Jordanian troops is something that should never be forgotten.

This officer tore along in front of this convoy and the ‘made’ road petered out after a time and we took to the sand of the Jordanian desert heading straight across eastwards towards Baghdad, far away in the distance.  I don’t know what the distance was in total  - possibly 400 or 500 miles or more than that.  This convoy struggled along at its own free will, more or less in a line, with me riding alongside.  By the way, this is a very very hot, stifling desert.  Believe me, I found it worse than the Western Desert.  Being civilians the Arabs and Jews stopped if they felt like it, for no good reason apparently.  If one stopped I had to chivvy him along to get going again, and obviously this was no set convoy where you could order and

discipline.  The officer never stopped the convoy to find out if things were going along satisfactorily, he just kept on going.

After two or three hours the first signs of trouble for me started.  The motor bike engine just coughed and stopped, and there I was left behind. This convoy had picked up its pace now and was streaming along away, the wind blowing the sand in all directions. I could ride motor bikes very well but I didn’t know how to do any repairs.  I had earlier asked for a course of workshops, both on engine maintenance and on motor bikes in general, but was ignored.  I could see the carburettor was flooding, so I stopped for about a quarter of an hour, wiped it round and let it dry out.  I kick-started the bike and got going again. It became obvious later on what the trouble was – the needle in the carburettor was sticking. I had no means of taking the carburettor out, and didn’t know to repair it or how to set it, so I was stuck with this thing.  I caught up with the rear of the convoy after some time. The motorcycle broke down at intervals during the whole journey both out and in, and there was no way of saying how long the carburettor would take to clear, and when the engine would start, and the more you fiddled and messed with it the worse it got.  So it was a question of sitting back and keeping patience and waiting to let the darn thing dry out.  It didn’t always kick-start then satisfactorily and that became a menace.  You couldn’t be quite sure whether the damned thing would ever start again. When daylight faded the convoy stopped for the night and I had had a breakdown with this motorcycle and I was tired by the time I caught up with it for the night.  I was covered in sand, messed up, weary, sick and fed up. 

Eric Whatmore on his motorbike   Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

When I did catch up with them there was a rations vehicle with the driver, sitting in the cab looking into space, and all around it a horde of these Arabs and Jews shouting and screaming for something to eat with the driver taking no notice.  So I thought, ‘Hello, situation bad again!’ The Officer was a few hundred yards away taking no notice of anything.  He had a driver, and presumably he had his own rations and sat there comfortably.  He never came back to inspect or to bother to see if  the men were being fed.  So I, very courteously and kindly as is my usual way, asked the driver of the rations vehicle what the hell was going on.  He said, ‘I’m no cook. I’m not doing anything about it.’  I said, ‘Well, neither am I. Just get yourself outside.’  I must agree I had to use a few hard words.  I said, ‘Get yourself outside, get the ironmongery laid out, and at least get those cans down.’ 

There was a system of heavy iron oval pots with iron handles which you filled with water to boil tea in and there was an iron frame on which they fitted and a petrol burner.   I had not seen this contraption before.  You  filled the burner with petrol. It had a pump I think.  This chap was afraid of this, and I wasn’t so blooming sure.  So I told him to get the stuff out at any rate and lay it out and to fill these pots with water. I got around the side of the vehicle and climbed on to the body of it.  This was a truck the same as we had in our own company with slatted sides.  These civilian Arabs and Jews were pushing their arms trying to reach stuff inside, and I thought, ‘Well this is another occasion when you take command – you’re either on top or you’re underneath.’  This occurred after I had been promoted to full Corporal, and as a full Corporal you had a 38 revolver instead of a rifle.  So I climbed on the back of this lorry, and stared down

at the shouting and just shouted, ‘Be quiet!’,  and produced the revolver.  And they did, they shut up and waited, and I opened the tops of some of these crates, which contained 8 ounce cans of bully beef, and packets of biscuits and milk. I don’t know what else was there, there can’t have been very much else.  The cooks had round tins like salmon tins, flat ones like you buy now in shops.  These had fatty bacon inside them in rolls - separated by rice paper, so whether were some of these as well, I can’t remember. So I waved my arms and said, ‘Arabs on one side and Yehoodis, (another name for the Jews), on the other. I reckon there must have been about  70 or 80 of these bods. There was a hell of a crowd and I had a hell of a situation on my hands, to prevent a riot.  Well, obviously there was going to be no cooking, no attempt at cooking.  I was ready to lie down for the night.  So I picked up a tin of corn beef and a packet of biscuits.  I said, ‘You and you’, and I passed it down to them, to the waiting arms and I pointed to a couple of them. ‘You and you’, and gradually dealt with it on that footing.  I was too tired to want to eat anything myself. 

They all quietened down.  I don’t know how the hell they opened the tins, or what they did with them, but seemed to satisfy them anyhow.  They perhaps weren’t accustomed to much delicacy in the way of eating.  Of course, this method of distributing food took a lot more rations than would have been normally the case, if we had cooked them, or issued them on the basis of slicing the stuff up but of course there was no cook.   I couldn’t force the driver to act as cook and the officer wasn’t bothering.  At least I had forced the driver to get out and prepare pans with water. He came out with the contraption, petrol inside it, but he was scared to light it, so I said, ‘Give it to me’, and we pumped this thing and I threw a match at the end of this thing sticking out of it, like a watering can nozzle only it was more horizontal and a flame came out.  Eventually the water boiled and I shouted over to these civilian drivers.  We threw some milk in and some sugar and they all came and had some tea.  When that was settled I just lay down on the back of this vehicle and went to sleep.  There was no comradely conversation with this driver. He got on his seat and laid down across it. I think it was a bench seat.  Anyroad, I didn’t bother where the hell he was sleeping and that was the first day. 

Next morning I got up, swilled my face round and looked around all these vehicles.  The men were moving around, getting ready, so we dished the rations out in the same way as the previous night and, as you can guess, these rations were becoming rather depleted.  We lined up and moved off, and what were laid on apparently in this desert were petrol stations.  Each had a few men, belonging to a petrol issuing unit, with 40-gallon drums of petrol, which had to be given out to service convoys crossing the desert.  We halted at one of these for the vehicles to be supplied with petrol.  The officer then nicely came back and told me I was responsible for seeing that the vehicles were properly filled with petrol, and believe me the time it took, I’m sure that some of these vehicles had second tanks, hidden away.  I think they must have been giving themselves a nice surplus of petrol, for when they resumed whatever civilian jobs they undertook. 

I took the opportunity to have a quiet word with this officer.  I said, ‘The rations are giving out.’  He said, ‘What!’  He screamed his head off and

said, ‘Those rations have to last four days to get us back.’  So I said, ‘I’m sorry but they won’t.  I’m not a cook and the driver won’t cook, and there’s nothing we can cook on really easily. I’ve dished them out the best way I can. If you can do it any better’ – actually I said it a bit more discretely, ‘if anybody else can do it any better – well they are welcome to have a go.   But as far as I am concerned, those rations will not sustain us to finish the journey and to get the vehicles back to Palestine.’  Well he had to accept this. He didn’t go and count up the stuff and weigh it up, he had to take my word for it, which was accurate.  I don’t recall whether there were supplies that could be signed for at this place where the petrol was being dished out or whether these were at  a station later on, but the officer had to sign  for a long list of supplies to keep us going, which suited me fine.

Eric Whatmore    Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

The following day the same sequence of events took place.  This damned motorcycle kept coughing, spluttering and stopping.  I used to fall miles back and then to have to catch the convey up.  In one instance, during a spate of dusty wind blowing, they were well in front. I tore after them through this wind and found out they’d gone through the centre of a collection of hamlets of what looked like bee-hive huts.  They must have taken this convoy straight through this collection of huts because the occupants were milling around and muttering and looking very angry. As I was following them to go through this collection of huts the damned vehicle stopped again, much to my cost.  There I was in the middle of this very unpleasant looking situation. We certainly weren’t well liked after the way the convoy had gone through the huts and I wasn’t very well liked either.  I was just the one left there. Admittedly I’d got a revolver,

and these Arabs - we must have been in Iraq by then presumably - had no intention of being very friendly.  As I remember they started closing in on me, not to a very close distance, but gradually edging in, and as I remember it now, fifty years afterwards, they started throwing things.  So I thought the sooner I get out of this the better, otherwise I’m not going to finish this journey at all.  Fortunately, I stamped on the old starter and the engine responded first time, and believe me did I get out of that area quickly! 

At the end of the second day, when we stopped for the night, I believe we were close to a settlement called Habbaniyah.  This, I believe, was a settlement of English officials, with their families at an oasis outside Baghdad.  I think the intention was for this convoy to rest up inside this settlement.  The convoy stopped and the Officer went to make enquiries, I think, but apparently they wouldn’t allow us in.  There was an expectancy of an insurrection in the country and I think they were safe guarding their own interests. I never saw the place really but just heard of it as a name – Habbaniyah - obviously there was water there for them.  I can’t say how many miles it was from Baghdad, not very far, I’m certain.  Anyhow I was left there with this convoy and this officer took vehicles away, whilst I stayed behind with our army vehicle.  I think they went away in groups and off-loaded whatever it was they were taking.  I never bothered to see what was on the blooming lorries, I’d got enough on. Possibly it was oil barrels for making roads, or helping civilisation on in some way or other. The lower ranks were treated as name and number and just given orders to carry out.  We were never normally told where we were going and unless you could find out by some means or other, you were just left waiting for somebody to give a precise order, whether it was good, bad or indifferent.  Well of course as I say those conditions didn’t suit me, but I tried to make the best use of the situation, to make sure I survived in a fairly reputable condition.

After all the vehicles had been unloaded we turned around and came back, and of course we came back a damned sight faster than the other way.  I was still stopping and starting and, when we got to within about 20 miles from the Jordan valley and the river crossing, this motorcycle packed up and wouldn’t start.  All the vehicles streamed off, and the officer never looked behind. I never saw him again and even our army vehicle streamed off with the others, going like bats out of hell. I was just left with this blooming awful motorcycle.  I was sweating, and sticky and covered in sand and grit.  I did the usual business, wiping the carburettor clean and waiting for it to clear itself.  Of course, the thing is that there was nobody there who could possibly give me a hand as far as I could see.

After 2 or 3 hours of waiting, over the horizon I saw an open backed little 15 hundred weight vehicle coming along with 4 or so men in it. I thought, ‘Hello! Are these friends or are they not?’  I couldn’t do much in any case with just a 38 pistol if they weren’t friends - against two or three in the back and the couple in the front.  They just drew up, without a word of English and I’d got no Arabic.  It would have been nice to have had lessons in Arabic had there been anyone to teach us. Nobody had the thought to include things like that in the training. Without a word they pulled up alongside, opened the tailboard of this little vehicle and lifted my motorcycle on to the back of it.  I jumped on the back without any more words, except kind smiles, and they just drove me right to the Jordan crossing.  I lifted the motorcycle off, and said thank you and off they went inside their own territory.  I kick-started the motorcycle and would you believe it, the damned thing started up and I drove down the slope from the Jordanian side, across the bridge, and up the slope on the other side. 

On the other side the civilian vehicles were still there and the drivers were all grouped around trying to get at several crates of corn beef and oddments that were still unused in the back of this vehicle -  the remains of the new supplies we had obtained on the journey.  The driver still sat in the front cab doing nothing.  The officer had gone of course, so what would you have done?  The driver of this vehicle wasn’t from my company.  He had obviously picked up the rations for the outward journey. These sort of things were worth a fortune if they were disposed of into the wrong hands, and that sort of thing must have gone on.  Anyhow, I climbed on to the back of this army vehicle, and stamped on a few hands that were stretching too far and were trying to pick up a few tins that were in reach. I opened up a box of tins of corned beef and I ladled out some of these remaining rations to the civilian drivers – all wrong I suppose, army rations.  I didn’t get anything back monetarily but the way they lived was shocking, these poor Jews and Arabs! They weren’t in the state of enmity towards each other which developed later on. They seemed to work alongside each other without any animosity, at least on this trip.  So I passed quite a few items of food out them, to waiting hands and then told the driver to report back to the depot he’d come from and to hand the remaining rations back in, and to make no mistake about it.  I said, ‘You be sure you hand them back in’,  and off he went. 

I got back wearily on the motorbike and drove across the width of Palestine again to Haifa, put the motorcycle back into workshop section and reported to somebody there that the damned thing needed repairing, and walked up the hill to my hut and laid down, and had another doss.