Whatmore Family History

The Whatmore family of Wilton was undoubtedly very talented. It produced a famous novelist, a historian and a highly respected Salvation Army Commissioner amongt other notable family members. In this post I shall focus  on the first member of the Wilton family to be recognized as a member of the gentry.

Edward Whatmore was baptised at St Mary’s, Wilton on 27 January 1729. His father was Humphrey Whatmore who had married Mary Scamell in 1722. On the family tree Edward’s fatgher is shown as Humphrey the third, as this Hunmphrey’s father and his grandfather had both been a Humphrey. The tree can be traced back for two further generations to a Henry who was living in 1627 and who was probably born between 1585 and 1595.

 Where did this Henry originate? Although there was an early Whatmore family quite nearby at Reading, Geoffrey Whatmore, our family historian, notes the use of the name  ‘Humphrey’, not often used in the Whatmore family but common in the Bewdley branch of the family. Geoffrey suggests  another reason for believing that Henry was of the Bewdley branch. The early Whatmores worked as carpenters for Earl Pembroke at Wilton House. The first Earl of Pembroke, Sir William Herbert (1501 - 1570) had been granted former monastic estates at Wilton and in 1543 began the building of a large house on the site of the Abbey. Henry, the second Earl of Pembroke (1534 - 1601) married Mary Sidney who was born at Tickenhill Manor (now Ticknell)  at Bewdley in 1561. As President of the Council of the Marches, the second Earl and his wife divided their time between Tickenhill Manor  and Wilton House  Their son  William Herbert (1580 - 1630) was the third Earl and a contemporary of Henry Whatmore. William Herbert probably made many visits to Tickenhill Manor and he, or one of his stewards may have come across Henry Whatmore working on the maintenance of Tickenhill Manor and invited him to come and work on Wilton House. We can only speculate - but is quite possible.

Wilton House: Painting by the Rev F. O. Morris, published 1891 in ‘ County Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland’, by Rev. F. O. Morris

A fire swept through Wilton House in 1647 and Henry Whatmore’s son Richard would have had plenty of  carpentry work to do in the rebuilding of the house.  Richard was doing well and held the lease of a  house in East Street, Wilton.  Richard’s son Humphrey the first, acquired further properties and by the 1670s there was a Whatmore’s Bridge in the town, probably adjacent to the family carpentery yard. The carpentry business continued through Humphrey’s son, Humphrey the second and through his son, Humphrey the third. Humphrey 3  was wealthy enough to purchase a freehold house for the large sum of £95 and when he died in 1762, he owned four houses and also copyright land at Fovant. 

Edward Whatmore Esquire was thus born into a prosperous family He was in fact the third son of Humphrey 3. The eldest son was Humphrey  4, a carpenter and the next eldest was Henry who becanme a collar maker at Bristol.

Initially Edward Whatmore followed the family trade of carpentry. The Pembroke Estate accounts for 1754 show:

‘South Grove. Paid Edward Whatmore carpenter for making a wickett and mending the pales of the old Maudlin Garden £0.5.6d’

 In 1755, Edward married Elizabeth Dawkins and acquired a house which used to stand opposite the Pembroke Arms. He acquired two further houses at Ditchampton on the death of his father-in-law. By now Edward was known not as a carpenter but as a ‘building surveyor’. He was obviously doing well for he and his family now moved into the city of Salisbury, and then, prior to 1776, he purchased Marshwood House at Dinton - a fine Georgian style residence about a quarter of a mile north of the village. In the nineteenth century there were still two lead water pipes with his initials. Edward enlarged the house by adding two side wings which project beyond and are a little higher than the main facade. The porch at the front of the house was added later, after  the property had passed out of the hands of the Whatmore Family.

Photograph taken from ‘Wiltshire Notes and Queries’ Volume One, December Issue 1893 and reproduced here by kind permission of Wiltshire County Council.

Marshwood House, now known as Marshwood Farm still exists and if you would like to stay in this fine house as a paying guest (bed and breakfast or self catering available) details are available at this link: http://www.marshwoodfarm.co.uk/

About 1780, Edward bought the manor of Fisherton Dealmere with its rectory. Later he bought property in Yorkshire - the manors of Sicklinghall and Woodall near Wetherby.

A ingenuous man, Edward was a skilful inventor. The records of the Patent Office include the following:

No 1364.  May 3 1783. - EDWARD WHATMORE, of Marshwood House, in the county  of Wilts, Esquire, ‘machine to take and convey persons and goods from houses, and from the windows thereof , and other buildings, when on fire, and convey them to the ground with safety; and also to raise and convey firemen and other persons, goods, and materials from the ground to windows and the tops of the parapets of houses and other buildings, or to any part or parts of the front therof, and to gather fruit from trees, and hoist or raise persons to cut and prune the same, without the help of ladders or scaffolds’

Edward and Eliazbeth had five children: Rebecca (died in infancy 1753), Edward 1756, Betty 1757, Rebecca (died in infancy 1759) and Ann (1759).

Edward and Elizabeth by now, undoubtedly spent part of the year on their Yorkshire estates. Edward died of dropsy at Tadcaster on 25 June 1787 and was buried inside the church the following day. A memorial stone still remains at the back of the Church. His widow sold Marshwood House and the Yorkshire estates and went to live in Salisbury where she died in 1797.

My main source for this account is ‘Wat’s Brother - in - Law’ by Geoffrey Whatmore which sets out the history of the Wilton family in greater detail.  There is also a chapter on the Wilton family in Geoffrey’s book ‘Whatmore Panorama’. I have also made use of information from ‘Wiltshire  Notes and Queries’ Volume One, December issue 1893 with  the kind permission of Wiltshire County Council.