Whatmore Family History

 I had never heard of the Wadmore family prior to a suprise telephone call in Spring 2008 from Mark Williams, a previously unknown distant cousin who is descended from the Belbroughton branch of the Whatmore family.

Mark asked me if I had heard of a book called the ‘The Wadmores of London’. He had managed, some years before, to obtain a copy of this limited edition book which traced the history of a family from the sixteenth century through to the mid twentieth century. What was intriguing was that embossed in gold on the front cover of the book were the arms of the Watmough family of Prescot.  I am deeply indebted to Mark to his forethought in acquiring the book, for drawing it to my attention, and for most generously lending it to me to copy.

 ‘The Wadmores of London’ was compiled by John Grosvenor Laing, the son of Blanche Viola Wadmore and her husband George Dawson Laing. The book was published in 1953 in memory of Blanche Viola Wadmore and to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of James Foster Wadmore and the centenary of the death of James Wadmore Junior. 

In his preface, John Laing explains that his book owed its conception to a manuscript by James Wadmore the Younger – ‘The Annals of the Wadmores’. Using this as a framework, John Laing carried out extensive research not only on the Wadmore family but also into other branches of the Watmough family.

 Stevington, Bedfordshire    Copyright: Oliver White    Photograph 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/ 

There was clearly a belief in the Wadmore family that they were descendants of the Watmoughs of Prescot since both James Wadmore Junior and James Foster Wadmore used the coat of arms of the Watmoughs of Prescot as their book plate. Unfortunately neither these two individuals nor John Laing  was able to trace a definite link of their line back the Watmoughs of Prescot  but they were able to trace their descent from a Robert Wadmough who is mentioned in a document as a late tenant of Sandy in Bedfordshire in 1569. The names of Robert Wadmough’s descendants have various spellings, but are mainly shown as Watmore and Watmough. It is not until the time of James Wadmore the Elder, born at Bedford on 14 January 1747, that the spelling Wadmore was finally and exclusively adopted. 

A family with the Watmore / Watmough spelling, traced back to the 16^th century and located in Bedfordshire seems to me to have a fairly good claim to be a branch of the Watmough family of the north of England. We know that by the mid 1500s the original family in Lancashire and Yorkshire was beginning to spread out quite widely. By that time a branch was established at Tuxford in Nottinghamshire, at Aldridge, Barr and Tamworth  in Staffordshire and the Watmore / Whatmore family of Shropshire, who have a proven direct link  to the Watmoughs of Prescot were already at Stottesdon, Shropshire by 1500. We know also that there was a Watmore  family at Micheldever in Hampshire as early as 1567 and at Reading in Berkshire by 1565.

  Details of these families can be found in ‘Wat’s Brother-in-Law’ by Geoffrey Whatmore which is available as a CD ROM at www.genfair.com 

At present it is probably impossible to link all these branches with certainty to the Watmoughs of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but as the costs of DNA testing become cheaper and the techniques involved more sophisticated, it may well become feasible to join up these branches in a meaningful way. In the meantime we must be most grateful to Mark Williams, John Laing and James Wadmore the Younger for enabling information about the distinguished Wadmore branch to be shared more widely. This has added significance because all the research papers of John Laing were destroyed after his death at Nottingham in the 1950s. 

James Wadmore the Elder    Painting by S P Denning, from ‘The Wadmores of London’ by John Grosvenor Laing

The earliest traced member of this branch is Robert Wadmough of Sandy, Bedfordshire, born about 1518.

The next member traced is Richard Watmore born about 1580  who was buried in 1616 at Stevington, Bedfordshire. This Richard was probably the grandson of Robert. 

From here onwards I will only outline the Watmough/Wadmore line which migrated into London, taking the line only as far as the migration itself in this post. 

Richard born 1580 married an Anne. Their son William Watmough was born about 1613 and died in 1643 in Bedford. William married an Alice.

 William and Alice’s son Thomas Watmough was born in 1641 in Goldington, Bedfordshire and died in 1703 in Goldington. Thomas married a Mary Clark. Thomas was a farmer and his house had two hearths in 1671 (Hearth Tax Returns). In 1676 he was one of Overseers of the Poor and in 1680 he was one of the two Parish Constables. 

Thomas and Mary’s son James Watmough was born in 1677 at Goldington and died in 1725. He married Anne Smith on 9 June 1714 at Willington, Bedfordshire. James was a yeoman. 

James and Ann’s son James Wadmough was born in 1716 in Renhold, Bedfordshire. He married Mary King on 29 May 1738 at Little Barford. James was a yeoman farmer and had the tenancy of a house in Bedford.

 James and Mary’s son James Wadmore the Elder was born on 14 January 1747 at Bedford.   It was James Wadmore the Elder who migrated to London and his descendants will be described in a later post. James married Mary Allison on 7 January 1776 at St Marylebone, Middlesex. James died on 24 December  1839 at Southgate, Middlesex.