One of the most famous members of the Whatmore family is WILLIAM WATMER who was baptised on 12 August 1569 at Stottesdon, Shropshire, the son of William Watmer the Elder and his wife Margaret.

 The research on William Watmer and his brother in law Robert Wynn was carried out by Dorothy Gardiner and was published as ‘The Mayor of Canterbury: William Watmer, The Children’s Friend’ by the Kent Archaeological Society (Volume LXI 1948). Geoffrey Whatmore did some subsequent research and his findings were published in ‘Archaeologia  Cantiana (Volume CII 1985).  Geoffrey also retells the story in ‘Wat’s Brother in Law’ (CD ROM) and in his book  ‘Whatmore Panorama.’ I am deeply indebted to both Dorothy Gardiner and to Geoffrey Whatmore, whose accounts I have used as the sources for this post.

Geoffrey Whatmore’s book  and CD ROM are described and can be ordered at this link: www.genfair.com   Look under ‘Browse Suppliers’ for ‘Whatmore Family History’

William was one of a large family – his known siblings were Thomas the Elder, Ales, James, Richard, Margaret, Margerie and Frances.  Since the Stottesdon parish registers are extant from 1565 and none of the baptisms of these children are shown, we must assume that they were all born before that date. This is quite important as FRANCES WATMER was to marry ROBERT WYNNE and one of their descendants was to emigrate to America where he became the first Speaker of the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia. For Americans, the Wynnes are therefore of much greater interest than the Watmers, so perhaps readers will forgive me if I consider initially the likely date of birth of Robert Wynne.

 

Looking on the internet one finds a great many families claiming descent from Robert and Frances Wynne, but in none of the family trees is his baptism given. Most of the trees give his place of birth as Shrewsbury  and claim that his parents were a John Wynne and his wife Sidney Sarah Gerrald. A few trees give his parents as Morus Wynn and his second wife Anne Greville and one tree states that Robert was born at Cantlop, a township in the parish of Berrington near Shrewsbury, his parents being a Robert and Katherine. In almost all these trees Roberts date of birth is given as about 1563.

The truth is that no-one really knows where or when Robert was born, nor who his parents were. We do, however have some information which might help us. A document written by Robert Wynne in 1599 purportedly records that he ‘was in swaddling cloths in S…..bury, County Salop, twenty years ago.’  What this document is, I have not been able to ascertain, but apparently it is too badly damaged to read the place of birth, but most researchers have assumed that it was Shrewsbury. This seems reasonable as Shrewsbury was the centre of the wool trade at that time and we know that Robert became a wool draper in Canterbury. A recent researcher tells me, however, that she was unable to trace this document on a visit to Canterbury, but she did locate a document listed in the CC Deposition Book DCb J/X 11,9,9  dated 12 Feb 1604/5 in which Robert Wynne stated that he was aged 41 and had lived in Canterbury for 25 years. This document points to a birth date in 1563/64 and an arrival in Canterbury in 1579/80.  ( 12 February 1604 would be in the year 1605 by modern reckoning, due to the change in the calendar in 1757.)  A birth date in 1563/4 is also indicated by the document of 1599.

If we consider, however, how Robert could have got to know Frances Watmer, we would seem to have a problem, as she was from Stottesdon which is a long way from Shrewsbury and there is no reason why she should have visited the town. The next parish to Stottesdon is however, Sidbury, and the Sidbury parish registers show that there a was a Wynne family living there from  at least 1577. The Stottesdon parish records also show a Wynne family living there from at least 1567. Several family members in each register are shown as ‘alias Hankyn’ so it is clearly a single family.  Given that fact that Robert was clearly an educated man, and there would have been few opportunities for schooling at that time in Sidbury, I am inclined to think that he was from Shrewsbury but was closely related to the Sidbury and Stottesdon family and perhaps was even brought up there. There were definitely Wynnes living in Shrewsbury. The Burgess Roll shows that a Roger Wynne, a baker and the son of William of Felton Butler, husbandman, was sworn in as a burgess in 1551. Perhaps of even greater relevance was the swearing in as burgess in 1581 of Richard Wynne, draper, son of Nicholas of Forden, yeoman. Here we have a draper descended from a  yeoman – so of a good family. Was he Robert Wynne’s father?

I am most grateful to Mike Morrough, the Archivist of Shrewsbury School who has very kindly looked at the registers for me and  informs me that a Robert Wyn was enrolled at Shrewsbury School in October 1570. He was registered as an ‘alienus’ which means that he came from outside the town. He was put into the 6th class out of seven  to eight classes. If he progressed through one class a year he would have completed the top class in  1576, four years before his arrival in Canterbury. Is this our Robert Wynne?

Records show that Robert Wynne was apprenticed in Canterbury to a John Rose and that he was released from his indentures in 1590. His first child Thomas Wynne was born in Canterbury in 1592 so it is likely that he married Frances Watmer in 1591. It would have been unusual for an apprentice to marry during the period of his apprenticeship.

 If Robert Wynne was born in 1564 and arrived in Canterbury in 1580 when he was about 16, then his apprenticeship must have been for ten years, as we know it finished in 1590.

 Whilst the parish registers for the churches in Shrewsbury are extant in several cases from a somewhat earlier date than 1564 and do not contain Robert’s baptism,  those for St Mary’s (which significantly was the church of the Drapers’ Company)  are extant only from 1584 so he could have been baptised there.

If Robert was born about 1564, we would expect his wife to be about the same age or a bit younger. If Frances Watmer was the last child of William Watmer the Elder and Margaret, Frances could also have born about 1564. This would make Frances about 27 when she married Robert Wynne in about 1591. There was a Frances Wotmar baptised at nearby Neenton on 18 January 1570/71  and this might be our Frances, but there is no reason for her baptism not to have been ar Stottesdon where her parents lived. I am inclined to think that this Frances was the daughter of the Thomas Wotmar of Neenton who was buried there on 14 May 1572.

We know a little more about Robert Wynne at Canterbury. He became a Freeman of the city in 1590 and after their marriage he and Frances lived above their woollen draper’s shop on the north side of the High Street, west of Mercery lane, in the parish of St Mary Bredman, Canterbury. The house belonged to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral. Robert became an alderman of the city and in 1599 he served as Mayor. (Source: Dorothy Gardiner).

Mercery Lane, Canterbury. Robert and Frances Wynne lived nearby. Copyright: John Darch. Reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be viewed at this link:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Disaster befell the family in 1609 when the plague arrived in Canterbury. Robert Wynne died on 4 September 1609 and his wife  a few days later. They were buried together on 8 September 1609 in St George’s church, probably in a vault for a local saddler, Leonard Ashenden arranged for the graves to be paved and the stones relaid.

When the magistrates realised that Robert and Frances Wynne had died of the plague they ordered the doors of their home to be fastened and posted watchmen to ensure that no-one went in or out. It was at this point that William Watmer, the children’s uncle, arranged for the children to be taken out of the infected house and placed in an outhouse, i.e. a house set aside for infectious people, under the charge of   goodwife Maple.

The swiftness of the onset of the plague meant that Robert Wynne had no time to make a written will and had to make a ‘nuncupative will’ on his death bed i.e. an oral statement which had to be committed to writing within six days. This will has survived and a transcription of it by Dorothy Tuttle can be read at this link:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cmddlton/famdox16.html

On this same web page is the will of William Watmer, also transcribed by Dorothy Tuttle.

The children of Robert and Frances Wynne were:

Thomas Wynne born 1592 and married first Mary Wickham on 20 July 1613 at Ospringe Canterbury. They had one child whose name is unknown and who died at Canterbury in 1625. Thomas  remarried to an Ann on 26 October 1629 at Canterbury.

Peter Wynne born 1593  and who married Martha Coppin on 12 August 1620 at Canterbury. Peter died at Canterbury in 1638  and Martha died at Canterbury in 1641. Their children were Robert Wynne born in 1622 at Canterbury and who married Mary Sloman and emigrated to Virgina where Robert died in 1675, and Sarah Wynne born in Canterbury and died there in 1630.

John Wynne born in 1595 who married a Joan on 23 September 1633 at Canterbury.

Elizabeth Wynne born 1597 and died 1632 at Canterbury.

Ann Wynne who married Paul Maye in Canterbury. Ann died in 1632 in Canterbury and Paul died in 1631 in Canterbury. They had one child whose name is unknown who died in 1628 in Canterbury.

When the period of quarantine had passed, William Watmer arranged for Peter and John Wynne to board with Rowland Dixon, a tailor and took Elizabeth and Ann Wynne into his own home. Thomas Wynne returned to the Wynne house.

The article by Dorothy Gardiner contains a lot more information about the children  and what happened to them. There are numerous sites with information about the Robert Wynne who emigrated to Virginia. One of these can be found at this link, but I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information:

http://www.thefourwinns.net/winn.html

We now return to William Watmer. In 1598 he stated that he had been in Canterbury for seven years which would mean he arrived there in about 1591. It seems likely, therefore, that William brought his sister Frances  from Stottesdon to Canterbury to be married and that he was persuaded to stay on in the city. In  1591 William would have been about 22. He had somehow managed to acquire a good education, perhaps at Bridgnorth Grammar School, and he may also have served an apprenticeship as a notary  as he seems to have quickly started to work as a notary in the city. On 4 July 1597  he paid the appropriate fee which made him a Freeman of the City.

  

Tower on the city wall of Canterbury  Copyright: Peter Collinson and reproduced here by his kind permission.

On 23 January 1598, when he was 29, William Watmer married  Maryan  Bonnar or Bonarde  (nee Binge) at St. Peter’s church . Maryan was a widow and her husband Leonard, who was a former Sheriff, had died a few months earlier leaving her with two children to bring up.

 In about 1602, William was appointed Chamberlain to the city and started to keep the City Treasurer’s Accounts.

In 1608 William was elected Mayor of the city for a one year term. In that year, William’s wife Maryan died. William and Maryan had no children.

1609 was the year of the plague in Canterbury, as described above, and in that year, on 30 March,  William remarried at Ashford, Kent  to  Joan Hatch  of Tenterden. Joan gave birth to a still born child in 1623  and  gave birth to a William Watmer who died in  infancy  in 1626, but there were probably other children, who also failed to survive.

By 1619, William Watmer had adopted the coat of arms and crest of his distant kinsman Francis Watmough of Micklehead Hall, Prescot, Lancashire and that year he had to justify to the Heralds on their Visitation of Kent, his right to bear these arms. The Heralds endorsed William’s right to both the coat of arms and the crest. William’s pedigree back to the Watmough family of Prescot was recorded on a manuscript which still exists at the College of Arms in London.   In recent years, John Whitmore of Malvern has investigated the right of Whatmore descendants to this coat of arms. Apparently anyone who can prove an unbroken descent in the male line from the person to whom the coat was originally granted, can claim the coat of arms as his/her own. (The original grant of the Watmough coat of arms has been lost, but it would have been held by John Watmough, the father of Francis, and probably also by Richard Watmough who was Francis’ grandfather.) The terms of the award of the crest in 1602 to Francis Watmough, however, make it clear that only the direct descendants of Francis Watmough  can bear this. The pedigree of William Watmer thus shows that he was entitled to the coat of arms, but not the crest.

By now, William and Joan were living in a tower on the city walls in the parish of Westgate. Their home was called ‘The Rosiers ‘ and it had a garden. Peter Collinson has set up a virtual tour of the city which is well worth viewing. You can see this at this link:

www.hillside.co.uk/tour/

 

 

Tower on the City walls Canterbury  Copyright: Peter Collinson and reproduced here by his kind permission

Joan  died in 1625 and William Watmer remarried the following year at Thannington to Mary Master. They had three children – Giles, Mary born 1630 who married first a man whose surname was  Terry and then to Thomas Elwyn, and Dorothy who died in 1638 in infancy. There were probably other children who did not survive.

In 1629, William Watmer was elected for the second time as Mayor of Canterbury.

By now William was wealthy enough to have a second home outside the city so at Sturry, two miles to the north he began to build Whatmer Hall using materials from an earlier house on the site. It was a substantial mansion with nine rooms and amongst its contents were tapestries, curtains and a great map of the world. Whatmer Hall still exists.

Whatmer Hall, Sturry near Canterbury  Copyright: Canterbury Local Studies Library and reproduced here by their kind permission

William Watmer died in 1640 and was buried in the central aisle of the church of  St Margaret. The church was bombed in 1942 and William’s memorial stone was subsequently covered over with wooden flooring.

Mary, William’s widow must have continued to spend some time in the tower on the city walls because after his death she petitioned the city council regarding the building work which was taking place on the walls.

Giles Watmer did well for himself, entering the Middle Temple in London and returning to Canterbury in 1646 to practise law as a public notary.  He married Mary Randolph and they had one known child - Giles Watmer born in 1654. There is evidence that he and his wife lived at Whatmer Hall, where he died in 1675. He left no will and had a lot of debts when he died. Whether his son Giles survived to adulthood is unknown, but it seems unlikely.

Thus we come to the apparent end of the story of the Watmers at Canterbury – founded by a most remarkable member of our family from Shropshire, whose name is still revered by members of the Wynne family in America.

 This post continues and convludes the story of the Whatmore Families at Arley, described in earlier posts

Samuel was baptised on 16 September 1838 at Chelmarsh. This entry is missing from the parish registers but is in the Bishops’ Transcripts. Samuel was at home at the time of the 1841 and 1851 censuses. At the time of the 1861 census Samuel was working as a groom at Rea Hall, Highley. He married Catharine Mary Hardwicke on 10 July 1866 in the parish church at Kidderminster. The witnesses were his brother Thomas Whatmore, and Eliza Hardwicke.. 

Samuel Whatmore  Copyright: Thomas William Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission

In 1871 Samuel and his family were at Hextons Upper Arley where he was working as  groom. In the 1881 census the family was still at Hextons. In 1891 and 1901 Samuel and Catharine were living  at Nash End. Catharine was buried aged 63 on 5 January 1904 at Arley. Samuel was buried aged 96 on 27 June 1935 at Arley. The burial place of Samuel and Catherine has not yet been traced in Arley churchyard.

  The children of Samuel and Catherine were: 

 Lizzie Whatmore (1867) After working awat from home as a servant, Lizzie returned home when her mother died in 1904 and looked after her father until he died in 1935. Lizzie never married. She died on 8 September 1958 aged 91 and was buried on 12 September  at Arley.

Lizzie Whatmore ( on left) with her sister Sarah Ann Whatmore

Copyright: Thomas William Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission

Charles Whatmore born in 1868 was at home at the time of the 1871 and 1881 censuses. Charles has not been traced in the 1891 census. He married Martha Elizabeth Price in the June Quarter of 1899 in the Kidderminster Registration District. In 1901 Charles and Martha were living in Kidderminster. Charles is described as a Coachman. Charles and Martha moved away to live in Wolverhampton, where they both lived for the rest of their lives. Charles died on 29 January 1939 aged 70 and  was buried on 31 January 1939 at Arley and Martha was buried with her husband on 2 September 1954. Charles and Martha had two children: Bertram (1901 or 1902) and Doris.

 Samuel Joseph Whatmore (1869) remained in Arley all his life. He never married.  He died on 17 April 1962 aged 92 and was buried on 21 April 1962 at Arley.

 George Whatmore (1870) married Phoebe Smith in the March Quarter of 1896 in the Kidderminster Registration District and was at Camberton, Kidderminster in 1901, working as a shepherd. The family later moved to Redditch where George was a farm bailiff.  George and Phoebe had only one child – Charles Reginald Whatmore born 4 December 1896. He joined the Police Force, then served in the First World War. He suffered severe shell shock and never worked after the War. Charles never married and probably died aged 84 in the September Quarter of 1980 in the Alcester Registration District.

 Sarah Ann Whatmore (1871) married Henry Bagley on 19 November 1898 at Arley. In 1901 they were at Madeley, Shropshire.  She died in 1966. 

Sarah Ann and Henry Bagley had three children; William Edwin (1900), Catherine May (1901) and Dolly (1911).

 William Jessie Whatmore (1873) was working as a footman in 1891. Later he joined the army and served in South Africa in the Boer War. He does not appear to have married, William Jessie died on 19 October 1927.  

William Jessie Whatmore   Copyright: Thomas William Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission

Edward Whatmore (1874) married Florence Gillespie .They did not have any children. Edward died on 11 March 1968 and Flroence on 24 October 1952.  

Matthew Whatmore (1877) lived at Arley and worked as a farm servant and a gardener. He never married. Matthew served in the First World War as Private 37759 in the Worcestershire Regiment 2^nd Bn. and was killed  in an explosion on 21 May 1917 near Arras in France, and has no known grave.

 

Roll of Honour in Arley Church, showing the name of Matthew Whatmore  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

He is commemorated on a plaque in Arley Church and on the Arras Memorial (Bay 6) in the Faubourg d’Amiens Cemetery, Arras.   

Matthew Whatmore    Copyright: Thomas William Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission

Alfred Whatmore (1879) who was buried on 20 February 1880 at Arley. 

Thomas Whatmore  Born 1880 and died on 20 November 1967. Thomas was caretaker at Speke Hall Liverpoolwas many years and his life  is described in an earlier post.

Thomas Whatmore   Copyright: Thomas William Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission

James Whatmore (1881) who died on 2 January 1888 aged 7 and was buried on 7 January 1888 at Arley 

Richard Henry Whatmore (1882) His parents are shown as James and Katherine in the parish register – surely a clerical mistake! Richard Henry  married Mary Ann Brazier in the December Quarter of 1905 at Kidderminster where Richard had a butcher’s shop. Richard died on 14 January 1956. Richard and Mary Ann had one child – Stanley Richard Whatmore who was born in 1907. He married Margaret Stone in 1939 and lived at Kidderminster. They had two. children who are still living.  Stanley  and his wife both died in 1963. 

 Four of the sons of Samuel and Catherine Whatmore, at Nash End, Arley in 1937

From left:  Richard, Charles, Thomas and Joseph

Copyright: Thomas William Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission

John Whatmore (1886) was at home aged 14 and working as an Under Waggoner in 1901. John married Annie Foxall in 1916 in the Kidderminster. Registration District.  John and Annie had no children. Annie died in 1964 in the Kidderminster Registration District and John died aged 86 in the September Quarter of 1972 in the Kidderminster Registration District.

 This post continues the story of the Whatmore Families of Arley - described in an earlier post. The families of Thomas and his brother Samuel were the most recent of the Whatmore families at Arley.

Thomas was baptised on 25 September 1831 at Highley. His parents’ address at Highley is not given in the register but the family were probably living at the Court House.  Thomas married Hannah’s daughter Susan Sheward on 21 May 1861 at Upper Arley. The witnesses were Henry Jordan and Phoebe Phillips. The married couple lived at Arley for the rest of their lives. Susan Whatmore died aged  68  on 20 April 1904 and was buried on 23 April 1904 at Arley. Thomas died  aged 79 on 14 January 1911 and was buried on 18 January  1911. Their grave, the earliest of  my branch of the Whatmores that has been traced, is just to the north of the church tower. 

The children of Thomas and Susan were:

 Samuel Whatmore who was baptised on 11 August 1861 at Arley. He was at home in the 1871 and 1881 censuses. In the latter he is described as a railway porter.This was at Arley station on the other side of the river. He was killed by a train at Arley Station and  buried, aged 20, on 20 July 1881 in the plot which was to be the burial place of his parents. The inscription is at ground level and was probably inserted when the stone to his parents was erected.  The railway accident is described in an earlier post. 

James Whatmore was baptised on 5 July 1863 at Arley. He was at  home at the time of the 1871 census and in 1881 he was living and working as a stable boy and groom in the house of John Walkeys at Northfield, now part of Birmingham. At the time of the 1891 census James was  a Private in the Enniskilling Dragoons and living in the house of Lt Col Alexander McKean at Hove.  James married Julia Elizabeth Kingsmill  on 31 August 1893 at Hackington , Canterbury. In the 1901 census the family were living at Stanford in Kent. James is described as a coachman.  James and his family subsequently moved to East Chinnock near Yeovil in Somerset where James died in 1945 and Julia died in 1949. James and Julia had two children: Bertha Margaret (1894) and Alice M (1897/98).

James Whatmore   Copyright: Chris Baldock and reproduced here by her kind permission.

 William George Whatmore was baptised on 15 July 1866 at Arley. He was at home at the time of the 1871 and 1881 censuses At the time of the 1891 census, William George was living at Pains Cottages, Trimpley near Kidderminster in the house of Ann Carter. James is described as an agricultural labourer. William George married  Ann Carter in the December Quarter of 1892  in the Kidderminster Registration District. Ann was a widow and was at least twenty years older than William.  In the 1901 census, William and Ann were living at Camberton, Kidderminster. William is described as a  waggoner on a farm. Ann would have been past the age of child bearing at the time of her marriage to William George. William George is believed to have died in the March Quarter of 1927 aged 61 in the Kidderminster Registration District. The date of Ann’s death has not yet been identified.  

John Thomas Whatmore 

John Thomas Whatmore with his daughter Ruth about 1920 Copyright: Thomas Whatmore of Arley and reproduced here by his kind permission.

John Thomas was born on 20 May 1868 and baptised on 21 June at Arley. He was at home in the 1871 and 1881 censuses.  In the 1891 census John Thomas  was a lodger in the house of Benjamin Kiteley at Harbourne.  He is described as a General Labourer. John Thomas    married Emily Fletcher in the December Quarter of 1892 in the Wolverhampton Registration District.

 

 John Thomas Whatmore, ferryman, in the punt which he used when the river was low. Copyright: Thomas Whatmore of Arley and reproduced here by his kind permission.

 By the time of the 1901 census, John Thomas  and Emily were living at Arley. John is described as a General labourer. He also acted as the Ferryman at Arley and was Head Bellringer at Arley Church, establishing a tradition of Whatmore bell ringers which continues to this day. John died on 18 May aged 59 and was buried on 20 May 1928 at Arley. Emily was buried aged 67 on 17 April 1934 at Arley. The children of John Thomas and Emily were: Thomas James (1893 - 1957), Cecily Susan (1895-1895), William George (1896), Allen (1897), Annie (1898), Walter (1900-1966), Herbert George (1902), Samuel (1903), Charlie (1904-1964), Harry (1905-1983), Frederick (1907-1977) and Ruth (1910-2003)  

Frederick Whatmore, son of John Thomas, became one of the two ferrymen at Arley ( the other was Bert Jones) and my father met him working the ferry in the 1950s without being aware that they were closely related.  In August 1957, Fred and Bert were involved in a dramatic rescue. Further upstream, William Parkes had been crossing the river Severn in his 18 foot ferry boat at Hampton Loade when the overhead security cable snapped. The ferry boat was swept down the river for over an hour. At Highley, two miles below Hampton Loade police and villagers tried to stop the ferry boat with a rope, but the latter snapped. Warned by telephone, two miles further on at Arley, villagers awaited the ferry boat, lighting up the river with car headlights. As the ferry arrived, Bert Jones and Fred Whatmore rammed it with their own boat and grabbed Mr Jones as he jumped from one boat to the other. Mr Jones was unhurt but the ferry boat continued to be swept further down the river. Some of the descendents of Harry Whatmore, another son of John Thomas, still live at Arley.

 Fred Whatmore, one of the ferrymen in the 1950s  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

Henry Whatmore (1870) was at home at the time of  the 1871 and 1881 censuses.  In the 1891 census there is a Henry Whatmore of the correct age, born Kidderminster, at Norton Juxta Kempsey Barracks, Pershore. Henry is shown as a Private in the Infantry.  Henry has not been traced in the 1901 census. He is possibly the Henry Whatmore who died aged 68 in the December Quarter of 1938 in the Kidderminster Registration District.

Walter Whatmore (1872) was at home at the time of the 1881 census. He joined the Inniskilling Dragoons when he was 16  and served for 14 years. In the 1891 census he is shown as a Private in the 10^th Inniskilling  Dragoons at the Cavalry Barracks, Preston, West Sussex. Walter served in the Boer War and was wounded twice and later joined the 2^nd Scottish Horse (Australians) becoming Regimental Sergeant Major He also served with the Imperial yeomanry and in the First World War he acted as Instructor.  

Photograph of members of  the 2nd Scottish Horse in South Africa during the Boer War

Sergeant Major Whatmore is in the centre of the photo, looking sideways

Picture from www.awm.gov.au  Copyright: Australian War Memorial and reproduced here by their kind permission

Walter married Alice Willey Cossins in the June Quarter 1903 in the Greenwich Registration District.  

 When Walter was demobbed he settled down with his wife at Arley where they ran the post office.  

Walter was a member of the ‘Eight Club, which he joined on 30 January 1920. The club was founded in 1916 and consisted of eight friends who would meet  four times year at 8.00 p.m at ‘The Harbour Inn’ or the ‘Valentia’ at Arley for a meal of leg of mutton and a sing song. The minutes of the Club have survived as has a letter from Walter’s  widow to the Chairman of the Club. 

Walter died aged 54 on 15 February 1927 and was buried on 20 February 1927 at Arley.  At his funeral, the Rev S H S Spooner said that if there was one person in the parish who could sincerely be called popular, Walter Whatmore was that man. The vicar went on to say that 

 ‘Walter was deservedly popular, industrious, possessed of sterling qualities, genial, cheerful, loyal and always punctual. ‘He was a soldier, every inch of him, going through the Boer War and the Great War, which latter left its mark on him. These soldierly qualities made him exact and neat in civilian life and such things marked a man’s character. He was faithful in his duties towards God and man. You know with what enthusiasm  he supported the formation of a local branch of the British Legion and that he was a member of fully seven organisations in the parish, not the least of which were those of bellringer, chorister and member of the Parochial Church Council; indeed in many ways he will be deeply missed. He was a devoted husband and we deeply sympathise with his bereaved widow.’ 

Alice died on 9 June 1942 and was buried with her husband at Arley. 

The grave of Walter and Alice Whatmore at Arley    Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

Herbert Septimus Whatmore (1874) was at home at the time of the 1881 and 1891 censuses but his whereabouts in 1901 are unknown. Herbert  married Elizabeth Head (grand daughter of Louisa Whatmore and thus his first cousin once removed) on 16 July 1904 at Alveley. The witnesses were his brother Walter, and Mary Hannah Hemmings. Elizabeth died aged 76 in the June Quarter of 1956 in the Kidderminster Registration District. Herbert died aged 83 in the March Quarter of 1958 in the Kidderminster Registration District.   

Allan Octavius Whatmore (was born at Upper Arley on 10 September 1876. He was at home at the time of the 1881 and 1891 censuses. He married Amy Taylor in the December Quarter of 1898 in the Kings Norton Registration District.  In 1901 Allan and Amy were living at Northfield, Birmingham. Allan was working as a Journeyman Baker.  Allan died aged 69 in the March Quarter of 1946 in the Birmingham Registration District. Amy died a few years after her husband. Allan and Amy had four children: Doris (1899), Charles Leslie (1901), Allan (1903 -1981) and Stanley James (1908). Charles Leslie and Stanley James both emigrated to Australia.

Allan Octavius Whatmore with his Family

Back Row: Allan Whatmore, Family Friend, Charles Whatmore, Stanley Whatmore

Front row: Doris (Diana) Whatmore, Allan Octavious Whatmore, Amy Whatmore

Copyright: Roger Allan Whatmore and reproduced here by his kind permission.

The parish of Arley, previously known as Over Areley or Areley is situated about 6 miles to the north west of Kidderminster. The parish was in Staffordshire until 1895 when it was transferred to Worcestershire. The greater part of the parish is on the east side of the river Severn where the village of Upper Arley is located. The part of the parish the west side of the river is shown as ‘Woodseaves’  in the 1841 census and contains scattered farms and the hamlet of Pound Green, previously known as Browns Green (1868). Presumably this part of the parish was the  ‘Lower Arley’ though this name does not appear on old or current maps. 

From at least 1323 (Close Rolls) the two parts of the parish were linked by ferry, but this closed in 1964 and was replaced in 1972 with a footbridge.  Members of the Whatmore family operated the ferry for many years in the twentieth century. The Severn Valley Railway runs through the western part of the parish where Arley station is located.

Wheat, barley, oats and beans were grown in the parish and vines and cider apples were also cultivated. A quarry at Hextons Farm, still operative, supplied grindstones, mill stones and building stone. In the nineteenth century a thin seam of coal was worked. In former times there was a large amount of trade on the river and in 1851 there were 5 public houses serving the bargemen in the parish including ‘The Harbour’ which stills exists.

Arley   Painting by Robert Kirk     Copyright: Robert Kirk and reproduced here by his kind permission.

Robert Kirk lives in South Shropshire and is a well known painter of local scenes. If you would like to see some more of his paintings,or would like to purchase a copy of one of them, please follow this link:

http://www.robertkirk.co.uk/index.htm

Arley was home to members of branches of the  Watmore and Whatmore family over several hundred years, but today there are only three individuals with that surname in the parish. What happened to these Whatmore families and how were they inter-related? Using the research by my distant cousin Geoffrey Whatmore as a starting point, I decided to try to find out the answers to these questions.

The parish registers of Arley, extant from 1564, indicate that, apart from a few individuals who drifted in and out of the parish at various times, there were four separate Whatmore families who lived there. The first three of these families are directly, if distantly related. The origin of the fourth family has not been traced.

 

The families were:

The family of Humphrey Watmore (born 1654 at Cleobury Mortimer)

The family of John Watmore (born 1685 at Cleobury Mortimer)

 The families of Thomas Whatmore (born 1831 at Chelmarsh) and his brother of Samuel Whatmore (born 1838 at Chelmarsh). 

The family of John Watmore, Waterman (born about 1761)

  The family of Humphrey Watmore (born 1654 at Cleobury Mortimer)  

Humphrey Watmore married Mary Cound on 8 May 1683. Although their five known children were all baptised at Cleobury Mortimer, the names of three of these occur later at Arley. It would appear that either the whole family, or just some of the children moved to Arley between 1693 and 1712.  Humphrey and Mary’s children were: 

Thomas bpt 1764 at Cleobury Mortimer and buried 1743 at Arley

Humphrey bpt 1686 at Cleobury Mortimer and buried 1712 at Arley

Mary Watmore bpt 1688 at Cleobury Mortimer

Joyce Watmer bpt 1691 at Cleobury Mortimer, married to John Jones at Arley in 1716 and buried in 1773 at Arley

William Watmore bpt and buried 1693 at Cleobury Mortimer.

The only grandchild traced of Humphrey and Mary is Mary Jones, baptised at Arley in 1717.

  The family of John Watmore (born 1685 at Cleobury Mortimer) 

John Watmore married his first wife Mary Browne on 21 April 1707 at Cleobury Mortimer, but by 1712 they had settled at Arley as their first known child, John, was baptised at Arley in that year. Mary died in 1721 and John remarried to Catherine Beetley in 1723.  Descendants of John Watmore and Mary Browne remained at Arley for at least five further generations but my main interest has been in what happened to the last generation known to have been brought up at Arley. These were the children of Richard Watmore (1781 – 1849) and Sarah: James (born 8 Feb 1806) Ann who was born in 1808, Elizabeth (born 7 Nov 1811) Mary (bpt 9 Nov 1814) Charlotte (bpt 20 April 1817) Harriet (bpt 26 Dec 1819) William (bpt 13 Oct 1822) James (1806) married a Maria (born about 1806 at Dalling, Norfolk) and settled in Finsbury, London where he was a bricklayer). Maria died in 1854 and James in 1862. No children of James and Maria have been traced. Ann born 1808 was buried at Arley on 8 May 1825 aged 16. Elizabeth (1811) had an illegimate daughter Charlotte Watmore who was baptised in 1839 at Arley.  The following year Elizabeth married George Blount (born Bewdley 1817). George Blount was a wood collier, agricultural labourer and charcoal burner. They lived first at Arley, then at Hartlebury and finally probably at Ribbesford where George was buried in 1885. Elizabeth then went to live with her daughter Charlotte at Hereford and died there in 1891. Elizabeth and George had three children – James (1846) who in 1901 was at Hereford, unmarried and working as a builder’s labourer – Phillip born 1848 who died aged 12 in 1860 – and Elizabeth (1850) about whom nothing further is known. Elizabeth’s daughter Charlotte Watmore married a George Booth in 1862. George Booth was a railway pointsman and signalman. They lived first at Holmer, Herefordshire and then at Hereford where George died in 1891 and Charlotte in 1900. No children have been traced. Mary (1814) married a John Broadhurst in 1842. They appear to have remained in Arley for the rest of their lives.  John was a Wood Labourer and an agricultural labourer. Mary died in 1877 and John in 1886. Mary and John had several children but by 1901 only four descendants were still at Arley. These were Mary and John’s son Bartholomew (born 1843), Barthomew’s sons John born 1868 and Harry (1872) and Bartholomew’s nephew Henry (1882).   

Charlotte Watmore (1817) was buried in 1836 at Arley aged 18

Harriet Watmore (1819) – not traced later.

William Watmore (1822) married an Ann, probably Ann Etheridge. They lived at Kidderminster, Stourport and Stourbridge before settling in Birmingham. William was a bricklayer. Ann died in 1885 and William in 1901. Of their six children, only William Whatmore (born 1860), who was a brass worker and a glassworker in Birmingham, seems to have survived until 1901. He married Augusta Edith Vick in 1893 and they had two known children – Ellen (1893) who married a John W Sly in 1918 – and Frances Annie (1894) who married a James Cotterill in 1914.

 Thomas Whatmore (born 1831 at Highley) Thomas was baptised on 25 September 1831 at Highley. His parents’ address at Highley is not given in the register but the family were probably still living at the Court House.  In the 1841 census, Thomas was living at home with his parents at Hampton, Chelmarsh. In 1851 he was working as an agricultural labourer at Bowhill, Romsley. 

At the time of the 1861 census, Thomas was living as a lodger in the house of Hannah Sheward at Arley. He is shown as an unmarried labourer, aged 29.

 Thomas married Hannah’s daughter Susan Sheward on 21 May 1861 at Upper Arley. The witnesses were Henry Jordan and Phoebe Phillips. The married couple lived at Arley for the rest of their lives. 

Susan Whatmore died aged  68  on 20 April 1904 and was buried on 23 April 1904 at Arley. Thomas died  aged 79 on 14 January 1911 and was buried on 18 January  1911. Their grave, the earliest of  my branch of the Whatmores that has been traced, is just to the north of the church tower.

The descendants of Thomas and Susan will be described in a future post.

 Samuel Whatmore (born 1838 at Highley) Samuel was baptised on 16 September 1838 at Chelmarsh. This entry is missing from the parish registers but is in the Bishops’ Transcripts. Samuel was at home at the time of the 1841 and 1851 censuses. At the time of the 1861 census Samuel was working as a groom at Rea Hall, Highley. He married Catharine Mary Hardwicke on 10 July 1866 in the parish church at Kidderminster. The witnesses were his brother Thomas Whatmore, and Eliza Hardwicke..  In 1871 Samuel and his family were at Hextons Upper Arley where he was working as  groom. 

 An issue of the ‘Kidderminster Shuttle’, for May 1871 reports;

‘Another accident has been added to the long list of casualities happening in the ancient Borough of Bewdley within the last fortnight. On Tuesday evening about eight o’clock a man named Watmore, [ Samuel Whatmore or possibly his brother Thomas] a waggoner in the employ of Robert Woodward Esq. of Arley Castle, left Arley in the afternoon  with a load of bark which he was to take to the Price’s works in Bewdley. Having unloaded the wagon it was taken to the weighing machine in accordance with custom. Passing the Severn Bridge while in the act of taking a pole out of the wagon, he fell and broke his leg below the knee. He was at once removed to Mr Gabb the surgeon who was successful in setting the leg and Watmore was conveyed home in a boat along the Severn’

This report is from ‘Hide to Leather’, by Angela Purcell. I am most grateful to Sheila Kirk of South Shropshire for copying and sending me this account.

 In the 1881 census, Samuel and his family were still at Hextons. In 1891 and 1901 Samuel and Catharine were living  at Nash End. Catharine was buried aged 63 on 5 January 1904 at Arley. Samuel was buried aged 96 on 27 June 1935 at Arley. The burial place of Samuel and Catherine has not yet been traced in Arley churchyard. 

The descendants of Samuel and Catherine will be described in a future post.

 The family of John Watmore, Waterman, born about 1763 

John Watmore married a Henrietta. She died aged 70 in 1833. If we assume that John was born about the same time as his wife, or a little earlier, he is most likely to be the John baptised at Morville in 1761, the son of Thomas and Jane, although he could be the John baptised in 1770 at Ribbesford, the son of Thomas and Mary.

If John was in fact the son of the John and Jane of Morville, then he links in to all the other Whatmore families at Arley, sharing a common descendant from Thomas of Curdale and his wife Joan.

 Henrietta would have been about 32 at the time of the birth of their first known child – so she may have been John’s second wife, or John and Henrietta may have had earlier children whose baptisms have not been traced. 

 Arley Church    Photograph copyright: Geoff Pick and reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be read here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

The known children of  John and Henrietta, all baptised at Arley, were:

Sarah Watmore (1795)

Georgiana Watmore born 1798

Mary Watmore (1801)

Sarah (1795) had an illegimate son John Watmore baptised at Arley in 1815, but nothing further is known of her.  John is probably to be identified with the John Watmore who later lived at Stone on the outskirts of Kidderminster. Athough his ages in the censuses never really tally they indicate a birth in about 1820. His birth place is given variously as Arley, Chelmarsh, Cleobury Mortimer, Kinlet, Broome and Shropshire. It is clear that John was confused about his true age and the exact location of his place of birth. There is, however, a place called Broom Green in the 1841 census, located in the Woodseaves part of the parish of Arley, close to the boundaries with the parishes of Chelmarsh and Kinlet. This would seem to match John’s recollections of his birth place.

John (1815), son of Sarah, married  a Mary Ann and brought up a large family of children at Stone. He worked as an agricultural labourer. None of the children lived at Arley and they and their families mainly ended up in Birmingham  Their daughter Elizabeth, born 1850, married William Head the son of George Head and Louisa Whatmore. Louisa was the sister of the Thomas Whatmore and Samuel Whatmore who lived at Arley  so we have yet another link between the Arley families.

Mary  Ann died in 1892 and John  in 1910.

 Georgiana Watmore born 1798 married Edward Stretch at Claines on 30 June 1822. They lived at Worcester where Edward was a Glover. Edward died in 1855 and Georgiana in 1857. Edward and Georgiana had seven known children, all of whom married. None of these children lived at Arley.

Arley   Photo copyright: Matt Fascione  and reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be read here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Conclusion

 Although it appears that only one direct descendant of these Whatmore families still lives at Arley (and his wife and his brother’s widow), there may be others with various surnames still there but it would take a lot of work to research this. There were however periods when descendants of different branches of these Whatmore families lived side by side at Arley, albeit with other surnames. Did they know they were related? It is hard to tell. It seems that the descendants of Thomas Whatmore and Samuel Whatmore  bearing the name Whatmore were not in close touch in the twentieth century despite living in the same parish. Even in cases where individuals from one branch were well known to members of another branch – the family relationship was unknown. Dolly Bagley, born in 1911 lived, unmarried all her life at Arley until her death in 1993, yet descendants of Thomas Whatmore had no idea that she was a descendant of Samuel Whatmore. In the days of large families it was probably hard enough work keeping track of one’s own direct family let alone the members of another branch.   

Perhaps in years to come there will be other branches of the Whatmore family who will settle at Arley and will perhaps ponder on the names on the graves in the churchyard and speculate about how they might be related.

     

A great many families seem to have a ‘we wus robbed’ story. This is the one from my own great  grandfather. His daughter Mary Ann Dyson married my grandfather Noah Whatmore in 1906 in Sheffield.

Dominating the main room of the tiny cottage in Dunkirk Square, Darnall, Sheffield where my great grandparents, George and Rebecca Dyson, lived in the nineteen twenties  was a massive oil lamp.  Each of the large glass sides of the lamp was finely cut with the design of a star.  At Christmas, after the lamp had been lit, the family would gather round it and sing carols. Strangely out of place in its setting, visitors would inevitably ask how George had acquired the lamp and he was only too willing to tell its story. 

 The panes and burners of the Dyson oil lamp  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

When George was small, his family had lived in a ‘fine’ house and had had a carriage in which to go to church. Both his parents had then died suddenly and ‘relatives’ had cheated him out of his inheritance and placed him in an orphanage.  The only things he had managed to salvage were an old chest, the oil lamp and an indenture certificate. My grandmother Mary Ann (Polly) Dyson, knew the location of the house and pointed it out in the 1930s to my father. He recalled that it was a large property in London Road, just out of the city centre with gardens in front. At the time of his visit it had been turned into a laundry.

George’s wife Rebecca died in 1931 and he went to live with a married daughter, giving the oil lamp and indenture certificate to his grandson Eric Whatmore (my father). Over the years, the oil lamp got damaged and eventually the framework was thrown away, but the panes of glass and burner  together with the indenture certificate passed to me when my father died in 2003. I decided to try to investigate the story.

Looking at the indenture certificate, which we had always assumed was that of my great grandfather, I was surprised to note the date – 1833 – well before his time. On 15 March 1833, a George Dyson had been apprenticed as a Saw Handle Maker for a period of seven years to a James Millington of Sheffield. George was described as a minor and had put ‘his mark’ to the agreement. Who was this George?

 The Indentures of George Dyson the Saw handle maker  1833  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 

The birth certificate of my great grandfather supplied the answer. It showed that my great grandfather had been born on 15 February 1850 at 7 Weigh Lane, Sheffield Park, the son of a George Dyson (a Saw handle maker) and his wife Mary Ann (nee Whittaker). The 1851 census showed the family at this address and gave the father’s age as 36 and his birth place as Eckington, Derbyshire ( a village a few miles south of Sheffield). Next I sent for the birth certificate of the youngest child James. This showed he had been born on 15 March 1840 at Pond Gardens, Sheffield – on the very day when his father’s apprenticeship would have finished. I then managed to find the family in the 1841 census at Spring Street. The father’s age was shown as 25. A check on the IGI gave the baptism of a George Dyson in Eckington on 27 November 1814. This was confirmed by the parish register entry which shown that the parents were a Joseph Dyson, Scythe maker, and his wife Elizabeth. Finally at Sheffield Archives I located photographs of Spring Street and Weigh Lane taken shortly before they were demolished in the 1930s. The pictures showed small labourers’ cottages.

Instead of a solution, I now had more questions than before. Why had the Saw handle maker been apprenticed at such a late age? He would have been about 19 at the time. Why was he allowed to marry during his apprenticeship? (His marriage is not in the GRO so presumably it was before the September Quarter of 1837). How did he manage in later life to acquire a ‘fine’ house when as late as 1851 he was occupying a cottage?

I decided to check out the story of the sudden death of my great grandfather’s parents.  George the Saw handle maker had died in April 1860  aged 47 at Wright’s Hill, London Road, when my great grandfather was about 10. Mary Ann, the Saw handle maker’s wife had died in September of the same year at Gleadless, Sheffield (at the home of her married brother). Of their children, James and Joseph were both shown as ‘boarders’ in different parts of the city in the 1861 census, their daughter Mary Ann was with her uncle and aunt at Gleadless – but there was no sign of their son George. If he was in an orphanage he may not have been included in the enumeration.  This all tallied with my great grandfather’s story.

As I now had a precise location for the ‘fine’ house I decided to visit Wright’s Hill when I was next in Sheffield. After some searching it proved to be a narrow lane off London Road. Unfortunately only one of the earlier buildings remained, but a map of 1851 showed that there had been large houses with gardens fronting onto London Road on both the corners of Wright’s Hill. This location also fitted that which my grandmother had pointed out to my father. In the meantime I had managed to locate and contact many of my great grandfather’s descendants and the older generation all knew the story of the ‘fine’ house and the oil lamp, but were unable to shred any light on the mystery.

 The only remaining house on Wrights Hill    Copyright: Rhys Whatmore 

It was time to reassess  my great grandfather’s story. From about 1853 onwards, his parents had lived in a substantial house in Wright’s Hill. Both his parents had died when he was about ten. He does seem to have been placed in an orphanage after their deaths. This all seems to substantiate his story but there are several facts which suggest that he may have misinterpreted what took place. As the third son, there was no reason why he should have inherited the property and its contents. His brother James would have been the heir and his mother would presumably have been entitled to something. But in 1861 James, the  natural heir was aged 21 and a ‘boarder’ at the Corporation Arms’ in Sheffield and an apprentice Saw handle maker’. Why was he not living in the ‘fine’ house? Why did the widow need to seek refuge with her infant daughter in the house of her married brother? Why was she not able to take her son George with her as well? Why did her son Joseph die in the Eccleshall Bierlow Union Workhouse in 1869?

George Dyson the Miner ( my great grandfather) who told the story of the lost inheritance, with his wife Rebecca  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 

Pending further information, my conclusion is that George, the Saw Handle Maker was living well beyond his means at the time of his death. In 1851 he had been living in a small cottage. In 1853 he was living in a substantial house. It seems unlikely that he could have inherited money from his father – a scythe maker – nor from his wife’s family. Any money from the Whittaker family would surely have gone to Mary Ann’s brother. The Saw handle making business may suddenly have become quite lucrative but surely not to the extent of permitting the purchase of a ‘fine’ house. As most families in Victorian times rented rather than owned the properties in which they lived, it seems probable that the ‘fine’ house was not owned by the Dyson family. The Saw handle maker could well have splashed out on  furnishings including the oil lamp and the family may even had have a carriage, but it seems unlikely he had much in the bank. Perhaps the  early deaths of the Saw handle maker  from ‘ an abscess on the back’ and that of his wife from ‘pulmonary disease’  were hastened by money worries. When the Saw handle maker died it thus seems likely that the bailiffs stepped and seized the furnishings of the house and other assets.

 Perhaps we shall never know the true story. The eldest son James died only three years later and  the next brother Joseph disappears from the censuses. Only George, who was eventually adopted, and his sister Mary Ann  survived to provide later generations with their understanding of the misfortune which had befallen their family.    

Robert Watmore is of interest because he was Clerk to the Board of Guardians of Lambeth Workhouse at the time of a major scandal in 1838.

Robert was born about 1784 but his birthplace is unknown apart from the fact that it was not in the county of Surrey. There had been a Watmore family of ropemakers living in Lambeth much earlier, but we have no evidence of a connection to Robert.

Pallot’s Marriage Index tells us that Robert Watmore married Jemima Mary Leavers in 1808 at Christchurch, Newgate, London. Mary had been born in about 1792, at Newington, Surrey (south London).

From at least 1824, Robert Watmore was Vestry Clerk at St Mary’s Lambeth for in April of that year he placed a notice in ‘The Times’ calling for tenders for articles to be supplied to the Lambeth Workhouse.

By 1831 he was being paid an annual salary of 500 guineas a year.. That  Robert and his family were well off is clear from the fact that after his death his wife and his several unmarried daughters are referred to in successive censuses as ‘annuitants’ (i.e. living on own income). The amount of Robert’s salary was in fact disputed according to a report in ‘The Times’ of 6 April 1831.  At a meeting on 5 April in the public vestry at Lambeth, a Mr O’Grady proposed that Robert Watmore’s salary be cut to 200 guineas. There was so much opposition to his existing salary that Robert’s friends demanded a poll. A proposal that Robert’s salary should  continue to be 500 guineas was ultimately carried by a very large majority ‘amidst one of the greatest uproars we ever heard’

Refuge - Applying for Admission   Print by Gustave Dore  From ‘Dore’s London: A Pilgrimage’  Published 1872

It was about 1831 that Mr Mott, a Lambeth shopkeeper, secured the contract for the maintenance of the poor of Lambeth at 3s 11d per head – men, woman and a few children, - abled bodied, decrepid, impotent, all included. There were about 7000 indoor paupers in Lambeth and the Lambeth vestry calculated that the contract with Mr Mott had saved them £3000 a year. Mott’s establishments were however seriously overcrowded with poor equipment and facilities. Staff were poorly trained and managed, death rates were high and there were reports of physical abuse. Eventually there was a scandal in relation to Haycock Lodge which was managed by Mr Mott and he was sacked in 1842.

(From www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk  )

In 1834 Robert Watmore gave the following evidence to the Poor Law Commissioners:

‘Each overseer relieves the casual poor in cases within his district, which are cases of necessity; and this relief is by a little printed ticket on the clerk of the workhouse. The overseer relieving signs his name and the amount on the ticket and this serves as a voucher for every one, the smallest item.

Before the establishment of the checks, I have known casual poor obtain relief from the whole eight overseers. Frauds have been committed with the tickets; one woman was prosecuted for increasing the amount of the ticket, but frauds in this way cannot be very extensive. I see every day the benefits of this check as regards officers as well as the applicants,  and I can see no reason why it should not be adopted in other parishes. In my own parish the overseers neither receive nor pay any money; the collectors are bound to pay in each week to the bankers the money collected; we have eight collectors, with securities of £1000 each’

(From ‘ Poor Law Commissioners Report 1834’)

Following the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834, Boards of Guardians were established replacing the parish overseers of the poor.  They administered workhouses within a defined Poor Law Union. For many years the existing parish workhouse on Princes Road (later Black Prince Road,) continued to be used.

There was now pressure for all paupers to be forced into the workhouse and for the end to the payment of outdoor relief.

Men in the St Marylebone Workhouse 1903  This image is in the public domain

In 1835 the Poor Law Commissioners said that the terms of the current contract, soon due to expire, for the Lambeth Workhouse were far too lavish. At a meeting, reported in ‘The Times’ in October 1835, held about the new contract, Robert Watmore was asked to read out details of the current diet table for the Workhouse. This was as follows:

Present Contract for able-bodied Men and Women

Monday – Breakfast and  supper – bread 13 oz; cheese 2oz or butter 1 oz. Dinner – 1 pint of leg of beef soup

Tuesday – Breakfast and Supper – bread 13 oz and 1 pint of porridge. Dinner – 1lb rice pudding

Wednesday – Breakfast and supper – bread 13 oz  and 2 oz cheese. Dinner – 7 oz boiled beef and vegetables

Thursday – Breakfast and Supper – bread 13 oz and 1 pint of porridge. Dinner – 1 pint soup.

Friday  – Breakfast and supper – bread 13 oz  and 2 oz cheese. Dinner – 7 oz beef and vegetables

Saturday – Breakfast and Supper – bread 13 oz and 1 pint of porridge. Dinner – 1 pint soup.

Sunday – Breakfast and Supper – Bread 10oz and 1 oz butter.  Dinner  - 7 oz boiled beef and vegetables

Men allowed a quart of table beer a day, and women one pint and a half. A reduced scale for children.

The meeting was told the details of the contract for the Workhouse for St George’s Hanover Square which the Commissioners thought was excellent, but which was  much more stringent that that for Lambeth. Mr Watmore said, ‘Why, gentleman, the diet of the poor of that parish would not keep a dog in Lambeth’. He further told the meeting that if they insisted on such a scale of diet for Lambeth he would at once resign his situation as Vestry Clerk, for he never would be party to such dreadful oppression. The meeting was in agreement with Robert Watmore and eventually it was resolved – ‘That it be referred to the parish officers to make such arrangements as they might think expedient for maintaining, clothing and implying the poor for the next six months’.

At a meeting of the parishioners of Lambeth, reported in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 6 February 1836  it was reported that Robert Watmore was to go out of office as Vestry Clerk at Easter  and become Clerk to the Board of Guardians  at a salary of £400  a year to commence in March. It was reported that this would be addition to the £500 which he was receiving as salary for his post at the General Post Office.

Among the duties of a Clerk to the Guardians were:

To attend all meetings of the Board of Guardians, and to keep punctually minutes of every meeting in a book, and to submit the same to the presiding Chairman at the succeeding meeting for  his signature.

To keep, check, and examine all accounts, books of accounts, minutes, books and other documents relating to the business of the Guardians, and from time to time to producer all such books and documents to the Auditor of the Union.

To peruse and conduct the correspondence of the Guardians, and to preserve the same, as well as all orders of the Commissioners, and letters received, together with copies of all letters sent, and all letters, books, papers and documents belonging to the Union.

To prepare all written contracts and agreements to be entered into by any parties with the Guardians, and to see that the same are duly executed.

To prepare and transmit all reports, answers, or returns, as to any question or matter which are required by the Regulations of the Poor Law Commissioners

To conduct duly and impartially, the annual or any other Election of Guardians.

It was in January 1838 that the Lambeth Workhouse was involved in scandal. The story is told in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 27 January and in the issue of the London Medical Gazette’ for 3 February:

A young boy called Henry Bailey had been received from Lambeth Workhouse into the House of Industry of Norwood for the infant poor of Lambeth on 13 January 1838. When he was examined his back, thighs, legs and arms were nearly covered by black marks and he had a bruise on his forehead. When he was asked who had beaten him he said that Mr Rowe and a nurse of Lambeth Workhouse had beaten him with a whip for talking a drop of beer. Henry died at Norwood on 19 January and a post mortem was held. At the inquest on his death, Mr W. Street of Norwood, the House Surgeon, reported that the post mortem had shown that the boy was much reduced and wasted. A disease of the lungs had been found sufficient to cause death within a short period. He had also observed marks of blows on the back, the thighs and the legs, inflicted by some mechanical instrument. There were also marks of a buckle on the hip as though the boy had been struck with a strap which had a buckle at the end of it.  Mr Street stated that the blows, in the state of health in which the deceased was, would have caused much constitutional disturbance, but would not of themselves caused death.  When asked if the blows would have produced death sooner than it would otherwise have taken place, Mr Street said that the blows might have hurried the boy into a fever and rendered him less able to hear up against the complaint under which he laboured. Mr Street, when pressed, was not willing to answer the question of whether the blows would have accelerated the boy’s death, nor was Mr T Bryant who had also examined the body. Mr Bryant observed that the disease of the lungs alone was sufficient to cause death.

Mr Watmore stated that the boy’s father had brought the boy to the Lambeth Workhouse and was not aware that he had sustained any personal injury. Mr Rowe had been a sort of schoolmaster at Lambeth Workhouses and had died on the day the boy was removed to Norwood (13 January) after being confined to bed for a fortnight.

The Jury at the inquest said that after the reports of the surgeons they could not go much further. They did not, however, appear quite satisfied. They at length returned a verdict, ‘ That the deceased died of disease of the lungs.’

Robert Watmore died aged 58 on 22 June 1842 at his home at Walcot Place, Lambeth. It is difficult some 150 years later to judge his character. Was he merely an administrator carrying out his role efficiently on behalf of his employers, yet  speaking up on behalf of the poor when he felt it was appropriate for him to do so, or was he a very highly paid collaborator in an evil and inhumane system, covering the backs of his employers at every turn?

Robert’s wife, Jemima Ann Watmore had  moved with her family to Surbiton by 1861 and was to live there until her  death  aged 85 on 5 January 1877.

 St Marys’s Lambeth           Print by Thomas Shephard

The known children of  Robert and Jemima were:

Jemima Mary Watmore born  about 1810 at Lambeth and who died   aged 73 in 1882 at Surbiton.

Emma  Watmore born at Lambeth on 2 February 1813 and  who died of apoplexy aged 78 in 15 April  1891 at Surbiton.

Robert Bygate Watmore born at Lambeth 18 February 1814 and who presumably died before 1829.

Matilda Ann Watmore born 23 December 1815 at Lambeth and died aged 80 in 1896 at Surbiton.

Isabella Watmore baptised at St Mary’s Lambeth on 16 June 1820 and who died in 1854 at Surbiton.

Rosa Watmore  baptised 19 May 1859 and who died on 30 July 1859 at Surbiton

Ellen Watmore baptised on 28 November 1824 at St Mary’s Lambeth

Robert Evans Watmore baptised 2 Feburuary 1829 at St Mary’s Lambeth, and who emigrated to China, returning to England sometime after the 1901 census and died aged 85 on 23 January 1914 at 4 Cavendish Mansions.

Edward Warmsley Watmore born 15 March 1833 at Lambeth.

 [R.D1]ppor

Arthur William Whatmore was a person  of  outstanding ability. It is strange that so little is known about him and his life. If anyone who lives near Ashby de la Zouch reads this post and are in a position to undertake some researchinto Arthur’s life, I would be most grateful to hear of their findings.

Arthur was born about 1867 at Woodville near Swadlincote in Derbyshire. His birth is not recorded in the GRO. His father was Herbert Whatmore who was born in 1830 at Smisby, a village near Woodville and who married Ann Measures in 1856 in the Asby de la Zouch Registration District. Arthur was the youngest of five children. He lived at home in Ashby de la Zouch until his marraige in 1892 to Amelia Adcock in the Ashby Registration District. At that time he was a solicitor’s clerk. In 1901 Arthur and Amelia were living at Brook Street, Ashby and Arthur was still  working as a solictor’s clerk. With them was their daughter Zelia Joan Marshwood Whatmore who had been born in 1897. She died aged only 18 in 1915, at Ashby.

In 1892, the year of his marriage, Arthur’s  genealogical chart of ‘Whatmore of Wilton’ was printed in ‘Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica’ Vol IV Second Series, published by Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke of London. This chart traces the Wilton Whatmore family from Humphrey Whatmore of Wilton (born 1669) down to about 1824.  Arthur was only 25 at the time he drew up this remarkable chart and he must have had access to detailed records of his family.  Arthur must also have received a good education to have been capable of such a task.

In 1913, Arthur published ‘ Insulae Brittannicae - The British Isles, Their Geography, History and Antiquities  down to the close of the Roman Period’.  The contining value of this work is indicated by the fact that it was reisssued in 1971 by Kennikat Press of Port Washington , New York and London. Second hand copies are available on the internet.

In his preface to the book, Arthur Whatmore states:

‘In this work, founded pricipally upon the classic references to the British Isles, an attempt is made to review the geography, history, and antiquities of the group from the earliest times to the withdrawal of the Romans. The task has not been easy. The mass of matter to be handled, and the innumerable problems involved, have engaged the greater part of the author’s limited leisure for many years. Originating in an effort to locate the stations noticed in the itineraries of Richard of Cirencester, so far as they lay in or near the counties of Leicester and Derby, the plan was extended from time to time until it embraced the Iter Britanniarum, the Notitia, Ravennas, Ptolemy, and the whole range of classic literature to which access was possible, thus springing from a local effort into a particular survey of all the Britains.’

Surely a historian capable of such a work would have gone on to produce further volumes and given his intelligence, Arthur cannot have remained for long a solictor’s clerk. All we know of him thereafter , however, is that  his wife died in the June Quarter 1951 in the Coalville Registration District (Ashby de la Zouch) and that Arthur died in  the September Quarter 1951 in the Leicester City Registration District.

Similar talent was not evident in Arthurs’ brother Herbert who was a railway porter and messenger (Arthur’s other brother John Middleton  died as an infant) nor in the men his sisters married  - Lucy’s husband was a plumber and gas fitter and Katherine Honor’s husband was a domestic coachman. This is not to suggest that his siblings and their spouses were anything other than capable and honourable people - but they did not share Arthur’s remarakable talents. Arthur’s father had been a bricklayer and his mother was a draper. Whilst we know little of Arthur’s grandfather, Herbert Charles Whatmore, his great grandfather had been Edward Whatmore Esquire of Marshwood House, (described in earlier post) - another Whatmore of great ability. 

In May last year, I met for the first time a Whatmore second cousin. After we had greeted one another, the next thing he said to me was, ‘Look how dark my skin is. Is it true that the ancestors of our great grandmother Esther Whatmore were from Spain or Portugal?’ My cousin was not the first person to have asked this question. Esther’s maiden name was Manuel and her ancestors were from mid-Wales. Many of the members of  this Manuel family believe they have Iberian ancestry. I have recently re-examined the question of the origin of this family and thought that my findings would be interest to readers of this blog. 

To dispel any suggestion that this might be a wild goose chase, I will begin with some photographs which I think lend support to the idea of Iberian ancestors for the Manuels. I have been unable to trace a picture of Esther Manuel, but have one of her brother Joseph Manuel, one of her son Noah Whatmore and one of a  Manuel from another branch of the family. 

 Joseph Manuel, brother of Esther, with his family in Philadelphia  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 

 Noah Whatmore (my grandfather), one of Esther Manuel’s children  Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 

Edward Manuel born 1845 in Wales, who emigrated to Wisconsin, USA. He was distantly related to Esther Manuel.  Copyright: Thelma Vaughan and reproduced here by her kind permission.

Turning to Esther Manuel herself, she was born in 1853 at Rawmarsh near Rotherham in Yorkshire. By 1865  her parents had moved to Sheffield where they lived at Fell Street, Attercliffe in the midst of the steel works. Esther married Joseph Whatmore on 7 April 1873 at St Thomas’s Brightside. They had a large family of children and their story will be told in a future blog. Joseph worked as a puddler and the family were not well off. Joseph died in 1915 but Esther survived until 1932. Joseph and Esther are buried in an unmarked grave at Tinsley Park Cemetery. In her old age, Esther was liable to pawn anything she could get her hands on, and I understand that she was also over fond of the bottle. She is also remembered as being a gentle little woman who loved having her hair brushed. 

Esther’s parents were Evan Manuel and Hannah (nee Cooper). Evan had been born in 1824 in Trefeglwys, near Llanidloes in Montgomeryshire. With the decline of the Welsh woollen industry he had moved with his parents first to Newtown, Montgomeryshire, then to Morda near Oswestry and finally to Toll End, Tipton Staffordshire.  At Tipton, Evan Junior, his father and his brothers had tried their hand at puddling (the melting of iron objects in a furnace prior to them being converted in steel). After a time, Evan and his brothers must have decided  that better paid work was to be had in Yorkshire for by 1851 they were at Parkgate near Rotherham. Here Evan met Hannah Cooper and they were married on 1 June 1851 at Rotherham. Evan Junior died in 1893 and Hannah in 1899. They are buried at St Thomas’s, Brightside. My grandfather Noah, son of Esther Manuel, spent a lot of time with his Manuel grandparents and always spoke with affection of ‘Old Man Manuel’ and the donkeys which he owned and which grazed on the banks of the river Don at the bottom of Fell Street where they lived. Evan Manuel would have been Welsh speaking although he is likely to have been fully bilingual by the time he arrived in Yorkshire.

Evan Manuel, born 1824 was the son of another Evan Manuel who had been born in 1797 at Trefeglwys. He married Esther Thomas  on 6 November 1822. Esther died of dropsy at Toll End on 20 November 1846 and Evan, her husband, eventually returned to Wales. Sadly, he ended up in the Workhouse at Caersws, Montgomeryshire, where he died at the age of 72 on 23 April 1874.  His death certificate states, ‘Death from natural causes, namely extreme fainting in diarrhoea’. In fact he had been poisoned by being given contaminated water to drink from the river which the Workhouse was using because it’s own well was blocked. When the truth became known there was quite an outcry. 

 Caersws Workhouse   Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

Evan Manuel  born 1797 was the result of a liaison between his father – yet another Evan Manuel born at Trefeglwys in 1769 and a certain Sarah Ruff who must have been fairly free with her favours as she had another illegitimate child by another man later on. Evan born 1769 married Elizabeth Ashton on 3 February 1816 and they had several legitimate children. Evan born 1769 died at the Almshouses in Trefeglwys in 1849. Elizabeth his wife also died there in 1853. 

The father of Evan Manuel born 1769 was a John Manuel We don’t have a baptism for him. The early registers for the parish of  Trefeglwys are damaged and are very difficult to read, but we know that he married Hester Morris on 22 February 1757 and that she was baptised on 3 April 1727. Going back beyond this, we have to start speculating. If John was about the same age as his wife then his birth will have been in about 1727. We know of two other Manuels born around this time at Trefeglwys – Levi in 1734  and David in about 1724. It seems likely that these three were brothers. If we look for their likely father we find in the Bishop’s Transcripts for Trefeglwys a David Manuel baptised on 17 February 1690 whose father was a David. 

 Looking towards Trefeglwys  Copyright: Wim Kegel  Reproduced here in accordance with the terms of the site licence which can be viewed here http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

We now come to Dafydd Manuel the poet of Trefeglwys who was buried on 16 May 1726 and is believed to have been over 100 when he died. We know that Dafydd married a Margaret in the 1650s just over the county boundary in Cardiganshire and that they had three children  - Mary (Malen)  born about 1658 ?  Anne born about 1660 ?  and David  (Deio) born about 1662?  This David of about 1662 looks likely to be the father of the David born 1690. The traditional date of Dafydd Manuel’s birth is about 1625. We know his wife died in 1699, so if she was born about the same time as her husband, she would have been about 74 when she died.  

Looking at the IGI, which admittedly is incomplete, the Manuels at Trefeglwys appear to be the earliest ones  in Wales. There were Manuels in Cornwall much earlier, but there is no trace of a gradual spread of these into mid –Wales.  Here family speculations in relation to the Spanish Armada became relevant. Although Phillip II of Spain had married Queen Mary Tudor of England, after her death in 1558 when the protestant Elizabeth came to the throne, relations with Spain rapidly deteriorated. Backed by the Pope, Phillip planned an invasion of England but it was not until 1588  that his fleet of ships set sail. This is not the place to retell the story of the Spanish Armada. That can be read at this link; www.britainexpress.com/History/tudor/armada

All that need be told here is that Philip’s plans were unsuccessful and it was decided that the ships should return to Spain. At this point the English blockaded the Channel  so that the Spanish ships had to sail round the tip of Scotland and down the coast of Ireland. During heavy storms over half the Spanish ships were lost. Some Spanish sailors must have been ship wrecked on the Irish coast. Whilst we know that the survivors of the Spanish ships wrecked on the English coast were massacred as they struggled ashore, there was no reason for the Irish not to assist Spanish sailors who made it ashore in Ireland. Was there a young man named Manuel who made it ashore there? If he was about twenty at the time of the Armada, he would only have been aged about 37 in 1625. Did he eventually make his way across the sea into Cardiganshire, directly opposite the east coast of Ireland, marry a Welsh girl and became the father of Dafydd Manuel the poet? We shall probably never know whether this actually happened – but the Manuels in mid-Wales do seem to spring from nowhere. They have no evident link with the Cornish family who were already at St Columb Major by 1542 and had probably migrated in search of work in the tin mines. Nor does there seem any link with the Manuel family of Scotland  which goes back to at least 1156. If we cannot prove a link with the Spanish Armada, I think there is justification for regarding Dafydd Manuel the poet as an early ancestor of ours and I would like to say a little more about him.

 He lived in a cottage called Byrdir on Gwernafon Farm,  Trefeglwys and is regarded by scholars as being in the class of the ‘talen slip’(‘slip of the brow’) i.e. a ‘quick-fire poet’   Stories about him were published in Volume 5 of ‘Y Brython’I am most grateful to Iwan Meical Jones of Dole near Aberystwyth for his kindness in providing the following translation: 

“ One time while travelling through a forest commonly called the Allt Wen he came across the head of a child and said:‘

A dreadful thing, I found a head to the cold hair on the White hill, a bald head without cap or cloth, and its owner had the same respect, his wild blood cold on the White Hill.’ 

Dafydd  Manuel had a son and  a daughter; the son’s thought processes were not very strong. The father wanted to awaken the inspiration of the muse in his children, and it is said the daughter did have some small grasp of it. The children were commonly called Deio and Malen. The old man and his children were once taking wheat to the mill to be ground and on the way Deio said, ‘Daddy you are always babbling about poetry with Malen; I will beat her rotten.’ At that, down came the load from Malen’s head; and the old man, sittting down and looking at the millwheel, said, ‘Well now, all of us put two arms to it to make a “cywydd deuair hirion’  [a complex poetic form].‘To the mill and its useful machinery, that makes noise in the water there.’And then Deio offered up:‘If the mill stops turning Sion and Cadi will shut up.’He meant the miller and his wife. And then Malen tried and said:‘It fills and gladdens every hand, dust of the mill, it grinds silently.’And the father answered and said:‘At this time I will hide my opinion by being silent.’ I

t is said the old poet rhymed the following lines as an insult to some of the inhabitants of the parish of: ‘Llangurig, a mountainous place, where I stayed and found them, between children of Hades and mad chicks, chislers  and beggars of the world.’

 As the oldman and his daughter were driving pigs to Llanidloes fair, a poet of Llangurig was told they were coming. He went to meet them at the tollhouse as they were passing it, and said:‘Send the best pig  with the pin in his head to the top of the town.’Malen the daughter answered: [perhaps she had a pin in her hair]‘Not a pin despite the length of the head [long-headed =intelligent]. Truly , Sir, it is just a wire.’And the man replied to her response:‘Devil take you and your offspring’  

A well-known poem by Dafydd Manuel is ‘Bustl y Cybyddion’ which is a satire on avarice. It is included in ‘Blodeugerdd’ published in 1759 by David Jones.  A copy of this book is in the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth.

 

In ‘Montgomeryshire Collections Volume 13 it is said of  Mary and Anne Manuel: ‘The daughters were excellent poets and several of their compositions in MS are in Mr Bennetts possession. Mary was especially noted for her ready wit  and power of repartee  and as a pennillion singer with the harp, a mode of singing which to be effective demands very great skill, a quick ear, and retentive memory. In Bardd Alaw Volume 2 we have a melody associated with her name, namely ‘Hoffedd Merch Dafydd Manuel’ (The delight of David Manuel’s daughter.)                                                

In concluding this post I wish to express my thanks to my Manuel cousin  - Gwyneth Davies of Bridgnorth – whose researches I have drawn on  for much of this account.  I would also like to explain that I have a special affection for this line of my family as my own Christian names commemorate these Welsh ancestors and in particular the memory of ‘David Manuel’ the brother of my great grandmother, who secured for my father his first job during the ‘Great Depression’    

Despite an ancestry of many generations of small farmers and agricultural labourers, the latent intelligence an