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William Wheelock

 I know a fair amount about my 3x great grandfather, William Wheelock, but there are just enough gaps to make him one of the most frustrating individuals in the family tree. While I know nothing about Hannah, there are so many tantalising glimpses of William, attached to so many questions, ifs, and maybes, that his story is basically impossible to tell without resorting to conjecture, making assumptions based on the available sources. His story is fragmented, but I shall tell it as best as I can here.

William Wheelock was born on 30th May 1817, almost certainly in Leicester, which is where his family lived before moving to Birmingham, and where all his older siblings had been born. I do not know exactly when the family made the move, but they were certainly in Birmingham by 1821. William was baptised on 5th September 1822, the same day as his brothers John and Thomas, in St Philip's church. 

William's baptism record 1822

 

William trained as a blacksmith, like his father, and throughout his life he appears variously as a blacksmith, patten ring maker, and gun furniture forger. His next appearance in the records is in 1834, when aged 17, he married Eliza Whitehouse on the 25th August. They married in St Mary's church, Handsworth and are both described as of the parish. William's sister-in-law, Eliza Wheelock was a witness. 

William & Eliza's marriage record

 

William and Eliza next appear in the 1841 census. They are living on Weaman Street with William's parents, his sister Jane, and Jane's two children. This is where things get murky as the next record I have for William is the birth of his daughter, Mary Hannah Wheelock, but the mother wasn't his wife, Eliza, it was Hannah Genders. Mary Hannah was born on the 8th April 1846 in 22 Court, House 8, Lionel Street. So if we do some maths we can work out that William definitely knew Hannah by around July 1845. So sometime between the 1841 census and then, Eliza disappears and William starts seeing Hannah.

William and his wife Eliza in the 1841 census

 
Mary Hannah Whilock, birth record 1846

Tragically, Mary Hannah contracted phthisis and died on 28th March 1848. She died at her grandparents' house and her grandmother was the informant. John Genders was born on 1st December that year at 8 Henrietta Street, and as discussed in the previous post, he is living with William and his grandparents in the 1851 census. There is no sign of Hannah Genders however. 

John Whilock, birth record  1848

 

William and his son John in the 1851 census

 

The following year William lost his father, and then his mother died the year after. His father's death scattered the household. William's mother went to live with his sister, Maria. It is hard to say what happened to William and his son John because we don't get a glimpse of them again until the 1861 census, by which point John is a visitor at his cousin James's house in Snow Hill, and William is lodging at 11 John Street. 

William Wheelock in the 1861 census

 

The next significant event for William was a marriage in 1869 to Mary Ann Maydon (1818-1883). They married on 18th July at the church of Bishop Ryder. William, aged 52, stated he was a widower and a gun filer. Mary was also a widow and they were both living on Steelhouse Lane. Things very swiftly went south. William appeared in the Birmingham Daily Gazette on 30th November 1870, reported for violently assaulting his wife, for which he served two months in prison. By the 1871 census he and Mary were living separately and Mary was using the name Maydon again. I cannot account for William at this time because I have been unable to find him in any census beyond 1861. 

William and Mary's marriage record 1869

 
The Birmingham Daily Gazette (1870)

Though the article names his wife, Ann Wheelock, this was the name Mary Ann went by. She gives the name Ann Mayden in the 1871 census return. 

The next possible appearance of William is in the Birmingham Daily Gazette on 26th February 1880. A labourer named WIlliam Wheelock was assaulted in the Grosvenor Arms in Aston by two men, one of whom was named James Jeffreys. Jeffreys was fined 10s and costs for the assault. William would have been 63 at this time. 

The Birmingham Daily Gazette (1880)

 

Another mention of a William Wheelock is in The Birmingham Mail on 23rd November 1887. The report describes a man who was arrested for vagrancy after he was found sleeping rough  If this is my William he would have been 69.


On 21st March 1889 a pauper named Wm Wheelock was admitted to the city lunatic asylum on Lodge Road. This William died in the asylum on 7th July 1893 and was buried in a common grave in Witton Cemetery. The death record states that this William was 80 years old, which is a few years out as William would have been 76. However, William was incapacitated in an institution where nobody knew him, so the age may have been a close estimate on the part of the staff. 

Asylum admission record for William Wheelock 1889

 

So, that is the rather bleak narrative I have so far. There's lots to unpick and analyse here but I am going to save that for the next post.


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