Wheelhouse Families of
Yorkshire Research Project
June/July 2012
By Greg Ramstedt
The Thomas Barker and Elizabeth Wheelhouse family of
Rotherham, Yorkshire
I am beginning with the marriage of 16 April 1788 in
Rotherham, Yorkshire of Thomas Barker and Elizabeth Wheelhouse.
My goal is to find the origins of Elizabeth
Wheelhouse.
The Barker family lived at
Jesus Gate (College Street) where Thomas Barker was a plumber and glazier
,
occupying his shop under James Turton and later Thomas Bagshaw.
Thomas has been in Rotherham at least since
his apprenticeship began in 1774 under John Walton of Rotherham, plumber and
glazier.
They had six children: John (1789), Samuel
(1791; my ancestor), Elizabeth (1792), Jane (1793), William (1798) and Thomas
(1801).
Thomas Barker is buried 15 May 1802 in Rotherham and left
will written on 10 December 1801 and proved October 1802 in the Exchequer Court
of the Archbishop of York in which he mentions his property in Cowdale (near
Buxton and Chelmorton), Derbyshire. His
under tenant at Cowdale is Thomas Wainwright.
Indeed, there is a long-standing presence of Barkers at Cowdale and
Staden, but I have not been able to assign a place in their pedigree where
Thomas belongs. So the background of
Thomas Barker before his apprenticeship began in 1774 is still unknown. I hope to offer a discussion of the early
Barker family later.
Elizabeth (née Wheelhouse) apparently carried on
the plumbing and glazier shop after the death of her husband in 1802, probably
with the help of her oldest children John and Samuel. The Land Tax Assessments list her as “widow
Barker.” She had her will prepared on 4
January 1810. She is buried in Rotherham
on 16 June 1814 at age 55. This given
age of 55 is very important in my effort to find her origins. So we are looking for an Elizabeth Wheelhouse
born about 1759. Her will is proved 7
January 1815 in the same court. I also
found Elizabeth Barker’s Death Duty register entry. It mentioned her son John Barker
specifically. Then under “Value of
Annuities and Bequests brought forward” it records, £153 2s. The rate of duty is £1 10s 7d. The last date recorded is 7 Jan. 1817 which
is exactly two years after the probate date, but still well before her youngest
surviving son William’s twenty-first birthday.
Elizabeth Barker’s will makes James Pears of Rotherham,
currier, and Thomas Law of the same, draper,
executors of her children, and she desires that her son John Barker, who
is not yet 21 when it was written in 1810,
“carry on the Trade or Business of a Plumber and Glazier which I now
carry on.” John seems to follow in his
mother’s place for a very short time following her death, which can be seen in
the Universal British Directory for
1814-1815 which has John Barker, plumber and glazier, in Jesus Gate (now
College Street). The directory for 1816-1817
does not list John, so by then he presumably has left.
Elizabeth gives “my son Samuel Barker my Silver Pint, one
Silver Table Spoon and three Silver Tea spoons.”
To her “Daughter Jane Barker, one of my best
Beds Bedstocks, Bedding and furniture thereto belonging, a Pair of mahogany
Drawers, Seven Mahogany Chairs, and Carpet in the Dining Room, my best sett of
China, one silver Table Spoon and six Silver Tea Spoons.
To “my son William Barker, one Silver table
spoon and three Silver Tea Spoons.”
Her
trustees are to “receive the Interest of the sum of Five Hundred pounds which I
have owing me upon Security of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal” and use the money
to educate all of her children until they are age 21.
The Leeds and Liverpool Canal when completed
in 1816 improved the commercial and transportation link between Liverpool and
the growing industrial areas of Yorkshire, especially Leeds, Wakefield and
Bradford.
There was a vigor trade in limestone,
coal and textiles
.
I assume that this canal was particularly
important for the Barker’s plumbing and glazier business.
When Samuel reaches age 21, he is to be given
£140 of the £500.
The interest of the
residue of the said £500 is to pay for the maintenance and education of her
children Jane and William Barker until they are 21.
When Jane is 21, she is to receive £160 of
the residue of the £500.
Then when
William is 21, he is to get whatever remains of the residue of the £500.
In the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough, Archives and Local
Studies Section, are four deeds that mention Jesus Gate and these Barkers:
1.
There is a
mortgage by demise for 1000 years dated 26 February 1791
with James Turton being first party, Thomas
Bagshawe Sr. of Rotherham, butcher, being second party, and it is for £62 for
two messuages in Jesus Gate where Thomas Barker is tenant.
2.
Then on 25/26
February 1808 is a lease and release
with James Turton the first party, Louisa Birks of Sheffield spinster
(mortgagee) the second party, Thomas Bagshawe of Rotherham, butcher (only child
and sole executor of Thomas Bagshawe Sr.) the third party, and Thomas Chambers
of Thorncliffe Iron Works, iron founder (trustee for 3) the fourth party.
It recites the previous document of 1791
where £20 is still due for Thomas Bagshawe Sr.’s estate.
Now it is for two messuages in Jesus Gate
where Mrs. Barker is tenant.
Of course,
Elizabeth Barker’s husband Thomas had died
.
3.
An 1843 abstract
of title
was drawn up for the Thomas Bagshawe property
in College Street (formerly Jesus Gate) and it covered the years 1768-1842.
4.
Finally, another
document
mentions Thomas Law, linen draper (who is an
executor of Elizabeth Barker’s will), and recites the will of Thomas Bagshaw
(died 1842).
It refers to four messuages
in Jesus Gate with yards, warehouses etc. (390 square yards) that Mrs. Barker
formerly occupied.
A plan is included with
this document.
I wasn’t certain that I had the right marriage for this
family until I looked in The British Newspaper Archive
digital newspaper collection.
Here we
find:
The Leeds
Intelligencer, 22 April 1788, page 3, column 3:
Thursday was married,
at Rotherham, Mr. Thomas Barker, plumber and glazier, to Miss Elizabeth
Wheelhouse, of Rawcliffe.
I was very excited to find this, and particularly to learn
that Elizabeth was from Rawcliffe. I
hoped that the next step would be easy.
Find where Rawcliffe is located and with luck find the christening about
1759 of Elizabeth and learn the names of her parents. Unfortunately, this great clue of Rawcliffe,
like the great clue of Cowdale for her husband, have not led to anything
conclusive. Both Thomas and Elizabeth’s
origins remain a mystery.
Wheelhouses of Rawcliffe near Snaith and of Kippax, Yorkshire
What follows is my effort to track down Wheelhouses of
Rawcliffe and other possible candidates for my Elizabeth Wheelhouse.
According to the
Imperial
Gazetteer of England and Wales by John Marius Wilson (1870-1872)
,
there are four Rawcliffes:
1. Rawcliffe, a
village and a township-chapelry in Snaith parish, West Riding of
Yorkshire. It is three mile east by
north of Snaith and 1,630 people are living in 384 houses there. This is closest to Rotherham, so a good place
to look first.
2. Rawcliffe, a
township in St. Olave-Marygate and St. Michael parishes, North Riding of
Yorkshire. It is 2 ½ miles northwest by
north of the City of York. It population
in 1851 was just 48, and in 1861 was 115.
There are only 19 houses here. So
this would be the next place to look for Elizabeth Wheelhouse’s christening.
3. Rawcliffe (Out), a
township-chapelry in St. Michael-on-Wyre parish, Lancashire. Its population is 771 and there are 135 houses.
4. Rawcliffe
(Upper)-With-Tarnacre, a township, with a village, in St. Michael-on-Ware
parish, Lancashire. The population is
682 people in 117 houses.
The last two Rawcliffes, both in St. Michael-on-Wyre parish,
Lancashire are actually quite far afield from Rotherham, so I don’t see them as
needing to be checked for my Wheelhouses.
So, are there Wheelhouses in Rawcliffe in Snaith parish,
West Riding of Yorkshire? The short
answer is ‘yes there are, but well after the time of my Elizabeth.’ The following searches were performed using
microfilm in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City:
1.
Parish registers
for the chapelry of Rawcliffe, in Snaith parish, 1689-1916
:
This is a typescript index of baptisms, and I
did not find
any Wheelhouse christenings from 1708 to 1805.
I checked burials from 1753 to 1803 and again
there were no Wheelhouses.
2.
Parish registers
for Snaith, 1558-1901
:
No Wheelhouse baptisms were found in the
range of years that I checked, which was from 1746 to 1793.
However, by the 1820s there is a presence of
Wheelhouses in Snaith.
3.
I checked the
surrounding chapelries within Snaith parish and around Rawcliffe chapelry, and did
not find any Wheelhouse families in the 1750s and 1760s.
Some of these parishes and chapelries have
been extracted and appeared in the old IGI (International Genealogical Index),
and can now be found with the Historical Records on the familysearch website
.
Once I discovered the batch numbers, I could
do isolated searches by parish.
I check
Airmyn chapelry in Snaith from 1740 to 1778 without luck.
Then I looked in Hook chapelry in Snaith but
again no Wheelhouses were found.
Drax
parish is located immediately north of Snaith, but nothing was found.
Goole and Carleton chapelries also had no
Wheelhouses in this time period.
4. The Bishop’s
Transcripts for Rawcliffe run from 1631
to 1878, but there are huge gaps. For
instance, it jumps from 1640 to 1757, 1758, then onto 1773-1792. I don’t think that I looked at 1757 or
1758. My Elizabeth was supposedly born
in 1759, and I already checked the parish register.
5. The Land Tax
Assessments for Rawcliffe township near Snaith, 1781-1825: No Wheelhouses were
found from 1781 to 1794, but some years are missing in the sequence.
6. Parish chest
material, 1719-1865, survives for Rawcliffe near Snaith: Given that there were
no Wheelhouses in the mid-18th century in Rawcliffe according to the
parish church records and according to the Land Tax Assessments, I didn’t see a
need to look in the various churchwarden’s accounts, overseer’s assessments,
apprentice indentures, settlement examinations, constable accounts, etc. that
make up the parish chest contents of this parish. It looks like a very rich sources of
documents, though.
The family that was found in Snaith is that of James
Wheelhouse, surgeon, and his wife Mary Ann Aaron, but they are well after the
time period where I hoped to find my Wheelhouses. They married on 12 August 1820 in Drax
parish, Yorkshire. The marriage record
gives James as age 27 and Mary Ann as age 18, the daughter of John Aaron. (Mary Ann was born 5 March 1802 and
christened 13 March 1802 in Drax, Yorkshire.)
Their first child is William St. James Wheelhouse, chr. 12 May 1821 in
Snaith. Then came Marianne Margaret
Wheelhouse, chr. 4 May 1823, followed by Claudius Galen Wheelhouse, chr. 19
Jan. 1827, and finally Arthur Wheelhouse, chr. 21 Dec. 1829, all in
Snaith. Arthur is buried at age 14 days
on 25 Dec. 1829.
James Wheelhouse left a Prerogative Court of York (PCY) will
that was written 6 May 1831 and proved in 25 Aug. 1832. James at age 36 was buried 26 June 1831 in
Snaith. He is referred to as James
Wheelhouse, surgeon and apothecary of Snaith, Yorkshire. He mentions his estates at Snaith and
Cowick. He refers to his wife Mary Ann,
and to three children: William St. James, MariAnne Margaret, and Claudius
Galen. He mentions nieces and nephews,
but not by name. His ‘dear mother Hannah
Wheelhouse of Kippax, York, widow’ is also mentioned. The will includes a codicil.
This James Wheelhouse can be traced to his christening on 23
Oct. 1791 in Kippax, Yorkshire as the son of James Wheelhouse. This is what the Wheelhouse family of Kippax
looks like:
James Wheelhouse of Kippax married 1 May 1774 at Whitkirk,
Yorkshire to Hannah Farrer of this parish with witnesses William Broadbent and
Joseph Farrah
.
Their children christened in Kippax are:
1. William “Whelas,”
chr. 5 Feb. 1775
2. Hannah Whealas,
chr. 18 May 1777
3. Ann Whelas, chr.
14 Feb. 1779
4. Sarah Wheelas,
chr. 15 Apr. 1781, died 1 Feb. 1784
5. Mary Wheelhouse,
chr. 25 Dec. 1783
6. Sarah Wheelhouse,
chr. 13 Jan. 1788
7. James Wheelhouse,
chr. 23 Oct. 1791
Mary A. Wheelhouse, widow of Mr. James Wheelhouse of Snaith,
died on 22 Dec. 1879, age 77, at Cossington, Leicestershire
.
The eldest son Sir William St. James
Wheelhouse was an MP for Leeds and died at 2, Gray’s Inn, London, in March
1886.
He had registered his arms at
Heralds’ College “as of Snaith, Yorkshire.
”
Claudius Galen Wheelhouse became a well-known
Leeds surgeon.
He died at Filey on 9
April 1909 age age 82
.
The conclusion is that the Wheelhouses of Snaith do not
originate in the parish and actually are traced back to Kippax, Yorkshire, much
further to the north. So my effort to
find my Elizabeth Wheelhouse in Rawcliffe near Snaith has come to naught. Of course, she may have just been living
there and not been born there. In any
case, this Rawcliffe is now off the table.
So onto the Rawcliffe up by the City of York.
Wheelhouses of Rawcliffe near the City of York: St.
Michael-le-Belfrey parish with link back to Hedon in Holderness
According to
The
Imperial Gazetteer,
there is a township called Rawcliffe within two parishes just outside the City
of York, to the northwest.
The two
parishes are St. Olave-Marygate and St. Michael.
The City of York itself is in East Riding of
Yorkshire, and this township of Rawcliffe and the two parishes are in North
Riding.
The
Gazetteer indicates that St. Olave-Mary-Gate “is a township and a
parish in the district of York . . . [that] lies adjacent to the NW side of
York city.”
The population in 1851 was
677 and in 1861 was 966, this with 171 houses.
The parish “contains also the townships of Clifton and Rawcliffe, and
part of the township of Heworth.
. . . The living is a perpetual curacy, united
with the perpetual curacy of St. Giles, in the diocese of York.”
After some looking in the Family History Library Catalog, it
appeared that these two parishes are actually listed under the City of York.
St. Michael’s is actually St. Michael-le-Belfry and there
are Bishop’s Transcripts of baptism, marriage and burial records available from
1631 to 1830
.
I found no Wheelhouses, but there is a gap
from 1758 to 1760, which is right when my Elizabeth Wheelhouse was supposedly
born.
Still, there is no evidence of a
Wheelhouse family baptizing children here at this time.
I can’t say there are no Wheelhouses in St.
Michael-le-Belfrey, because I was looking just at baptisms in the Bishop’s
Transcripts.
There are some interesting
marriages in the parish
.
The most interesting item is the marriage on
27 Nov. 1788 by license of Charles Wheelhouse of this parish, cabinetmaker, and
Mary Wilkinson of St. Cuthbert’s parish, spinster.
This shows that in the year that my Elizabeth
Wheelhouse married Thomas Barker, there was another Wheelhouse in one of the
two parishes that comprised Rawcliffe, just outside York city.
I have not found a Charles Wheelhouse yet who
could be the one who married in 1788.
The
York Marriage Bonds and allegations Index, 1613-1839
,
indicates that Charles Wheelhouse was from St. Michael Le Belfrey parish and
was age 36 (so born in about 1752), and Mary Wilkinson was from York St.
Cuthbert Peasholme and was age 36 (so born in about 1754).
The bond/allegation is dated 18 Nov 1788 and
it indicates they married in St. Michael Le Belfrey.
A Charles Wheelhouse is buried 26 March 1790
at Holy Trinity, York.
I don’t know who this Charles Wheelhouse is, but here are
some clues.
In Holy Trinity Goodramgate
parish in York are two marriages that may suggest a connection for
Charles.
In 1779 Edmund Aspinall marries
Catherine Wheelhouse of Delpike parish.
Then in 1782 Edward Marsh married Mary Wheelhouse of Delpike parish, and
one of the witnesses is Charles Wheelhouse.
The time period is about right, and the location of York is about
right.
In the footnotes are the full
details
.
I found a reference to Delpike: York Trinity
Goodramgate with St. John Delpike and St. Maurice without Monk Bar.
In York there is a St. John Micklegate parish
and it is extracted on the IGI, but this doesn’t seem to be the same thing as
St. John del Pike.
Also, St. Maurice and
Holy Trinity Goodramgate are also on the IGI, so all the Wheelhouses should be
there (except for the burials which the old IGI extraction program never did).
It turns out that Catherine, Charles, James and Mary
Wheelhouse are all mentioned in the will of their mother Elizabeth Wheelhouse
of York which was proved in 1784
.
Elizabeth is a widow, and it appears that her
husband is Robert Wheelhouse of Hedon in Holderness.
Hedon in Hoderness is located in East Riding
quite some distance from York.
Nevertheless, after his death about 1762, his wife and children must
have moved to York.
Since Robert’s
estate was settled by administration, rather than by a will, we don’t learn
much about him
.
Alas, there is no daughter in this family named
Elizabeth, so my theory that Charles Wheelhouse and my Elizabeth Wheelhouse
might have been brother and sister is not working.
So much for the lead from St. Michael Le
Belfrey parish.
Wheelhouses of Rawcliffe near the City of York: St. Olave
parish, including links back to Seacroft and Leeds
Then there is St. Olave’s parish, York, and believe it or
not, there is another Wheelhouse presence in this parish, but it also goes
nowhere.
The Bishop’s Transcripts are
available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City for St. Olave with
St. Giles’ Church in York
.
They run from 1626 to 1891
.
I
definitely found the right place because the entries refer to Rawcliffe,
Marygate, Clifton, etc.
I searched for
Elizabeth Wheelhouse from 1749 to 1767 and there were no Wheelhouses at all in
this time period.
I also searched
unsuccessfully for Wheelhouses in St. Olave’s-Marygate York, which runs from
1538 to 1900
.
The Parish Register of
St. Olave, York: 1650-1785
does, however, include some Wheelhouses.
Here are some entries which seem to form a family
:
1. John Wheelhouse,
[BT laborer], and Elizabeth Swan, botp, by lic., Mr. Hook, married 17 Feb 1731/1732
2. [ ] [BT John], s of John Wheelhouse, of
Boudam, buried 16 Nov. 1735
3. Eliz: dau of John
Wheelhouse, of Boudam, baptized 23 Nov 1735
4. [ ] [BT Isabel], wf of John Wheelhouse, of
Boudam, buried 9 July 1736
5. John Wheelhouse
and Isable Beedland botp, lic, married 23 Aug 1736 [In Holy Trinity Goodramgate parish, York, is
buried 19 Aug. 1755 Isabella, wife of John Wheelhouse from Marygate parish.]
6. Martin Wheelhouse
[BT of Bowtham], buried 9 Nov 1744.
[Presumably married 1718. See
footnote 33.]
7. John Wheelhouse,
taylor and aledraper [s of … Wheelhouse of Seacroft nr Leeds] aged 63 yrs on
day he died, the 7th, after a few hours illness, at the Bird in
Hand, Bootham. Bur in chyd. Buried 9 Jan. 1771
8. Robert, s of
Richard Wheelhouse, died on the 11th of fits age 9 months. Of Burton Stone. Buried 13 Apr 1779. This Robert and his father Richard do not
seem to fit into the above family, but since they are in the Rawcliffe/St.
Olave area about the time that my Elizabeth Wheelhouse is supposed to be there,
I should be on the lookout for the father Richard.
John Wheelhouse (1708-1771) of Boudam (current spelling not
yet known) is well established in St. Olave’s parish.
According to the parish chest records
he had church pew #47.
In 1755 John
Wheelhouse is assessed for his house and ‘moate’ in the hamlet of Marygate, and
this continues in 1757, 1758, 1759.
He
is paying the church rate in 1761, 1763, 1765, 1766, 1768, and in 1771 his
yearly rent is
£11.
Of course, John
dies in 1771.
In 1772 the same property
is listed under “Jno Wheelhouse daughter,” then in 1773 at Marygate it is “Jno
Wheelhouse daughter now Pinder.
In 1774
and 1776 the same property is under Matthew Pinder.
He disappears by 1778 when the property is
listed with Mr. Bosamworth who remains there in 1785, 1787, 1790.
All these entries are at Marygate.
On 20 November 1774 at Saint Olave, York is
married Matthew Pinder and Mary Overend.
Mary must be John’s daughter, and she must have been previously married
to a Mr. Overend.
So John’s origins are at Seacroft near Leeds.
Seacroft is a chapelry in Whitkirk parish,
thought it gained parish status in 1846.
Indeed, Seacroft is a little northeast of various parishes forming
Leeds.
In particular, I see on the IGI a
large number of Wheelhouses in St. Peter’s parish in Leeds.
Some of the spellings are Wheeless, Wheelas,
Wheelis, Whelous, Wheelhouse, etc.
This
Leeds area certainly has a high concentration of Wheelhouses, and a few of the
other disparate Wheelhouses appear to be from this area, since Seacroft,
Garforth, Aberford and Kippax are all fairly close.
See the footnote #32 for details, but it
looks like the Wheelhouses of Rawcliffe near Snaide come from Kippax and
Whitkirk, and the Wheelhouses of St. Olave’s York (where there is a second
Rawcliffe) come from Seacroft in Whitkirk parish, and both of these branches
may link into the many Wheelhouses of Leeds.
All this is by supposition based on geographic proximity, and is
proposed mostly as a hypothesis to be tested.
In other words, a detailed pedigree of all the Wheelhouses in the Leeds
area needs to be constructed to see if the Garforth, Kippax, Whitkirk,
Seacroft, and Rawcliffe near York, and Rawcliffe near Snaide somehow tie
together.
Proximity around Leeds suggests
that it is possible.
Still, I do not see my Elizabeth Wheelhouse being connected
with this John Wheelhouse of St. Olave’s York, and indeed she appears to come
along a full generation after him.
So
we’ve dead-ended on Rawcliffe in St. Olave parish and St. Michael Le Belfrey
parish.
We cannot rule out the York area
for my Elizabeth’s origins, as there are other Wheelhouse events in other York
parishes.
Wheelhouses of Sheffield: a proximity search of parishes
around Rotherham; linked to the Isle of Man and Portugal??
We have been unable to locate my Elizabeth Wheelhouse in the
Leeds, York, and Snaith areas, so what is left?
Let’s go back to her 1788 marriage with Thomas Barker in Rotherham and
consider a five or ten miles proximity search around Rotherham. This requires us to ignore the whole Rawcliffe
clue and just use the old genealogy technique of checking surrounded
parishes.
It turns out that there is a very strong candidate with
Elizabeth Wheelhouse, christened 4 July 1760 at the Cathedral of St. Peter,
Sheffield. Sheffield is a little west of
Rotherham and is a very reasonable distance.
She is the daughter of Francis Wheelhouse. My Elizabeth was age 55 at her death in 1814,
and would be born about 1759, so this looks good, except for the strong
likelihood that the Elizabeth of 1760 actually married another man, Abraham de
la Pryme (1758-1825).
Quite a bit can be found on Francis Wheelhouse on the
Internet.
The dates and generations don’t seem to line
up very well from what I see on the Internet, but I will set it out as I found
it.
Probably some adjustments will need
to be made.
Elizabeth (1760) had a
brother Francis Wheelhouse (chr. 1758) but he may have died young since the
father supposedly had another Francis Wheelhouse born in 1780.
The first Francis (I) would have been born
around 1700 and with a first marriage had the second Francis Wheelhouse (II)
(born 23 or 27 May 1733 in Sheffield—died 11 March 1814 Lisbon; buried S.
George’s Cemetery, Lisbon).
Francis (II)
(1733-1814) was a watchmaker in Sheffield and lived there until about 1780.
A couple of his handicraft watches are
referred to as part of auctions if you search for him using Google.
Supposedly, Francis (I) (bn. ca. 1700)
married a second time had had the son Francis (III) (born 1758 in Sheffield)
and Elizabeth (1760 in Sheffield).
According to these Internet sources, Francis (II)
(1733-1814) was the watchmaker and lived in Sheffield until 1780, then moved to
the Isle of Man.
The Ballasalla Cotton
Spinning Mill in Malew, Isle of Man, was rented in 1780 to two men from
Sheffield, Abraham de la Pryme, merchant, and Francis Wheelhouse,
watchmaker.
The de la Pryme family had
come from Ypr
és in Flanders.
Abraham was born in Sheffield in 1758 and died in Liverpool in 1825.
Francis (II) (1733-1814) supposedly married twice, first to
Emma, and secondly on 16 July 1780 at Braddan, Isle of Man, to Anne Barker,
daughter of Abraham William Barker and his wife Susannah.
(I don’t see any connection with Thomas
Barker (died 1802) referred to at the beginning of this paper).
Anne Barker was born in Kent in 1763 and died
in Lisbon in 1811.
Francis (II) and Anne had three children.
1.
Francis Wheelhouse
(IV) born 1780 in Malew and died 1841 in Lisbon.
He married Gertrudes Rosa do Carmo Almeida e
Silva.
They had a son, Jeremias
Wheelhouse e Silva who married M. Guerra Esteves Alves.
2.
Abraham Wheelhouse
(1782 Malew—1855 Lisbon) married 1819 in Lisbon to Elizabeth Oom (1789—1868).
Their children were: George (1819—1888) and
Georgina (1824—1896).
3. Charlotte Barker
Wheelhouse (1787/9 Malew).
What I found indicates that Francis Wheelhouse (II) (1733-1814)
had a half-sister Elizabeth (1760) who married on 2 Nov 1783 at Kirk Malew,
Isle of Man with Abraham de la Pryme (1758-1825).
It makes more sense that it would be his
daughter rather than his sister.
Elizabeth (1760) would then be a daughter from the first marriage, which
may have been to a woman named Emma.
This
fits a lot better chronologically.
They
had children: Elizabeth (1784) and Mary (1790).
So it looks like the Elizabeth Wheelhouse who was baptized
on 4 July 1760 at St. Peter’s Cathedral Sheffield is spoken for in marrying
Abraham de la Pryme (1758-1825).
Elizabeth, Abraham’s wife, died 1 Jan. 1799 at Malew, Isle of Man.
The Oom submission to Ancestry.com Member
Trees
indicates that Elizabeth was born on 5 June 1760 at Malew, Isle of Man.
It is interesting that here we have an exact
birth date, and in Sheffield we have a christening date.
I thought that Francis Wheelhouse only became
involved with the spinning mill at Malew in 1780.
The birth and christening dates seem to fit very
well, but I question whether Elizabeth was born in Malew rather than the more
likely Sheffield.
In any case, it looks like the Elizabeth Wheelhouse who was
baptized in 1760 in Sheffield really did marry Mr. de la Pryme and therefore
would not be available to marry Thomas Barker in 1788. Another hypothesis fails the test.
There are some additional unattached Wheelhouses in
Sheffield.
At St. Peter’s Cathedral Sheffield we see
several spellings of the name: Woolehouse is very common, Whoolhouse, Wolhhouse,
Whelis and Willis.
There is a Joh’es
Woolehouse christened on 14 Jun 1663 at St. Peter’s Sheffield, the son of
Francis Woolehous.
His sister, Martha
Woolehouse is christened 4 April 1660 at the same place.
It looks like there are deeper Wheelhouse
roots in Sheffield, and Francis is a popular name in that family.
There is the Elizabeth Wheelhouse who was baptized 20 May
1753 at St. Peter’s Cathedral, Sheffield, the daughter of John Wheelhouse.
The fate of this Elizabeth (1753) is unknown
to me, and her birth year does not line up with the calculated birth year of my
Elizabeth Wheelhouse, which is 1759.
It
is likely that Elizabeth (1753) would have been too old to be the wife of my
Thomas Barker.
This John Wheelhouse also
had two other daughters:
Sarah (chr.
1755) who likely married Andrew Berwick in 1775, and Mary (1754).
I have nothing further at present to follow
with this family.
Concluding Observations: where to move forward from here
We have looked at four plausible Wheelhouse groups—Snaith,
York, Leeds and Sheffield—and none of these lines of investigation so far have
brought me to my Elizabeth Wheelhouse (1759-1814) who married in 1788 to Thomas
Barker of Rotherham.
I am aware of all the Wheelhouses in the Halifax and
Spofforth areas, but my clues don’t lead me to those areas. My clues may be wrong. Perhaps Rawcliffe is a mistake for
Lightcliffe or Radcliffe or something else.
I could try other spelling variations of Rawcliffe. I could look for Wheelhouses in Derbyshire,
which is just south of Rotherham. I
could check Rawcliffe in Lancashire. There
is a Betty Wheelas baptized 10 June 1759 at Fewston, Yorkshire, the daughter of
George Wheelas. She died a month
later. The names Betty and Elizabeth are
sometimes interchangeable. The Fewston
Wheelhouses can be found submitted by several people on ancestry.com’s Member
Trees. Fewston is close to Otley, Ilkley
and Kirby Overblow, and not so far from High and Low Bishopside (next to
Pateley Bridge), and all of these places have Wheelhouses as well.
There may be other parishes around Rotherham which are not
in the old IGI, but it looks like most of them are included. I did
a radius search using maps.familysearch.org for all the parishes within five or
six miles of Rotherham, then I check the Library Catalog and Phillimore’s Atlas & Index of Parish Registers to
see which ones had been extracted and should be on the IGI. The great majority are on the IGI. It
looks like Greasbrough begins in 1747 and the film is available, but the IGI
begins in 1768. I did not find any
Wheelhouses in Greasbrough from 1747 to 1767.
Sheffield St. Paul starts in 1768 but the IGI begins in 1793, and there
are problems with the online catalog. I
did not check Sheffield St. Paul because I am interested in christenings before
1768. In Derbyshire, Eckington
microfilms run from 1559 to 1997, but the IGI only starts in 1800. I was surprised to found two Wheelhouse
families having children in Eckington, that of George Wheelhouse and his likely
wife Rebecca Darby (married 1743 in Peak Forest, Derbyshire), and William
Wheelhouse and his wife Mary White (married 7 Jan. 1749/1750 in
Eckington). I checked from 1750 to 1763
and neither one of them had an Elizabeth.
Each had several children, though.
FindMyPast and ancestry.com have Yorkshire church Wheelhouse
records available in addition to what is found in the Historic Records on
Familysearch.org. There are 7,843
Wheelhouse ‘hits’ on FamilySearch.org, but many are repeated records. There are 65 christening hits and 64 marriage
hits for Wheelhouse and Yorkshire on ancestry.com beginning in 1538, but again
there is some duplication of names listed as a child and as a parent. On the Origins.net I looked at Yorkshire
Marriage Bond (1613-1839) and the Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York
Probate Index (1688-1858) as well as the York Peculiars Probate Index
(1383-1883). I see 60 Wheelhouse records
in the Parish Record Collection (1538-2005) for Yorkshire’s West Riding alone
on FindMyPast.co.uk, but as of now there are no hits for North Riding and East
Riding. In a similar record collection
of marriages on ancestry.com there are 108 Wheelhouse marriage hits, and 262
death/burial hits for all ridings. There
are 6,366 hits on The Genealogist.co.uk website for Wheelhouse and
Yorkshire. It appears to be too much to
try to trace all the Wheelhouse families of Yorkshire, but I hope my research
has added something that may help other people.
There are also lots of Wheelhouses in ancestry.com’s Member
Trees, and familysearch.org’s Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File, and
with Geni.com and other online sites. I’ve
looked some of these families over, but certainly could do so in more
detail.
The surname Wheelhouse generally comes from the West Riding
of Yorkshire.
There was a Willelmus de
Whelehous, carpenter, in 1379 in York.
It
must come from a person who lived or worked around a water or milling wheel
.
I’m hoping this blog helps inspire further research into the
Wheelhouse family, and that someday we will find the family of origin for the
Elizabeth Wheelhouse (1759-1814) who married Thomas Barker in Rotherham in
1788.
Register of Duties Paid for
Apprentices' Indentures, 1710-1811 (Found on ancestry.com)
