Woodlock was my ggg-grandfather Bartholomew Smith's brother. Along with their other brother, Cornelius, they were known as The Converted Gipsy Brothers, having 'found God' and embarked on a life of travelling evangelistic preaching. Cornelius was the father of the famed evangelist Gipsy Rodney Smith.
In Rodney's 1901 autobiography “Gipsy Smith: His Life and Work – by Himself” (in which there is a studio portrait of the three brothers), he wrote the following about his uncle:
"The brothers were not well up in etiquette, though in essentials they always behaved like the perfect gentlemen they were. They were drinking tea one afternoon at a well-to-do house. A lady asked Uncle Woodlock to pass her a tart. 'Certainly, madam.' said he, and lifting a tart with his fingers off the plate handed it to her. She accepted it with a gracious smile. When his mistake was afterwards pointed out to him, and he was told what he ought to have done, he took no offence, but he could not understand it at all. He kept on answering: 'Why, she did not ask me for the plateful; she asked for only one!' "
David Lazell's book "Gypsy from the Forest", a biography of Rodney Smith, quotes an article in the magazine "Loving and Sharing" in 1906 in which the magazine's proprietor, J.W.C. Fegan reminisced about the preaching Gypsy brothers:
"With his brothers, Bartholomew and Woodlock, Cornelius constituted the trio of gipsy brothers who had no pretensions to learning. They were simple men; their books had been the hedgerows and the commons, and the streams and sky. They lived in gipsy caravans, and wore the usual type of gipsy clothing.
In 1881, they came to the village of Downe in Kent, where my aged mother was living, in order to hold a Mission. After breakfast and dinner, they used to get her to read the Bible aloud to them, while they gathered round and repeated after her, any special texts until they had committed them to memory. Woodlock could read best of them all, and was gifted with the clearest, purest Saxon speech I have ever heard."
Another excerpt from the Rodney Smith autobiography:
"Uncle Woodlock was the first to go home. The three brothers were together conducting a Mission at Chingford in March, 1882. At the close, Woodlock was detained for a few minutes in earnest conversation with an anxious soul. My father and Bartholomew went on to take the train for Stratford, leaving Woodlock to make haste after them. Woodlock, in the darkness, ran with great force against a wooden post in the pathway. It was some time before he was discovered lying on the ground groaning in agony. To those who came to his help he said, 'I have got my death-blow; my work on earth is done, but all is bright above; and I am going home.'
His injuries were very severe, and though his suffering was great, he never once lost consciousness.
My father stayed by him all night, while Uncle Barthy returned to Stratford to tell the families about the accident. When morning dawned, Woodlock’s wife came to see him, and then he was removed to his own little home in Leytonstone, where he breathed his last ... He had been ill for twenty-eight hours.
He lies buried in Leytonstone church-yard ... He was followed to his grave by his sorrowing relatives and over fifty gipsies, while four hundred friends lined the approach to the church and burying-place. The parish church had a very unusual congregation that day, for the gipsy people pressed in with the others, and as the vicar read the burial service, hearts were deeply touched and tears freely flowed. At the grave, the two surviving brothers spoke of the loved one they had lost, and told the people of the grace of God which had redeemed them and their brother, and made them fit for the inheritance of the saints in light. Woodlock was a hale man, only forty-eight years of age."
I purchased the death certificate, which described the cause of death as "Puncture of intestines from fall". The person who reg'd the death was an I (or a J?) Smith, son ... I don't have any details for this individual. Does anyone else?
So far, I only have 4 'definite' children for Woodlock and wife Justinia/Justina/Testaner Buckley:
- Celia (appears in the '71 census as "Seleh" and born in "Suffolk"), bap. 22 Feb 1857, Hockley, Essex(according to baptism details given in the back page notes in 'The Life Story of Gipsy Cornelius Smith' - Romany & Traveller Family History Society Classic Reprints).
- Owen (appears in the '71 and '81 census with the family, shown as son), b. abt. 1866 in Norfolk (probably Wymondham, as the '81 census "Windon" / "Wendon" doesn't exist .. and Wymondham is pronounced "Wind 'um")
- Hezekiah, b. abt. 1868. The '81 describes him as "idiot". Reputed to have died aged 19 from T.B. and cerebral apoplexy in a lunatic asylum in Essex in 1887 (other details as per Owen)
- Matilda, b. abt. 1880, London City
So far, I have no offspring or marriages for any of the above children.
I'm not sure what to make of "Chlar Smith" a 25 year old married "daughter" b. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, appearing in the '81 census in the family group. A daughter-in-law? To whom was she married?
(Too long ... to be continued!)
