RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Lincolnshire => Topic started by: hoppout on Friday 14 January 11 17:38 GMT (UK)
-
A long time ago, Alan 7636 asked about Brummit's Ropery Lincoln, which is where my great grandfather William Roberts lived during the 1870s. One of Alan's surname interests was Wheatley, and William Wheatley, blacksmith, was also living at 5 Brummits Ropery at that time. Any interest?
-
Hello Hoppout
Yes this is certainly of great interest to me. The original request by me in January 2008 was for the location in Lincoln of Brummitts ROW as the birth certificate of my mother stated she was born at number 5 in May 1905. However later investigation showed her baptismal records from St Paul in the Bail stating she was living, less then a month later, at 5 Brummitts ROPERY in the St Pauls Parish.
As for your message a William Wheatley born in Lincoln in 1849 to Henry & Margaret Wheatley is my 1st cousin 3 times removed. At present I have only traced him as far as the 1861 census.
In the 1871 census the William Wheatley you mention is shown as living at 5 Brummitts Ropery and is the son-in-law of your Great Grandfather William Roberts and his wife Harriet, their daughter Mary Ann having married William Wheatley at St Paul in the Bail on the 9th Feb. 1868. There are however a number of points that stop me at this stage from saying that your William Wheatley and mine are one and the same person.
One is that the Lincolnshire Marriages Index for the above marriage shows the Grooms father as also being a William not Henry.
It is of course possible that the Index is wrong; I have seen the given names for grooms and Brides fathers incorrectly stated before, however the BIVRI also shows the same details plus it gives Williams age as being 21 so that would equate to a birth in 1847/48.
On FreeBMD there are two records for the birth of William Wheatley in Lincoln, one is in the Sep Q of 1848, which is, I suspect is your William the other in the June Q of 1849, which I believe is mine.
I anticipate visiting the Archives at Lincoln in about 2 weeks time and I will check the Parish register for that particular marriage to see what it says but I fear it will be the same as the two above mentioned records.
Another strange and interesting fact about 5 Brummitts Ropery is that in 1911 a great aunt of mine, Winifred Bradford nee Wheatley was living at that same address with her husband Thomas and Daughter Elsie.
Alan
-
Hello Alan
Thank you for replying so swiftly; it took me three years! The Brummitt's Ropery query gets more interesting by the hour. A few points to make, and I am sure I will be making more later. I have been looking up my records and see that the 1871 census RG10/3374 F21 gives the occupiers of 5 Brummitt's Ropery, Reservoir Street, Ln St Pauls, gives the following: William Roberts, 44, sheep dipper, b. Swineshead; Harriet Roberts, 41. wife, b. London; William Wheatley, 22, son-in-law, blacksmith, b. Ln; Mary Ann Wheatley, 19, heads wife, b Scotherne; John Robert Henry Wheatley, aged 3, son, b Ln; William Ernest Wheatley, son, 7months (both grandsons).
As William and Mary Ann were married in 1868, Mary could only have been 16 years of age (the legal minimum) and and JRH Wheatley would be born soon after - perhaps a shot-gun wedding. However, William Ernest did not survive infancy and died in 1872, in Lincoln.
After a lifetime of journalism and writing, my instincts lead me to believe that we are on the same track and that the address of both our families is the clincher.
As it happens, William Roberts and Mary Ann did not stay together; William took up with another Mary Ann (Clayton), and together they ran The Strugglers Inn in Lincoln, and Mary later became publican at the Fox & Hounds on Steep Hill. William died in 1897 in Lincoln workhouse.
More later
Hoppout
PS: As this is my third post, perhaps we can be on more personal terms next time
-
A point should be made that may alter the discussion somewhat, prior to 1929 the legal minimum age for a girl to marry with parental consent was 12.
-
A point should be made that may alter the discussion somewhat, prior to 1929 the legal minimum age for a girl to marry with parental consent was 12.
She said she was 19 though ;D http://tinyurl.com/6hk83xa
-
Hi Geoff and Roger welcome to the discussion, glad you have joined in, with you 2 it usually leads to a really intriguing story. ;D Anyway to continue.
Hoppout I did say I had little information on my William Wheatley, well I have spent today tracking him down and it turns out he was a Stonemason by trade and in the 1871 census he was to be found in York living with his Uncle John so I think we can finally discount our respective Williams being one and the same.
However this is where the discussion starts to get rather spooky, and Geoff may well remember this, in the early 1830’s my Great x 3 Grandparents, Philip & Mary Ann Ball were the 1st publicans of the Strugglers Arms, or to be precise Mary was the Beer House Keeper, Philip had his own business of Brazier. He was notorious in Lincoln as having destroyed part of the castle walls for which he was imprisoned many times. Mary Ann kept the Strugglers right up until she died in 1866.
So Hoppout we may not be linked as distant relatives but certainly our ancesters paths would have appeared to have crossed. :D
Alan
-
I'm not sure if we've found the place on a map before ... so here it is.
Go to http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html
Search Lincoln Castle and select the last option that shows up.
Change the co-ordinates to 497457 371942 and click Go
Select the 1887-88 1:500 Town Plan (on right)
Zoom in and see Brummitt's Ropery East just to the west of Westgate Implement Works. A little further west see Brummitt's Ropery West. :)
-
Well, Alan, would you believe it? And thank you Geoff for the info and coordinates. My name is Peter, aged 74 and I live in Ipswich, a town in the news after its football team took a 7-0 thrashing by Chelsea, then went and beat Arsenal 1-0 in the Carling Cup semi. As I said, I am a writer and I write lots for Lincolnshire magazines. I will have one in the next Lincolnshire Poacher.
I recently wrote the following about the Strugglers Inn
Cathedral dog was stuffed by my ancestors
The item came at the very end of the first of the BBC’s two Antiques Roadshow
programmes from Lincoln Cathedral, and then came the shock realisation that my
ancestors had played a unique role in Lincoln’s macabre history.
Presenter Fiona Bruce showed a stuffed lurcher dog in a glass case and asked if
anyone knew the name of the animal.
I knew not the name of the lurcher, but I do now know that my maternal great
grandparents, William Roberts and Mary Clayton, must be the ones who had the
animal stuffed.
Fiona told viewers that the lurcher had belonged to the poacher William Clark,
“the last man to be hanged at Lincoln Castle, just a stone’s throw from here, in
1877, and his faithful dog used to follow him to the local hostelry, the Strugglers Inn
(interpreted by Fiona as ‘struggling meaning hanging‘), and when without his master,
he pined away.
“The landlord had him stuffed and placed across the bar. He was then found, a few
generations later, stuck away unwanted and unloved, and he was given away to the
castle museum where, in a touching end to the story, he was reunited with his owner,
William Clark, who is buried in the castle grounds. But one mystery remains: what’s
the dog’s name? No one has been able to find out.”
Fiona invited viewers to ‘phone in if they could solve that particular mystery.
My great grandparents, who remained unmarried, were in charge of the Strugglers
Inn from 1875 to 1890, and although William Roberts (who was by trade a sheep
dipper) was listed as the landlord, I strongly suspect that it was Mary Clayton, with
her family experience of the licensed trade, who ran the pub. She went on to become
sole publican of the Fox and Hounds Inn on Steep Hill after they left the Strugglers.
Roberts died a pauper in 1900 after living in Lincoln workhouse.
As for William Clark, he was sentenced to death at Lincoln Assizes on March 8th
1877, for the murder of Henry Walker, a gamekeeper at Norton Disney, the previous
month. He was arrested at Lowestoft, and at the trial two colleagues testified that they
had been with him when he shot Walker dead.
The hangman, on March 26th 1877 was William Marwood, a cobbler, of Church Lane,
Horncastle. At the age of 54, he persuaded the governor of Lincoln Castle goal to
allow him to conduct an execution. The efficient way in which he conducted the
hanging of William Horry without a hitch on April 1st 1872 assisted him in him being
appointed hangman by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, for which he was paid a
retainer of £20 a year plus £10 per execution.
Marwood developed the “long drop” technique of hanging, which ensured that that
the prisoners’ neck was broken instantly at the end of the drop, resulting in the
prisoner dying of asphyxia while unconscious.
This was considered somewhat more kind than the slow death by strangulation
caused by the “shot drop” method, which was particularly distressing to prison
governors and staff who were required to witness executions close up following the
abolition of public executions in 1868.
It would seem that my great grandparents looked after the lurcher during the
period of Clark‘s trial. The dog is said to have walked over to the castle to wait for
its master, but pined to death after the execution was carried out. It’s ghost is said to
haunt the castle grounds at night .
The Strugglers Inn, which my younger daughter Alison visited with friends last
year, was the nearest licensed premises to the castle regularly used by the
prison warders to ply prisoners with alcohol, to make it easier for them to face the
horror of the morning executions. However, some prisoners struggled with the
warders on being returned to the prison, hence another story which gave rise to the
name of the pub.
The story was of particular interest to me for as a young reporter in Lincolnshire
during the 1950s and ‘60s, I covered several murder trials when Assizes and Quarter
Sessions were held inside the castle walls.
-
Alan
In all the confusion over ancestors and the Strugglers, we seem to have lost sight of 5 Brummitt's Ropery. I followed Geoff's accurate coordinates and found the Ropery both east and west. The fact that we both had ancestors possibly living in the same house, does seem too much of a coincidence. Was the area part of the workhouse set-up at one time? Or was it allied to a nearby foundry?
Incidentally, my maternal gt grandfather William Roberts is listed on the board of past publicans of the Strugglers. The poor old boy was born in one workhouse (Boston) and ended his life in another (Lincoln). He had a pauper's funeral. His partner Mary Clayton died at the Fox and House in 1911 and is mentioned in both the Steep Hill publications.
I guess this closes the correspondence on this subject.
Hoppout
-
Fascinating story Hoppout. Any more Lincolnshire ghost stories available?
-
The 1857 directory I referrred to has the following entry for Brummitt's Ropery - of course, that's 30 years before the date of the map but "West" seems to have five houses and "East" three. Were the latter ones the unnumbered ones?
The 1840s maps in my book show a ropery at the south side of Westgate but not the ropery houses. The 1851 map has only the "west" houses. The 1868 map has both east and west.
The directory gives Mary Ann BALL as a beer retailer at the Struggler (sic) .
The modern pub sign seems to depict an interpretation of what hoppout has described http://tinyurl.com/5rk3n6c
-
I wonder whether the ropes used in executions at Lincoln castle were made at Brummitts? I think possible due to its proximity to the castle. Anyone know?
-
Thank you Geoff.
Thomas Roberts and his wife Ann, the parents of William Roberts, are listed in the 1851 census as living at 1, Brummitt's Ropery. I will try and find another ghost story, Redroger.
-
For redroger
The quest was a simple: To locate the Lincoln inn managed by my gt-gt-grandmother more than a century ago. It led me to a famous Steep Hill address, once upon a time named after a trophy winning racehorse, and a ghostly photographic image of a woman looking out of an upper floor window.
The building and that same bow window, which is still to be seen in the 21st century, is now Browns Pie Shop and Restaurant, recently visited by Josie Thurston, executive editor of this august magazine, who sampled its fare after the restaurant’s success in winning a cuisine award.
My visit to the premises almost two years ago was less successful from a culinary point of view, merely because I found the restaurant closed . I was with my wife and our 20-years-old American granddaughter, a history student who was on holiday with us in Ipswich. Our visit to Lincoln was part of a historical tour, so we were disappointed to find 33 Steep Hill in darkness.
We were about to leave the area when I noticed the shadow of someone moving around at the back of the premises. On impulse, I knocked on the door and a young woman came to see what I wanted. I explained that by great-grandmother, Mary Clayton, had been the publican for several years when the building was the Fox & Hounds Inn.
“We have a photograph of the Fox and Hounds,” she announced, “I will get it for you to look at.” She returned with a very large framed black and white photograph looking down Steep Hill from near the top of the road, propped it up on the counter and allowed me to take a digital snap of it.
It was not until I returned home and enlarged by photograph on the computer that I discovered the image of a woman looking out on to the street from the upper floor window - the same bow window to be seen in the 21st century.
Could the woman, who appeared to be wearing a large hat, be a guest at the inn, or perhaps my great grandmother? I wonder…I have no photograph of her to be sure.
Sorry, I have been told the photo cannot upload because of time
-
Fascinating story Hoppout. Any more Lincolnshire ghost stories available?
Roger if its Lincoln Ghost stories you’re after visit this site http://tinyurl.com/6axaqby
it lists not only the Strugglers but also Browns Pie Shop.
Alan
-
Geoff thank you for finding the maps showing both East and West Brummitts Ropery. previously like you I could only find ‘The Ropery’ listed on the 1842 map in my copy of ‘Town Plans of Lincoln’ but this doesn’t surprise me because in the late 1830’s to the mid 1840’s the land on which the castle dyke or moat stood from half way along Union Road to a point at the far end of the Ropery in West Gate was highly sort after.
The Likes of John Brummitt, Philip Ball, Hardwicke, Dawber, Marshall and others, all Lincoln business men, were buying parcels of the Dyke filling it in and building premises for their various small industries and also for cheap housing and in the case of Ball he also wanted to build a summerhouse for his family. ;D
John Brummitt who indeed owned the Rope Works in Westgate also owned vast amounts of land in and around Bailgate and I believe the family were quite prosperous.
Alan
-
Thanks for that Alan
-
This is what you need Roger http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0715397834/ref=dp_olp_used_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=used
I got mine from a library clearance sale a few years ago. Quite a few of them are Lincs happenings :o
-
Were it not for an experience I had myself over 30 years ago I woiuld incline to the view that many of these manifestations are solely to boost the tourist trade in Lincoln. Mine involved an incident at work, and was fully detailed on this site some 18 months or more ago.Thanks for links all.
-
Hello Alan & hoppout.
William Wheatley was my Gt Gt Uncle, being the number 2 brother to my Gt Grandfather Joseph Larke Wheatley. William left his small family and his job as a blacksmith and emigrated to New York from Liverpool on S S Egypt in 1873. He worked as a Vet in San Francisco, married Anna M Fleischmann on 6 Feb 1882 and died there on 16 October 1883 being buried there 2 days later. Any further information on possible divorce from Mary Ann and what became of John Robert Henry would be very welcome.
Robert
-
Hi Robert, welcome to RootsChat :)
So now we have (at least) three William WHEATLEYs!
Robert's - died 1883 in USA - son of William and Laura (assuming that is definite)
hoppout's - died 1897 in Lincoln
Alan's - still alive (in York) in 1901 - son of Henry and Margaret
-
Hi Robert :)
When I first started delving into my Wheatley ancestors in 2007 my wife & I paid a visit to Canwick Road cemetery to see if we could find the last resting place of any of my family. We came across a Memorial to William Ernest Wheatley son of William & Mary Ann Wheatley also on the memorial was a dedication to their son William Wheatley M.R.C.V.S.L who died in San Francisco on October 16 1883 age 35 years.
Thinking it may have been part of my family I took the opportunity of taking a photo, which I attach. Needless to say further research soon showed it not to be my ancestors.
At times this subject of Brummitts Ropery gets very strange or as Alice said 'Curiouser & Curiouser' :o
Alan
-
So now we have (at least) three William WHEATLEYs!
Geoff in 1881 there were at least 5 William Wheatleys living in Lincoln one of them mine. Wheatley was a fairly commen name in the City but if the other Wheatley families where like mine it doesn't surprise me.
My Grandmother, Maud Wheatley, born at 6 Union Road in 1885, was 1 of 18. ::)
Alan
-
Alan, Thank for for the cemetery photo, which I will print out. I have William Ernest on my Ancestral list.
Geoff, The ancestor who died in 1897 was William Roberts, the father-in-law of William Wheatley.
Robert, Your information that William Wheatley's emigration to America was real news to me. Quite a jump from blacksmith to vet. He must have trained hard for both, but had little time to practice that hard work as a vet. I have a daughter over the pond, in Oregon, and she had to re-train as a nurse.
Thank you all
hoppout
-
Alan and hoppout.
Thank you for your messages and Alan in particular the photo. Still waiting for something on Mary Ann and John Robert Henry !
Best wishes
Robert
-
Robert,
Regrets, but lost sight of Mary Ann and John Robert Henry Wheatley after the 1871 census, also Harriet who disappeared from William Roberts' life; perhaps they all went off to America and their new life didn't work out for their marriage. My gt grandfather William Roberts took up with Mary Clayton, but they never married, though they ran the Strugglers Inn for 15 years together, and Mary Clayton went on to be the sole publican of the Fox and Hounds on Steep Hill (now Browns restaurant). Wm Roberts died in the workhouse. I was curious about the Clayton name because it was the surnme of my mother, who died aged 27 in 1936 when I was a baby. I was evacuated to Skegness from Grimsby because of this and spent 17 years with foster parents. Obviously, would like to know more. My paternal ancestry is less complicated as I have gone back 11 generations to 1687. A family website on tribalpages has more than 1800 names and is run from America.
-
hoppout
Thanks for the brilliant tip re tribalpages. An immediate hit for Mary Ann, not in the USA but ... Australia. I'm still pedalling. Perhaps I'll find John Robert Henry Wheatley there too.
Very best wishes
Robert
-
hoppout
Regret no Australian hit. Another Mary Ann born in Lincoln but 10 years earlier ! Thanks anyway.
Robert :(
-
Alan,
I am a historical researcher from the US and would like to speak with you about William Wheatley. Could you please e-mail me at:
*
I look forward to chatting with you, sir.
-Erik Wright
Tucson, AZ
(*)
(*) Moderator Comment: e-mail removed in accordance with RootsChat policy,
to avoid spamming and other abuses.
Please use the Personal Message (PM) system for exchanging personal data.
New members must make at least three postings before being allowed to use the PM facility.
See Help-Page: http://www.rootschat.com/help/pms.php
-
Does anyone know if a female Brummitt descendant went on to be a teacher at the Rosemary Lane School (certainly 1880's but possibly spanned a while either side of that period).
I have a photocopy of an image taken there with a teacher named Miss Brummitt.
-
A choice of two here Glen :) http://tinyurl.com/6cpe397
Not too far away.
-
A choice of two here Glen :) http://tinyurl.com/6cpe397
Not too far away.
That's what I love about that part of Lincoln, you can hardly walk 5 yards without falling over somewhere connected to my tree. In this case a number of Goulson children who were pupils at the school and another line that lived in Brummitt's Court in 1871.
I need to try and date the photograph but it looks like it could be either of the names you have found.
-
Grace Brummitt was a certificated teacher in Lincoln before she married Thomas Pearson, a solictor and went to live in Kettering. Grace was the sister of my Great Grandfathers wife, Caroline Brummitt.
Did you say you have an image?
Regards
-
Amend GGrandfather to GGgrandfather, apologies
-
I have a photocopy (as yet I haven't scanned it) of the staff at Rosemary Lane School, one of them is noted as a Miss Brummitt, my relative was born in 1881 in Lincoln and attended the school so presumably he would have been there 1880's/1890's.
-
Hi, sounds as if things fit. When you have scanned would it be possible to have a copy?
Regards
-
Hi, sounds as if things fit. When you have scanned would it be possible to have a copy?
Regards
Yeah, no problem, I might be a week or two before I get it done though, the scanner equipped pc at the library is always in demand.
-
My interest in the Brummitt's is that John Brummitt (Roper) was the father of my GGGFather's wife Caroline Brummitt, a David HERD. I am travelling over to Lincoln on Mon/Tuesday (1-2 Aug) to do some work in the Library on Tuesday in the hope of evidencing some of my research.
Regards
-
Glen in tinsel kni
please but the photo on here when you can, pretty please :)
Eilleen.
-
Will do, we can then have a "guess the year" competition.
-
Hi my name is Max, from NZ & I'm almost complete with the family tree on the NZ side & my information here tells me my grand father Robert Henry Wheatley was born in Lincoln 1869 & was the son of William Wheatley & his mother was Mary Ann who's parents were William & Harriet Roberts.I believe the family resided @ (Brummitts Ropery, St Paul, Lincoln,Lincolnshire, England.
I do have a lot of INFO of how how he got to NZ but not sure how he got to the USA? I would love to know "IF"he had any other Brother's or sister's?
I do know William & Mary Ann Wheatley went to the USA & William was a Veterinary surgeon with the 6Th Cavalry in Kansas, Arizona where he passed away & Mary Ann then traveled with her son to NZ.
I would be delighted to find any of the above is factual.
Thank you for anyone have read the above of can assist. Max.
-
Hello Hoppout
Yes this is certainly of great interest to me. The original request by me in January 2008 was for the location in Lincoln of Brummitts ROW as the birth certificate of my mother stated she was born at number 5 in May 1905. However later investigation showed her baptismal records from St Paul in the Bail stating she was living, less then a month later, at 5 Brummitts ROPERY in the St Pauls Parish.
As for your message a William Wheatley born in Lincoln in 1849 to Henry & Margaret Wheatley is my 1st cousin 3 times removed. At present I have only traced him as far as the 1861 census.
In the 1871 census the William Wheatley you mention is shown as living at 5 Brummitts Ropery and is the son-in-law of your Great Grandfather William Roberts and his wife Harriet, their daughter Mary Ann having married William Wheatley at St Paul in the Bail on the 9th Feb. 1868. There are however a number of points that stop me at this stage from saying that your William Wheatley and mine are one and the same person.
One is that the Lincolnshire Marriages Index for the above marriage shows the Grooms father as also being a William not Henry.
It is of course possible that the Index is wrong; I have seen the given names for grooms and Brides fathers incorrectly stated before, however the BIVRI also shows the same details plus it gives Williams age as being 21 so that would equate to a birth in 1847/48.
On FreeBMD there are two records for the birth of William Wheatley in Lincoln, one is in the Sep Q of 1848, which is, I suspect is your William the other in the June Q of 1849, which I believe is mine.
I anticipate visiting the Archives at Lincoln in about 2 weeks time and I will check the Parish register for that particular marriage to see what it says but I fear it will be the same as the two above mentioned records.
Another strange and interesting fact about 5 Brummitts Ropery is that in 1911 a great aunt of mine, Winifred Bradford nee Wheatley was living at that same address with her husband Thomas and Daughter Elsie.
Alan
-
Hello, Max, I am an amateur historian living in NZ and looking for a 2017 contact with the Wheatley family who are connected to the NZ family of Mary Ann Wheatley, nee Roberts. Two of her children came to NZ and, I've been told her mother Harriet.. Mary Ann's son John Robert Henry married in Auckland as did his sister Lilly Laura Wheatley, and her husband was Llewellyn.
Margret
-
Hello Margaret,
Thank you for your reply to my question & I will now have to search Lilly Laura Wheatley, However I understood That my grandfather's name was just, Robert Wheatley, so John puts a different twist on my info. I have his marriage certificate dated 6th March 1891 to Annie Inman, so dose this compute with your records?
I will research (Lilly now). I know Mary Ann Wheatley my great grand mother married a Mr.Lewellyn Allen WOOD a few years after her arrival in NZ. I also have her Obituary. Any further info you may have I would be very greatfull for & look foreward to further chats. Question- do you reside in NZ?
-
Hello, Max. I have sent you a Personal Message. Herald island history is my focus and your Wood family were once owners of it. Your ancestor, Llewellyn was both brother to, and son of, two such owners, namely Maria, infant at time of pre-emptive claim, and Samuel Allen purchaser by two grants known as 15 an 15A, in late 1840's. Margret.
-
Hello Margret, thanks for fast reply & further info. However when I opened your reply it said do I wish to open in a new window & I clicked YES but now don't know where to open your Personal Message. Could you help navigate this Please.
Thanks, Max