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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Devon => Topic started by: Maggie2601 on Sunday 16 September 12 17:26 BST (UK)
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I am looking for the Webber family or descendants of Leonard Webber who survived the sinking of HMS Repulse but died at the Fall of Singapore. His mother was Lucy Webber who I believe married John Veale in 1933.
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Hi
His mother was Lucy Webber who I believe married John Veale in 1933.
Was this a second marriage or was Leonard illegitimate?
When and where was Leonard born and who did he marry. If he did not marry - there are no descendants to trace
Was he Leonard Thomas Webber Able Seaman died 16.2.1942
EDIT
Was he born 1921 in Devon?
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We know that Leonard married A.M.Flanaghan in Basingstoke. He was illegitimate but believe that his stepfather may have been a witness to the marriage, also witnessed by my mother in law.
Yes he was born in 1921 and his death certificate is an overseas one giving HMS Sultan as place of death, this was because of the fall of Singapore.
My mother in law and Leonard's wife were nurses together in Basingstoke and both came from Ireland.
The fact that he was only married about 2 days before he was posted overseas made a great impression on my husband as he heard it spoken of as he was growing up.
Regards
Margaret
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Hi
There does not appear to have been any children of that marriage but I think his widow possibly re-married some years later
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There were no children as he sailed 48 hours after he was married and died 9 months later in Singapore.
His widow never remarried or got over the loss.
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I think I was not the only one confused by this! --
"Webber family or descendants of Leonard Webber"
... since if he had no children, he had no descendants. I've figured out that you must mean "Webber family or descendants of the family of Leonard Webber" -- ?
If his mother Lucy Webber is the Lucy Veale whose death was registered in Devon Central in 1972, her date of birth was 21 April 1890.
This would seem to place her in Bradninch in 1911, as a servant. In 1901 she was in Clyst Hydon with her family:
Edwin John 46
Mary Ann 39
Edith 12
Lucy 10
William 8
Frederick 6
Percy 4 (transcribed by Ancestry as Perry)
Charles 3
Walter 2
and there are two more children:
Helena abt 1902
Dorothy abt 1904
That is a load of siblings of Lucy Webber Veale -- aunts and uncles of Leonard -- whose descendants you could look for. Their children would have been Leonard's first cousins, and it's even possible some might be living today. And some might have children born, say, in the 1930s, who are still living and who remember him.
Someone else could do this, but you could do it easily:
Go to FreeBMD and find the birth records for the children in St Thomas registration district, and get their full names and approximate birthdates (quarter of the year).
Then look for their marriages (remembering for searching that after 1911, only middle initials are used, not middle names). Hopefully, they won't all have married Smith or Brown. Then look for their children's births, by the two parents' surnames.
Here's the easiest one:
Percy Edwin H Webber, birth reg St Thomas, Sep 1896.
... Well, it was supposed to be easy. I don't find a marriage or death.
Fortunately, they seem to have complex and unusual names.
Helena Gladys M Webber, birth reg St Thomas, Dec 1901.
Married Albert H Richards, St Thomas, Jun 1925.
There are 3 Richards-Webber births in St Thomas: 1928, 1931, 1933, and also births in Penzance 1934 and Devon Central 1937, 1940, 1941.
Then it is wise to rule out the possibility of another marriage accounting for some or all of those births. That is the only marriage in St Thomas. There are others in the same timeframe and general vicinity, and in particular one in Penzance in 1933 that would account for that 1934 birth. But Devon Central covers the former St Thomas (including Clyst Hydon), so I would think the births there belong to this marriage.
You also want to look to see whether any of the children died in childhood.
That gives you quite a list of people to look for, just from the marriage of one of Lucy's siblings!
In terms of passive "looking", you can add postems to records at FreeBMD: a short note explaining that you are looking for relations of Leonard who was a friend of your family, and giving your email address so any family member who researches the family there can contact you. (A permanent, anonymous, online email address like at gmail is best for this, and most online uses, so you never have to worry about changing ISPs and not getting messages, and you don't expose your own identifying personal information.)
For active looking, the phone book and google are good places to start. ;)
Unfortunately, Helena's family doesn't offer the best prospects ... Richards is a very common surname. Hopefully, some of Lucy's other siblings produced more easily traceable children.
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl
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Dorothy Louisa Webber, birth reg St Thomas, Dec 1903
Dorothy L Webber married James Clarke, St Thomas, Sep 1926
We are not doing well in the uncommon names sweepstakes.
There are several births with those surnames after that date in Taunton and Honiton, including one in Taunton first registered a year earlier as Webber. There is a 1927 marriage in Taunton that would account for those births, but the Honiton births would be worth investigating, and they at least have reasonably uncommon given names for the most part.
Dorothy Louise Clark born 29 Oct 1903 died in 1974 in Honiton. So I think we can be fairly confident of those births.
The youngest of the four was born in 1944 -- a first cousin of Leonard, but a generation younger ... and sadly and unfortunately, he died in infancy. The next youngest, who was much older, married in 1954 in Honiton, and had children in the 1950s in Honiton and possibly Tiverton into the 1960s. Obviously, those children would not have known Leonard, but they would likely know whether others in their family who would have known him are still living.
Finding people means looking for them, and it can be a tedious process sometimes. ;)
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Many thanks for your help. I have begun to enter all the names into a family history database, this helps get the relationships clear in my own mind.
Maggie
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Thanks to your help my husband and I attended the Remembrance Day service in Clyst Hydon Church yesterday where Leonard Webber's name has been added to the Roll of Honour.
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Thank you for that news, Maggie.
I know how that feels. About 5 years ago I discovered that the minister of a church in Ontario was looking for family of the two dozen men whose names were on the honour rolls of his church and the church that had burned down years ago and been amalgamated with his. My somewhat mysterious great-uncle was one of those men, from the burnt church. He enrolled at the age of 34, and was killed the month before the Armistice, never having married. I had googled his name, as I idly do from time to time, and found a newspaper article about the minister's search for families.
I corresponded with the minister over the next couple of years; it turned out that his grandfather and my great-uncle had been in the same field hospital in France where my uncle died, although his grandfather had survived. And in 2014, when the church had had the lost honour roll plaque from the burnt church recreated (they fortunately had a photograph), I was finally able to organize about 15 descendants of my great-uncle's siblings, including my 85-yr-old mum and her brother who was named for his uncle, to travel to the city in question and attend the Remembrance Day service marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, and rededicating the plaque. He had put together a slide show of everything he had learned about the men whose names were on the two memorials, and some family members of other men also attended, but we were a bit of a horde by comparison - and donated more than the cost of the plaque when all was said and done. ;)
Keeping their names alive, especially when they did not have children of their own, is a good feeling.